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murasaki-murasame · 3 years

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Thoughts on Higurashi Sotsu Ep15 [FINALE]

For better or worse I think Ryukishi achieved exactly what he set out to do with this series, and I guess everyone’s just gonna be forced to reckon with how they feel about his own perspective on this franchise versus how they feel about it, lol.

Anyway, thoughts under the cut, plus Umineko spoilers.

I’m not entirely sure where to even start with this, but I guess the TL;DR is that I honestly think Gou/Sotsu was ultimately just fine despite it’s issues, and part me of can’t help but be like ‘I told you so, lol’ about how this really did end with this episode, and also committed pretty hard to the Umineko prequel elements.

It’s not like all of my theories were correct in the end, but I at least think I was pretty spot on in my prediction last week that this would end with the miracle of them side-stepping the sword issue entirely and choosing the third option of forgiveness and reconciliation. And also them ending it with an epilogue where we go back to the Matsuribayashi timeline and get a happy ending for Rika and Satoko that provides a ‘non-magical interpretation’ for the story while also giving us an idea of how Bern and Lambda formally split off into their own entities and start the relationship we see in Umineko.

I didn’t quite expect them to go down the route of having them agree to just spend a few years apart and accept that they don’t need to literally always be together, but I think that was a really good way to wrap things up between them. It’s pretty much the healthiest compromise to their conflict that doesn’t come across like it completely invalidates one of their dreams. I get why it feels too anti-climactic and convenient for people, but when you pull at that thread you get into wider topics of what the entire story is about, since this was always going to end with Satoko being redeemed and forgiven. People might not have taken him seriously, but Ryukishi was 100% genuine about his regrets about Matsuribayashi’s ending, and how part of why he came up with this new story was to create a better ending, while also doing more with Satoko as a character.

Basically I think a lot of the fandom negativity towards this boils down to people fundamentally disagreeing with the idea that Matsuribayashi was even ‘flawed’ in this sort of way to begin with, or that Satoko was badly written. It’s valid to disagree on this stuff, but at the very least we all have to grapple with how Ryukishi has his own specific relationship with this series.

People like to focus on how he’s a troll who likes to mess with people, but I feel like this is a bit of a wake-up call for people about how he’s actually extremely sincere, almost to a fault, and he likes to use his stories as a vehicle for expressing his personal philosophies and ideals.

This whole story is also a good example of how he just sees this as ultimately being a fictional story about fictional characters, and not literally a matter of real people who need to be sentenced for their crimes or whatever. As early as the original VN he was almost being outright preachy about the message that nobody is irredeemable, and that philosophy carries through to this. But to be more specific, nobody *in this story* is irredeemable. He’s pretty open about the fact that in practice you can’t apply this sort of ideal to real life, but fictional stories are their own separate matter.

I think this whole issue of how he views this as a story first and foremost is also the central reason why this ended in a way that comes across as Satoko being let off too easy for her crimes. One way or another, Ryukishi’s made it clear that he sees this as being no different to how other characters had arcs where they committed crimes but still got forgiven, or how Takano is basically a straight up war criminal who also got forgiven for her crimes.

Anyway, this episode at least committed to the Umineko stuff, so that was satisfying. Sure there’s people that still want to deny it, but at this point I think a lot of people are just being stubborn, so it’s not like anything would have really convinced them, lol. I’m also genuinely not sure what people even would have expected them to do beyond what we saw her, aside from having the two of them literally put on their gothic lolita outfits and turn to the camera and go ‘we are literally Bernkastel and Lambdadelta from the video game series Umineko When They Cry’. I almost feel like there’s some kind of misunderstanding from people who aren’t familiar with Umineko when it comes to the idea of what it even means for this to be ‘an Umineko prequel’, or ‘a Bern/Lambda origin story’. I mean, this is quite literally exactly what I expected and hoped for in that regard. It’s not like I was expecting them to incorporate anything related to, like, Beatrice or the Ushiromiya family.

I think this is also one of those things where you just have to decide for yourself whether or not you want to earnestly engage with the story that’s being told, or if you want to assume that there’s some level of malice or trickery going on.

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting them to literally have Rika and Satoko recite part of Bern and Lambda’s final conversation with each other word for word, lmao. Combined with the scene at the end where ‘Witch Satoko’ talks to herself about how she’s going to give her body back to Satoko while she goes chasing after Rika, it was literally just the exact origin story of their relationship as it’s depicted in Umineko.

I still feel like this would all only really be ‘worth it’ if we actually get something like a full on anime remake for Umineko, but at this point I can’t help but feel satisfied with this part of it all.

It’s not like I think Gou/Sotsu as a whole is perfect or anything, though. I don’t hate it as much as basically everyone else does, but I think Ryukishi’s the sort of VN writer who really struggles with the shift to writing for an anime. I think a big part of the frustration people have is just from how this is formatted as a weekly anime series spread across basically an entire year, instead of being something like a stand-alone VN chapter that you can read at whatever pace you want, even if it ultimately takes the same amount of time to read as it would to watch all of Gou/Sotsu.

There’s also the whole issue of this being a sort-of-remake, which snowballed into a whole list of structural problems. They absolutely tried too hard to have their cake and eat it too, and they should have just committed to it being made for old fans only, instead of trying to sincerely incorporate elements from the VN that old fans don’t care about anymore because they’ve gone over it already.

And as I’ve said several times before, it was a major issue for them to decide to put Nekodamashi in the middle of Gou and then spend like 20 episodes on flashback answer arcs until finally getting back to that cliffhanger. I’ve been waiting until this all ended to decide exactly how I feel about that, and now that it’s all over I still think it was a really bad idea. I don’t think it was an issue for them to reveal that Satoko’s the culprit that early, but having the gun cliffhanger specifically happen that early just gave people misguided expectations and tainted the answer arcs because people were just impatient to get back to the cliffhanger. And then the cliffhanger itself ended up being somewhat anti-climactic, which is what I’d been fearing would happen. It would have worked fine if they shuffled it around so that the cliffhanger happened right before Kagurashi and was followed up in the very next episode, or if this was a VN where you could binge your way through the flashback stuff, but spending like half of an entire real-life year to get back to that point only to have the resolution be ‘Satoko just shoots Rika and the death loops keep going’ just didn’t really work properly.

I’m a lot more generous towards the Akashi arcs than most people are, since I think they really over-estimate how much re-used content there is there, but they still suffer from the central issue of the show trying to be accessible for new fans. It could have been heavily condensed otherwise, without losing anything in terms of Satoko’s whole character arc.

On the other hand I think the first half of Kagurashi was awful specifically because it highlighted how bad of an idea it was to put Nekodamashi so early in the story. They still ended up having to go back to that arc and repeat it anyway, in the most 1:1 recap-y way in the whole show, but that wouldn’t have even been an issue in the first place if that was instead the first time that arc happened in the show.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I would rearrange the story to make it flow better while still following Ryukishi’s intentions, and I think they could have condensed it into a 2-cour season with this sort of structure if they did something like this:

-First arc where Rika gets thrown back into the loop and quickly figures out that somebody intentionally caused this to happen, and it’s not Takano because at least in this idea of mine she’d try and investigate her only to find out that this version of Takano regrets everything and is planning to flee the village with Tomitake.

Basically I think this could tie into the idea of Satoko initially wanting to just concoct an idea world for Rika so that she won’t want to leave this time, but sort of like what I think happens in Saikoroshi, Rika would still reject it, and this time around there’d be the additional layer of her knowing that somebody did this to her for an unknown reason. Maybe they could even initially market it as a new adaptation or a remake of Saikoroshi, and then reveal that it’s a sequel, to keep that whole element to the series. Either way I think this would end with everything going to shit when Rika rejects that fragment and wants to go back to St. Lucia’s, and Satoko basically snaps and kills her, and that way the audience can find out about her being the culprit without Rika finding out about it yet.

Maybe there could even be some dramatic irony where Rika’s attempts to meddle with certain ‘trigger events’, and her displaying her looper side, inadvertently triggers people around her to get paranoid, and the whole fragment would start to spiral into tragedy from there. I think they could at least use the whole conflict in Tatariakashi about Teppei actually being good this time as a starting point for that sorta thing.

-Second arc, rounding out the first cour, which is basically just Satokowashi. I don’t think there’s much that you’d need to change here, but like I said above I like the idea of her initially trying to just invent a perfect world for Rika and her to live in, instead of jumping straight to murder. But maybe instead of her literally just watching Rika’s loops, she could instead just be stuck using her looping powers to try and figure out how to create that ‘perfect world’ in the first place, by personally investigating all of the different tragedies and how to prevent them.

-Staring the second cour, a third arc where we basically just get to see those loops Satoko goes through, and her whole process of solving the tragedies and ‘purifying’ characters like Teppei and Takano, until we eventually see her perspective on the first arc, and how she reacts to Rika ultimately rejecting the world she tried to make for her.

-A fourth and final arc which is basically just Nekodamashi + Kagurashi, where she just totally snaps and tries to just torture Rika into never wanting to leave the village again, and eventually Satoko gets exposed and they have their direct confrontation with each other.

With that sorta story structure, you’d keep all the relevant bits of Gou/Sotsu as it is now, while being more focused on Rika and Satoko instead of doing kinda half-assed reruns of the Rena and Shion arcs. It’d also push the big cliffhanger between them until near the end of the show, while still revealing to the audience relatively early on that Satoko’s the culprit.

I’d also like them to do more with Satoshi and Shion, so maybe like with how Teppei gets redeemed and Satoko almost gets to have a happy life with him in Tatariakashi, the central question arc of this hypothetical story could also involve Satoko making sure that Satoshi wakes up from his coma, and Shion also gets to have a good relationship with all of them. You could probably do something interesting with the idea of Satoshi and Shion being in the camp of not trusting Teppei and his whole redemption arc.

Honestly I could spend a long time talking about how I would have done things differently, lol. For one thing, I think the Akashi arcs would have been much better if they just changed it so that Satoko used psychological tactics to make people paranoid, and we completely cut out the whole syringe plot device. I get how it fits with Satoko’s whole certainty gimmick, but it made those arcs way too predictable. Even if we knew the outcome, it’d at least be entertaining to see exactly how Satoko might go out of her way to set up the different tragedies. We kinda got glimpses of that sorta plot point in Wataakashi when things seemed to go outside of her control, but they didn’t really do much with it.

Anyway, this is a whole lot of words to say that I think that in spite of the serious structural issues going on, I think Gou/Sotsu as a whole is fine, and was at least working with a lot of perfectly good ideas that could have been executed much better.

Also, on a side note, that one scene during their fist-fight at the start where the art-style changes a bit was kinda weird, but I really liked how it looked, and part of me almost wishes the whole show looked like that, lol. I like Akio Watanabe’s character designs, but I feel like that sort of stylized, almost TWEWY-ish art style would have been really fitting for this series, especially in the horror/action parts.

Oh, and the new rendition of You was so good it almost felt emotionally manipulative, lol.

