title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: Suddenly, the area is hit by the great 1928 Okeechobee hurricane. Tea Cake is bitten by a rabid dog while saving Janie from drowning and becomes increasingly jealous and unpredictable. When he tries to shoot Janie with his pistol, she fatally shoots him with a rifle in self-defense and is charged with murder.


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: At the trial, Tea Cake's black male friends show up to oppose her, but a group of local white women arrive to support Janie. After the all-white jury acquits Janie, she gives Tea Cake a lavish funeral. Tea Cake's friends forgive her, asking her to remain in the Everglades. However, she decides to return to Eatonville. As she expected, the residents gossip about her when she returns to town. The story ends where it started, as Janie finishes recounting her life to Pheoby.


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: The novel explores traditional gender roles and the relationship between men and women. Nanny believes that Janie should marry a man not for love but for "protection" Janie's first two husbands, Logan Killicks and Jody Starks, both believe Janie should be defined by her marriage to them. Both men want her to be domesticated and silent. Her speech, or silence, is defined by her physical locations, most often. For example, Starks forces her silence at the store, a public—and therefore, male space at the time. He says, "... Muh wife don't know nothin' bout no speech-makin'. Ah never married her for nothin' lak dat. She's ah woman[,] and her place is in de home." Janie is also forbidden from socializing with the townspeople on the porch. Tea Cake is Janie's last husband, who treats her as more of an equal than Killicks and Starks did, by talking to her and playing checkers with her. Despite this, Tea Cake does hit Janie to show his possession over her. Thus, Janie's life seems defined by her relation to domineering males.


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: Scholars argue that, in "Their Eyes Were Watching God", the role of masculinity is portrayed through the subordination and objectification of women. In a reflection of post-slavery Florida, black men are subordinate only to their white employers and adhere to white patriarchal institutions of masculinity in which women are held in a positive social regard only if they are attractive, are married, or have attained financial security via previous marriages. Black women, specifically, face greater oppression, as their own struggle for independence was considered counter-productive to the greater fight for equality for black Americans as a whole. Nanny explains this hierarchical structure early on to Janie when she says, "Honey, de white man is de ruler of everything...white man throw down the load and tell de nigger man to pick it up. He picks it up because he has to, but he doesn't tote it. He hands it to his womenfolks."


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: In the book, men view women as an object to pursue, acquire, and control through courting, manipulation, and even physical force. Janie's journey for the discovery of her self-identity and independence is depicted through her pursuit of true love—her dream—through marriages to three different men. Each of the men she marries conforms in some way to gender norms of the day. The role of femininity is portrayed through the symbolism of property, mules, and elements in nature. Women in the book are considered a trophy prize for males, to simply look pretty and obey their husbands. The analogy of the Mule and Women is stated repetitively in the book and is used to represent the gender role of women. Janie's Nanny explained to Janie at a young age how African-American women were objectified as mules. "De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so far as Ah can see." Mules are typically bought and sold by farmers, usually to be used to work until exhaustion. Later in the book, Janie realizes that Nanny's warnings were true when she identifies with an abused mule in Eatonville. She sees herself as a working animal with no voice, there for the amusement of others and at the expense of her own free will. This identification is shown in the book when the townspeople are laughing at the mule that Jody had eventually bought and rescued (in an attempt to manipulate Janie). However, Janie doesn't laugh alongside the townspeople as she is shown to empathize with the mule ("Everybody was having fun at the mule-baiting. All but Janie") and she feels disgusted by the situation. The mule represents the feminine gender role in the story by which men suppress and degrade women who are stereotyped as unable to think for themselves and needing constant guidance from men. These stereotypes "become a chain on the American women, preventing them from developing individuality, and from pursuing their personal happiness" and ultimately what forces them to mold into their gender role.


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: Janie Crawford is the main character of "Their Eyes Were Watching God". At the beginning of the story, she is described as naive, beautiful, and energetic. However, as the story progresses, Janie is constantly under the influence and pressure of gender norms within her romantic relationships. As she navigates each of her relationships with men, Janie ultimately loses her confidence and self-image, conforming to roles that the husbands want her to fill.


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: In Janie's first relationship, she was given as a wife by Nanny at an early age and was told that love may come with marriage but that it was not important. However, as time passed, Janie was unable to love Logan. "She began to cry. 'Ah wants things sweet wid mah marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think.'" As time passed on, Logan began forcing Janie to confirm to a traditional lifestyle, telling her that he would buy a mule for her so that she could work. However, Janie was strong-minded and Logan made little progress on changing Janie. Janie raised her voice, but still, she remained susceptible to suppression and abuse. "You ain't got no particular place. It's wherever Ah need yuh. Git a move on yuh, and dat quck."


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: Then, in Janie's second relationship, she left Logan Killicks in an attempt to pursue a better future with her new husband, Joe Starks. Joe was the Mayor of Eatonville and achieved incredible wealth, placing Janie in a higher status than her peers, since she was "sleeping with authority, seating in a higher chair". Janie believed that her life would change for the better. However, she was confined in the roles of a housewife and was made to be Joe's prized possession. "The king's mule, and the king's pleasure is everything she is there for, nothing else".


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: In Janie's third and last relationship, she was able to experience true love, on her own terms, with her third husband Vergible "Tea Cake" Woods. Janie was older than Tea Cake by nearly twelve years. He loved and treated her better than her previous husbands. While she was no longer strictly confined by the gender roles placed upon her by her previous husbands, she was still easily influenced and manipulated by Tea Cake. Janie was forced to shoot and kill Tea Cake in self defense after he developed rabies.


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: Logan Killicks is Janie's first husband. Shortly after Nanny observes Janie sharing her first kiss with a boy named Johnny Taylor—and therefore showing signs of puberty—she informs Janie that she was promised to Logan Killicks, a widower, from a young age for her own well-being and protection. Logan owns a farm with 60 acres of land. He grows and sells potatoes as well as chops and delivers wood. He has one mule to plow the fields and decides that he needs to add another to the stable. Though Janie hopes that it will grow, there is never any gentleness or love between her and Logan. She is 15 or 16 years old when she is married off to Logan and later, she grows to resent her grandmother for selling her off, like a slave.<ref name="Hurston 2006 https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780060838676/page/89 89"></ref> Their marriage is purely based on logic, work and convenience— he is a man with property and he needs a wife while Nanny is an aging woman raising her grandchild alone, and she needs to secure Janie's future. There is little regard for Janie's happiness as Nanny believes Logan to be a good husband based on his financial prospects alone.


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: Logan has traditional views on marriage. He believes that a man should be married to a woman, and that she should be his property and work hard. Everyone contributes to tending the family land. He believes Janie should work well from dawn to dusk, in the field as well as the house, and do as she is told. She is analogous to a mule or other working animal. He is not an attractive man by Janie's description of him and seems to be aware of this. As such, his prospects at finding a mate based on attraction and his age are slim, thus the reason for approaching Nanny early on about an arrangement of marriage to Janie when she comes of age.


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: During the course of their brief marriage, Logan attempts to subjugate Janie with his words and attempts to make her work beyond the gender roles in a typical marriage. He does not appreciate her streaks of independence when she refuses his commands and he uses her family history to try to manipulate her into being submissive to him. At one point, he threatens to kill her for her insubordination in a desperate and final attempt to control her.


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: Joe "Jody" Starks is Janie's second husband. He is charismatic, charming and has big plans for his future. Janie, being young and naive, is easily seduced by his efforts to convince her to leave Logan. Ultimately, Joe is successful in gaining Janie's trust and so she joins him on his journey. Joe views Janie as a princess or royalty to be displayed on a pedestal. Because of her youth, inexperience, and desire to find true love, Jody easily controls and manipulates her into submitting to his male authority.


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: Joe Starks is a man who is strong, organized and a natural leader. He has money from his time working for white men and he now aims to settle in a new community made up of African-Americans, a place in its infancy where he can make a name for himself. Joe quickly establishes himself as an authoritative figure around the town which has no determined name or governance of any kind when he and Janie arrive. With the money he has, he buys land, organizes the townsfolk, becomes the owner-operator of the general store and post office, and is eventually named Mayor of Eatonville. Joe strives for equality with white men, particularly the mayor of the white town across the river from Eatonville. To attain this status he requires nice things: the largest white house, a nice desk and chair, a gilded spitoon, and a beautiful wife. He is a larger-than-life character and during their time in Eatonville, he has grown an equally large belly and taken up the habit of chewing nice cigars, both of which cement his status with the locals as an important man around town. Joe, like most of the men in the book, believes that women are incapable of thinking and caring for themselves. He likens them to children and livestock that need constant tending and direction. “Somebody’s got to think for the women and chillen and chickens and cows. God, they sho don't think none fo themselves.”


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: Jody is a jealous man, and because of this he grows more and more possessive and controlling of Janie. He expects her to dress a certain way (buying her the finest of clothes, with tight corsets) and requires that she wear her long, beautiful hair—symbolic of her free spirit and femininity— covered and up in a bun, so as not to attract too much unwanted attention from the other men in Eatonville. He considers her long hair to be for his enjoyment alone. He excludes her from various events and the social gatherings in Eatonville to further his dominance and control over her. He restricts her from being friendly with the other townswomen, requiring her to behave in a separate and superior manner.


