Zhang Ziyi and China’s Celebrity–Philanthropy Scandals
In January 2010, the internationally acclaimed Chinese actor, Zhang Ziyi, became a focus of public criticism for allegedly defaulting on a pledge to donate one million yuan to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake disaster-relief fund. That earthquake not only killed 70,000 people and left five million homeless, but also produced a dramatic rise in individual and corporate philanthropy in China. Philanthropic donations in 2008 amounted to a total figure of 100 billion yuan, exceeding the documented total for the preceding decade. Zhang’s ‘failed pledge’ led fans and critics to accuse her in interactive media forums of both charity fraud and generating a nationwide crisis of faith in the philanthropic activities of the rich and famous. Dubbed ‘donation-gate’, the ensuing controversy obliged Zhang Ziyi to hire a team of USA-based lawyers, to give an exclusive interview to the China Daily, and to engage in renewed philanthropic endeavours, in an effort to clear her name. Hence, contrary to claims that celebrity philanthropy is an apolitical mode of philanthropy, an examination of the Zhang Ziyi scandal and its disaster-relief precursors demonstrates that celebrity philanthropy in the People’s Republic of China is a political affair.
Nonprofit Communication and Fundraising in China: Exploring the Theory of Situational Support in an International Context
Using a survey of 586 college students from Beijing, China, this study tested the theory of situational support by exploring Chinese students’ motivations to participate in nonprofit fundraising events. This study also compared theory variables between Chinese and U.S. college students by looking at similar data from a survey previously conducted with 514 U.S. students. There were differences between the two groups regarding constraint recognition, subjective norms, attitudes toward fundraising, and other variables, perhaps because of Confucianism, collectivism, and other differences between China and the United States. The findings generate a range of theoretical and practical implications including how nonprofit practitioners in China might develop better communication and messaging strategies to segment publics, motivate potential donors, and advance future fundraising efforts.
Mutiny Echoes: India, Britons, and Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities
This essay asks what, if any, import the Indian ““Mutiny”” of 1857 had on A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Charles Dickens�s fictionalized account of the French Revolution. Begun shortly after the Indian uprising started, Dickens�s historical novel appears studiously to avoid any mention of events on the Indian subcontinent, even though these events preoccupied and enraged the author. Few scholars have attended to the question of A Tale of Two Cities and the ““Mutiny,”” but when they have, scholars have looked for analogies between India and Dickens�s account of the French Revolution. In this essay, by contrast, I examine A Tale of Two Cities in a larger context——of Britons9 response to the Uprising, of Dickens9s short stories and essays in Household Words in the years before the ““Mutiny”” and immediately after, of Dickens9s disenchantment with aspects of British culture, and of his need to articulate a national identity grounded in action. I argue that the events in India were the match that ignited Dickens9s already established midcentury interests in national identity, nobility, and masculine heroism. I do not wish to suggest that A Tale of Two Cities is an Indian ““Mutiny”” novel, but rather that it is a novel about the ““Making of Britons,”” an important endeavor for an author who was intensely dissatisfied with the Britain that he saw around him.