#murasaki rambles #higurashi #higurashi sotsu #this got kinda long but I still feel like there's so much more I could say about this if I wanted to

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midshipmank · 3 years

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These Violent Delights Review (contains spoilers)

Where to begin with this book? I finished it almost two weeks ago, but I put off reviewing it because I had a lot of thoughts about it and a lot of ranting to friends to do before I felt calm enough to write an actual review. I personally dislike rant reviews and didn’t want to be the author of one. And it’s not like I hated this book! It had so much potential! I still think the concept was great! But I had so many craft problems with this book that I actually started writing notes and using page flags to keep track of everything that bothered me. I don’t normally do that!

So here we go. TLDR: Brilliant idea, terrible execution.

I split my page flags into 3 categories while reading: language, character, and gang-related (which ended up becoming worldbuilding in general). All of these informed my thoughts on what I found to be the biggest problem with this book in the end, which was the fact that it was a retelling. Or rather, it was supposed to be. This book is marketed as “Romeo and Juliet in 1920s Shanghai,” but it really, really does not want to be Romeo and Juliet. It is fighting that framework with everything it’s got. It makes me think that the idea of retelling Romeo and Juliet, regardless of setting, was probably the original inspiration for the book, but it definitely outgrew the play. The author needed to just let the retelling go and let the story be free.

What really firmly convinced me that this should not have been a R&J retelling was actually the author’s note in the back of the book. Gong talks about how, though there was no blood feud between two gangs at this time, she tried to keep the story as true to history as possible. So she lists all of the groups that were vying for power in 1920s Shanghai, all of whom were featured in the story in some way. And that’s exactly the problem. From a political perspective, Romeo and Juliet is a very simple play. There are only three groups with power: the Montagues, the Capulets, and the Prince. In 1920s Shanghai, there were always at least four (counting all the foreigners as one group) and, with her added blood feud, there’s always at least FIVE. If you have three other powerful groups running around causing problems, it pretty much takes all the intensity of your blood feud out of your blood feud. With everything else that was going on with the Communists, Nationalists, and foreigners, whenever the blood feud between the gangs came up, I was always sort of like, “Why is this here? It feels so pointless. What could it possibly add to the story?” All it really did was slow everything down because the gangs refused to work with each other, and add a layer of ~forbiddenness~ to the main romance. The actual plot of the story, about a British businessman unleashing a madness-inducing insect upon Shanghai, had literally nothing to do with the blood feud.

It would have made more sense to insert Roma and Juliette into two of the existing powers of historical Shanghai, and, indeed, Gong almost did: Roma could have been part of the “foreigners” block, like Paul Dexter. But for some reason the White Flowers were treated as separate from the foreigners for reasons I don’t totally understand. In the author’s note, Gong talks about how the Russian refugees in Shanghai never actually held much power, but that there was a reason she made them equal in power to the Scarlet Gang in this story. She doesn’t ever actually give that reason. Basically, as I read the author’s note, I kept thinking, “Then why didn’t you write about this? Or that? Or that? Why did you add all this stuff, when the actual history is more interesting?”

The other things that made this feel really unlike Romeo and Juliet are all character and gang-related. The thing that makes Romeo and Juliet WORK is that the characters, even when foolish and impulsive, COMMIT to the foolish and impulsive decisions they make. And those decisions have MASSIVE consequences. In a short series of fatal moves, they bind themselves to their fates. But halfway through this book, in the middle of yet another argument about what should be done (if anything) about the madness, I stopped and thought to myself, what has been done? What have these characters actually been doing? I was halfway through the book and it felt like nothing had happened. Sure, people had died and guns had been fired, but what were the consequences? Had anything actually CHANGED? It was at that point that I began to add page flags and take notes. I was tired and frustrated by the endless pages of characters waffling around Shanghai, having the same arguments over and over, and not accomplishing anything. This book was paced like it was written by the seat of Gong’s pants during NaNoWriMo, and then never underwent any significant structural edits. (The meanest my rants about this book ever got was after I finished it and described it to my twin as “sound and fury, signifying nothing.” But that’s still what most of it felt like.)

One of the best examples of what I mean is a persistent problem I had with Juliette that was both character- and gang-related. Basically: there’s a point in the book where she thinks that everyone in Shanghai can recognize her on sight (and indeed, this does happen) because she’s the heir to a very powerful gang and she dresses in American clothes. So far so good. But on another occasion, she raids some place in pursuit of the Larkspur with Roma at her side in front of at least a hundred witnesses, and then….nothing. She doesn’t find the Larkspur, and later when talking to one of her cousins, she worries that her cousin might have learned about what she did. But then she thinks, no, it’s not possible that anyone knows I did that with Roma! And she’s right. SHE’S RIGHT. She waved her gun around and shouted in front of at least a hundred people, and was clearly working with Roma while she did it, AND NO ONE FOUND OUT. Things like this happened over and over with Juliette. Normally I’d love an interpretation of Juliet who’s so hot-headed and driven, but she got away with SO MUCH without ever being recognized or experiencing any consequences. In the end, my suspension of disbelief broke. Juliette’s antics, and consequently all the rest of the gang-related drama, became melodrama. It made me roll my eyes. I just couldn’t believe it anymore. This whole thing with Juliette wasn’t the only gang-related thing that frustrated me, but it was the biggest one.

In an effort to give Gong the benefit of the doubt: Romeo and Juliet can be read quite melodramatically. Maybe this is the effect she intended? Maybe she wanted us not to take it seriously?

But that brings me to my next point: at times, this book seemed to take itself TOO seriously. I got this impression mostly from the language. My initial reaction to the prose was, “Wow, this is so beautiful!” Eventually, though, it mostly just seemed purple. I kept wanting to cut sentences in half. It was like it couldn’t decide whether it wanted to be a normal YA book or if it wanted to emulate William Shakespeare. So in the end, it mostly just seemed like an overwritten YA book in which the characters spouted needlessly flowery lines that just sounded silly. Again, it became melodrama. This was actually the first thing I started page-flagging.

The problem with the language wasn’t just silly though; it also had a detrimental effect on the plot and characterization. At times, the book was written in third-person omniscient and at times it was in third-person close. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but with the confusion of the plot I described above, it became difficult to keep track of who knew what. There were two separate times in the book when the characters discovered something about the monster and I thought, “Wait….didn’t everyone already know that?” One of these times was within the last twenty or so pages. I’m trying to stay calm right now, but it was unbelievably frustrating for something that had been obvious since the first page to be realized by one of the main characters at the very end of the book. I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw the book across the room. But it is very pretty, so I didn’t.

The detrimental effect the language had on character was mostly that I never felt like I knew any of the characters. They’re fond of reminiscing dramatically on the past, but all we ever get are random details and no actual story. I kept waiting for a flashback that never came. I’m not a huge fan of flashbacks, but this book really, really could have used one. Both Roma and Juliette are very poetic about their shared history, but it all rang hollow because I felt like I had nothing real to grasp onto. They played games by the docks and killed each other’s loved ones? That’s pretty much all I got. By the end of the book, I still had no idea why they even liked each other. It’s mentioned several times that they thought they could end the blood feud, but, given how the blood feud pales in comparison to the actual history of Shanghai, that didn’t seem like much. The blood feud is not Shanghai’s biggest problem historically or in this book! So why should I care?

So we come back to the main problem of this book not feeling like Romeo and Juliet. It doesn’t want to be Romeo and Juliet! It is begging to be something else! The real causes of turmoil in Shanghai at this point in history were the foreign powers and the workers’ strikes. Gong says that herself! She made the foreigners the villain, which I think was a very good choice, but the workers’ strikes and growing Communist party just ended up feeling like set dressing. Background scenery. It added nothing to the plot but a red herring. In the authors’ note, Gong says that if she had followed history more closely, there would have been strikes in every chapter. I can understand why that would seem overwhelming, but if she didn’t wanted to include the workers’ strikes, then maybe….this should have been set….in a different time period….because this time period….has too many political elements….for an R&J retelling to work…. Just a thought! Or maybe she should have tossed R&J, which is the option I prefer, because the actual history is, as I have said before, much more interesting than a fictional blood feud between gangs.

In an effort to not be entirely negative about this book, I do have a mild interest in reading a comparison of this book with The Beetle by Richard Marsh. The Beetle is a Victorian novel and, like many Victorian novels, it’s about Britain’s fear of reverse-colonization, or being infiltrated by one of the countries’ they’ve invaded. In The Beetle, the infiltration comes in the form of a scarab from Egypt that carries some curse. I don’t remember all the details, since I read the book several years ago, but I found it interesting that this book had a similar concept of foreign invasion via insects. I think it would be interesting to compare the two, especially since they have opposite perspectives on British imperialism.

So, in summary: I think the idea of this book was great. I would have loved to read a retelling of Romeo and Juliet set in 1920s Shanghai that worked; unfortunately, for a variety of craft problems related to pacing, worldbuilding, characterization, and language, I don’t think this book worked at all. It wanted to be so much more than a Romeo and Juliet retelling, and the author should have let it.

Am I going to read the second book? Maaayyybe. I might get curious enough about the backstory to see whether she puts it in that book. But if I do read it, I’m getting it from the library.

#these violent delights #books #booklr #well here it is #i tried to be calm about it but this was the most frustrating book i've ever read #i know most people loved this book but i did not #& i spent so long thinking about why i didn't that i might as well explain it

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hellyeahheroes · 4 years

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“If you are poor how do you have an iPhone”

This is something that was gnawing at me for several weeks by now. Very recently comicbook twitter has gone on an anti-piracy outrage when one of the indie creators found out their comic book, that same one that had to change from selling in floppies to only selling in trades due to low sales, had hundreds of thousands of views on a pirate website. Due to the respect I have for that creator, I want to preface that what I am about to discuss is not a defense of piracy per se. it is not an argument that even applies in a large scale to indie scene that by far avoids some of the issues I will be talking about.

While I would never openly condone piracy, I have found myself playing devil’s advocate on that day out of sheer anger at one very specific argument that I have seen being thrown around by people condemning piracy. The exchange usually went like this - someone would go and try to say that comics are too expensive and that person would then be mocked for posting from their iPhone or another company equivalent. Every time I saw such behavior I have called it out. In some cases, people would apologize upon me explaining why this line of argument is out of the line. But in one a person had gotten furious I dared to question them, quickly devolving to childish insults and outright toxic behavior (the fact this person is an editor at Geeks World Wide made me completely give up on that website). But that is beside the point.

I want to just make it very clear that this “argument” is rooted in classism and, quite frankly, doesn’t even work. Let us explain the latter first

1. Why You Cannot Just Buy A Single Book

First I want to give the benefit of the doubt to the people using this argument. So we will do something dreadful and talk about math. For the purpose of this argument, I’m even going to go as far as not address the fact that even if you buy an iPhone through installment payments, at one point you are supposed to just have finished paying for the hardware. Meanwhile comic books expect you to keep buying if not one title, then hopefully another effectively forever. This fact in itself breaks the whole line of argument; A person could have wrapped up paying for the iPhone long before they ended in a financial situation where they cannot afford even comics. I will be ignoring this to address what I believe to be a steel man version of the argument - the strongest possible interpretation I can imagine. But even if we assume we live in a capitalist nightmare of endless payments, the rhetorics do not hold water.

