Overview
- You will write BOTH essays according to the prompt questions below and submit them in ONE combined document.
- Your reference material for writing the examination should be the course readings and lectures. You are not expected to conduct additional research to complete the examination.
- Your answers must be entirely your own work. Consulting with other students or using an AI tool for the examination is strictly prohibited.
- Quotes from the course readings can be identified with the author and page number only. Formal citation is not required, as long as I can understand what you are quoting.
- Provide your name and Student ID at the top of the first page.
Question 1: Short fiction (750-900 words)
Choose one of the following options to write an imaginary conversation between historical figures. You must bring in their historical context and base their conversation on the course materials.
a. Lord Macartney and Emily Hahn on travelling in China.
b. Deng Xiaoping and Andre Malraux on the significance of the Chinese Revolution
c. Eric X. Li and Hu Shih on comparing Chinese and Western cultural and political systems.
d. Otto Braun and Henry Kissinger on their personal impression of Mao Zedong.
Question 2: Essay (1100-1200 words)
Western perceptions of China and of the Chinese people underwent several major shifts in the modern period. In this essay, identify and characterize these shifts by proposing your own periodization of the years since 1850. Divide this timespan into FOUR distinct periods, each defined by a specific pattern, theme, or dominant mode of perception.
For each of your four periods, use at least ONE example from the assigned course readings to illustrate why you have defined the period in this way. Your examples should help demonstrate the characteristics, changes, or continuities that mark each period.