The Fudan Team

Welcome, Fudan class of 2010.

The responsibilities of the blog have turned over to us, the new cohort, so forgive the inconsistency of quality. Here’s an insight to what it’s like to just arrive. Summarized: disorientating.

I arrived yesterday and am staying over with a family friend. And, jetlagged and tired, I set out this morning to check out the J School and maybe scope out some apartments. So far, little luck: all I found was one apartment close to the school that’s way out of my price range (6000 rmb!) and another apartment whose bathroom consists of a urinal with a shower attached on top. I’ll keep looking tomorrow. I have a feeling this might take a little while.

Today was reassuring, though. I came without really knowing when registration was, what I would need, and where everything is…but people are helpful, and it’s all coming together. More later.

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We would like to congratulate Dian for her recent participation in the 7th Chinese Internet Research Conference, “The Chinese Internet and Civil Society: Civic Engagement, Deliberation and Culture” organized by the University of Pennsylvania. Her paper Chinese Cyber-Nationalism: The Case of 2008 Tibet Uprising Discussions on Facebook was accepted among only three other MA papers. The conference constitutes one of the most important venues for scholars to debate the current Chinese media landscape. Participants include scholars from different universities such as Harvard, Columbia, Upenn, LSE or Berkeley.

Congratulations Dian !!!!

Abstract

This research conducted a computer-mediated discourse analysis of postings on a Facebook group created to discuss the 2008 Tibet uprising to determine the characteristics of cyber-nationalistic discussion and determine whether it is infused with flaming. The findings indicate that online discussions are generally constructive, welcoming of opposite viewpoints, and characterized by strong personal interaction among members. A small percentage of the messages containing flaming could be further identified as being impolite but not uncivil. These findings lead to the conclusion that Chinese cyber-nationalistic discussions in the sample are generally held in a healthy environment conducive to public debate.

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Don’t worry, we went through the same intensive exam period at the LSE last year and we are the living proof that you can, and you will, survive it

GOOD LUCK!

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The end of May was probably the most difficult period of the year for us at Fudan.

Hopefully, Bingchun, Jean and Terhi recently came to Shanghai to meet with us and cheer us up! We really appreciated the fact that they travelled to China just for us. We had important and interesting conversations about our personal and cultural experience in China and about this wonderful programme. And it was a lot fun too!

But back to reality!

Just during the last week of May:

Monday: In “Research Topics on Chinese Culture”, I had one 3 000 word essay and one 500 word essay to write and one presentation to do.
Tuesday: In “Chinese Language and Culture”, we had the final language exam and the Kung Fu exam.
Wednesday: In “Chinese Broadcasting”, our final essay was also due and we had to do a presentation on our final essay.
Thursday: Deadline for our 10 000 word thesis.

But when you are done, what a relief! I didn’t feel this after the exams at the LSE because I knew that I would still need to write my dissertation over the summer.

Most of our classes at Fudan stopped at the end of May, beginning of June. So we are now waiting for the thesis defence that may take place on May 16 and the graduation ceremony on May 26.

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Here are some pictures to help you visualise…

They are of apartments 1 & 2 on the list. 

Daxue Lu- Apartment 1 

Daxue Lu - Apartment 2

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Hi everyone!

Here’s a detailed list of some of our apartments for you to get a rough idea.

Price range RMB 2000 - 7500/month

1) Location: Daxue Lu (10-15 mins to Journalism School)
Specification: 1 bedroom, 1 living room, 1 bathroom, 1 kitchen.
Rent: RMB 4800
Condition: New buildings - in excellent condition

2) Location: Daxue Lu
Specification: 1 bedroom, 1 study, 1 bathroom,1 kitchen
Rent: RMB 4500
Condition: New & modern buildings - excellent condition

3) Location: Daxue Lu
Specification: 2 storey. 2 bedrooms (1 master en suite), 2 bathrooms, 1 massive living room, 1 kitchen
Rent: RMB 7500
Condition: New buildings - excellent condition.

4) Location: Daxue Lu
Specification: 1bedroom (ensuite), 2 bathrooms, 1 kitchen, 1 massive living room.
Rent: RMB 5500
Condition: same as above

5) Location: Zhengtong Lu (20-25 mins walk to Journalism school, 10-15 mins to Walmart, half the time by bike)
Specification: 2 bedrooms (1 master), 1 living room, 1 small kitchen, 1 bathroom.
Rent: RMB 2700
Condition: Older but livable conditions. Outside is a little dirty but if you’re lucky, persistent or patient you’ll find one that’s well maintained.