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: Tea Cake is Janie's third and final husband. He is her ideal partner in her search for true love. He is charismatic, charming, funny, and creative with a tendency to embellish stories. To Janie, he is larger than life, wise, and genuinely cares for her. Tea Cake is loving towards Janie and respectful of her as her own individual person. Unlike her previous two marriages, Tea Cake never stops trying to make her happy. He is more than willing to share with her what he has learned from his own experiences and show her the greater world outside of her own existence. He enjoys being with Janie and playing the role of a teacher. Through Tea Cake, Janie learns to shoot a rifle, play checkers, and fish among other activities.


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: However, Tea Cake shows tendencies of patriarchal dominance and psychological abuse towards Janie, somewhat like in her previous two marriages. He isn't always truthful with her - in a show of male dominance in their relationship, Tea Cake takes $200 from Janie without her knowledge or permission and spends it on a nice guitar and a lavish party with others around town without including her in the festivities. While accounting for his spending of her money, he tells Janie that he had to pay women that he deemed unattractive $2 each to keep them from the party. He then gambles the remaining amount to make the money back, telling her to put it in the bank and to only rely off of him and whatever money he could make. What differentiates him from Joe in this regard is that Janie regularly confronts him and he acquiesces to her demand that she not be excluded from aspects of his life.


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: Another tendency that Tea Cake shares with Joe is his jealousy and need to maintain some amount of control over Janie. When he overhears another woman, Mrs. Turner, speaking poorly to Janie about Tea Cake and attempting to set her up with her brother, Tea Cake decides to take matters into his own hands. He initially discusses it with Janie, but when Mrs. Turner's brother actually comes to town, he slaps his wife around in front of Mrs. Turner and others to show them that he is in charge and to assert his ownership over her. He ends up successfully executing an elaborate plan to ruin her establishment.


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: In the end, Tea Cake plays the role of hero to Janie when he saves her from drowning and being attacked by a rabid dog. Tea Cake himself is bitten and eventually succumbs to the disease. Not able to think rationally and enraged with jealousy, he physically attacks Janie and she is forced to shoot and kill Tea Cake.


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: Janie is constantly searching for her own voice and identity throughout the novel. She is often without a voice in relation to her husbands as she will not fight back. Janie is also encounter situations that make her feel that her value as an African-American woman is little to none. She is seen as distinct from other women in the novel, who follow traditions and do not find a life independent of men. Janie's physical appeal becomes a basis of Starks and Tea Cake to have jealousy and belittle her looks. Starks orders Janie to cover her long hair as other men are attracted to it. Similarly, Tea Cake remarks on Janie's lighter skin and her appeal to Mrs. Turner's brother. But Janie begins to feel liberated in her marriage with Tea Cake because he treats her as an equal and mostly does not look down on her. As a result, she loves him more than she did the other two spouses.


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: Janie does not find complete independence as a woman until after the death of Tea Cake. She returns to Eatonville with her hair down and she sits on her own porch chatting with her friend Pheoby. By the end of the novel, she has overcome traditional roles and cultivates an image of the "liberated black woman."


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: Janie grew up under the care of her grandmother, Nanny. Her experiences as a slave and freedwoman shaped the way Nanny saw the world. She hoped to protect Janie, by forcing her to marry Logan Killicks, although he was older and not attractive. Janie followed her grandmother's advice but found that it wouldn't be as easy to love him as Nanny had suggested. African Americans believed in marriage during the early 20th century because they had been prevented from such legal protection under slavery. Unhappy in her marriage to Logan, Janie runs off with Starks and commits bigamy. After the death of Starks, Janie meets Tea Cake and they fall in love. Her community thought he was a broke nobody and were suspicious of him. Tea Cake wasn't the perfect man, but better than expected by the community of Eatonville.


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: During the early 20th century, the African-American community asked African-American women to set aside self-realization and self-affirmation values. They imposed male-dominated values and often controlled who women married. Janie suffered domestic violence in her marriages with Joe Starks and Tea Cake. Starks initially seemed to be good for Janie, but later beat her several times, in an effort to exert his authority over her. Despite her husband's physical and emotional abuse, Janie did not complain, behavior that was approved by the townsmen. Domestic abuse was not entirely disapproved by the African-American community, and men thought it was acceptable to control their women this way. After Starks' death, Janie was freed from his abuse. Tea Cake was kinder to her and respected her, but he was occasionally abusive toward her, such as when he beat her in order to show his dominance when another man seemed to make a pass at Janie. As a result, it is only after Tea Cake's death that she is fully liberated from the threat of domestic violence.


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: The early 1900s was a time in which patriarchal ideals were accepted and seen as the norm. Throughout the novel, Janie on multiple occasions suffers from these ideals. In her relationships, she is being ordered around by the man, but she did not question it, whether in the kitchen or bedroom. Janie in many ways expresses her growing distance from the sexual and social norms. After the death of Starks, Janie goes to his funeral wearing black and formal clothes. But for Tea Cake's funeral, she wears workers' blue overalls, showing that she cared less for what society thought of her as she got older. In addition, critics say that Tea Cake was the vehicle for Janie's liberation. She went from working in the kitchen and indoors to working more "manly" jobs, such as helping in the fields, fishing, and hunting. Tea Cake offered her a partnership; he didn't see her as an object to be controlled and possessed through marriage.


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: Throughout the novel, Hurston vividly displays how African American women are valued, or devalued, in their marital relationships. By doing so, she takes the reader on a journey through Janie's life and her marriages. Janie formed her initial idea of marriage off the beautiful image of unity she witnessed between a pear tree and a bee. This image and expectation sets Janie up for disappointment when it came time to marry. From her marriage to Logan Killicks to Tea Cake, Janie was forced to acknowledge where she stood as a powerless female in her relationship.


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: Starting with her marriage to Logan, Janie was put in a place where she was expected to prove her value with hard work. On top of all the physical labor expected from her, Janie endured constant insults and physical beatings from her male counterparts. Hoping for more value, Janie decides to leave Logan and run off with Joe Starks. However, in reaction to this decision, she's only faced with more beating and devaluement. Joe expected her stay in the home, work in the kitchen, and when she was in public, Janie was expected to cover her hair and avoid conversation with the locals. With one last hope, Janie engaged in a marriage with Tea Cake, a younger man, and things finally seemed to look up for her, even though she was still expected to help in the fields and tend to her womanly duties. Overall, throughout her marriages, Janie experienced the hardships that most African American women went through at that time. From the physical labor to the physical beatings, Janie was presented with the life that a woman was expected to live. [See detailed argument and synopsis in Addison Gayle, Jr.'s article, "The Outsider"]


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: Janie was able to feel like a woman in her third marriage with Tea Cake. In her first marriage with Logan she was being controlled by her husband. She didn't feel like a woman in her first marriage. She didn't feel any love or affection either. In her second marriage with Jody, she was able to experience independence as a woman. With Jody's death, she became in charge of the store and his property. She was able to experience freedom and an economic stable life. She learned about ownership, self determination, self ruling, and home ruling. In her last marriage with Tea Cake Janie experienced true love. But she also learned who she was as an African American woman. Throughout her marriages she learned how to value herself as a woman, an African American woman, and a hard working woman.


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: The novel is written in dialect and colloquial language that expresses it as a story of a black woman from Southern United States. Throughout the novel, Janie serves both as protagonist as well as occasional narrator, detailing the events of her life, her three marriages, and the aftermath of each, that eventually lead to her return to Eatonville. This is done with two contrasting writing styles, one in standard English prose when the narration is done in third person, and the other making use of black Southern vernacular in dialogue. The theme of having a voice and being able to speak out is a prevalent theme throughout the novel. During her first two marriages to Logan Killicks and Joe Starks, Janie is subjugated and held under their rule, the former comparing her to another mule to work his field and the latter keeping her in a powerless position of domesticity. Throughout both marriages she finds herself without the ability to speak out or to express herself, and when she tries she is usually shut down. This leaves her feeling like a "rut in the road," the isolation taking its toll until she finally confronts Joe and attacks his ego with a verbal assault against his manhood. The effect this takes is that it leaves Joe resenting Janie and in effect destroys what is left of their marriage. When Janie marries Tea Cake, we see how language affects the way Janie begins to feel about herself. The way Tea Cake speaks to her allows her to find the freedom in her own voice and to begin to learn how to use it. We are able to see how language helps Janie grow as a person once she learns that her voice is her power.


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: While the novel is written about Black people in the South, it is not primarily a book about a racist society. Nanny is the first character to discuss the effects of slavery. "Ah was born back due in slavery so it wasn't for me to fulfil my dreams of whut a woman oughta be and to do. Dat's one of de hold-backs of slavery." The novel is mostly concerned with differences within the black community. Starks is compared to the master of a plantation, as he has a huge house in the centre of the town. "The rest of town looked like servants' quarters surrounding the 'big house'. Starks becomes a figure of authority because he has money and is determined to create the first black town. But his plans seem to result in a town where people impose their own hierarchy. "Us talks about de white man keepin' us down! Shucks! He don't have tuh. Us keeps our own selves down." When Janie marries Tea Cake and moves to the Everglades, she becomes friendly with Mrs. Turner. This woman compliments Janie on her light skin and European features, from her mixed-race ancestry. Turner disapproves of her marriage to Tea Cake, as he is darker skinned and more "African" looking.