Currently, on Apple official store, the newest iPhone11 costs you 30 dollars a month, while iPhone11 Pro is for 25$. In theory, the comparison that is presented should therefore work. After all, if you can afford 25$ dollars you can easily spare $5 for a comic book, right? For that price, you could buy as much as 4 comic books each month. Except that this assumption comes from a perspective that in order to read a single comic book all you need to do is buy that one comic book. Which is not the case. Or rather, it might be a case if we’re talking about independent publishers or markets like European or manga. But is certainly not one for Marvel and DC. While the problem is better than it once was we still regularly end in a situation where, in order to understand what is going on in a single Big 2 book, you need to read several others. This is a common case with big events. Let’s take a look at recently finished Absolute Carnage

This event had the gall to ask you to buy seven books and then upped it to nine. Nine comic books roughly 5 dollars per issue is 45$. To buy all of it would be to spend the equivalent of your iPhone11 Pro fee for five months.

Someone might now say that you obviously do not need to read the entire event. But the truth is, you do not really know that when it comes to making preorders. The event comics are deliberately constructed in such a way to trick people into thinking they have to buy all of it to understand what is going on. It was true when they were humongous, reaching even a hundred issues like the first Civil War, and it is true now. And while veteran fans have learned that usually you only need to follow main series and tie-ins written by its writer, even that can be a strain on someone’s budget. It might be that this person could only afford this one, single comic book. So when they suddenly find what might be their only source of entertainment incomprehensible without paying more money, they may face a dilemma. Deny yourself your one source of joy for any duration of time from a month to half of a year. Or quickly pirate that one book you never wanted to and was never interested in buying in the first place until you had the title you were paying for effectively held hostage.

I want to underline this is not just events. The most outrageous case of this issue right now is the X-Men line since Jonathan Hickman’s takeover. Which has become so self-referential you need to read all the titles in order to understand any single one. Without doing it the books become incomprehensible. This is me speaking from experience here. I was only interested in a single title from the initial launch. But the moment I saw characters talking about events from another book in a way that assumes I’m up to speed, I dropped it.

In order to get into this so-called great new jumping-in point as it launched fans needed to first spend around $20 a month to buy two miniseries for 3 months. And as Dawn of X rolled in, the number of books rose and keeps rising. X-Men, X-Force, bi-weekly New Mutants, Excalibur and Fallen Angels already request you to invest an equivalent of the monthly price of an iPhone11. And they soon shall be joined by Wolverine, Hellions, Cable, X-Men/Fantastic Four and possibly monthly Giant-Size X-Men. Those keeping attention to the math part might have noticed we are a single series (and we are lead to believe there is more than one coming) from X-Men becoming an investment equal to paying for two separate iPhone11s each month. It is proof that the Big 2 has adopted a “more eggs, fewer baskets” mentality. This customer-unfriendly approach to storytelling seems by design prone to weeding out and turning away all but big spenders who can afford to regularly buy multiple books. it is not different from the exploitative systems we find in video games, designed to prioritize so-called “whales”, as the industry came to call people who can blow ungodly amounts of money on a game, over regular customers.

2. The Rhetoric Itself Is Flawed

However, even if the hypothetical scenario presented by people using the “why do you have an iPhone” argument was true, we need to recognize how toxic this argument is. First of all, this whole line of reasoning is out of touch and assumes that a working iPhone is a luxury, while more and more times in modern society it becomes a necessity. I live in Poland and have not encountered this issue yet, I keep hearing of people who simply cannot get a job without having an iPhone. It’s because more and more fields require you to have working company apps or use them to find new workers in the first place. The miniature computer in your hand has become such a utility tool it now is actively getting harder to operate in modern society without affording it. This line of argument only betrays that you are out of touch almost as much as a similar argument being used to claim people who have flatscreen TVs are not “really poor”. Currently, flatscreens are only TVs being produced and sold anymore, cheap for purchase and cheaper to maintain than a full-sized TV long time out of use and with spare parts likely no longer produced.

Moreover, you don’t really know how exactly that specific person’s financial situation is. It may be that yes, they can afford an iPhone out of necessity but it does require them to be on a tight budget. Maybe the phone itself is actually passed on from a family member - speaking here as someone whose every phone ever was such a gift. It may even be that the person had to work extremely hard and save up a lot to afford this phone and simply is not able to expand on their profits anymore. Or, as mentioned above, that they once could and finished paying for the last installment but have fallen on hard times ever since. The list goes on. The crux of it is that you do not know other people’s stories and have no right to hold them to some arbitrary standards without that knowledge.

Which brings me to my final point - the whole argument relies on perpetuating a myth of “properly poor” people. The made-up image of nobly suffering poor who deny themselves any and all form of luxury in life (and remember, we established that the whole argument relies on seeing modern phones as a luxury, not a necessity they have become) to save money to get themselves out of poverty. Not to mention a similar myth of “kindhearted poor” who gladly give up what little they have to help others - the kind media love to perpetuate to distract from how bad the state of society is to lead to this situation in the first place. This not only does mispresent how the whole capitalist system is rigged to make it easier to save money the higher up the financial ladder you climb, but it also does not understand human nature. Human beings aren’t machines and it is impossible to really go through every single day without some sort of relief. Sometimes it may be a video game or a dinner at a fancy restaurant. Sometimes it may be a smartphone. Or a luxury item you never plan to use but just want to have to remind you what your goal is.

Yet our society made a game out of shaming and being judgmental to every poor person who spends even the tiniest amount of money on escapism, on any sort of relief from how stressful poverty is. And, speaking as someone who had panic attacks caused by sudden financial expenses wrecking my monthly budget, it is stressful. We expect people to act as all forms of entertainment and escapism aren’t also contributing to one of our human needs, the need to simply be able to wind down for even a moment, and thus not worth spending money on. Then we judge them if they resort to illegal means to fulfill that need.

I would go as far as making the argument this is a self-perpetuating problem. This very line of thinking, that poor must be at all times miserable and them spending even the slightest amount of money on anything nice is worth scorn? it is what actively encourages them to resort to piracy even if they could afford to buy comics. They are being constantly told by society they shouldn’t buy themselves anything not essential. And then the society acts surprised when they then fulfill their needs through illegal means to save money. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

I am not making this post to defend piracy. But I think we need to seriously consider what kind of rhetorics is being used to condemn it and what it actually says about people who use it and those who silently nod in agreement.

- Admin

#Marvel #DC #Piracy

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nikhilgraphic · 3 years

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10 Design Career Lessons From Paul Rand

Paul Rand is understood round the world for creating a number of the foremost enduring graphic designs of the past century, including the long-lasting IBM logo. In a storied career that spanned decades, Paul Rand immersed himself in corporate logo design, ventured into then-little known design trends together with his embrace of Swiss Style, and taught students about the finer points of graphic design as Yale University’s Professor Emeritus of graphic design. From such a larger-than-life figure in design, you'll easily learn tons of actionable takeaways which will help your own career in graphic design. After all, as Rand was keen on saying, “Everything is design! Everything.” We searched Rand’s impressive contributions to the industry, and these are the ten most vital design career lessons he has got to teach us.

1. Embrace Design Trends That Are Revolutionary

If you’ve been reading our blog for any length of your time , you’ll notice that we’re big fans of varied design trends. We’ve covered everything from highly impactful trends like artistic movement design to more unorthodox ones like mail art design, also as yearly trends in graphic design. Being conscious of trends and appreciating what they will do for your craft features a long history in graphic design. Rand himself became a lover of Swiss Style relatively early in his career, which led to his unique interpretation of design, stateside, learn how to bring creativity just find the best institutions which have providing the best graphic designing institute in Delhi join there today and get start your journey.

You have to recollect that Swiss Style—in spite of its somewhat misleading name—actually originated in Russia, Germany, and Holland within the 1920s. Swiss refined its basic design elements within the 1950s and made it their own. But in America during Rand’s early career (the 1940s and 1950s), this approach to style , with its specialise in using mathematical grids to arrange visual information and Helvetica fonts to market minimalism, wasn't very well-known. By immersing himself within the works of Swiss designers like Klee , Rand was ready to incorporate Swiss Style into his own artworks. It just goes to point out you that adopting a design trend, then putting your own spin thereon , may be a recipe for fulfillment . Rand understood this better than anyone when he said, “Don't attempt to be original; just attempt to be good.”

2. find out how to style Minimalist Logos

Logo design is probably one among the foremost popular areas of graphic design. It combines vibrant colors, memorable shapes, and company messaging to make entire brand identities that have remained unchanged for many years and decades.

To say that Rand excelled at logo design would be an understatement! Corporate logo creation was his signature practice. consider it just like the graphic-design equivalent of the signature song for your favorite band.

Some of the brands that he designed logos include:

IBM

UPS

ABC

Westinghouse

Morningstar, Inc.

Enron

If you're taking a deeper check out these logos, you’ll begin to note a pattern relatively quickly, thanks to Rand’s devotion to Swiss Style: They’re all quite minimalist, with a stress on simple shapes and typography.

The IBM logo is simply a series of horizontal, blue bars against a white background, spelling out the company’s acronym. Similarly, the earliest iteration of the ABC television network’s logo, debuting in 1962, was another wordmark logo (this time in multiple colors) inside a circle. Both of those designs have absolutely no excesses; you'll even say that they’re bare-bones. However, what makes them visually attractive, more so than, say, brutalist designs, is their dedication to visual harmony. In fact, Rand’s own belief was that a logo wouldn’t endure the test of your time unless it had been specifically designed with both simplicity and restraint. As he acknowledged in his seminal book, A Designer’s Art: “…ideas don't got to be esoteric to be original or exciting.”

3. Understand the worth of Being Self-Taught

It’s true that there are many talented and successful designers who obtain a proper education in graphic design. It’s equally true that you simply are often successful within the design industry albeit you’re self-taught. Rand is a stimulating case because he’s equal parts of both.

He visited three art schools as a young man:

The ny School for Design

The Arts Students League of latest York

Yale University

However, Rand always considered himself mainly self-taught when it came to graphic design. His interest in and love for graphic design was born out of self-education by reading many German and British art and style magazines, which his formal education didn’t provide.

Through this activity, he became conversant in Klee and graphic designers like A.M. Cassandra. Through this self-directed study, he started learning about modernist design philosophy, Swiss typographic sensibilities, and therefore the function-over-form approach of Bauhaus design. The tools he picked up through this self-education formed the idea for his skillful and innovative use of Swiss Style in his corporate logo designs. One of the more famous Rand quotes is: “Design are often art. Design are often aesthetics. Design is so simple, that's why it's so complicated.” You can bet that this manner that he viewed graphic design was only opened to him after he went beyond his formal education and augmented it with all of his self-study.

4. Practice Humility

You may be the foremost educated graphic designer, whether from formal education or self-study, but the very fact remains that have remains the single-biggest thanks to advance career. Rand understood this well. In spite of his considerable formal education, he started at rock bottom , working a part-time job creating stock pictures for a syndicate that provided graphic designs to the media. Now, some may have balked at this, but Rand realized that he had to start out humbly so as to form it during this industry.

