Film critics consider Blind Shaft an excellent example of Sixth Generation film. It is “former documentary filmmaker Li Yang’s feature debut and is both a bleak film noir set on a lawless frontier and an indictment of China’s disastrous Economic Miracle…In modern Northwestern China, itinerant coal miners Tang and Song place a cash price on human life in a world where humanity has been deemed utterly worthless.

Open to: Undergraduate students of all levels doing research in the field of Asian Studies (Northeast Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Central Asia, as well as the Middle East). For questions about the conference, e-mail Jennifer Murawski at jennm@pitt.edu

Over the past decade, local administrators in China has seen an explosion of reform and innovation. While Beijing still mandates central policies, county-level governments are now free to implement these measures as they see fit. This conference brings together a number of leading scholars from the United States and China to analyze changes in the delivery of education, public health, environmental protection, and cadre selection (voting).

Friday Sessions 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Saturday Sessions 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has been widely disseminated around the world. China's heritage in this regard has become a part of world heritage. The purpose of the conference will be to examine how TCM changes in diaspora contexts. The overall framework will be set within medical anthropology and the study of pluralism and symbiosis between different medical approaches to problems of curing and healing sicknesses, biomedical and worldwide. Ritual aspects of treatments will be included in the conference purview.

Urbanized is about the design of cities, which looks at the issues and strategies behind urban design and features some of the world's foremost architects, planners, policymakers, builders, and thinkers. Over half the world's population now lives in an urban area, and 75% will call a city home by 2050. But while some cities are experiencing explosive growth, others are shrinking. The challenges of balancing housing, mobility, public space, civic and economic development, and environmental policy are fast becoming universal concerns.

Few people know the fascinating history of tea growing and making. This intriguing documentary aims to change that by following renowned tea importer David Lee Hoffman as he scours the far-flung corners of China to find the richest teas on earth. Tea making is an art and tradition that goes back generations in the East, and Hoffman makes it his goal to bring to the rest of the world the exquisite teas produced by struggling small farmers. This film will be accompanies by a tea tasting featuring Chinese teas and dessert after the screening.

Dr. Luckacs will examine new labor subjectivities such as the net idols that became famous by posting their photos and diaries on the web, cell phone novelists whose novels have recently come to dominate literary bestseller lists, and entrepreneurial homemakers who conjure wealth from day trading. The subjects of mass culture theory, digital media theory, work and play, consumer culture, and Japan in the twenty-first century are also topics for discussion.

To register for the event, visit: www.us-japan.org/jasp/events.html

Patricia Guy, a Diplomat in Residence for the State Department, will visit the University of Pittsburgh to talk about the State Department’s internship program, and will provide information and answer questions about careers and job possibilities with the Department of state.

Yinzling: The University of Pittsburgh Undergraduate Linguistics Club is hosting a Japanese movie night featuring the movie “After Life” (1998, Hirokazu Koreeda), about people who, after death, have just one week to choose one memory to keep for eternity. Snacks and drinks will be provided.

The personal wealth of state office holders and their associates has exploded during the three decades of China’s revived market economy. This is seen in such varied phenomena as the recent reports on the $2.7 billion in assets of Premier Wen Jiabao and family, and the high number and rank of state officials linked to a private firm in the Yuanhua smuggling scandal. How can corruption of this magnitude be explained?