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: Perhaps the strongest inspiration for Hurston's writing of "Their Eyes Were Watching God" was her former lover Percival Punter. Hurston writes in her autobiography that the romance between Janie and Tea Cake was inspired by a tumultuous love affair. She described falling in love with the man as "a parachute jump". Like Janie in the novel, Hurston was significantly older than her lover. Like Jody, Punter was sexually dominant and sometimes violent. Hurston wrote "Their Eyes Were Watching God" three weeks after the tumultuous conclusion of her relationship with Punter. She wrote in her autobiography that she had "tried to embalm all the tenderness of [her] passion for him." With this emotional inspiration, Hurston went on to paint the picture of "Their Eyes Were Watching God" using her personal experience and research as a template.


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: In 1927, a decade before writing "Their Eyes Were Watching God", Hurston traveled south to collect folk songs and folk tales through an anthropological research fellowship arranged by her Barnard College mentor Franz Boas. The all-black Eatonville of "Their Eyes Were Watching God" is based on the all-black town of the same name in which Hurston grew up. The town's weekly announced in 1889, "Colored People of the United States: Solve the great race problem by securing a home in Eatonville, Florida, a Negro city governed by negroes." The hurricane that symbolizes the climax of Hurston's story also has an historical inspiration; in 1928, "a hurricane ravaged both coastal and inland areas of Florida, bringing torrential rains that broke the dikes of Lake Okeechobee near Belle Glade". Scholars of the African diaspora note the cultural practices common to the Caribbean, Africa, and the United States in "Their Eyes Were Watching God".


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: Hurston wrote "Their Eyes Were Watching God" while living in Belle Glade, at the home of Harvey Poole, who, as manager of one of the local labor camps, informed her tremendously about bean picking, and the labors of African-Americans on the muckland. The book was also written while on a Guggenheim Fellowship in Haiti to research Obeah practices in the West Indies.


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: Hurston's political views in "Their Eyes Were Watching God" were met with resistance from several leading Harlem Renaissance authors.


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: Novelist and essayist Richard Wright condemned "Their Eyes Were Watching God", writing in a review for "New Masses" (1937):


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: Miss Hurston seems to have no desire whatsoever to move in the direction of serious fiction… [She] can write; but her prose is cloaked in that facile sensuality that has dogged Negro expression since the days of Phyllis Wheatley... Her characters eat and laugh and cry and work and kill; they swing like a pendulum eternally in that safe and narrow orbit in which America likes to see the Negro live: between laughter and tears.


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: Alain Locke wrote in a review: "when will the Negro novelist of maturity, who knows how to tell a story convincingly—which is Miss Hurston's cradle gift, come to grips with motive fiction and social document fiction?"


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: "The New Republic"s Otis Ferguson wrote: "it isn't that this novel is bad, but that it deserves to be better". But he went on to praise the work for depicting "Negro life in its naturally creative and unselfconscious grace".


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: Not all African-American critics had negative things to say about Hurston's work. Carter G. Woodson, founder of "The Journal of Negro History" wrote, ""Their Eyes Were Watching God" is a gripping story... the author deserves great praise for the skill and effectiveness shown in the writing of this book." The critic noted Hurston's anthropological approach to writing, "She studied them until she thoroughly understood the working of their minds, learned to speak their language".


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: Meanwhile, reviews of Hurston's book in the mainstream white press were largely positive, although they did not translate into significant retail sales. Writing for "The New York Times", Ralph Thompson states:[T]he normal life of Negroes in the South today—the life with its holdovers from slave times, its social difficulties, childish excitements, and endless exuberances... compared to this sort of story, the ordinary narratives of Negroes in Harlem or Birmingham seem ordinary indeed."


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: For the "New York Herald Tribune", Sheila Hibben described Hurston as writing "with her head as with her heart" creating a "warm, vibrant touch". She praised "Their Eyes Were Watching God" as filled with "a flashing, gleaming riot of black people, with a limitless sense of humor, and a wild, strange sadness".


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: "New York Times" critic Lucille Tompkins described "Their Eyes Were Watching God", thusly: "It is about Negroes... but really it is about every one, or at least every one who isn't so civilized that he has lost the capacity for glory."


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: As universities across the country developed Black Studies programs in the 1970s and 1980s, they created greater space for Black literature in academia. Several prominent academics, including Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Addison Gayle, Jr., established a new "Black Aesthetic" that "placed the sources of contemporary black literature and culture in the communal music and oral folk tradition". This new respect coupled with a growing Black feminism led by Mary Helen Washington, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, and others, would create the space for the rediscovery of Hurston.


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: Hurston first achieved a level of mainstream institutional support in the 1970s. Walker published an essay, "Looking for Zora", in "Ms." magazine in 1975. In that work, she described how the Black community's general rejection of Hurston was like "throwing away a genius". The National Endowment for the Humanities went on to award Robert Hemenway two grants for his work to write Hurston's biography. The 1977 biography was followed in 1978 by the re-issue of "Their Eyes Were Watching God".


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: In 1975, the Modern Language Association held a special seminar focusing on Hurston. In 1981, professor Ruth Sheffey of Baltimore's Morgan State University founded the Zora Neale Hurston Society. Hurston had attended the school, then known as Morgan Academy, in 1917.


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: In 1978, Harper and Row leased its rights to "Their Eyes Were Watching God" to the University of Illinois Press. However, the printing was so profitable that Harper and Row refused to renew the leasing contract and instead reprinted its own new edition. This new edition sold its total print of 75,000 in less than a month.


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: The "New York Times" Virginia Heffernan explains that the book's "narrative technique, which is heavy on free-indirect discourse, lent itself to poststructuralist analysis". With so many new disciplines especially open to the themes and content of Hurston's work, "Their Eyes Were Watching God" achieved growing prominence in the last several decades. It is now firmly established in the literary canon.


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: On November 5, 2019, the "BBC News" listed "Their Eyes Were Watching God" on its list of the 100 most influential novels.


title: Their Eyes Were Watching God

text: In a conversation with Jody, Janie defends 'womenfolk,' disagreeing with the sexist claim that God made men "different" because they turn "out so smart" (70). When she states that men "don't know half as much as you think you do," Jody interrupts her saying, 'you getting too moufy Janie... Go fetch me de checker-board and de checkers' (70–71) so that he and the other men could play (Bernard 9).


title: European emission standards

text: The European emission standards are vehicle emission standards for pollution from the use of new land surface vehicles sold in the European Union and EEA member states and the UK, and ships in EU waters. The standards are defined in a series of European Union directives staging the progressive introduction of increasingly stringent standards.


title: European emission standards

text: , the standards do not include non-exhaust emissions such as particulates from tyres and brakes. Details of Euro 7 have been postponed to 12 October 2022.


title: European emission standards

text: In the European Union, emissions of nitrogen oxides (), total hydrocarbon (THC), non-methane hydrocarbons (NMHC), carbon monoxide (CO) and particulate matter (PM) are regulated for most vehicle types, including cars, trucks (lorries), locomotives, tractors and similar machinery, barges, but excluding seagoing ships and aeroplanes. For each vehicle type, different standards apply. Compliance is determined by running the engine at a standardised test cycle. Non-compliant vehicles cannot be sold in the EU, but new standards do not apply to vehicles already on the roads. No use of specific technologies is mandated to meet the standards, though available technology is considered when setting the standards. New models introduced must meet current or planned standards, but minor lifecycle model revisions may continue to be offered with pre-compliant engines.


title: European emission standards

text: Along with Emissions standards the European Union has also mandated a number of computer on-board diagnostics for the purposes of increasing safety for drivers. These standards are used in relation to the emissions standards.


title: European emission standards

text: In the early 2000s, Australia began harmonising Australian Design Rule certification for new motor vehicle emissions with Euro categories. Euro III was introduced on 1 January 2006 and is progressively being introduced to align with European introduction dates.


title: European emission standards

text: The stages are typically referred to as Euro 1, Euro 2, Euro 3, Euro 4, Euro 5 and Euro 6 for Light Duty Vehicle standards.


title: European emission standards

text: The legal framework consists in a series of directives, each amendments to the 1970 Directive 70/220/EEC. The following is a summary list of the standards, when they come into force, what they apply to, and which EU directives provide the definition of the standard.


title: European emission standards

text: Emission standards for passenger cars and light commercial vehicles are summarised in the following tables. Since the Euro 2 stage, EU regulations introduce different emission limits for diesel and petrol vehicles. Diesels have more stringent CO standards but are allowed higher emissions. Petrol-powered vehicles are exempted from particulate matter (PM) standards through to the Euro 4 stage, but vehicles with direct injection engines are subject to a limit of 0.0045 g/km for Euro 5 and Euro 6. A particulate number standard (P) or (PN) has been introduced in 2011 with Euro 5b for diesel engines and in 2014 with Euro 6 for petrol engines.


title: European emission standards

text: From a technical perspective, European emissions standards do not reflect everyday usage of the vehicle as manufacturers are allowed to lighten the vehicle by removing the back seats, improve aerodynamics by taping over grilles and door handles or reduce the load on the generator by switching off the headlights, the passenger compartment fan or simply disconnecting the alternator which charges the battery.


title: European emission standards

text: The Euro emissions regulations for two and three wheelers (motorcycles) were first introduced in 1999 – some seven years after the cars were first regulated. In further difference to passenger cars (where three-way catalytic converters were de facto required from Euro I) it was first with the introduction of the Euro III emissions standard in 2006, that motorcycles were de facto required to utilize three-way catalytic converters. With the introduction of the Euro V, standard two-stroke engine motorcycles are challenged by the strict HC and PM emissions limits. It is expected that technologies such as direct injection combined with petrol particulate filters could be needed for these motorcycle engine types in order to meet the Euro V demands.


