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Dream of Ding Village Discussion Questions (pp. 203-341)

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Dream of Ding Village Discussion Questions (pp. 203-341)

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Dream of Ding Village Discussion Questions (pp. 124-203)

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Dream of Ding Village Discussion Questions (pp. 124-203)

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Dream of Ding Village Discussion Questions II

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The Gate of Heavenly Peace Discussion Questions

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The Gate of Heavenly Peace Discussion Questions

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The Gate of Heavenly Peace Discussion Questions

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The Economic Explosion and its Environmental Cost

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The Economic Explosion and its Environmental Cost

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Understanding and Teaching Migration in Modern China

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Contemporary Chinese Crises and Controversies NCTA Seminar Syllabus

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Cui Jian - 一块红布 (yī kuài hóng bù) (English translation)

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Cui Jian - 一块红布 (yī kuài hóng bù) lyrics (Chinese) + English translation: That

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Recent essay about writing and life by Yan Lianke.

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October 7, 2025 – “Since turning sixty, I’ve thought about death every single day.”

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Dream of Ding Village Discussion Questions (pp. 1-124)

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Dream of Ding Village Discussion Questions (pp. 1-124)

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The Gate of Heavenly Peace-Reflection week 1

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Kyeong Kim Response Paper (Summary of pages 1-124 & Question 3)

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Kyeong Kim Response Paper (Summary of pages 1-124 & Question 3)

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Response Paper (Summary of pages 1-124 & Question 3)

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Dream of Ding Village Response #1-Paul Bach

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Dream of Ding Village Response #1-Paul Bach

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Dream of Ding Village Response #1 Pages 1-124.

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Dream of Ding Village Response #1 Pages 1-124.

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Response Paper Ding Village Pages 1-124 zaunerl

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Response to Dream of Ding Village Discussion Questions (pp. 1-124)

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Response to Dream of Ding Village Discussion Questions (pp. 1-124)

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Dream of Ding Village and TogetherWeek 2 ReflectionSarah Willis

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Dream of Ding Village - Reflection Week 3

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Dream of Ding Village Response #2-Paul Bach

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Dream of Ding Village Response #2-Paul Bach

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I teach “Under the Dome” once a year to my Contemporary World Affairs classes as a cautionary tale on what can happen to the environment when it is abused, and I have participated in other NCTA classes that deal with environmental pollution in China, so I was familiar with the gist of the reading, if not the actual facts.  I remember stories that came out of the trees that were at the Beijing Winter Olympics were planted to show a forest, but were not natural, the protests of the mining industry that led to reform, that China was one place that you do not drink the water–ever, the desertification of Mongolia, and that China was to be carbon-neutral by 2060.  I also know that China iss the largest financier of coal-fired power plants in the world and is currently accepting oil from Russia though there is an embargo against Russian oil,  and that China has historically changed the flow of rivers from the Xia Dynasty moving forward.  What I had not considered but should have was the human cost to all of the environmental issues that China had created during its rapid economic expansion as the manufacturing hub to the world.  What was left out of the reading (touched upon but not explored) was the human cost of migrants moving to the cities (without hope for the migrants to gain the ability to move to these cities with their families and prosper), the migrants would always be a second class citizen who did not have the right to relocate to these cities.  One other thing that I was unaware of were the French-style protests from the farmers toward the industries that were polluting in these areas, without any (supposed) knowledge of French protests when the farmers feel like they are not being heard by the government.  The stories also remind me of Minamata disease, but not the response of the companies in Japan, where the companies were held responsible for the pollution and environmental effects of the dumping of toxic chemicals into the waterway.

This was an interesting chapter to look at in light of Ding Village as another way that the environment was degraded during this time, though the environment that was being degraded was that of human capital at the expense of business and profit.

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Dream of Ding Village - Week Three response

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Dream of Ding Village - Week Three response

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Dream of Ding Village and Chinese MigrationWeek 3 ReflectionSarah Willis

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Kyeong Kim Response Paper (Summary of 124-203 & Question 3)

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Kyeong Kim Response Paper (Summary of 124-203 & Question 3)

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Response Paper (Summary of pages 124-203 & Question 3)

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Jacqueline Meziani

9. Why do you think Grandpa ultimately kills Ding Hui with a stick despite fantasizing about strangling him with his bare hands throughout the novel?

We’re thinking about strangling from the beginning when the narrator uses the image of strangling to convey the resoluteness of the disease:

“It had spread until it had the village by the throat, and now there seemed no end to the stranglehold.” p 13

It’s not that strangling is commonplace in fact, but it’s basic in its execution. Grandpa has no familiarity with weapons so it’s not what he thinks of when he fantasizes about killing Ding Hui. [Wouldn’t he be of an age to have fought in “The War of Japanese Aggression?” Maybe I missed that.]

Strangling is what’s at hand — forgive the insensitive pun. But it’s not “insensitive” in that it’s touch and feeling and seeing someone close up that makes death by strangulation so personal. You would feel their body warmth and their movement. In a society that doesn’t have much touch interaction it must be even more of an affront.

Despite all of this, Grandpa is so incensed when Ding Hui interrupts Ma Xianglin’s performance to reveal there’s no cure all medicine that he does lay hands on him. It’s only when his granddaughter shouts that he comes to his senses, interestingly in very violent terms, possibly foreshadowing the final showdown:

“Grandpa reacted to Yingzi’s cries as though he’d been struck with a blow to the back of the head.” p 54

It’s also interesting that although Grandpa couldn’t go through with strangling Ding Hui to avenge the living (and dead) villagers and to stop his son from doing further harm to their neighbors, he does carry it through and kill him to stop him from disturbing his dead grandson. In his dream Grandpa learns his son’s spirit is distraught. He’s finally moved to action because of a dream of a spirit even though real people are suffering and dying around him. The peace of his grandson seems more important than anything. Or maybe it’s just cumulative. Ding Hui has done so many nasty and greedy things without remorse that maybe it’s just that Grandpa has reached his limit. It’s his son and he feels responsible. He might hate but wouldn’t want to kill some other villager who acted just like Ding Hui. In the same vein, because it’s his family, his grandson, the transgression against his spirit is what drives Grandpa to commit such an egregious act against another family member.

Grandpa has reached a point where he’s without hope, without a positive life force: “the colour drained from his face.” His family is disintegrating and his community has abandoned him. He just reacts, using a stick so he can strike his son without getting too close or warning him. Even after the deadly blow, Grandpa doesn’t hold his dead son in grief. He doesn’t touch him once. Rather, he’s celebrating and proclaiming to the world that he took care of things and got rid of Ding Hui. But no one really cares. It’s too strange, and too late.

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Meghan Woffinden-Luey. Wk #4 Response Paper

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Lesson Plan_Migration Within China_for Dream of Ding Village

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Lying Flat and the Search for Meaning-Paul Bach

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Lying Flat and the Search for Meaning-Paul Bach

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Luke Zauner: Dream of Deng Village Lesson Plan

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Luke Zauner: Dream of Deng Village Lesson Plan

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(Capitalism and Communisms role in HIV/AIDS infections with the book)

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Dream of Deng Village Lesson Plan zaunerl