He also put this chance to good use since working these low-paid, early assignments a minimum of helped him build an increasingly impressive portfolio. Interestingly, the portfolio he assembled was unique in its own right: it had been influenced by the German ad aesthetic called “Sackplakat.” This was essentially an early sort of poster art that the Germans came up with within the early 1900s. Here, too, note the influence of European sensibilities on Rand, even when it came to his portfolio style. We’ve also covered the importance of a portfolio to graphic design numerous times on the blog. So if you’re just starting call at your design career, don’t check out your initial, inevitably humble projects as something to discourage you. Instead, look to the masters in your industry like Paul Rand. Realize that they, too, had to start out somewhere. Understand that this is often the method of gaining experience and building your own portfolio, which can be the idea for your own future success at your craft.

5. Brand Yourself

Branding and graphic design go together hand in hand. Successful graphic design will help a brand tell its story and carve out a singular niche in its industry. Rand was a student of branding, and he took this to a completely new level when he decided, early in his career, to form himself into a brand.

How did he do this?

Well, for starters, Paul Rand was actually born Peretz Rosenbaum in Brooklyn, New York, to Jewish parents. Dreaming of creating it big on Madison Avenue—which was synonymous with the American ad industry within the 1920s and for several decades thereafter—Rand changed his name to form it sound slicker, like someone who was already working during a big advertising agency in ny City. Note that he also changed his name so it featured an equal number of characters within the given name and surname. In his mind, having this balance in his name would be symbolic of the type of simplicity his design would convey.

With an easy name change, Rand made himself into his first project on corporate identity. It told potential clients and partners that he was a pointy up-and-comer who understood the messaging and communication dynamics of the ad industry at that point . Rand put it best himself when he stated, “Design is that the silent ambassador of your brand.”

6. Truly shine at What you are doing

At the top of the day, there’s no substitute for sheer talent and producing high-quality work. It’s what is going to get you noticed and cause you to stand out from all of your competitors during a crowded field. Excelling at his craft through diligence and applying himself well, Rand caught the attention of the higher-ups at Esquire Magazine thanks to the work he did in page design, or typesetting, for then-Apparel Arts (now GQ) Magazine. Long story short, Rand distinguished himself together with his immensely creative page layouts that took everyday pictures and turned them into amazing compositions. This aroused giving a page tons of editorial importance and helped it to face out.

His success at page design won him a full-time job, shortly after he had begun as a part-time creator of stock images. It also opened another door for him: Esquire Magazine offered to form him their stage director for all their Esquire-Coronet publications. What’s really staggering here is that Rand was only 22 years old at the time he was offered this prestigious position. Experiencing self-doubt, he initially rejected the offer, but, just a year later, he took the magazine abreast of it and have become Esquire Magazine’s stage director at the ripe adulthood of 23.

7. Share Your Knowledge With Others

As you create your way through your graphic design career, you’ll eventually amass tons of data . While this may naturally assist you land bigger and better clients and projects, also as extra money , it’s also a chance to shape and influence others in your industry via teaching. Rand became Yale University’s professor emeritus of graphic design; he spent a few of decades there in two stints. First, from 1956 to 1969 then again from 1974 to 1985. You obviously don’t need to become a tenured professor to share what you’ve learned with others. because of the interconnectivity of the web , you'll begin teaching in your title with the tools you've got immediately at your disposal.

A lesson on a selected aspect of graphic design are often presented in an explainer video, whether you create it short and to the purpose or an in-depth walkthrough or tutorial. Similarly, you'll use Facebook posts to share your graphic-design knowledge. If you've got your own website, even something as basic as having a newsletter means you'll educate your followers within the finer points of design as well—while building your own brand and becoming an idea leader within the industry. So take some inspiration from Rand when it involves teaching. It can do wonders for your own career, too. As Rand put it: “Everything is design. Everything!” This includes teaching it to others.

8. Get Influential Creatives to ascertain Your Work

No matter what industry you’re in, your career are going to be helped when influencers in your industry start talking you up. this is applicable to graphic design also . This social proof is priceless, and testimonials within the sort of endorsements from authority figures are a surefire thanks to increase your own reputation. While it's going to not always be easy to land these great endorsements, they’re sure worth striving for. one among the foremost surefire ways you, too, can receive influencer praise is by being very, excellent at your craft. In Rand’s case, he received good press early from the likes of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, a Bauhaus school professor and artist in his title . pertaining to Rand in Rand’s early career, Moholy-Nagy called him among the simplest and most capable of his new generation…someone ready to design from the standpoint of utility and necessity while still retaining unlimited creativity.

Influencers talked him up right up to Rand’s final moments of life. The late Steve Jobs, of Apple fame, founded a lesser-known computer and software company by the name of NeXT in 1985, after he was forced out of Apple. Yes, Jobs was actually forced out of Apple in its early years before returning to the corporate he originally founded within the late 1990s (when Apple ended up purchasing NeXT). During his exile from Apple, Jobs commissioned Rand to style the company identity for—you guessed it—NeXT. the brand Rand created emphasized his trademark simplicity. In 1996, Jobs would ask Rand because the greatest living graphic designer, shortly before Rand’s death from cancer within the same year.

9. Develop Your Own Design Theory

This lesson could also be the foremost challenging of all, but it proved to be what made Rand stand out from his peers and become an influencer in his field. As you progress in your graphic design career, you’ll be exposed to new ideas, various workflows and processes, and, ultimately, what works for you and what doesn’t, around which you’ll build your own design value system.

It was Rand’s insatiable appetite for reading that helped to shape his design ideology. especially , he devoured books by art philosophers like:

John Dewey

Alfred North Whitehead

Roger Fry

He applied these philosophers’ belief systems into his work as a designer, creating something new entirely, like his belief that a design should be ready to withstand blurring or distortion and still retain its recognizable identity. Rand was also keen on the modernist approach to philosophy. He studied works by artists like Cezanne , famous for his contributions to both Impressionism and Cubism, and Jan Tschichold. As a result, he was ready to see common themes between their artworks and his 20th-century graphic design. Read tons of fabric on design and books, from luminaries within the industry, and you’ll eventually develop your own theories. Rand meant it when he said, “You will learn most things by looking, but reading gives understanding. Reading will cause you to free.”

10. Don’t Confuse Radically Different With Being Original

One of the gravest mistakes that designers make is to believe that they need to return up with something drastically “new” to be original or somehow make an impression on their works. Nothing might be farther from reality, a minimum of not where Rand was concerned. It was tempting for Rand’s critics to dismiss his designs as being overly simplistic. Though they were all studies in minimalism, that didn’t hold the designs back. Just the other , Rand excelled at mixing and matching simple shapes and colours in completely new ways.

This was seen within the literal translation of the IBM wordmark, like his 1981 poster art for the corporate . it had been also on display within the 1960 Westinghouse logo that relied on simple shapes like circles, line segments, and ovals to make a replacement brand identity for this company. In both cases, Rand went with the familiar—with elements audiences round the world already understood. it had been the execution that made these designs unique and memorable for many years to return.

Apply this to your own career and projects. If you’re faced with a client wanting a bold, new logo that captures the audience’s attention, don’t swing for the fences by incorporating excess and maximalism in your design. That’ll just clutter your composition. Instead, work with less, but make it some extent to use this minimalism in clever ways, a bit like Rand did.

Lessons From the Master

It’s a reasonably big consensus that graphic design wouldn’t exist today as an industry if Paul Rand didn’t revolutionize it with the way he checked out aesthetics. By broadening his horizons and absorbing (at the time) esoteric knowledge from Europe, he succeeded in setting the course for a way American and worldwide graphic design took shape.

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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The Many Obstacles of Mulan

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Disney’s move to premiere Mulan exclusively on Disney+ sent shock waves through the movie exhibition industry, but it’s only one of the potential obstacles that has beleaguered this eagerly anticipated film from the onset. From its production announcement to its premiere, Mulan has faced more trials and tribulations than any other film this year, and that’s a pretty competitive category in 2020. The pandemic has been just one hurdle for Mulan, a “Chinese-assisting” American production being released in the midst of rising tensions between the two superpowers. From rumors of whitewashing to issues of cultural appropriation to political boycotts, here is a breakdown of the controversies and challenges Mulan has had to deal with and/or anticipate in the lead up to its release…

Mulan’s Shifting Release Date & Plan

Even before COVID-19 reared its ugly head, Mulan endured an ever-moving release date. (Which, to be fair, is not so uncommon these days when it comes to major Hollywood blockbusters.) Originally fast-tracked for a 2018 release, Mulan was then postponed to late 2019, then delayed once more to 2020. In 2020, Mulan was slated for a March 27th wide release, and even held a star-studded Hollywood premiere at the Dolby Theater on March 9th. But only a few days after that premiere, the pandemic shut down theaters worldwide, forcing Disney to delay Mulan further.

Disney tried to rally by rescheduling the theatrical release for July 24th, but, as the severity of the pandemic grew, that date too had to be pushed to August 21st, a date that was later unset in late July. Early this August, Mulan’s release was moved to VOD on Disney+ for an additional fee of $30 (prices vary slightly internationally) on September 4th. The announcement rattled many fans, who not only felt the fee was too expensive but had hoped to see it on the big screen. The announcement also hit the already-suffering movie distribution market hard, particularly in the UK, where theaters have begun to reopen and where movie theaters are eager for any big film that might bring audiences back and revitalize their industry.

The Complications of Mulan Courting the Chinese Box Office

From its inception, the $200 million tent-pole has aspired to be one of the biggest global blockbusters of 2020. Based on the performance of previous live action remakes, Disney no doubt hopes for a $85-90 million U.S. opening weekend. What’s more, Hollywood makes up to 70% of its revenue overseas, which makes the Chinese box office, the second most profitable film market in the world, a major target for any contemporary big-budget release. In 2018, Hollywood movies earned $3.2 billion in China, with Disney taking home $700 million. Last year, Avengers: Endgame earned $614 million in China under the Disney banner. And, after all, Mulan is a Chinese legend. To cater to the market, the film stacked the cast with Chinese A-listers and veteran stars like Cheng Pei-Pei, Gong Li, Jet Li, and Donnie Yen. It was a calculated gamble, but the odds of a huge payout were favorable. (That was until the world drew that unexpected COVID-19 card and all bets for all movies were off.)

But Disney has an uphill battle to fight when it comes to convincing Chinese audiences that it knows how to make a good adaptation of the Mulan legend. Although the 1998 animated film was a successful commerical blockbuster, earning over $304 million as well as winning several Annie Awards and receiving some Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations, in China, the film was a complete flop. After Disney’s The Lion King became one of the highest grossing Hollywood films to be released in China at the time, Disney had high hopes for Mulan. However, while Mulan is a beloved Chinese legend that dates to the 6th century, the Chinese audience felt that Disney’s version was too westernized. To them, Disney’s Mulan did not even look Chinese.

When the Mulan trailer dropped in China, it got 1.5 billion views in just a few days, but also some criticism. The trailer showed that the film depicts Mulan’s home as a tulou, a traditional round house from southern China during the Ming Dynasty. The Ming period was about a millennium later than Mulan’s time and, as she was a northerner, she would not have lived in such a house. Disney, despite the apparent efforts to court Chinese audiences, was called out again for its insensitivity to Chinese culture. In mid-August, an official poster released in China was mocked online for appearing dated and ugly.