title: European emission standards

text: European emission standards for light commercial vehicles ≤ 1,305 kg reference mass (Category N Class I), g/km


title: European emission standards

text: European emission standards for light commercial vehicles 1,305–1,760 kg reference mass (Category N Class II), g/km


title: European emission standards

text: European emission standards for light commercial vehicles > 1,760 kg reference mass max 3,500 kg. (Category N Class III & N), g/km


title: European emission standards

text: The emission standards for trucks (lorries) and buses are defined by engine energy output in g/kWh; this is unlike the emission standards for passenger cars and light commercial vehicles, which are defined by vehicle driving distance in g/km – a general comparison to passenger cars is therefore not possible, as the kWh/km factor depends (among other) on the specific vehicle.


title: European emission standards

text: The following table contains a summary of the emission standards and their implementation dates. Dates in the tables refer to new type approvals; the dates for all new registrations are in most cases one year later.


title: European emission standards

text: Enhanced environmentally friendly vehicle or EEV is a term used in the European emission standards for the definition of a "clean vehicle" > 3.5 tonne in the category M and M. The standard lies between the levels of Euro V and Euro VI.


title: European emission standards

text: The term "non-road mobile machinery" (NRMM) is a term used in the European emission standards to control emissions of engines that are not used primarily on public roadways. This definition includes off-road vehicles as well as railway vehicles.


title: European emission standards

text: European standards for non-road diesel engines harmonize with the US EPA standards, and comprise gradually stringent tiers known as Stage I–V standards. The Stage I/II was part of the 1997 directive (Directive 97/68/EC). It was implemented in two stages with Stage I implemented in 1999 and Stage II implemented between 2001 and 2004. In 2004, the European Parliament adopted Stage III/IV standards. The Stage III standards were further divided into Stage III A and III B were phased in between 2006 and 2013. Stage IV standards are enforced from 2014. Stage V standards are phased-in from 2018 with full enforcement from 2021.


title: European emission standards

text: As of 1 January 2015, EU Member States have to ensure that ships in the Baltic, the North Sea and the English Channel are using fuels with a sulphur content of no more than 0.10%. Higher sulphur contents are still possible, but only if the appropriate exhaust cleaning systems are in place.


title: European emission standards

text: Just as important as the regulations are the tests needed to ensure adherence to regulations. These are laid out in standardised emission test cycles used to measure emissions performance against the regulatory thresholds applicable to the tested vehicle.


title: European emission standards

text: Since the Euro 3 regulations in 2000, performance has been measured using the New European Driving Cycle test (NEDC; also known as MVEG-B), with a "cold start" procedure that eliminates the use of a 40-second engine warm-up period found in the ECE+EUDC test cycle (also known as MVEG-A).


title: European emission standards

text: The two groups of emissions standards for heavy duty vehicles each have different appropriate test requirements. Steady-state testing is used for diesel engines only, while transient testing applies to both diesel and petrol engines.


title: European emission standards

text: For the emission standards to deliver actual emission reductions it is crucial to use a test cycle that reflects real-world driving conditions. It was discovered that vehicle manufacturers would optimise emissions performance only for the test cycle, whilst emissions from typical driving conditions proved to be much higher than when tested. Some manufacturers were also found to use so-called "defeat devices" where the engine control system would recognise that the vehicle was being tested, and would automatically switch to a mode optimised for emissions performance. The use of a defeat device is expressly forbidden in EU law.


title: European emission standards

text: An independent study in 2014 used portable emissions measurement systems to measure emissions during real world driving from fifteen Euro 6 compliant diesel passenger cars. The results showed that emissions were on average about seven times higher than the Euro 6 limit. However, some of the vehicles did show reduced emissions, suggesting that real world emission control is possible. In one particular instance, research in diesel car emissions by two German technology institutes found that zero 'real' reductions in public health risk had been achieved despite 13 years of stricter standards (2006 report).


title: European emission standards

text: In 2015, the Volkswagen emissions scandal involved revelations that Volkswagen AG had deliberately falsified emission reports by programming engine management unit firmware to detect test conditions, and change emissions controls when under test. The cars thus passed the test, but in real world conditions, emitted up to forty times more emissions than allowed by law. An independent report in September 2015 warned that this extended to "every major car manufacturer", with BMW, and Opel named alongside Volkswagen and its sister company Audi as "the worst culprits", and that approximately 90% of diesel cars "breach emissions regulations". Overlooking the direct responsibility of the companies involved, the authors blamed the violations on a number of factors, including "unrealistic test conditions, a lack of transparency and a number of loopholes in testing protocols".


title: European emission standards

text: In 2017, the European Union introduced testing in real-world conditions called Real Driving Emissions (RDE), using portable emissions measurement systems in addition to laboratory tests. The actual limits will use 110% (CF=2.1) "conformity factor" (the difference between the laboratory test and real-world conditions) in 2017, and 50% (CF=1.5) in 2021 for , conformity factor for particles number P being left for further study. Environment organizations criticized the decision as insufficient, while ACEA mentions it will be extremely difficult for automobile manufacturers to reach such a limit in such short period of time. In 2015 an ADAC study (ordered by ICCT) of 32 Euro 6 cars showed that few complied with on-road emission limits, and LNT/NOx adsorber cars (with about half the market) had the highest emissions. At the end of this study, ICCT was expecting a 100% conformity factor.


title: European emission standards

text: NEDC Euro 6b not to exceed limit of 80 mg/km will then continue to apply for the WLTC Euro 6c tests performed on a dynomometer while WLTC-RDE will be performed in the middle of the traffic with a PEMS attached at the rear of the car. RDE testing is then far more difficult than the dynomometer tests. RDE not to exceed limits have then been updated to take into account different test conditions such as PEMS weight (305–533 kg in various ICCT testing), driving in the middle of the traffic, road gradient, etc.


title: European emission standards

text: ADAC also performed emission tests with a cycle representative of the real driving environment in the laboratory. Among the 69 cars tested:


title: European emission standards

text: Since 2012, ADAC performs regular pollutant emission tests on a specific cycle in the laboratory duly representing a real driving environment and gives a global notation independent from the type of engine used (petrol, diesel, natural gas, LPG, hybrid, etc.). To get the maximum 50/50 note on this cycle, the car shall emit less than the minimum limit applicable to either petrol or diesel car, that is to say 100 mg HC, 500 mg CO, 60 mg , 3 mg PM and PN. Unlike ambient discourse dirty diesel versus clean petrol cars, the results are much more nuanced and subtle. Some Euro 6 diesel cars perform as well as the best hybrid petrol cars; some other recent Euro 6 petrol indirect injection cars perform as the worst Euro 5 diesel cars; finally some petrol hybrid cars are at the same level as the best Euro 5 diesel cars.


title: European emission standards

text: Tests commissioned by Which? from the beginning of 2017 found that 47 out of 61 diesel car models exceed the Euro 6 limit for , although they conform to official standards.


title: European emission standards

text: After the postponement in publishing the Euro 7 proposal details by the European Commission some civil society groups (such as the European Respiratory Society and the European Public Health Alliance) said in mid-2022: "Every month that the implementation of Euro 7 is delayed due to the late publication of the proposal, 1 million more polluting cars will be placed on the EU’s road and stay there for decades to come."


title: European emission standards

text: Within the European Union transport is the biggest emitter of , with road transport contributing about 20%.


title: European emission standards

text: The purpose of "Directive 1999/94/EC of the European Parliament and the Council of 13 December 1999 relating to the availability of consumer information on fuel economy and emissions in respect of the marketing of new passenger cars" is to ensure that information relating to the fuel economy and emissions of new passenger cars offered for sale or lease in the Community is made available to consumers in order to enable consumers to make an informed choice.


title: European emission standards

text: In the United Kingdom, the initial approach was deemed ineffective. The way the information was presented was too complicated for consumers to understand. As a result, car manufacturers in the United Kingdom voluntarily agreed to put a more “consumer-friendly,” colour-coded label displaying emissions on all new cars beginning in September 2005, with a letter from A (<100 g/km) to F (186+ g/km). The goal of the new “green label” is to give consumers clear information about the environmental performance of different vehicles.


title: European emission standards

text: European Union Directive No 443/2009 set a mandatory average fleet emissions target for new cars, after a voluntary commitment made in 1998 and 1999 by the auto industry had failed to reduce emissions by 2007. The regulation applies to new passenger cars registered in the European Union and EEA member states for the first time. A carmaker who fails to comply has to pay an "excess emissions premium" for each vehicle registered according with the amount of g/km of exceeded.


title: European emission standards

text: The 2009 regulation set a 2015 target of 130 g/km for the fleet average for new passenger cars. A similar set of regulations for light commercial vehicles was set in 2011, with an emissions target of 175 g/km for 2017. Both targets were met several years in advance. A second set of regulations, passed in 2014, set a 2021 target of average emissions of new cars to fall to 95 g/km by 2021, and for light-commercial vehicles to 147 g/km by 2020.


