This weekend, the largest North American book festival comes to USC. The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books attracts over 130,000 visitors with the hundreds of publishers and other exhibitors, author panels, music performances, writing seminars, and more. Admission is free, though you need either a panel pass or individual panel tickets for those presentations where space is limited. Click here for details.

The USC US-China Institute is in tent #35 at the festival and we hope you’ll stop by to visit（click here for a festival map）.

Among the festival speakers who have written on China or China-related subjects are Maxine Hong Kingston, 2008 recipient of the National Book Foundation’s distinguished contribution to American letters award, Yiyun Li, 2010 MacArthur Fellow; and Pico Iyer, esteemed travel writer and author of a book on the Dalai Lama; and Yunte Huang, poet and scholar.

The Times Book Festival comes a week after "World Book and Copyright Day" - a annual celebration initiated by the United Nations Educational, Science, and Cultural Organization in 1995.China marked the day with a campaign to get people to read recommended works（in part via a "reading TV evening party," and by issuing the stamp at the left.

China’s General Administration of Press and Publishing（新闻出版总署）is in charge of such efforts. GAPP determines which publishing houses can legally operate and is responsible for providing publishers with "content guidance." In 2009, the most recent year for which GAPP has issued statistics, some 145,475 books were published for the first time and another 93,393 books were reprinted. Some 3.8 billion copies of these works were printed. According to Books in Print, in 2009 some 288,355 new titles or editions were published in the U.S.

One of the biggest selling books in China in 2009 and since is Liu Liu’s Dwelling Narrowness（六六，《蜗居》）It was originally published in 2007, but took off in 2009 when it was turned into a 35-episode television series. The novel and series tell the story of the two Guo sisters and what they do to get and hold onto a condominium. Skyrocketing housing prices make this an enormous challenge. Adultery and official corruption figure prominently in the story and producers were required to re-edit the series after it began its initial run, cutting enough to reduce the sanitized version to 33 episodes（Sohu TV streams this version）.

Liu Liu’s real name is Zhang Xin 张辛. She graduated in 1999 from Anhui University with a degree in international trade and worked in real estate in Shanghai while starting her writing career online. She now lives in Singapore.

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, one of the government`s top think tanks issued a report last year, which included this observation from the head of the National Bureau of Statistics:

"House prices in Beijing are absolutely ridiculous. When a young couple purchases a house, parents and grandparents from both sides need to help out. The collective effort of four families is required to support a young family’s decision to buy a house. Three generations of savings are thus exhausted in buying a single house."（Peter Cai, ANU translation）

The nature of and hazards posed by the housing bubble was the subject of much discussion at our spring conference on the Chinese economy. Deng Yongheng noted that, assuming a 20% down payment and a 30-year mortgage on a 90 square meter（8xx square foot）apartment, the payment to average two-earner household income ratio ranged from an affordable 31% in Chengdu to a staggering 112% in Shenzhen.

Shang Haichun 商海春, Dec. 2010（QQ blog）

In another presentation, Xiaobo Zhang noted links between the marriage market and the housing market. Whereas a generation ago, an urban man needed “three things that go around”（a bike, a watch, and a sewing machine）in order to get married, both he and rural men are now expected to have a home. In areas where there were relatively fewer women of marriageable age, houses tended to be bigger and more expensive. Shang Haichun's cartoon above was inspired last December by a poll showing that 71% of Chinese women prefer mates with homes rising prices in China were also addressed at the conference and have, in recent weeks, attracted attention from US publications:

Bloomberg Businessweek

"Inflation in China Poses Big Threat to Global Trade Inflation" and  "China Orders Banks to Raise Rates to Combat Inflation" – both from the New York Times, April 17-18, 2011

You can see all of these presentations at the USC U.S.-China Institute website or at our YouTube channel.

05/05/2011：Is There a Chinese Word for "Rashomon"? Reflections on the Many Faces of US-China Relations Past and Present

Davidson Conference Center
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089
Cost：Free
Time：4:00PM - 5:30PM

For ten years, Robert Kapp was president of the U.S.-China Business Council, the preeminent organization of companies involved in U.S.-China investment and trade. Since 2004, he’s been principal of Robert A. Kapp and Associates, a business consulting firm. Prior to assuming the Council presidency, Dr. Kapp taught Chinese history at Rice University and the University of Washington and served as editor of the Journal of Asian Studies. From 1979 to 1994, he headed two organizations, the Washington State China Relations Council and the Washington Council on International Trade. He’s frequently testified before Congress and is the author of numerous newspaper and magazine articles.

05/09/2011：China：The Pessoptimist Nation

Davidson Conference Center
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089
Cost：Free
Time：4:00PM - 5:30PM

William A. Callahan is Chair Professor of International Politics and China Studies at the University of Manchester, and Co-Director of the British Inter-University China Centre, Oxford University. His recent book, China：The Pessoptimist Nation（Oxford, 2010）, examines the relation of identity and security in China’s economic, political and cultural challenge to the world. In 2010/11 he holds a Leverhulme Research Fellowship to explore how Chinese opinion-makers and policy-makers talk about China’s future and the world’s future. More generally, Callahan’s research explores the interplay between ideas and policy, and the dynamic relationship of culture and politics. His co-edited book, China Orders the World：Normative Soft Power and Foreign Policy（Johns Hopkins）, which includes chapters from Chinese and Western experts, is out this Autumn.

05/11/2011：US-China Relations in the 21st Century：Theoretical Context and Empirical Foundations.

Davidson Conference Center
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089
Cost：Free
Time：4:00PM - 5:30PM

Yi Feng is provost and vice president for academic affairs at Claremont Graduate University. He teaches international political economy, world politics, and methodology. His research has focused on political and economic development. His China-focused publications address financial markets, labor markets, economic growth, foreign direct investment, and trade policy. His books include Democracy, Governance, and Economic Performance：Theory and Evidence and Social Security and Economic Development：Lessons For and From China.