Hollywood Whitewashing Concerns

When the Mulan reboot was announced, the film drew immediate concerns of whitewashing. At the time, Ghost in the Shell, a live-action adaptation of the beloved Japanese manga series, was in production with Scarlett Johansson in the lead role, and was drawing significant criticism from the Asian-American community for its casting of Johansson, a white actress, for a story that takes place in Japan and, in its original form, features all Japanese characters. The casting was only the latest example in Hollywood’s long history of whitewashing.

Following the announcement that Mulan would be getting a live-action reboot, concerns that Hollywood would choose to whitewash the central roles soon followed online. There was even a hoax report announcing that Scarlett herself was cast as Mulan. Rumors circulated that a white male lead would be introduced, based on an alleged leaked script written by Lauren Hynek and Elizabeth Martin, spurring fans to launch the hashtag #MakeMulanRight. To its credit, Mulan has an entirely Asian cast, including Chinese-born American actress Crystal Liu Yifei (best known to Hollywood for her role in the Jackie Chan and Jet Li film The Forbidden Kingdom) in the lead role.

Mulan Eschews the Disney Reboot Formula

Mulan is an outlier in the current era of live action Disney reboots in that it is not afraid to make significant changes in both format and content from its animated source material. This hasn’t come without criticism, of course, especially as most of the Disney reboot era so far has catered toward nostalgia viewing. The live-action Mulan will not be a musical, a decision that caused many fans of the animated original to express disappointment when the announcement was made. Additionally, it became clear during marketing that the new film would not feature some of the cherished characters from the original, such as Mushu and Cri-kee. Some in the LGBTQ community criticized the removal of Li Shang, a character who is sometimes interpreted as bisexual because of his attraction to Ping (Mulan, disguised as a man). It’s worth noting that these are the characters that were rejected by Chinese audiences, and that they were added to the Mulan legend for the original animated Disney version.

The #BoycottMulan Controversy

Late last year, Crystal Liu Yifei came under fire for her pro-police politics. Crystal has 65 million followers on the Chinese platform Weibo and posted the hashtag #IAlsoSupportTheHongKongPolice. This upset Hong Kongers protesting for democratic reforms (and pro-democracy sympathizers around the world) who started the hashtag #BoycottMulan. The controversy spilled over to Facebook and Twitter, resulting in the deletion of nearly a thousand troll accounts. (Note that both Facebook and Twitter are blocked by mainland China’s Great Firewall.) Since the initial controversy, other Chinese celebrities have voiced their support for Beijing, including Jackie Chan and Crystal’s Mulan co-star Donnie Yen.

Meanwhile, in the United States, anti-Asian racism is on the rise. Following the President’s labeling of COVID-19 as the “Chinese virus” and amidst the general fraying of American-Chinese political relations, there has been an uptick in anti-Chinese sentiment in America. In March, a promotional Mulan poster at a bus stop in Pasadena, California was vandalized. It’s unclear, at this point, what role if any the current political climate could play in Mulan‘s performance.

Movies

Mulan and Tenet Show Competing Visions for Future of Movies

By David Crow

Disney+ New Releases: September 2020

By Alec Bojalad

On September 4, Mulan will play in theaters in regions where Disney+ is not available, such as Singapore and Malaysia. Like with the U.K., China’s theaters have already reopened, as the country has contained the pandemic more successfully than the U.S. Mulan has been approved for Chinese release, but the date has not been formally announced at the time of this writing. This will put it head-to-head against the other major 2020 Hollywood blockbuster, Tenet, which has been and will be released theatrically in 70 countries, including China and in limited capacity in the U.S.

Time will tell if Disney’s Premium Access VOD will succeed. Regardless, Mulan looks to be a panoramic big screen experience, so hopefully it will get shown in theaters someday. Whatever happens, in the larger picture, Disney’s production is just the latest chapter for Mulan, whose tale of overcoming obstacles has inspired for centuries.

Mulan premieres on Disney+ on September 4.

The post The Many Obstacles of Mulan appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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mrhotmaster · 4 years

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Fitbit Versa 2 Full Detailed & Honest Review

Fitbit Versa 2 Detailed Review

Have you been hunting for this reasonably priced smartwatch?

Fitbit, the American wellness wearables organization that was as of late procured by Google, faces a genuine test from Chinese rivals in India. While Fitbit has been around for much longer than its adversaries, that doesn't ensure accomplishment in the market. Organizations, for example, Amazfit have propelled a few items in the course of the most recent year, a large portion of which offer a larger number of highlights and cost not exactly Fitbit items. No item is going to feel the warmth as much as the Fitbit Versa 2, since it is one of the most costly of the organization's wearables in India. Could the Versa 2 interpretation of the solid challenge? Just now, how about we explore.

Fitbit Versa 2 Plan

The Fitbit Versa 2 has a square face with adjusted corners. The shading AMOLED touchscreen looks extremely pleasant yet its thick bezels cause it to seem somewhat dated. That is not incredible for a superior wellness wearable. We had no bad things to say with the presentation itself however — it can get entirely brilliant, and hues look decent on it as well. You can set the presentation to consistently on in the Versa 2's settings, however this bigly affects battery life. We'll discuss that in the exhibition segment. The Versa 2 is very agreeable to wear. Its aluminum shell feels decent, and the band is additionally very agreeable by and large. We had the option to wear the Versa 2 for different days without an issue, and we took it off just to charge or to get dry after an exercise or a shower. There's only one catch on the left half of the Versa 2 — on the off chance that you press it once it goes about as a back catch, and in the event that you long-press it, it will dispatch the activity application. There's an amplifier on the right, since the Versa 2 backings Amazon's Alexa voice associate. Presently that Fitbit has been obtained by Google, we can be sensibly sure that future Fitbit items will highlight Google Assistant what's more or.

The Versa 2 is swim-verification, which is an absolute necessity have include at this value point. It ships with an exclusive charging support which is somewhat disillusioning to see yet not so much astounding given Fitbit's history of transportation another charger with pretty much every new item. The support has a clasp like system that you need to space the Versa 2 into. The issue is that there are charging pins on just one side, however the watch can without much of a stretch be embedded the incorrect path around accidentally. Except if you check to ensure the Versa 2 is in the support the correct way, the gadget probably won't charge by any means.

Fitbit Versa 2 Execution And Battery Life

For an exceptional wellness watch that underpins a great deal of exercise modes, it's very pitiful to see that the Versa 2 doesn't include in-constructed GPS. You should utilize your combined cell phone's GPS sensors to follow exercises with the Versa 2, which implies the Fitbit application will consistently require get to your area, regardless of whether it's dynamic or not. This raises protection concerns, and despite the fact that Fitbit is a notable brand, we're not enthusiastic about permitting applications access to our area information when they're out of sight. Also, you'll generally need to convey your cell phone with you when you need to follow exercises, which may be badly arranged. At long last, we're presently utilizing a cell phone that is 3.5 years old and its battery life isn't that extraordinary any longer. Utilizing GPS continually is a colossal channel on power. We despite everything ran our standard arrangement of tests on the Versa 2 to check how it performs. First we strolled 1,000 stages while checking every one physically to check whether the Versa 2's progression tracker is exact. The Versa 2 logged 1,006 stages, which is amazingly exact. We likewise strolled 1km on a course estimated utilizing a vehicle's odometer to check for GPS precision. The Fitbit Versa 2 logged 1.05km here, however it's to be noticed this is the combined telephone's GPS precision and shouldn't be utilized to pass judgment on the wearable itself. The pulse sensor of the Fitbit Versa 2 is genuinely exact. Its readings compared with how tired we were feeling during exercises, which is acceptable to see. You can likewise follow a lot of different exercises, for example, swimming, running, curved preparing, yoga, and so forth on the Versa 2, which is acceptable to see. We'll discuss the product finally in a piece.

We wore the Fitbit Versa 2 during that time to check whether rest following was solid, and we were satisfied to see that it was. The application relegates a rest score to disclose to you how well you dozed, and we saw this measurement as accommodating. Our rest scores reflected how we thought we had dozed. The battery life of the Fitbit Versa 2 was excellent when we didn't empower the consistently in plain view alternative. The gadget effortlessly kept going us an entire week on a solitary charge, with warnings empowered and with us wearing the gadget practically 24x7. This is acceptable, however on the off chance that you do need a consistently in plain view, the battery life drops to two days, which is very poor. It is pleasant to have the option to see significant data, for example, the time and battery level initially, so the drop in battery life is somewhat of a setback.

Fitbit Versa 2 Programming And Partner Application

The Fitbit Versa 2 is a genuinely competent smartwatch yet there are a few things that you ought to know about. You can reply or reject approaching calls on the Versa 2, however you can't make calls from it. It underpins fast answers for notices, however just on Android. You can likewise move music from your PC to the Versa on the off chance that you need to store melodies on-gadget (up to around 2.5GB), or you can utilize music gushing administrations, for example, Spotify or Deezer on the watch, which is incredible to see. The absolute most significant applications for a wearable, for example, Spotify and Strava, are accessible in the Fitbit application store. Aside from a couple of huge names however, there isn't a lot to download there. This is a minor protest to be straightforward, in light of the fact that a great many people are going to purchase the Versa 2 for wellness related highlights and it has nearly all that you'll require on that front. While the Versa 2 backings Amazon's Alexa and permits you to check the climate, set clocks, and control your Echo gadgets, we didn't end up utilizing this component much. Voice aide support is an unquestionable requirement have include on looks for certain individuals, however not every person.

The Fitbit partner application is among the best wellness applications we've utilized. It's smooth and shows all the data you need by means of all around structured graphs, which is incredible. It's likewise pleasant to have the option to share Fitbit information with your companions or Fitbit people group individuals by means of the Community tab. There's a Fitbit Premium membership alternative, evaluated at Rs. 819 every month or Rs. 7,000 every year, that incorporates wellbeing reports, programs for teaching solid propensities, video exercises, and the sky is the limit from there. On the off chance that you need an application to mentor you, this is a not too bad choice, yet there are a few different applications that could all the more likely serve your wellness preparing necessities and you can discover comparable highlights at lower costs or in any event, for nothing.

Decision

The Fitbit Versa 2 looks decent, feels incredible to wear, and has a solid friend application. These are for the most part great highlights to have, yet the absence of in-manufactured GPS confines its utility a ton. For an excellent wellness gadget, this is a glaring oversight.

The Versa 2 has been pushed at Rs. 20,999 in India yet is as of now accessible for around Rs. 15,000 on the web. Indeed, even at this lower value, wearables, for example, the Amazfit Verge offer better worth. This model has a comparative list of capabilities alongside in-fabricated GPS, however not a similar degree of programming shine. In-your-face wellness fans will need to dish out more for wellness watches from Garmin or TomTom, and obviously iPhone clients should consider the Apple Watch Series 3 at this value level. There's a great deal to like about the Fitbit Versa 2, however the challenge is a lot more grounded now than it was when Fitbit first came to India. The organization should raise its game to remain applicable in the top notch wellness watch space.