title: European emission standards

text: In April 2019, Regulation (EU) 2019/631 was adopted, which introduced emission performance standards for new passenger cars and new light commercial vehicles for 2025 and 2030. The new Regulation went into force on 1 January 2020, and has replaced and repealed Regulation (EC) 443/2009 and (EU) No 510/2011. The 2019 Regulation set new emission targets relative to a 2021 baseline, with a reduction of the average emissions from new cars by 15% in 2025, and by 37.5% in 2030. For light-commercial vehicles the new targets are a 15% reduction for 2025 and a 31% reduction for 2030.


title: European emission standards

text: The 2019 Regulation also introduced an incentive mechanism or credit system from 2025 onwards for zero- and low-emission vehicles (ZLEVs). A ZLEV is defined as a passenger car or a commercial van with emissions between 0 and 50 g/km. The regulation set ZLEV sales targets of 15% for 2025 and 35% for 2030, and manufacturers have some flexibility in how they achieve those targets. Carmakers that outperform the ZLEV sales targets will be rewarded with higher emission targets, but the target relaxation is capped at a maximum 5% to safeguard the integrity of the regulation.


title: European emission standards

text: Many EU member states have responded to this problem by exploring the possibility of including electric vehicle-related infrastructure into their existing road traffic system, with some even having begun implementation. The UK has begun its "plugged-in-places" scheme which sees funding go to several areas across the UK in order to create a network of charging points for electric vehicles.


title: The Fall of the House of Usher (miniseries)

text: The Fall of the House of Usher is an upcoming horror drama miniseries created by Mike Flanagan. Based on the short story of the same name and other works by Edgar Allan Poe, it is set to premiere on Netflix.


text: On December 9, 2021, Frank Langella, Carla Gugino, Mary McDonnell, Carl Lumbly, and Mark Hamill were cast. Samantha Sloyan, Rahul Kohli, Henry Thomas, T'Nia Miller, Kate Siegel, Sauriyan Sapkota, Zach Gilford, Katie Parker, Michael Trucco, Malcolm Goodwin, Crystal Balint, Kyleigh Curran, Paola Nuñez, Aya Furukawa, Matt Biedel, Daniel Jun, Ruth Codd, Robert Longstreet, Annabeth Gish, and Igby Rigney were cast the next day. On April 13, 2022, Langella was fired from the series after a misconduct investigation, with his role set to be recast. At the end of April 2022, Bruce Greenwood was cast to replace Langella.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: The Chinese economic reform or reform and opening-up (), known in the West as the opening of China, is the program of economic reforms termed "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" and "socialist market economy" in the People's Republic of China (PRC). Led by Deng Xiaoping, often credited as the "General Architect", the reforms were launched by reformists within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on December 18, 1978, during the "Boluan Fanzheng" period. The reforms went into stagnation after the military crackdown on 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, but were revived after Deng Xiaoping's Southern Tour in 1992. In 2010, China overtook Japan as the world's second-largest economy by nominal GDP and in 2017 overtook the United States by becoming the world's largest economy by GDP (PPP).


title: Chinese economic reform

text: Prior to the reforms, the Chinese economy was dominated by state ownership and central planning. From 1950 to 1973, Chinese real GDP per capita grew at a rate of 2.9% per year on average, albeit with major fluctuations stemming from the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. This placed it near the middle of the Asian nations during the same period, with neighboring capitalist countries such as Japan, South Korea, Singapore and then rival Chiang Kai-shek's Republic of China (ROC) outstripping mainland China's rate of growth. Starting in 1970, the economy entered into a period of stagnation, and after the death of Mao Zedong, the Communist Party leadership decided to abandon Maoism and turn to market-oriented reforms to salvage the stagnant economy.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: The Communist Party authorities carried out the market reforms in two stages. The first stage, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, involved the de-collectivization of agriculture, the opening up of the country to foreign investment, and permission for entrepreneurs to start businesses. However, a large percentage of industries remained state-owned. The second stage of reform, in the late 1980s and 1990s, involved the privatization and contracting out of much state-owned industry. The 1985 lifting of price controls was a major reform, and the lifting of protectionist policies and regulations soon followed, although state monopolies in the commanding heights of the economy such as banking and petroleum remained.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: In 2001, China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO). Not long after, the private sector grew remarkably, accounting for as much as 70 percent of China's gross domestic product (GDP) by 2005. From 1978 until 2013, unprecedented growth occurred, with the economy increasing by 9.5% a year. The conservative Hu Jintao's administration regulated and controlled the economy more heavily after 2005, reversing some reforms. On the other hand, a parallel set of political reforms were launched by Deng in 1980, which also inspired the then Soviet Union's Glasnost and Perestroika, but eventually ended in 1989 due to the crackdown on Tiananmen Square protests, halting further political liberalization.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: The success of China's economic policies and the manner of their implementation resulted in immense changes in Chinese society in the last 40 years, including greatly decreased poverty while both average incomes and income inequality have increased, leading to a backlash led by the New Left. In the academic scene, scholars have debated the reason for the success of the Chinese "dual-track" economy, and have compared it to attempts to reform socialism in the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union; as well as to the growth of other developing economies. Additionally, these series of reforms have led to China's rise as a world power and a shift of international geopolitical interests especially in matters relating to the political status of Taiwan. However, matters such as corruption, pollution and a rapidly aging population remain serious issues that the Chinese government has to tackle. Some analysts have said that the reform era has been scaled down or ended during the leadership of current CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping, citing that Xi has reasserted state control over different aspects of Chinese society, including the economy.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: In September 1976, Mao Zedong died, and in October, Hua Guofeng together with Ye Jianying and Wang Dongxing arrested the Gang of Four, putting an end to the Cultural Revolution. Hua's break with Cultural Revolution era economic policies weas consistent with the 1975 reform agenda of Deng Xiaoping. Hua made national economic development a matter of the highest priority and emphasized the need to achieve "liberation of productive forces." He "combined Soviet-style big push industrialization with an opening up to the capitalist world" and under his leadership, China opened its first Special Economic Zone and launched major efforts to attract foreign direct investment.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: Economic reforms began in earnest during the "Boluan Fanzheng" period, especially after Deng and his reformist allies rose to power with Deng replacing Hua Guofeng as the paramount leader in December 1978. By the time Deng took power, there was widespread support among the elite for economic reforms. As the "de facto" leader, Deng's policies faced opposition from party conservatives but were extremely successful in increasing the country's wealth.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: In 1979, Deng Xiaoping emphasized the goal of "Four Modernizations" and further proposed the idea of "xiaokang", or "moderately prosperous society". The achievements of Lee Kuan Yew to create an economic superpower in Singapore had a profound effect on the Communist leadership in China. Leaders in China made a major effort, especially under Deng Xiaoping, to emulate his policies of economic growth, entrepreneurship, and subtle suppression of dissent. Over the years, more than 22,000 Chinese officials were sent to Singapore to study its methods.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: Deng's first reforms began in agriculture, a sector long mismanaged by the Chinese Communist Party. By the late 1970s, food supplies and production had become so deficient that government officials were warning that China was about to repeat the "disaster of 1959", the famines which killed tens of millions during the Great Leap Forward. Deng responded by decollectivizing agriculture and emphasizing the household-responsibility system, which divided the land of the People's communes into private plots. Under the new policy, peasants were able to exercise formal control of their land as long as they sold a contracted portion of their crops to the government. This move increased agricultural production by 25 percent between 1975 and 1985, setting a precedent for privatizing other parts of the economy. The bottom-up approach of the reforms promoted by Deng, in contrast to the top-down approach of the Perestroika in the Soviet Union, is considered an important factor contributing to the success of China's economic transition.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: Reforms were also implemented in urban industry to increase productivity. A dual-price system was introduced, in which (State-owned enterprise reform 1979) state-owned industries were allowed to sell any production above the plan quota, and commodities were sold at both plan and market prices, allowing citizens to avoid the shortages of the Maoist era. Moreover, the adoption of Industrial Responsibility System 1980s further promote the development of state-owned enterprise by allowing individuals or groups to manage the enterprise by contract. Private businesses were allowed to operate for the first time since the Communist takeover, and they gradually began to make up a greater percentage of industrial output. Price flexibility was also increased, expanding the service sector.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: At the same time, in December 1978, Deng announced a new policy, the Open Door Policy, to open the door to foreign businesses that wanted to set up in China. For the first time since the Kuomintang era, the country was opened to foreign investment. Deng created a series of Special Economic Zones, including Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Xiamen, for foreign investment that were relatively free of the bureaucratic regulations and interventions that hampered economic growth. These regions became engines of growth for the national economy. On January 31, 1979, the Shekou Industrial Zone of Shenzhen was founded, becoming the first experimental area in China to "open up". Under the leadership of Yuan Geng, the "Shekou model" of development was gradually formed, embodied in its famous slogan "Time is Money, Efficiency is Life", which then widely spread to other parts of China. In January 1984, Deng Xiaoping made his first inspection tour to Shenzhen and Zhuhai, praising the "Shenzhen speed" of development as well as the success of the special economics zones.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: Besides Deng Xiaoping himself, important high-ranking reformists who helped carry out the reforms include Hu Yaobang, then General Secretary of Chinese Communist Party, and Zhao Ziyang, then Premier of the People's Republic of China. Other leaders who favored Deng's reforms include Xi Zhongxun (the father of Xi Jinping), Wan Li, Hu Qili and others. Another influential leader was Chen Yun, regarded by some as the second most powerful person in China after Deng with more conservative ideology of the reforms. Though Deng Xiaoping is credited as the architect of modern China's economic reforms, Chen was more directly involved in the details of its planning and construction, and led a force that opposed many of the reforms from Deng's side. The two sides struggled over the general direction of the reforms until Chen died in 1995. A key feature of Chen's ideas was to use the market to allocate resources, within the scope of an overall plan. Some reforms of the early 1980s were, in effect, the implementation of a program that Chen had outlined in the mid-1950s. Chen called this the "birdcage economy (鸟笼经济/鳥籠經濟)". According to Chen, "the cage is the plan, and it may be large or small. But within the cage the bird [the economy] is free to fly as he wishes." Chen and some other conservative leaders including Li Xiannian never visited Shenzhen, the leading special economic zone championed by Deng.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: During this period, Deng Xiaoping's policies continued beyond the initial reforms. Controls on private businesses and government intervention continued to decrease, notably in the agrifood sector which saw relaxation of price controls in 1985 and the establishment of the household responsibility system, and there was small-scale privatization of state enterprises which had become unviable. A notable development was the decentralization of state control, leaving local provincial leaders to experiment with ways to increase economic growth and privatize the state sector. Township and village enterprises, firms nominally owned by local governments but effectively private, began to gain market share at the expense of the state sector. With the help of Yuan Geng, the first joint-stock commercial bank in China, the China Merchants Bank, and the first joint-stock insurance company in China, the Ping An Insurance, were both established in Shekou. In May 1984, fourteen coastal cities in China including Shanghai, Guangzhou and Tianjin were named "Open Coastal Cities (沿海开放城市)".


