Household registration in the Peoples Republic of China

Household registration in the Peoples Republic of China Introduction Household registration is not a new phenomenon in the Peoples’ Republic of China. In ancient China, it started way back during the period between 2100BC- 1600BC. Today this process of registration has spread to Taiwan.  In China, household registration involves the process of identifying an individual as a resident of a certain place.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Household registration in the Peoples’ Republic of China specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More According to Jeffries (121) some of the important information required during this whole process of registration include, name of the person registering, the names of his or her parents, name of his or her spouse, as well as the date of birth. This process is not optional but it is mandatory according to the Chinese constitution. Significance of the household registration system However, Wong Hongyi (212) point out that during the Cold W ar period in the year 1949, China had a new government that introduced a communist oriented idea. They note that later on, the same regime started a family register so that the government could check the migration of people from the urban to rural areas. According to Cheek Saich (106) the aim of the government was to control the number of people who went to the cities to seek employment. In order to achieve this, the government required all the people intending to make a move to towns to seek employment to first seek permission from the local authorities. He says that if an individual was to be allowed to go to the city to seek employment, then he or she had to have six passes in order to work in other provinces. Yao (448) contends that this restriction on migration was aimed at ensuring that social stability was maintained in the city. He argues that the government thought that allowing uncontrolled flow of people to the city would lead to emergence of slums that normally houses t he unemployed as well as those who are in unskilled category. In addition he says that the government wanted to ensure that there was no insecurity that may be brought about by lack of job opportunities. To him lack of job opportunity had been found to contribute significantly to the rise of insecurity in many towns in the world and therefore the government wanted to take precautions to avoid such cases being replicated in her towns and therefore introduction of the curfew.Advertising Looking for essay on asian? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More According to Jeffries (115), the government wanted to encourage her people in the rural areas to be creative by using the natural resources available. He notes that China has a great potential to produce agricultural products and therefore the government thought that if more people went to the cities to depend on employment as their source of livelihood, then agricultural produ ction was likely to be affected negatively. As a result of this he says that China has managed to produce sufficient food to feed her increasing population and also have surplus to export in other countries. Pickle (127) says that the government wanted to ensure that all areas developed equally. According to him the amount of tax collected in a certain province or region was used to develop that area. As a result he says that the government aimed at encouraging people to develop their areas so that they could stop relying on the central government for all their needs. He argues that the government usually refused to manage those individuals who used to work outside their designated areas. By so doing, the local government would be seen to be failing in its responsibilities. To them the local government is supposed to cater for the social welfare of the people in their municipalities to avoid creating a vacuum in the distribution and provision of public services. In addition, Wong H ongyi (219) point out that the government wanted to improve the human capital in the rural areas. They argue that controlling the movement of people from the rural areas to the urban areas helped them receive occupational training that was initiated by the central government so that they could depend on their work in the rural areas to make the ends meet. Its implications on the integrity and function of the family With the introduction of this program, the institution of the family was one of the many areas that were affected. Cheek Saich (122) says that many family members were separated from each other. According to them, when this process started, those who registered in a different area other than in their home area were forced to remain in their area of registration. Therefore in case they wanted to visit any of their relatives in a different province, they had to seek permission from the authority. They note that in order to discourage people from moving from one place to an other, the local authority was bureaucratic.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Household registration in the Peoples’ Republic of China specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Therefore in order for one to get a clearance from the authority he or she had to visit a number of offices to get cleared. In most cases they argue that many of the applicants gave up and decided to continue living in their designated areas. Yao (453) says that families in the rural areas were the main victims when famine struck. According to him, as many people tried to move to other areas to look for food, the security detail in most of the entry points denied them access. As a result many of them died while those who were lucky to survive were deported to their homes. He notes that this was the worst illustration of how much problems this process could bring to the Chinese. Furthermore, Pickle (132) points out that men and women were forced to do similar jobs. He notes that this was as a result of trying to put food on the table. According to him, prior to the introduction of this program, men and women had their own designated works. However after the introduction of the program resources became scarce and therefore each one of them had to work hard to lay hands on the few that were available. He calls this as a period of reversed roles. Conclusion Although it can be argued that the government wanted to encourage her people on the importance of working hard to sustain themselves by introducing this program, the whole process turned out to be more painful to the people compared to the gains they got. Therefore, the government could have conducted a feasibility study on this so that such negative effects on the people could be avoided. In addition, confining people in their locality can at times be harmful since such people do not get a chance to socialize with others beyond their boarders.Advertising Looking for essay on asian? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Therefore in case the government thinks of applying such a program later on in life, it should address the problems that were raised during the first attempt. Cheek, Timothy Saich, Tony. New perspectives on state socialism in China. New York: M.E.  Sharpe, Inc., 1997. Jeffries, Ian. Economic Developments in Contemporary China. New York: Taylor Francis,  2009. Pickle, John. Theorizing transition: the political economy of post-Communist transformations.  London: Routledge, 1998. Wong, John Hongyi, Lai. China into the Hu-Wen era: policy initiatives and challenges.  Singapore: World Scientific, 2006. Yao, Yang. Reform and Development in China: What Can China Offer the Developing World.  New York: Taylor Francis, 2010.