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Wen-Ji Wang, Neurasthenia, psy sciences and the ‘great leap forward’ in Maoist China, 30 Hist Psychiatry 443 (2019)

Abstract

The present study looks into the much-neglected history of neurasthenia in Maoist China in relation to the development of psy sciences. It begins with an examination of the various factors that transformed neurasthenia into a major health issue from the late 1950s to mid-1960s. It then investigates a distinctive culture of therapeutic experiment of neurasthenia during this period, with emphasis on the ways in which psy scientists and medical practitioners manoeuvred in a highly politicized environment. The study concludes with a discussion of the legacy of these neurasthenia studies – in particular, the experiment with the famous ‘speedy and synthetic therapy’ – and of the implications the present study may have for future historical study of psychiatry and science.

Introduction

As a popular diagnosis for over a hundred years, neurasthenia and its history have attracted substantial scholarly attention (e.g. Gijswijt-Hofstra and Porter, 2001; Pietikainen, 2009; Schuster, 2011). The rise and fall of the disease in twentieth-century China has been the subject of numerous historical and anthropological studies. However, apart from Arthur Kleinman’s seminal work (1986) and other brief historical accounts (Jia, 2004; Lin, 1985), the history of neurasthenia in Maoist China remains relatively unexamined. On the basis of previous works in the field of the history of medicine and cultural anthropology (Lee, 1998, 1999; Wang, 2016), the present study looks into the relationship between neurasthenia, psy sciences and politics from the early 1950s to the mid-1960s.

The present study can be contextualized in another research tradition. Historical studies of science, technology and medicine in post-World War II China have gained significant momentum in recent years. Instead of underlining the ways in which the development of science was subject to political influences, more historians have begun to investigate the ways in which science and politics interrelated in specific ways (Schmalzer, 2007; Wang, 2007). For instance, Schmalzer (2008) uses her work on the interpretations of Peking Man in Maoist China to foreground the tension between the idea of mass science (the Communist stress on the value of traditional wisdom and grassroots initiatives) and that of science communication (the continuous Communist effort to educate the masses). Schmalzer’s (2013, 2016) studies of insect control and Neushul and Wang’s (2000) work on marine biology during the Cultural Revolution show that, despite the persecution of many scientists under Mao’s rule, certain sciences did thrive with governmental support. Fa-ti Fan’s series of studies on mass science in China in the 1950s and 1960s re-examined and enriched our knowledge of ‘citizen science’ and ‘lay expertise’ (Fan, 2007, 2012a, 2012b). The latest research by Miriam Gross (2016) on anti-schistosomiasis campaigns from the 1950s to 1970s explains that these programmes were made possible by party support and the political mobilization of Chinese society. The present study of anti-neurasthenia initiatives in relation to contemporary social and political movements can therefore be considered another attempt to probe into the complicated manners in which science and medicine develop in an extreme political environment.

The article consists of four parts. First, it investigates the various factors that made neurasthenia a major health and political problem from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s. Second, numerous clinical studies of neurasthenia conducted by psy specialists during this period were part of a distinctive culture of therapeutic experiment, which exemplified contemporary academic and political trends. Third, the article re-examines the history of the famous ‘speedy and synthetic treatment’ of neurasthenia, which has been regarded by generations of psychiatrists and historians as the origin of modern Chinese psychotherapy. This study also explains the different meanings that have been associated with neurasthenia by contemporary psy specialists. Prior to concluding, the article concludes with a discussion of the legacy of these neurasthenia studies and the implications the present study may have for the future historical studies of psychiatry and science.

Neurasthenia as a medical and political issue

As in Republican China, neurasthenia was widespread in the early Socialist period. A widely circulated pamphlet on neurasthenia noted that neurasthenics comprised 60–70% of psychiatric outpatient visits and 40–60% of general medicine outpatient visits (Wang, 1956). In an era of drastic social and political changes, neurasthenia was a common disease that especially affected students, officials and other ‘brain workers’ (Kleinman, 1986: 152–6; Lee, 1998, 2011; Lin, 1985). The frequently mentioned causes in the clinical setting, such as overwork, psychological trauma and interpersonal conflicts, prove the influence of societal factors on mental health.

The endemic of neurasthenia can also be attributed to several other factors. The first half of the 1950s saw a strong Soviet influence in science – the so-called ‘Leaning on One Side’ policy. A Pavlovian system that loosely divided neuroses into obsession, hysteria and neurasthenia helped to generate a sizeable population of debilitated patients. For instance, according to a textbook edited by Nanjing-based neuropsychiatrists in 1960, neuroses were divided into four types: neurasthenia, hysteria, psychasthenia, and compulsive and obsessive neurosis (Nanjing Neuropsychiatric Hospital, 1960: 167). Interestingly, whereas a broad-brush classification system partly contributed to the mass diagnosis of neurasthenia in Maoist China (Xu, 1993: 45), neurasthenia disappeared as a major diagnosis in psychiatric practice in Taiwan, then generally referred to as ‘Free China’, where the influence of Western medical systems began to dominate from the early 1950s onwards.

Furthermore, Socialist China’s health and science policy might have increased the disease’s high visibility. Since the 1920s, neurasthenia, with its association with sexual dysfunctions and loss of brain power, was a common health condition that attracted the explanatory and therapeutic interest of traditional Chinese medicine practitioners (Shapiro, 1998, 2003). Mao’s slogan of ‘Cooperation of Chinese and Western Medicines’ in the 1950s and 1960s brought the country’s once-marginalized medical practice into a vital part of the country’s health system (Taylor, 2005: 30–62). Given that neurasthenia was a common term that traditional Chinese medical practitioners used to designate a variety of conditions, the revival of traditional medicine in the post-war era meant that a popular term like neurasthenia was used even more frequently. Psychiatrists, for instance, were encouraged to learn from traditional conceptions and treatments of neurasthenia and similar conditions (Chen, 1955). In addition, neurasthenia as a popular medical term retained its potency and legality, at a time when the knowledge of the masses was raised to an unprecedented level by politicians and the language used by top party members and in newspapers was purposely vernacular and even plebeian.

In the Republican period (1912–49), the disease had been a favourite in a burgeoning medical market, and its treatment was largely determined by personal preferences and available medical resources (Wang, 2016). With the founding of the Communist regime in 1949, the relationship between neurasthenia, mental health and psy sciences changed enormously, and in the late 1950s it suddenly became a health problem worthy of governmental attention. In ‘the Long-term Plan for the Development of Science and Technology in 1956–1957’, a product of negotiations and contests between top party leaders and scientific-technological elite (Wang, 2015), neurasthenia was listed as a major disease, the prevention and treatment of which called for intensive scientific investigation. The first National Working Conference on the Prevention of Mental Illness, held by the Ministry of Health in 1958, designated neurasthenia as a serious mental health issue (Ting, 1964). This conference later became the starting point of a ‘Subduing Neurasthenia’ campaign during the ‘great leap forward’ period in 1958–62 (Anti-neurasthenia Unit, 1959).

Such a medical policy concerning neurasthenia was unheard of in Chinese history and also rare in modern medical history (Lin, 1985: 13–14). This apparently national interest therefore needs further explanation. First, during a period when national construction and social consolidation were primary political concerns, asociality, unproductivity and passivity were problems that needed to be corrected. As Chinese sociologist Jia Xijing puts it, one of the reasons for a nationwide campaign on neurasthenia in the late 1950s is that the disease’s symptoms – loss of brain and physical power – were deemed undesirable in an era when high social function was greatly valued:

The survey and treatment of neurasthenia was also a process through which those who did not meet the demand of high social function could be screened and their social function strengthened, which meant the materialization of a higher social demand on individuals. (Jia, 2004: 82–3)

The Communist party’s conception of mental disorders as social problems was related to its attempt at maintaining social order and increasing the labour force during a period of regime consolidation.

Second, in the 1950s, psychiatric facilities and personnel underwent massive expansion. Various short-term training programmes were designed to increase the number of doctors, medical assistants and nurses (Lin and Eisenberg, 1985: 10, 88). In 1958, for instance, the number of doctors working in psychiatric hospitals was 16 times greater than in 1949, the year in which the Communist party took over the country. Psychiatric hospital beds increased 14-fold. This growth was a product of a revolutionary fervour to provide medical care for the masses and to transmit the knowledge of experts to the people in order to solve their problems (Pearson, 1991; Wu, 1959). An increase in manpower meant that more treatments and clinical studies were made available for the public.

Third, part of this anti-neurasthenia movement was associated with a brief boom in psychology during this period. Ting Tsan – a leading medical psychologist in the late Republican era and a top science-policy maker in the early Communist era – was instrumental in establishing the Chinese Academy of Sciences and its Institute of Psychology in the early 1950s (Fan, 2017). Despite the fact that his training during the Republican era was rooted in the Meyerian tradition (Li and Schmiedebach, 2015; Wang, 2016), Ting’s long-term wish to promote medical psychology and mental health on the national level was likely to be realized with the establishment of the People’s Republic (Fan, 2014; Ting, 1956, 1958). However, psychology as a discipline was later subjected to persecution for various reasons, including ideological concerns, partisan politics and Ting’s pre-1949 political mistake (Chin and Chin, 1969; Huang 2015; Xue and Xiong, 2006). In the late 1950s, Ting’s regained political influence and professional interest helped to turn a mild neurosis into a major mental health crisis. Ting and a group of young medical psychologists and psychiatrists, mainly based in Beijing, were very involved in the anti-neurasthenia campaign during and after the ‘great leap forward’. This shows their aspiration to establish psychology as a reputable science in the New China. Psychological study on the aetiology and the therapeutic mechanism of neurasthenia accordingly became their priority.

Culture of therapeutic experiment

As recent studies have demonstrated, the history of science in China before the Cultural Revolution is complex. While Mao Zedong had a deep distrust of intellectuals and mobilized a series of political movements to reform and persecute them, the need to utilize science and technology to modernize a war-shattered and backward country remained a top priority after the Communists came to power. Given that the leading political leaders, Mao Zedong and the Premier Zhou Enlai in particular, were divided in their opinions on science policy, the ‘Learning from the Soviet Union’ campaign (or ‘Leaning to One Side’ policy) was juxtaposed with a ‘revolutionary vision of mass technological mobilisation’ (Wang, 2015). In this mixed atmosphere of mistrust, tension and excitement, scientists and intellectuals had to try to develop their own strategies to survive, or even to prosper to a certain degree (Neushul and Wang, 2000). In his insightful account of the history of Pavlovism in China, Gao (2015) uses the idea of ‘performative conformity’ to capture the negotiations and struggles that scientists experienced during this period.

This tension between technocratic approach and mass mobilization can also be seen in the field of medical sciences. If one glances through People’s Daily and Guanming Daily, the party-state’s two official organs in the mid-1950s, many advances in medicine were allegedly made, driven both by the party’s willingness to help the masses and by scientific and technological assistance from the Soviet Union. The interest of psy scientists in treating neurasthenia was both scientific and political. As one of the most common illnesses, neurasthenia became the subject of a great variety of therapeutic experiments – ranging from histotherapy, sleep therapy, acupuncture, physical therapy to group therapy – which were closely related to developments in the Soviet Union. Soviet scientists were portrayed to the reading public as China’s best friends, and their knowledge and expertise as the keys to nation-building. In contrast, the ‘mass science’ approach materialized in the use of qigong, acupuncture, and the combined use of acupuncture, herbal medicine and psychiatric medications. The ideology of the integration of Chinese and Western medicine proved the party-state’s determination to provide health services to a wider population.