As you can see the price range differs quite a bit depending on how much you want to spend, and what your living standards are. There’s no better way than to go to get your hands dirty by visiting the agencies yourself (we can recommend some) and inspect these places (preferably with someone who understands Chinese, although a few of us have managed with just skilled ‘body’ language). The few places mentioned at the beginning are all on the same street Daxue Lu, which is a new development area where a lot of foreign students live. This area is comparatively nice  only because it’s new, but prices also tend to be more expensive. A few of us live on that street as you can see but actually we all live fairly close from each other - just 5-10 mins away (with the exception of 1 who lives in the suburb next to us - but closer to the city centre).

There’s no need to worry though! There are plenty of available apartments and with good judgement and a lot of energy you should be able to find one within 5-7 days. The only thing is that many students will be looking for apartments during that time so there might be some competition. Having said that though, there are numerous agencies here so you should be alright.

Good luck!

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Ok, we only have classes three days a week… (on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays) So you might think that we have a lot of free time to enjoy the Shanghai (night) life, but this is not (entirely) true…

We have a thesis to write by the end of April…

We need to do a part-time internship in Shanghai… And believe me, this is not easy to find during this economic downturn and even harder for the students who are not fluent in Mandarin but hopefully, KJ, the administrator of our second year at Fudan University’s School of Journalism, is helping us to secure a position. When you visit local companies, you can really feel that the global financial and economic crisis has also affected China. We visited some local companies in Yang Zhong (Jiang Su province) a few weeks ago.

We need to practice… Kung Fu! Our Wu Shu skills will be assessed at the end of the year! And this is also a lot of fun!

We should learn Chinese. At least, Pin Yin for beginners like me.

We need to avoid getting sick! And this is the most difficult part I spent my first day and my first night in an emergency room at a Chinese hospital a few weeks ago because of a severe intoxication (caused by food or even by a gas leak in my new flat according to the last medical diagnostic)… Food poisoning is very common among foreigners not used to live in China. On average, one of us is sick (mainly stomach ache and diarrhoea) every week.

Indeed, we have to do our weekly homework. For instance, I have two short essays to write for Monday on Confucianism and another one on the Chinese Festivals. We also have to take part in a Marketing and PR project, for our Marketing Communication in China course, which involves some content analysis. Moreover, like at the LSE, there are readings to do before each class.

And finally, as global media students, our main activity consists of course in consuming global media products!!! Like watching DVDs on our comfortable sofas (hum… no, sorry, analyzing the representations of the West Vs China in US TV drama by conducting a critical discourse analysis of the dialogues of the last season of 24 and advocating the Orientalism theory of Said… Hehe this is just in case Terhi or Bingchun read this blog ).

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After the LSE dissertation of last year, we have to write a Fudan thesis before the end of April in order to get the new Double Masters in GMC.

We have been allocated our “guides” or thesis supervisors today.

Here is non-definitive list of our topics, just to give you an idea of what we are studying here and what are our main areas of interest:

Adela > Community & Isolation: Exploring the online cultural sphere of Indonesian Chinese youths in Shanghai

Dian > Chinese Cybernationalism: The Case of 2008 Tibet Uprising Discussion on Facebook

Jaibal > Representation of China in the British Press in the Context of Beijing Olympics

Jose > Revisiting Chinese political communication. Market influences as a driving factor of change

Lara > Ethnographic study of interactions between foreign/Chinese reporters/editors at Shanghai Daily

Lisa > Comparison of the Representation of Chinese Stereotypes in US TV dramas in 1988 and 2008

Soraya > Chinese Media and National Identity: the case of CCTV-9

William > A uses and dependency research on journalistic ideals of Chinese Journalism students (‘audience’), global media consumption (‘media’) and media regulation in China (‘society’).

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Today (first day of the second semester at Fudan), besides our regular classes (Chinese Language and Culture, Chinese Journalism), we all practiced Kung Fu with one of our teachers

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He is one of us, the ’Globals”, and he won the “Robert McKenzie Price” awarded each year by the London School of Economics and Political Science in recognition of outstanding academic performance.

From Shanghai to Los Angeles: Congratulations Ryan! We are very proud of you! :-) 

All proud of being part of the amazing LSE GMC community…

News on the LSE-USC blog:

http://elearning.lse.ac.uk/blogs/usc/2009/01/grad-student-cunningham-wins-lses-mckenzie-prize/

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