title: Chinese economic reform

text: A significant economic debate during this period concerned the approach to price liberalization and whether China should adopt an approach consistent with shock therapy -- sudden price liberalization – or a more gradual approach. But in 1986, the latter approach won out. "Confronted with the diverse, authoritative warnings about the unforeseeable risks of imposing the shock of price reform and the uncertainty about its benefits," Premier Zhao Ziyang and the leadership ultimately rejected shock price reform. Zhao had accepted the argument that the basic concern in economic reform was energizing enterprises. By late summer, what started under the rubric of "coordinated comprehensive package reform" had been diluted to an adjustment in the price of steel (although its price was both important had carried symbolic weight) as well as partial tax and financial reform. Radical price reform again became a focus in 1988, and this time led to spiraling inflation (the first time it had done so since the 1940s) as well as a backlash that included local protests, bank runs, and panic buying. The Chinese leadership halted these price liberalization plans in fall 1988 and instead focused on austerity, price reform, and retrenchment.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: Corruption and increased inflation increased discontent, contributing to the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and a conservative backlash after that event which ousted several key reformers and threatened to reverse many of Deng's reforms. The events of 1988 and 1989 led to the imprisonment or exile of many reformist officials. However, Deng stood by his reforms and in 1992, he affirmed the need to continue reforms in his southern tour. Thanks to his encouragement, in November 1990 the Shanghai Stock Exchange was reopened after being closed by Mao 40 years earlier, while the Shenzhen Stock Exchange was also founded in December 1990.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: In contrast to the approach of Deng, conservative elders led by Chen Yun called to strike a balance between too much laissez-faire market economy and retaining state control over key areas of the economy. Chen Yun helped preserve the economy by preventing policies that would have damaged the interests of special interest groups in the government bureaucracy.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: Although the economy grew quickly during this period, economic troubles in the inefficient state sector increased. Heavy losses had to be made up by state revenues and acted as a drain upon the economy. Inflation became problematic in 1985, 1988 and 1992. Privatizations began to accelerate after 1992, and the private sector grew as a percentage of GDP. China's government slowly expanded recognition of the private economy, first as a "complement" to the state sector (1988) and then as an "important component" (1999) of the socialist market economy.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: In the 1990s, Deng allowed many radical reforms to be carried out. In 1993, the National People's Congress adopted the landmark Corporation Law. It provides that in state owned enterprises, the state is no more than an investor and controller of stock and assets. Pursuant to the Corporation Law, private and foreign investment in such enterprises must be below 49%. The law also permitted state firms to declare bankruptcy in the event of business failure.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: In the beginning, Chen supported Deng, carried out and implemented many of the influential reforms that made a generation of Chinese richer. But later, Chen realized that the state still needed an active iron hand involvement in the market to prevent the private sector from becoming untamable. Chen's criticism of Deng's later economic reforms was widely influential within the Communist Party and was reflected in the policies of China's leaders after Deng. Chen's theories supported the efforts of Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao to use state power to provide boundaries for the operation of the market, and to mediate the damage that capitalism can do to those who find it difficult to benefit from the free market. Chen's notion of the CPC as a "ruling party" was central to the redefinition of the role of the Party in Jiang Zemin's Three Represents. In 2005, on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of Chen's birth, the Party press published, over the course of several weeks, the proceedings of a symposium discussing Chen's contributions to CCP history, theory and practice.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: Although Deng died in 1997, reforms continued under his handpicked successors, Jiang Zemin and Zhu Rongji, who were ardent reformers who also abided by Chen Yun advice to keep the reforms steady and keep the state still in charge of key areas. In 1997 and 1998, large-scale privatization occurred, in which all state enterprises, except a few large monopolies, were liquidated and their assets sold to private investors. Between 2001 and 2004, the number of state-owned enterprises decreased by 48 percent. During the same period, Jiang and Zhu also reduced tariffs, trade barriers, and regulations; reformed the banking system; dismantled much of the Mao-era social welfare system; forced the Chinese army (PLA) to divest itself of military-run businesses; reduced inflation; and joined the World Trade Organization. These moves invoked discontent among some groups, especially laid-off workers of state enterprises that had been privatized.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: The domestic private sector first exceeded 50% of GDP in 2005 and has further expanded since. Also in 2005, China was able to surpass Japan as the largest economy in Asia. However, some state monopolies still remained, such as in petroleum and banking.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: Hu Jintao and his conservative administration began to reverse some of Deng Xiaoping's reforms in 2005. Observers note that the government adopted more egalitarian and populist policies. It increased subsidies and control over the health care sector, halted privatization, and adopted a loose monetary policy, which led to the formation of a U.S.-style property bubble in which property prices tripled. The privileged state sector was the primary recipient of government investment, which, under the new administration, promoted the rise of large "national champions" which could compete with large foreign corporations. China would finally surpass Japan's economy in 2010.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: Under Party general secretary Xi Jinping and his administration, the CCP has sought numerous reforms. Some of these had increased control over state-owned and private enterprises, at least 288 firms have revised their corporate charters to allow the Communist Party greater influence in corporate management, and to reflect the party line. This trend also includes Hong Kong listed firms, who have traditionally downplayed their party links, but are now "redrafting bylaws to formally establish party committees that previously existed only at the group level." In other dimensions, according to Ray Dalio, the Xi era has also been marked by economic opening, greater market-oriented decision-making and discontinuation of support for poorly-managed state-owned enterprises.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: On 21 July 2020, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping made a speech to a group of public and private business leaders at the entrepreneur forum in Beijing. Xi emphasized that "We must gradually form a new development pattern with the domestic internal circulation as the main body and the domestic and international dual circulations mutually promoting each other."


title: Chinese economic reform

text: Since then "internal circulation" became a hot word in China. Some Chinese worry that the emphasis of "internal circulation" signals returning to 1960s-era seclusion, and ending of Chinese economic reform.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: In September 2020, the CCP announced that it would strengthen United Front work in the private sector by establishing more party committees in the regional federations of industry and commerce (FIC), and by arranging a special liaison between FIC and the CCP.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: The Xi Jinping era had considerably different economic objectives, in line with two campaigns, "Made in China 2025" and "China Standards 2035" which sought to scale up and displace US dominance in various high-tech sectors. This is alongside more aggressive pursuit of trade policies, in line with an outlook that sees China move towards taking a more active role in writing the rules of trade.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party have undertaken a course of reforms to "combat what the Communist Party considers undesirable economic and social elements". Xi wants to rein hyper-rich entrepreneurs, narrow the country's stubborn wealth gap and promote "common prosperity."" Reforms have included outlawing crypto-currency mining and trading, banning for-profit education, and banning the IPO's and hindering the growth of large firms owned by newly minted Chinese billionaires.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: After three decades of reform, China's economy experienced one of the world's biggest booms. Agriculture and light industry have largely been privatized, while the state still retains control over some heavy industries. Despite the dominance of state ownership in finance, telecommunications, petroleum and other important sectors of the economy, private entrepreneurs continue to expand into sectors formerly reserved for public enterprise. Prices have also been liberalized.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: China's economic growth since the reform has been very rapid, exceeding the East Asian Tigers. Since the beginning of Deng Xiaoping's reforms, China's GDP has risen tenfold. The increase in total factor productivity (TFP) was the most important factor, with productivity accounting for 40.1% of the GDP increase, compared with a decline of 13.2% for the period 1957 to 1978—the height of Maoist policies. For the period 1978–2005, Chinese GDP per capita increased from 2.7% to 15.7% of U.S. GDP per capita, and from 53.7% to 188.5% of Indian GDP per capita. Per capita incomes grew at 6.6% a year. Average wages rose sixfold between 1978 and 2005, while absolute poverty declined from 41% of the population to 5% from 1978 to 2001. Some scholars believed that China's economic growth has been understated, due to large sectors of the economy not being counted.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: China is widely seen as an engine of world and regional growth. Surges in Chinese demand account for 50, 44 and 66 percent of export growth of the Hong Kong SAR of China, Japan and Taiwan respectively, and China's trade deficit with the rest of East Asia helped to revive the economies of Japan and Southeast Asia. Asian leaders view China's economic growth as an "engine of growth for all Asia".