The rise of a culture of therapeutic experiment of neurasthenia becomes evident if one browses through the medical and scientific journals published between the early 1950s and mid-1960s. Internists, neurologists, psychiatrists and practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine developed competing methods in treating the disease, in order to showcase their scientific and revolutionary commitment. A few examples suffice to illustrate the point. The rapid and extensive development of traditional Chinese medicine resulted in experiments with diverse forms of acupuncture and herbal medicine to treat neurasthenia and other mental or chronic diseases. For instance, while plum blossom percussion, a simplified form of acupuncture, was widely used as a folk remedy, acupuncture was also practised on neurasthenics in connection with procaine injection (Chen and Qian, 1958). In 1954, the Nanjing Psychiatric Hospital experimented with the group therapy of neurasthenic patients. A team of two psychiatrists, one nurse and one social worker treated a group of 60 patients in two sessions. During the treatment, psychiatrists lectured on several topics, ranging from the Pavlovian theory of nerve function and the principles of neurasthenia treatment to sleep hygiene. The rate of recovery of 500 patients was reported to be over 80% (Chen, 1955). Leng Yan, a doctor working at a military hospital in Tianjin, experimented in 1958 with ‘novocaine blocking therapy’, which was invented in the Soviet Union in the 1930s and tested during the Korean War. She observed, in the case of neurasthenia, the effect of novocaine in blocking the stimulation of the cerebral cortex and, in so doing, in regulating cerebral function. Leng (1958) further affirmed that the employment of this soon-to-be-publicized novocaine therapy should be accompanied by a firm grasp of patients’ life histories and problems, ‘psychological caring’ and the improvement of their living environments to achieve better results. Insulin shock therapy was still the treatment of choice among psychiatrists in the 1950s and 1960s. Although expensive and labour-intensive, it was reported to be used on neurasthenic patients in several hospitals (Fang and Lu, 1960; Wang, 1960).

Three points can be made in relation to this culture of experimentation. First, despite the influence of Pavlovian theory, no consensus could be reached on the best treatment for neurasthenia. Apart from the differences in medical systems and disciplinary allegiance, competing therapies were questioned in terms of recovery rate or feasibility (Fang and Lu, 1960). This diversity reflected the vast array of feverish attempts in an era of ‘politics in the first place’ (zhengzhi guashuai) and ‘mass line’ (Xiong, 2012). Second, a patient’s knowledge of the nature of the disease and its treatment were often deemed essential for his or her recovery. As another example, in his report on the use of electrical sleep therapy and electrical acupuncture in treating neurasthenia in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, neurologist Li (1958) underlined the importance of holding a meeting before carrying out the treatment. During the meeting, all patients were briefed on everything they needed to know about the disease, such as treatments and post-treatment care. In an era when activities such as political learning were systematically organized to re-educate the elite and the masses alike, it was normal for patients to be exposed to a highly suggestive environment in order to gain ‘correct’ knowledge of their conditions and the benefits of science and state-funded health care. This emphasis on systematic education therapy in fact resonated with the resolution of the 1958 National Working Conference on the Prevention of Mental Illness, in which top medical officials underlined the importance of work therapy, psychotherapy and Chinese medicine (Cao, 1958). Third, in spite of neurasthenia’s status as a top national mental health issue in the second half of the 1950s, no evidence so far indicates that the first-generation Chinese elite psychiatrists and neurologists were involved in the study of the disease in any systematic manner (Wu, 1959). Schizophrenia, general paresis, neurological disorders and their clinical and therapeutic studies still dominated the content of the Chinese Journal of Neurology and Psychiatry from its first publication in 1955 until the start of the Cultural Revolution in 1966. It appears that, mass approach in health policy notwithstanding, professional interest still played a role in the development of psy sciences in the early Socialist era.

Speedy and synthetic therapy

As latecomers in this culture of therapeutic experiment, the Division of Medical Psychology at the Institute of Psychology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Department of Psychiatry at the Beijing Medical College jointly played a vital role in the anti-neurasthenia movement. The pragmatism distinctive of the ‘great leap forward’ period prompted a reorganization of the Institute of Psychology. Pragmatic matters, such as education, labour and medicine, were brought to the frontline of research. Under the leadership of Ting Tsan, neurasthenia as a rampant psychogenic mental disease became the main research subject of the Division of Medical Psychology (Institute of Psychology, 2010: 14). Members of the Institute of Psychology and the Beijing Medical College then developed a method of psychotherapy that would circulate widely and draw public attention during the period. The Beijing team also studied aetiological issues to increase the cure rate. In addition, experimental psychologists joined the research team, investigating the psychological and physiological mechanisms of neurasthenic patients, including their memories and cerebral cortical function (Chang, 1959; Chen, 1964).

From the perspective of the history of psy sciences, the most noteworthy part of this collective work was the invention of the famous ‘Speedy and Synthetic Therapy’ (hereafter, SST) around 1957. A survey was conducted in Beijing University to screen the neurasthenic students. A treatment camp was then organized for a total of 80 patients without affecting their study or daily routine. Similar to what psychiatrists based in Nanjing had done a couple of years earlier, lectures on the nature, causes and treatment of the disease were given, in conjunction with feverish political study sessions. The term ‘synthetic’ derived from the fact that a collection of therapies were then applied, including insulin, psychiatric medications, electric shock, exercise, acupuncture, herbal medicine, regimen and psychotherapy. After treatment for 23 days on an outpatient basis, the cure rate was over 80% – a remarkable and ‘speedy’ success for a notoriously intractable disease (Lee et al., 1958). Very quickly, the experiment was replicated in a neighbouring steel factory and two universities. Within a year, therapeutic experiments were then performed on patients from eight factories, one people’s commune, four high schools, three artist groups, one department store and several government offices, with comparable results (Lee et al., 1959).

SST could only produce its self-proclaimed results or gain high visibility within a unique political landscape dominated by the Communist Party’s ‘politics in the first place’ and ‘mass line’ (Shen, 1958). In terms of methodology, health centres at the factories, universities and organizations mentioned above were approached by the Beijing team to provide lists of probable patients. The lists were also collected from health education gatherings organized by the investigators and through the help of Communist Youth Leagues and student councils, in order to be as thorough as possible. In the countryside, door-to-door investigation and individual interviews were conducted (Lee et al., 1959). As in the case of anti-schistosomiasis campaigns (Gross, 2016: 10–11), political consolidation and social mobilization ensured that more epidemiological studies and public health programmes could be conducted than in previous eras. Furthermore, as psychiatrists and psychologists from the Beijing team pointed out, SST was developed on the basis of extensive and aggressive political and educational work. Sessions of group therapy were held in conjunction with, or in the form of, political learning. ‘Treat the disease as well as the person’ became a slogan. Revolutionary ideas and mental health knowledge were indoctrinated through a series of public lectures and discussions within study groups. Recovering patients shared the ways through which their conception of neurasthenia had been transformed, and they gradually became the masters of the disease in ‘Health Leap Forward Rallies’. Public lectures were accompanied by individual discussions, in which the ideas and situations of the patients were examined exhaustively. As the Beijing team put it, ‘political learning is the soul of psychotherapy’ (Lee et al., 1958).

SST was a product of contemporary political culture in another sense. Given its remarkable recovery rate and the high academic standing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Beijing Medical College, SST soon gained support from local and central governments. People’s Daily published a long article by a top cadre of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences in August 1958, highly praising SST for its innovative application of Chairman Mao’s thought in the field of medicine (Zhang, 1960). Contemporary emphasis on the mass movement approach made SST replicable in other sites. Within a year of the beginning of the anti-neurasthenia campaign, aetiological studies were conducted on 43,400 individuals in Beijing, Nanjing, Chengdu and Jinan (Editorial Board, 1960). In the following six to seven years, hospitals in various provinces in China used the treatment on patients suffering from neurasthenia and other chronic diseases, such as high blood pressure, ulcers and even schizophrenia (Department of Psychiatry, Beijing Medical College, 1966; First Affiliated Hospital of Beijing Medical College, 1960).

As the SST experiment became more stable, several investigators from the Beijing team started to research the mechanism of SST and aetiological issues related to neurasthenia. Whereas Chinese political leaders mostly associated the cause of mental illness with ideological problems, the Beijing team took a more psychological approach. They pointed out that psychotherapy was an indispensable element to the success of SST. Pavlov’s theory of a second signal system was used to justify the use of language and correct information to alter the patients’ consciousness and behaviours. Furthermore, Mao Zedong’s ideas of ‘subjective initiative’ and ‘active consciousness’ were a perfect clinical and political solution to reeducate the hesitant and the undisciplined (Chang et al., 1961). For instance, in a series of articles, Li Chong-Pei, Li Xin-Tian, Xu Shu-Lian and other young members of the Beijing team stressed the role of ‘recognition’, ‘reasoning’ and ‘consciousness’ in treating neurasthenia. Considering that neurasthenia was caused by an ‘incorrect attitude’ towards the disease and its treatment, they reckoned that correct knowledge, new belief and positive emotions were essential to its cure (Institute of Psychology, 1959; Lee, 1960; Lee et al., 1960; Xu, 1964).

Interestingly, not all medical psychologists and psychiatrists within the Beijing team were of the same mind. A certain degree of freedom could be seen when political and scientific collectivism was relatively moderate. For instance, Zhong You-Bin, then a young psychiatrist working at the Beijing Medical College, studied the denial of psychogenesis by neurasthenic patients in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Originally, most patients attributed their condition to overwork or overstudying. Zhong’s (1964) study of 650 cases nonetheless suggested that the underlying cause was a certain emotionally disturbing experience that generated lasting anxiety, nervousness and conflict. At a time when Sino–Russian relations deteriorated, Zhong even used theories of French and British psychotherapists to stress the importance of working with patients to unearth psychogenic factors. As he pointed out, not until patients uncovered deep-rooted pathogenic experiences could they conquer the disease. Accordingly, Zhong disapproved of the use of ‘suggestion’ or ‘enlightenment’ in treating neuroses – a sharp contrast to or even a thinly disguised attack on Li Xin-Tian and others’ emphasis on recognition and persuasion.

According to Zhong’s later account (as reported by Cong, 2009), several senior party members ‘cured’ by SST at Beijing Medical College Hospital subsequently went to him in private for treatment. They confided that, in fact, they did not recover and remained neurasthenic after SST. The denial of the psychogenesis of their conditions was rooted in their dread of being reprimanded for low political awareness and negative personality traits. Zhong deduced that the source of their symptoms was not difficulties in nervous system dysfunction as Pavlov and his Chinese colleagues believed, but psychological conflicts caused by complex interpersonal relationships in the workplace, and intractable practical problems. This fact and other clinical observations made him, then the head of the outpatient unit, re-examine all neurasthenic patients who participated in the SST experiment and look into the ‘real’ cause of their psychological and physical conditions. Zhong’s 1964 article on the psychogenesis of neurasthenia is therefore, as it were, a rebuttal of the whole enterprise revolving around SST, which not surprisingly made him politically suspect from then onwards. What is equally noteworthy is that, as Zhong (1999: 156–9) later revealed, he and a close colleague secretly read Sigmund Freud and experimented with psychoanalysis at the height of this therapeutic optimism, a dangerous act given that psychoanalysis was harshly denounced as a bourgeois ideology and imperialist influence.

