Category: Sophia Kidd
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China and the Interality of the New Silk Roads
Cultural considerations are fluid, transitioning as we measure them away from the ‘interality’ (jianxing 间性) of culture. The ‘interality’ culture is its gestalt and relational nature.
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3 Things that Keep me Here in China
As the city of Chengdu skitters on the edge of another lockdown (the first and last one was a year and a half ago, ending in April, 2020), I go to bed and wake up thinking about fear. Sometimes I feel fear, but more often I’m thinking about fear. Thinking of the guard downstairs who pointed to my bare lips and then to his mask. Recalling the woman standing by the gate who scornfully reiterated his request. I saw only her eyes, and her eyes were full of fear. Fear of COVID-19, fear of getting sick, and fear of being shut in one’s apartment in a Chinese lockdown.
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Tianxia of the Mind
So what do I mean by my post’s title, ‘Tianxia of the Mind”? I am referring to the need for Tianxia, above all, to gain ritual power, this power being specifically the power to ‘transform any regional space into the center of the world.’ That is, a notion (Tianxia) must have the power to create not only a nation (China) as an ‘imagined community,’2but to give that community, or empire, a geographical grounding. In this sense place becomes space,3 and our bodies are now contained within a network of power, now subjects in a ‘bio-polity.’
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SheLeads Summit 2021, a creative conference for all professional females working in China to celebrate female leadership
I look forward to learning from women here, to networking and gaining insights into the Chinese business world. As co-founder and CEO of Yanlu Arts and Culture, I am hungry for knowledge about how various sectors interact, and really excited to do so from a new perspective, that is, an empowered woman’s perspective.
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Oh the obstacle course of starting a business in China right now…
Then imagine my sadness again when my business partner (who’s a Chinese national) told me that, while she could open a business account for Yanlu Arts & Culture, WeChat had shut down registration for new users. What a Saturnine feeling that is. To be young and nascent, and yet to have doors close on you.
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“Minxin Xiangtong ⺠心相通 and People-to-People Relations Along the New Silk Roads” with Sophia Kidd
Sophia Kidd of Sichuan University joined the University of Virginia to discuss the New Silk Road’s (NSR) fifth ‘pillar’ in her talk on Minxin Xiangtong ⺠心相通 and People-to-People connections along the New Silk Roads; giving examples of how P2P connections support and sustain other NSR objectives: policy coordination, facilities connectivity, unimpeded trade, and financial integration. This talk, held March 12, 2021, was part of UVA’s “Assessment of China’s BRI” Project.
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Palgrave Macmillan, Ou Ning, and Culture Paves the New Silk Roads
The series’ second book will be mine, Culture Paves the New Silk Roads, and I’m giving a related talk on Friday Mar 12 at 8 pm EST (5 pm PDT) for University of Virginia’s Assessment of Belt and Road Initiative project.
Classic China 