title: Chinese economic reform

text: Although the economic reforms has caused significant economic growth in China, it has also caused increased inequality, resulting in backlash and an attempt at pushing back the reforms by the Chinese New Left faction. Despite rapid economic growth which has virtually eliminated poverty in urban China and reduced it greatly in rural regions and the fact that living standards for everyone in China have drastically increased in comparison to the pre-reform era, the Gini coefficient of China is estimated to be above 0.45, comparable to some Latin American countries such as Argentina and Mexico as well as the United States.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: Increased inequality is attributed to the gradual withdrawal of the welfare state system in China and differences between coastal and interior provinces, the latter being burdened by a larger state sector. Some Western scholars have suggested that reviving the welfare state and instituting a re-distributive income tax system is needed to relieve inequality, while some Chinese economists have suggested that privatizing state monopolies and distributing the proceeds to the population can reduce inequality.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: During the pre-reform period, Chinese agricultural performance was extremely poor and food shortages were common. After Deng Xiaoping implemented the household responsibility system, agricultural output increased by 8.2% a year, compared with 2.7% in the pre-reform period, despite a decrease in the area of land used. Food prices fell nearly 50%, while agricultural incomes rose.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: Zhao Ziyang wrote in his memoirs that in the years following the household contracting system, "the energy that was unleashed … was magical, beyond what anyone could have imagined. A problem thought to be unsolvable had worked itself out in just a few years time … [B]y 1984, farmers actually had more grain than they could sell. The state grain storehouses were stacked full from the annual procurement program."


title: Chinese economic reform

text: A fundamental transformation was the economy's growing adoption of cash crops instead of just growing rice and grain. Vegetable and meat production increased to the point that Chinese agricultural production was adding the equivalent of California's vegetable industry every two years. Growth in the sector slowed after 1984, with agriculture falling from 40% of GDP to 16%; however, increases in agricultural productivity allowed workers to be released for work in industry and services, while simultaneously increasing agricultural production. Trade in agriculture was also liberalized and China became an exporter of food, a great contrast to its previous famines and shortages.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: In the pre-reform period, industry was largely stagnant and the socialist system presented few incentives for improvements in quality and productivity. With the introduction of the dual-price system and greater autonomy for enterprise managers, productivity increased greatly in the early 1980s. Foreign enterprises and newly formed Township and Village Enterprises, owned by local government and often de facto private firms, competed successfully with state-owned enterprises. By the 1990s, large-scale privatizations reduced the market share of both the Township and Village Enterprises and state-owned enterprises and increased the private sector's market share. The state sector's share of industrial output dropped from 81% in 1980 to 15% in 2005. Foreign capital controls much of Chinese industry and plays an important role.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: From virtually an industrial backwater in 1978, China is now the world's biggest producer of concrete, steel, ships and textiles, and has the world's largest automobile market. Chinese steel output quadrupled between 1980 and 2000, and from 2000 to 2006 rose from 128.5 million tons to 418.8 million tons, one-third of global production. Labor productivity at some Chinese steel firms exceeds Western productivity. From 1975 to 1992, China's automobile production rose from 139,800 to 1.1 million, rising to 9.35 million in 2008. Light industries such as textiles saw an even greater increase, due to reduced government interference. Chinese textile exports increased from 4.6% of world exports in 1980 to 24.1% in 2005. Textile output increased 18-fold over the same period.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: This increase in production is largely the result of the removal of barriers to entry and increased competition; the number of industrial firms rose from 377,300 in 1980 to nearly 8 million in 1990 and 1996; the 2004 economic census, which excluded enterprises with annual sales below RMB 5 million, counted 1.33 million manufacturing firms, with Jiangsu and Zhejiang reporting more firms than the nationwide total for 1980. Compared to other East Asian industrial growth spurts, China's industrial performance exceeded Japan's but remained behind South Korea and Taiwan's economies.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: Some scholars assert that China has maintained a high degree of openness that is unusual among the other large and populous nations, with competition from foreign goods in almost every sector of the economy. Foreign investment helped to greatly increase quality, knowledge and standards, especially in heavy industry. China's experience supports the assertion that globalization greatly increases wealth for poor countries. Throughout the reform period, the government reduced tariffs and other trade barriers, with the overall tariff rate falling from 56% to 15%. By 2001, less than 40% of imports were subject to tariffs and only 9 percent of import were subject to licensing and import quotas. Even during the early reform era, protectionist policies were often circumvented by smuggling. When China joined the WTO, it agreed to considerably harsher conditions than other developing countries. Trade has increased from under 10% of GDP to 64% of GDP over the same period. China is considered the most open large country; by 2005, China's average statutory tariff on industrial products was 8.9%. The average was 30.9% for Argentina, 27.0% for Brazil, 32.4% for India, and 36.9% for Indonesia.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: China's trade surplus is considered by some in the United States as threatening American jobs. In the 2000s, the Bush administration pursued protectionist policies such as tariffs and quotas to limit the import of Chinese goods. Some scholars argue that China's growing trade surplus is the result of industries in more developed Asian countries moving to China, and not a new phenomenon. China's trade policy, which allows producers to avoid paying the Value Added Tax (VAT) for exports and undervaluation of the currency since 2002, has resulted in an overdeveloped export sector and distortion of the economy overall, a result that could hamper future growth.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: Foreign investment was also liberalized upon Deng's ascension. Special Economic Zones (SEZs) were created in the early 1980s to attract foreign capital by exempting them from taxes and regulations. This experiment was successful and SEZs were expanded to cover the whole Chinese coast. Although FDI fell briefly after the 1989 student protests, it increased again to 160 billion by 2004.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: In the 1990s, the financial sector was liberalized. After China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO), the service sector was considerably liberalized and foreign investment was allowed; restrictions on retail, wholesale and distribution ended. Banking, financial services, insurance and telecommunications were also opened up to foreign investment.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: China's banking sector is dominated by four large state-owned banks, which are largely inefficient and monopolistic. China's largest bank, ICBC, is the largest bank in the world. The financial sector is widely seen as a drag on the economy due to the inefficient state management. Non-performing loans, mostly made to local governments and unprofitable state-owned enterprises for political purposes, especially the political goal of keeping unemployment low, are a big drain on the financial system and economy, reaching over 22% of GDP by 2000, with a drop to 6.3% by 2006 due to government recapitalization of these banks. In 2006, the total amount of non-performing loans was estimated at $160 billion. Observers recommend privatization of the banking system to solve this problem, a move that was partially carried out when the four banks were floated on the stock market. China's financial markets, the Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange, are relatively ineffective at raising capital, as they comprise only 11% of GDP.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: Due to the weakness of the banks, firms raise most of their capital through an informal, nonstandard financial sector developed during the 1980s and 1990s, consisting largely of underground businesses and private banks. Internal finance is the most important method successful firms use to fund their activities.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: By the 1980s much emphasis was placed on the role of advertising in meeting the modernization goals being promoted by Deng. Lip service was still paid to old Maoist ideals of egalitarianism, but it did not inhibit the growth of consumerism.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: In the pre-reform era, government was funded by profits from state-owned enterprises, much like the Soviet Union. As the state sector fell in importance and profitability, government revenues, especially that of the central government in Beijing, fell substantially and the government relied on a confused system of inventory taxes. Government revenues fell from 35% of GDP to 11% of GDP in the mid-1990s, excluding revenue from state-owned enterprises, with the central government's budget at just 3% of GDP. The tax system was reformed in 1994 when inventory taxes were unified into a single VAT of 17% on all manufacturing, repair, and assembly activities and an excise tax on 11 items, with the VAT becoming the main income source, accounting for half of government revenue. The 1994 reform also increased the central government's share of revenues, increasing it to 9% of GDP.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: Scholars have proposed a number of theories to explain China's successful transition from a planned to a socialist market economy. This occurred despite unfavorable factors such as the troublesome legacies of socialism, considerable erosion of the work ethic, decades of anti-market propaganda, and the "lost generation" whose education disintegrated amid the disruption of the Cultural Revolution.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: One notable theory is that decentralization of state authority allowed local leaders to experiment with various ways to privatize the state sector and energize the economy. Although Deng was not the originator of many of the reforms, he approved them. Another theory focuses on internal incentives within the Chinese government, in which officials presiding over areas of high economic growth were more likely to be promoted. This made local and provincial governments "hungry for investment," who competed to reduce regulations and barriers to investment to boost both economic growth and their careers. Such reforms were possible because Deng cultivated pro-market followers in the government. Herman Kahn argued that Confucian ethic was playing a "similar but more spectacular role in the modernization of East Asia than the Protestant ethic played in Europe".


title: Chinese economic reform

text: Taken together, Yuen Yuen Ang argues in "Foreign Affairs" that political reforms took place with economic reforms under Deng, except the former did not take Western forms. She writes, "To be sure, Deng's reforms emphasized brute capital accumulation rather than holistic development, which led to environmental degradation, inequality, and other social problems. Still they undoubtedly kicked China's growth machine into gear by making the bureaucracy results oriented, fiercely competitive, and responsive to business needs, qualities that are normally associated with democracies." But this only applies to the Deng era. Ang notes that since 2012, when Xi Jinping took over, the new leader has reversed Deng's political reforms and limits to power, "just as political freedoms have become imperative for continued economic growth."