The invention and popularization of SST helps us to get a better understanding of the history of Maoist China. First, according to an aetiological study conducted by the Beijing College of Medicine in 1960, the causes of neurasthenia included psychological shocks, work- or study-related mental stress, lack of rest and sleep, physical illnesses, or maladaptation due to change of work or environment. Over half of the 100 patients that the team studied had experienced certain types of psychological shock, ranging from misfortunes of close relatives, setbacks in marriages or love relationships, conflicts between family members or co-workers, being under criticism and other life difficulties (Geng et al., 1960). Another study by Li Xin-Tian and his colleagues at the Institute of Psychology and the General Hospital of the People’s Liberation Army corroborated the finding that the external causes of neurasthenia could be attributed to maladaptation at work or study, disruption of lifestyle, and psychological trauma. Nonetheless, Li and his colleagues stressed that external causes alone could never trigger neurasthenia; one’s attitude towards these external factors, especially one’s cognitive activities and personality traits, ultimately determined whether one would become neurasthenic (Lee et al., 1960; Wang, 1961). This individualistic approach can be explained by the contemporary communist conception of mental illness. The establishment of a socialist society supposedly eradicated all the distressing class oppression, unemployment, bankruptcy and racial discrimination characteristics of capitalist society. However, in reality, social upheaval, mass political movements and demand for personal performance in work gave rise to an endemic of neurasthenia. Notwithstanding differences in opinion, the clinical accounts mentioned above offer a glimpse into the psychological lives of those living under Mao’s rule.

Second, this history of SST paints a complex picture of how psychological and psychiatric knowledge was produced in an extreme political climate. Communist China’s dependence on the Soviet Union for the development of science and technology in the early Socialist era provided an environment in which Pavlovian theory was elevated to an official ideology. Theory of higher nervous activity was mentioned in almost every article on neurasthenia that was published prior to 1958. Nevertheless, Ting Tsan’s repeated attempts at developing medical psychology in this era can be considered a continuation of his pre-war cause of institutionalizing mental hygiene in China. Mao Zedong’s ‘mass line’ and his idea of ‘active consciousness’ further added important Chinese characteristics to the seemingly Soviet hegemony. Moreover, given the Sino–Soviet split in the late 1950s, the ideas of Western psychotherapists were discussed, although only very briefly, by Chinese psy specialists. That these psy sciences were a product of Maoist China is thus an overstatement. They were in reality the result of an intricate process in which concepts, people and technologies from different places and time periods were put to work together, although sometimes in an awkward fashion and only for a brief period. As recent studies have argued, given that Pavlov’s work had diverse trajectories in different parts of the Communist world, the linear model of knowledge transfer from Soviet Russia to its satellite countries should be revised (Dobos, 2015; Zajicek, 2009). In this sense, the present study joins an increasing effort to offer a multifaceted view of psychiatric practice in the age of Communism and Totalitarianism (Ffytche and Pick, 2016; Savelli and Marks, 2015).

Legacy of the ‘great leap forward’ in neurasthenia

The study of neurasthenia in China came to a sudden halt with the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution in 1966. For the next decade, those involved in the anti-neurasthenia campaign, like tens of millions of their contemporaries, experienced hardship, destitution or even death. Ting Tsan was persecuted and denounced as an ‘anti-revolutionary’ and a ‘reactionary academic authority’, and he died in May 1968 (Institute of Psychology, 2010). Li Xin-Tian was able to secure his job as the head of the Division of Personality, Institute of Psychology, in the first years of the Revolution. From 1969 to 1972, he briefly acted as a physician at one of the labour camps established for the reformation of government cadres and intellectuals (Li et al., 2005: 24). Chairman Mao’s instruction (26 June 1965) to redirect the focus of medical care to the rural areas had a greater impact on the co-developer of SST, Li Chong-Pei. He was sent away from Beijing for 10 years and, according to his later recollection, he had to discontinue his experiments with SST (Li et al., 2005: 36). Similarly, Zhong You-Bin was forced to leave Beijing Medical College in 1965 and worked as an intern in the outpatient clinic at the Capital Iron and Steel Corporation Hospital on the outskirts of Beijing (Zhong, 1999: 158).

The Chinese Reform and Open Door Policy, which started in 1978, brought about dramatic political, social and cultural changes. Various schools of psychodynamic psychotherapy were introduced to the country from different parts of the world because of a public desire for everything psychological (Varvin and Gerlach, 2011). The few Chinese psy specialists who had had practical experience in psychotherapy were also in great demand. The 1990s and 2000s even witnessed a ‘psycho-boom’ in China (Huang, 2015). Li Xin-Tian developed his own school of psychotherapy – ‘comprehension practice therapy’– in the 1980s and 1990s, based on his previous experiment with SST. For him, this therapy was nothing but a more rounded and updated version of SST. Both were holistic therapies, the efficacy of which lay in the interaction of biological, psychological and social elements (Li et al., 2005: 24–5). Probably due to Li’s increasing influence in the fields of mental health and medical psychology, SST has been credited as the origin of contemporary Chinese psychotherapy in the quasi-official history for the young generations of psychotherapeutic professionals (Li et al., 1980). The once-marginalized Zhong You-Bin also became a master therapist in the post-Socialist era. His ‘cognitive insight therapy’ was referred to – by him, his disciples and the mass media – as ‘Chinese psychoanalysis’ (Huang, 2015; Kleinman, 1988: 25). Although Zhong was highly critical of SST for its exaggerated therapeutic effects and unsound theoretical foundation, the state-supported culture of therapeutic experiment in the late 1950s and early 1960s provided him with a chance to probe into the secrets of psychotherapy, including Freud’s psychoanalysis.

Opinions on the reception of SST and its history have been divided for the past four decades. In the late 1960s, Argentinian psychiatrist Gregorio Bermann (1968) described SST as an indigenous form of ‘rational directive psychotherapy’ developed by the Chinese at the time of waning Pavlovian influence. He also associated SST with the contemporary attempt at creating a ‘moral and social conscience’ in delinquents, prostitutes and spies. In their history of psychology in post-war China, Robert Chin and Ai-Li S. Chin (1969) noticed a similarity between Western ‘milieu therapy’ and SST. They also associated the creation of SST with the Confucian tradition of reasoning and using moral exemplars in education. Developments in transcultural psychiatry in the 1980s have helped to consolidate further the positioning of SST in the national and international scene. The eminent Taiwanese-Canadian psychiatrist Lin Tsung-Yi (1985) offered a balanced picture of the history of the anti-neurasthenia campaign. The contemporary political and social climate of mass movement facilitated the development of psychiatry in terms of clinical work, education and research. Lin further affirmed that, inasmuch as the aim of SST was to indoctrinate specific social and political ideas, its practitioners were more akin to stern school teachers than the therapists commonly seen in the Western world.

In the 1990s, when the psychological and cultural-psychiatric studies of Chinese societies were at the height of their influence, several leading Chinese and Chinese-speaking psychiatrists referred to SST as a quintessential form of ‘Eastern psychotherapy’, ‘Chinese psychotherapy’ or ‘indigenised psychotherapy’ (Tseng, 1997: 324, 387). For some Chinese mental health professionals, nevertheless, the clinical studies of and campaign against neurasthenia in the 1950s and 1960s were tainted by the exaggeration and deceit that were so emblematic of the ‘great leap forward’ (Chen, 1986; Xiao, 1995).

Criticisms aside, publications on SST and other therapies that originated from the socialist culture of therapeutic experiment as indigenous forms of Chinese psychotherapy merit further exploration. According to the general conception, extreme political climate and scientific innovation appear to belong to two incompatible categories. Mao’s mass movement approach to social change and scientific development nevertheless provided Ting Tsan and his young colleagues with an opportunity to realize their long-held dream of fostering medical psychology. With institutional support from the party-state and the scientific community, the Beijing team was able to conduct systematic epidemiological, therapeutic and clinical studies for nearly a decade. Certain crucial elements of SST came from the dominant political ideology, and Mao’s idea of ‘active consciousness’ in particular; nevertheless, Li Xin-Tian and his colleagues’ research on the function of recognition and consciousness in psychotherapy was theoretically based on modern psychology. For the core members of the Beijing team, the political and the scientific were not in the least mutually exclusive. Interestingly, Li Xin-Tian’s comprehension practice therapy, as a modern interpretation of SST, continues this emphasis on a correct understanding of the disease and of personal initiative in overcoming negative emotions. As previously mentioned, Zhong You-Bin clandestinely experimented with Freud’s psychoanalysis in the 1960s. This experience later became Zhong’s lifelong commitment to developing a psychotherapy specifically for Chinese people. Interestingly, while his post-socialist practice was substantially informed by psychoanalysis, he gradually came to underline patients’ ability, under the therapist’s guidance of course, to recognize and correct their ‘infantile’ attitude towards their neurotic symptoms (Zhong, 1999).

Conclusion

Recent studies have affirmed that the history of science and medicine in early Socialist China can be better understood from a naturalist perspective. Instead of emphasizing how science was manipulated for political aims and deprived of its autonomy, more studies have examined the ways in which politics and science intertwined in a unique historical web of relations. The control and persecution of scientists notwithstanding, certain scientific disciplines did experience some degree of growth or even considerable development. The political mobilization so characteristic of Socialist China made it possible for diseases and patients to be more easily targeted and managed. In addition, scientific and political mass movement, the influence of Soviet science, the political influence of key medical psychologists and a young and marginal science’s attempt to enhance its academic status all played a role in creating a short-lived experimental culture of neurasthenia in Maoist China. For a period, in fact just before the Cultural Revolution, a group of psy scientists seized the opportunity to develop diverse and even conflicting ways of probing and reforming newly created socialist citizens. Importantly, SST, despite being a product of political expediency, has been credited by members of the international psychiatric community as possessing certain characteristic Chinese elements.

Anthropological and cultural psychiatric studies since the mid-1980s have greatly deepened our appreciation of the cultural, emotional and moral dimension of the Chinese history of neurasthenia, especially during the Socialist period (Kleinman, 1986; Lee, 2011). The present study on the culture of therapeutic experiment and the anti-neurasthenia campaign adds another layer of complexity to this history. From the perspective of the history of psychiatry and psychology, it offers an exploration of ways in which psy scientists actively framed the disease and its experience in the public domain. In a way, the clinical studies discussed here helped to secure the status of neurasthenia as an important health issue, a recognized clinical entity and an acceptable way of expressing one’s psychophysical and social distress. Nevertheless, the real influence of Maoist psy sciences on ways in which the majority of the Chinese people experienced and managed neurasthenia in the Socialist and post-Socialist eras remains to be determined.

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