China’s New Silk Road: Weekly Arts & Culture Round Up – July 17, 2020

The US-China Trade War Edition

Escape From America: How China Looks From An Expats Eyes
Escape from America combines one American expat’s experience living and working in the United States and China to give an unvarnished account of the world’s dominant superpowers. From a ground-level perspective, Vinnie Apicella finds surprising likenesses between these two seemingly vastly different nations. His bold insights reveal the real people of each country and emphasize the differences between their experiences and the ongoing political rhetoric.

As Escape from America shows, the opinions, achievements, and anxieties of working people in each country are relevant to us all. Apicella argues that much can be learned living among the locals and looking beyond false façades and fabricated truths. Using a balanced blend of praise and criticism toward both countries, he highlights the potential for upward mobility through mutual tolerance and trust.

Apicella sets out to educate and entertain through anecdotes, observations, and years of hard-earned experience. He points to lessons learned about family, education, business, and society inside China to help encourage cultural exchange of ideas and ideals so that we may all benefit. His inspirational story will change our perspective and persuade us to think critically, not just about America, not just about China, but also the place we call “home” and our place in it. If you’re looking for a contemporary account of how it feels to be an American living in China during good times and the current era of trade and security concerns, Apicella’s book is a good place to understand the intricacies. Available on Kindle here

Wake Up America! Unrestricted Warfare: China’s Master Plan To Destroy The United States 
More relevant than ever, this handbook on modern all-enveloping warfare was first published in China in 1999. This new edition contains specific methods for American troops, government, academia, and business circles for dealing with unrestricted warfare.Coauthored by Major General Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, the book has been required reading at West Point. The People’s Liberation Army manual for asymmetric warfare details the waging of war, strategically and tactically, using weapons not limited to bullets, bombs, missiles, and artillery shells. The two PLA officers who advocated the strategy set forth in the following pages argue that modern warfare, in ways not too dissimilar from Sun Tzu’s Art of War, is about impeding the enemy’s ability to wage war and to defend itself against a barrage of attacks against its economy, its civil institutions, its governmental structures, and its actual belief system.This is not a manual for achieving an overnight victory. Rather, it is a recipe for a slow but inexorable assault on an enemy’s institutions, often without the enemy’s knowledge that it is even being attacked. As Sun Tzu once wrote, “If one party is at war with another, and the other party does not realize it is at war, the party who knows it’s at war almost always has the advantage and usually wins.” And this is the strategy set forth in *Unrestricted Warfare,* waging a war on an adversary with methods so covert at first and seemingly so benign that the party being attacked does not realize it’s being attacked.In the age of the worldwide internet, what seems like the free flow of information is also an open door policy for one country to insert its propaganda into the thinking and belief systems of its enemy. Readers, therefore, should take this little manual as a dire warning. Complacency cripples. Hubris kills. And blindness without guidance usually leads one into the nearest wall if not hurtling down a flight of stairs. Thus, although this book was written almost twenty years ago, it should be regarded as the playbook for the destruction of not only the United States, but of western democracies in general.

Operation Red Sea 
Operation Red Sea is a 2018 Chinese-Hong Kong action war film directed by Dante Lam and starring Zhang Yi, Huang Jingyu, Hai Qing, Du Jiang and Prince Mak. The film is loosely based on the evacuation of the 225 foreign nationals and almost 600 Chinese citizens from Yemen’s southern port of Aden during late March during the 2015 Yemen Civil War.

It was positioned domestically as a highlight film presented to audiences as a gift for the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, as well as the party’s 19th National Congress, and is said to be “China’s first modern naval film”. It has grossed US$579 million, receiving critical acclaim  making it the fourth-highest grossing film ever in China and highest grossing Chinese film in 2018. It was selected as the Hong Kong entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 91st Academy awards.

Tang Dynasty
Wanna get pumped up? Tang Dynasty are China’s first hard rock band, founded in 1989. They’re still going strong. Tang Dynasty rose to fame with their debut album, released in December 1992. The album officially sold about 2,000,000 authentic copies throughout Asia and abroad, not counting the millions of pirate copies. Their sound is part progressive rock and artistic metal and part traditional Chinese vocal technique. The lyrical poetry and musical arrangements meant to hearken back to the glorious days of ancient Chinese civilization, in particular, the art and cultural epitome of Chinese history as popularly represented by the era of the Tang Dynasty.

The Chinese Wine Renaissance
Chris’s Colonial Cocktails this week focus on Chinese wines. They have, over the decades varied from awful to excellent, and Janet Wang brings us up to date with her recent book. The Chinese have been making wine since the days of the Silk Road and they have a rich, yet little known wine culture. Their now thriving wine market is entwined with thousands of years of fashion, poetry, and art, and offers a window into the country’s vibrant history and legendary tales.

This well-researched book offers a taste of China through a wine journey, setting the rise of grape wine against the fascinating backdrop of Chinese culture. In an accessible and comprehensive tone, this guide covers the relationship between Chinese philosophy and wine, the renaissance of grape wine in modern China, the different varieties of Chinese wines, how to pair them with Chinese food and explores wine etiquette and customs.
As wines from China are spreading to our shores and our tables, this book is an essential companion for all wine lovers interested in exploring new flavours while expanding their cultural horizons. Available on Amazon here