title: Chinese economic reform

text: China's success is also due to the export-led growth strategy used successfully by the Four Asian Tigers beginning with Japan in the 1960s–1970s and other newly industrialized countries. In 2001, China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO). As of 2006, over 400 of the Fortune 500 companies had entered the Chinese market, while at the same time a considerable number of Chinese companies had opened their markets outside of China. Foreign aids to China, including those from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, also played an important role. Since the beginning of opening, China has received a significant amount of aid from major developed countries such as the United States, Japan, Germany, France and the United Kingdom. For instance, through its Official Development Assistance (ODA), Japan had offered China various forms of assistance worth 3.65 trillion Yen as of 2018. On the other hand, the assistance from the U.S. reached a total of US$556 million as of 2012, and has "helped Tibetan communities improve livelihoods, promote sustainable development and environmental conservation, and preserve cultural traditions...also supports targeted programs that strengthen cooperation on combatting the spread of HIV/AIDS and other pandemic and emerging diseases as well as rule of law programs."


title: Chinese economic reform

text: In contrast to the neoliberal view which emphasizes benefits from decentralization, increased privatization, and globalization, Professor Lin Chun concludes that studies have demonstrated pre-reform period factors that are at least as compelling factors in China's success. Those factors include strong "human capital" accumulated through decades of state investments in basic needs including health care and public education, state and rural collective ownership of land, the public sector's retaining of strategic industries, government sponsorship of trade and technology transfers, and public spending.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: The collapse of the Soviet Bloc and centrally planned economies in 1989 provided renewed impetus for China to further reform its economy through different policies to avoid a similar fate. China also wanted to avoid the Russian ad-hoc experiments with market capitalism under Boris Yeltsin resulting in the rise of powerful oligarchs, corruption, and the loss of state revenue which exacerbated economic disparity.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: Cultural Revolution contributes to China's economic growth in long run. According to Mancur Olson, Cultural Revolution attacked the very administrators and managers on which Chinese economy depended, and the immediate result was instability and administrative chaos in short run. A longer-run result was that there were not nearly as many well-entrenched interest groups as in the Soviet Union and the European communist states, so when Deng Xiaoping and the other pragmatists take power, there were few interest groups whose lobbying could undermine Deng's market-oriented reforms, because the Cultural Revolution had destroyed the narrowly entrenched interests with a stake in the "status quo".


title: Chinese economic reform

text: China's transition from a planned economy to a socialist market economy has often been compared with economies in Eastern Europe that are undergoing a similar transition. China's performance has been praised for avoiding the major shocks and inflation that plagued the Eastern Bloc. The Eastern bloc economies saw declines of 13% to 65% in GDP at the beginning of reforms, while Chinese growth has been very strong since the beginning of reform. China also managed to avoid the hyperinflation of 200 to 1,000% that Eastern Europe experienced. This success is attributed to the gradualist and decentralized approach of the Chinese government, which allowed market institutions to develop to the point where they could replace state planning. This contrasts with the "big bang" approach of Eastern Europe, where the state-owned sector was rapidly privatized with employee buyouts, but retained much of the earlier, inefficient management. Other factors thought to account for the differences are the greater urbanization of the CIS economies and differences in social welfare and other institutions. Another argument is that, in the Eastern European economies, political change is sometimes seen to have made gradualist reforms impossible, so the shocks and inflation were unavoidable.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: China's economic growth has been compared with other developing countries, such as Brazil, Mexico, and India. GDP growth in China outstrips all other developing countries, with only India after 1990 coming close to China's experience. Scholars believe that high rates of investments, especially increases in capital invested per worker, have contributed to China's superior economic performance. China's relatively free economy, with less government intervention and regulation, is cited by scholars as an important factor in China's superior performance compared to other developing countries.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: The government retains monopolies in several sectors, such as petroleum and banking. The recent reversal of some reforms have left some observers dubbing 2008 the "third anniversary of the end of reforms". Nevertheless, observers believe that China's economy can continue growing at rates of 6–8 percent until 2025, though a reduction in state intervention is considered by some to be necessary for sustained growth. However, it has been reported over the years that the GDP figures and other economic data from the Chinese government may be inflated or manipulated otherwise. Officials from central government have admitted that local economic statistics are sometimes falsified, to meet the economic growth targets for personal promotion of local officials, for example.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: Despite reducing poverty and increasing China's wealth, Deng's reforms have been criticized by the Chinese New Left for increasing inequality and allowing private entrepreneurs to purchase state assets at reduced prices. These accusations were especially intense during the Lang-Gu dispute, in which New Left academic Larry Lang accused entrepreneur Gu Sujung of usurping state assets, after which Gu was imprisoned. The Hu-Wen Administration adopted some New Left policies, such as halting privatizations and increasing the state sector's importance in the economy, and Keynesian policies that have been criticized by some Chinese economists who advocate a policy of deregulation, tax cuts and privatization.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: Other criticisms focus on the effects of rapid industrialization on public health and the environment. However, scholars believe that public health issues are unlikely to become major obstacles to the growth of China's economy during the coming decades, and studies have shown that air quality and other environmental measures in China are better than those in developed countries, such as the United States and Japan, at the same level of development.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: The economic reforms were accompanied with a series of political reforms in the 1980s, supported by Deng Xiaoping. However, many of the planned political reforms ended after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Lack of political reform contributed to the serious corruption issue in China. In addition, real state bubble, pollution and population crisis are among the most serious development issues in China. For instance, China is the largest CO emitter in the world.


title: Chinese economic reform

text: On the other hand, since the late 1970s, Deng and other senior leaders including Chen Yun and Li Xiannian supported the "one-child policy" to cope with the overpopulation crisis. But the 2010 census data showed that the population growth rate had remained very low, and due to the financial pressure and other factors, many young couples choose to delay or even abandon the plan of raising a second child even though the Chinese government has largely relaxed the one-child policy in late 2015. The population crisis threatens further economic development.


title: Erkenci Kuş

text: Erkenci Kuş (English title: "Daydreamer") is a Turkish television series that aired on Star TV from June 26, 2018 to August 6, 2019. The series stars Demet Özdemir and Can Yaman.


title: Erkenci Kuş

text: Sanem is a young woman who aspires to be a writer and live on the Galápagos Islands. Despite working at her father's grocery store, she is forced by her parents to choose between an arranged marriage with her neighbor Muzaffer and finding a suitable job. Sanem lands a job at Fikri Harika, one of Turkey's leading advertising agencies, where Leyla, her sister, is an executive assistant. The owner of the advertising agency, Azizi, has two sons, Emre and Can. Emre wants to take over the company, but his father believes Can is a better fit for the job and he is appointed manager. Can has what his father wants for the company, but he prefers to take photos in remote locations. Upon learning of his father's health problems, Can eventually agrees to run the company. Aziz also tells Can to find the spy in the company who is helping their rival, Aylin. Emre doesn't like the idea of his brother being the manager, and believes that he should have the position. Emre's plan is to make him fail, as well as becoming the spy himself. Sanem bumps into Can on a dark balcony at an opera party celebrating the company's 40th anniversary. Can thinks she is his girlfriend Polen, so he kisses her. Sanem realizes that she loves the stranger who kissed her, and gives him the codename Albatross, but hates Can, and Emre makes her believe that Can only wants to increase the value of the company so that it can be sold. Can soon falls in love with Sanem, and finds out that he kissed her that day at the opera, which begins the inevitable story of love.


The 2022 United States Senate election in Utah was held on November 8, 2022, to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the State of Utah. Incumbent Senator Mike Lee, who was first elected in 2010, won reelection to a third term, defeating Evan McMullin, an independent candidate who was endorsed by the Utah Democratic Party. This was the first Senate election in Utah's history in which there was no Democratic nominee. Lee's performance was the worst for a Republican in a Utah U.S. Senate election since 1974, while McMullin's was the best ever for an Independent in a Utah U.S. Senate race and the best for a non-Republican since 1976.


title: 2022 United States Senate election in Utah

text: Incumbent U.S. Senator Mike Lee won over 70% of the vote at the Utah Republican Party state convention on April 23, 2022. Though considered by the party to be its nominee, a primary was still held on June 28, 2022 after two other candidates gathered enough signatures to qualify.


text: The Utah Democratic Party state convention took place on April 23, 2022. Kael Weston was the only Democrat still running; however, the party endorsed Evan McMullin's independent bid in lieu of nominating a candidate, following encouragement from many prominent Democrats in the state, including former Rep. Ben McAdams and Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson, to back McMullin's campaign.


text: The Utah Democratic Party held a state convention on April 23, 2022, to endorse candidates for state offices. Supporters of independent candidate Evan McMullin, led by Salt Lake County mayor Jenny Wilson, introduced a motion for the state party to forgo nominating a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate and to instead "join Evan McMullin’s independent coalition to beat Mike Lee", contending that not doing so would split the anti-Lee vote in the general election. The motion was opposed by supporters of Kael Weston, the lone Democratic candidate for the seat who thus would have received the nomination had the motion failed. The delegates passed the motion by a 57%–43% margin.