Cave Paintings, the Parietal Art of the Ancient World

Cave Paintings, the Parietal Art of the Ancient World Cave art, also called parietal art or cave paintings, is a general term referring to the decoration of the walls of rock shelters and caves throughout the world. The best-known sites are in Upper Paleolithic Europe. There polychrome (multi-colored) paintings made of charcoal and ochre, and other natural pigments, were used to illustrate extinct animals, humans, and geometric shapes some 20,000-30,000 years ago. The purpose of cave art, particularly Upper Paleolithic cave art, is widely debated. Cave art is most often associated with the work of shamans- religious specialists who may have painted the walls in memory of past or support of future hunting trips. Cave art was once considered evidence of a creative explosion, when the minds of ancient humans became fully developed. Today, scholars believe that human progress towards behavioral modernity began in Africa and developed much more slowly. The Earliest and Oldest Cave Paintings The oldest yet dated cave art is from El Castillo Cave, in Spain. There, a collection of handprints and animal drawings decorated the ceiling of a cave about 40,000 years ago. Another early cave is Abri Castanet in France, about 37,000 years ago; again, its art is limited to handprints and animal drawings. The oldest of the lifelike paintings most familiar to fans of rock art is the truly spectacular Chauvet Cave in France, direct-dated to between 30,000-32,000 years ago. Art in rock shelters is known to have occurred within the past 500 years in many parts of the world, and there is some argument to be made that modern graffiti is a continuation of that tradition. Dating Upper Paleolithic Cave Sites One of the great controversies in rock art today is whether we have reliable dates for when the great cave paintings of Europe were completed. There are three current methods of dating cave paintings. Direct dating, in which conventional or AMS radiocarbon dates are taken on tiny fragments of charcoal or other organic paints in the painting itselfIndirect dating, in which radiocarbon dates are taken on charcoal from occupation layers within the cave that are somehow associated with the painting, such as pigment-making tools, portable art or collapsed painted roof or wall blocks are found in datable strataStylistic dating, in which scholars compare the images or techniques used in a particular painting to others which have already been dated in another manner Although direct dating is the most reliable, stylistic dating is the most often used, because direct dating destroys some part of the  painting and the other methods are only possible in rare occurrences. Stylistic changes in artifact types have been used as chronological markers in seriation since the late 19th century; stylistic changes in rock art are an outgrowth of that philosophical method. Until Chauvet, painting styles for the Upper Paleolithic were thought to reflect a long, slow growth to complexity, with certain themes, styles and techniques assigned to the Gravettian, Solutrean, and Magdalenian time segments of the UP. Direct-Dated Sites in France According to von Petzinger and Nowell (2011 cited below), there are 142 caves in France with wall paintings dated to the UP, but only 10 have been direct-dated. Aurignacian (~45,000-29,000 BP), 9 total: ChauvetGravettian (29,000-22,000 BP), 28 total: Pech-Merle, Grotte Cosquer, Courgnac, Mayennes-SciencesSolutrian (22,000-18,000 BP), 33 total: Grotte CosquerMagdalenian (17,000-11,000 BP), 87 total: Cougnac, Niaux, Le Portel The problem with that (30,000 years of art primarily identified by modern western perceptions of style changes) was recognized by Paul Bahn among others in the 1990s, but the issue was brought into sharp focus by the direct dating of Chauvet Cave. Chauvet, at 31,000 years old an Aurignacian period cave, has a complex style and themes that are usually associated with much later periods. Either Chauvets dates are wrong, or the accepted stylistic changes need to be modified. For the moment, archaeologists cannot move completely away from stylistic methods, but they can retool the process. Doing so will be difficult, although von Pettinger and Nowell have suggested a starting point: to focus on image details within the direct-dated caves and extrapolate outward. Determining which image details to select to identify stylistic differences may be a thorny task, but unless and until detailed direct-dating of cave art becomes possible, it may be the best way forward. Sources Bednarik RG. 2009. To be or not to be Palaeolithic, that is the question.  Rock Art Research  26(2):165-177. Chauvet J-M, Deschamps EB, and Hillaire C. 1996. Chauvet Cave: The worlds oldest paintings, dating from around 31,000 BC.  Minerva  7(4):17-22. Gonzlez JJA, and Behrmann RdB. 2007. C14 et style: La  chronologie  de  l’art  parià ©tal   l’heure  actuelle.  LAnthropologie  111(4):435-466. doi:j.anthro.2007.07.001 Henry-Gambier D, Beauval C, Airvaux J, Aujoulat N, Baratin JF, and Buisson-Catil  J. 2007. New hominid remains associated with Gravettian parietal art (Les Garennes, Vilhonneur, France).  Journal of Human Evolution  53(6):747-750. doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2007.07.003 Leroi-Gourhan A, and Champion S. 1982.  The dawn of European art: an introduction to Palaeolithic cave painting.  New York: Cambridge University Press. Mà ©lard N, Pigeaud R, Primault J, and  Rodet  J. 2010.  Gravettian painting and associated activity at Le Moulin de  .  Antiquity  84(325):666–680.Laguenay  (Lissac-sur-Couze, Corrà ¨ze) Moro Abadà ­a O. 2006.  Art, crafts and Paleolithic art.  Journal of Social Archaeology 6(1):119–141. Moro Abadà ­a O, and Morales MRG. 2007. Thinking about style in the post-stylistic era: reconstructing the stylistic context of Chauvet.  Oxford Journal of Archaeology  26(2):109-125. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0092.2007.00276.x Pettitt PB. 2008. Art and the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition in Europe: Comments on the archaeological arguments for an early Upper Paleolithic antiquity of the Grotte Chauvet art.  Journal of Human Evolution  55(5):908-917. doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2008.04.003 Pettitt, Paul. Dating European Palaeolithic Cave Art: Progress, Prospects, Problems. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, Alistair Pike, Volume 14, Issue 1, SpringerLink, February 10, 2007. Sauvet  G, Layton R, Lenssen-Erz T, Taà §on P, and Wlodarczyk A. 2009. Thinking with Animals in Upper Palaeolithic Rock Art.  Cambridge Archaeological Journal  19(03):319-336. doi:10.1017/S0959774309000511 von Petzinger G, and Nowell A. 2011.  A question of style: reconsidering the stylistic approach to dating Palaeolithic parietal art in France.  Antiquity  85(330):1165-1183.