Chinese

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Associate Professor: V. Shen (Chair)
Assistant Professor: P. Shao
Adjunct Assistant Professor: C. Shen

Distribution Requirements

Any of the following courses meets the literature distribution requirement: Chinese 206, 405, 406

Foreign Language Requirement

Successful completion of Chinese 201 satisfies the foreign language requirement.

Cultural Diversity Requirement

Chinese 120, 121, 206, 207, 224, 405, and 406.

Minor Requirements

Satisfactory completion of six courses numbered above Chinese 102, including:
1. two Chinese language courses chosen from: Chinese 201, 202, 301, 302, 303, 350, 351; and
2. two courses in Chinese literature, culture, or cinema, with at least one 400-level course chosen from: Chinese 120, 121, 206, 207, 224, 292, 405, 406.
Only one of the following courses may be included in the minor: Anthropology 265, History 383, 385, 386, 472, or 475, Political Science 332 or 471, Religion 280, 281, or 285.
With the approval of the Chinese Program Chair and the Registrar up to three Chinese language, literature, cinema, or cultural courses taken outside Davidson College (either from other American institutions or abroad) may be applied toward the minor.

It is strongly recommended that students study abroad in an approved program in a Chinese-speaking country.

Chinese Courses

The numbers given the language courses are different from the numbers given to the culture, cinema and literature courses. With language courses, a higher value represents a higher difficulty level. This takes two forms.

(1) The 1st-year language courses are assigned numbers in the 100s, the 2nd-year language courses in the 200s, and the 3rd-year language courses in the 300s.

(2) Within the same level, a higher value also indicates a more difficult course. For instance, Chinese 350: Advanced Reading and Writing is more advanced than Chinese 302: Advanced Chinese II.

The first rule applies to the culture, cinema, and literature courses as well. For instance, Chinese 405: Seminar in Chinese Cinema and Modern Chinese Literature is a more advanced course than Chinese 206: Traditional Chinese Literature in Translation. The second rule, however, does not apply to culture, cinema and literature courses. Within the same level, a higher number represents a different rather than a more difficult course. For example, Chinese 120 and Chinese 121 are both introductory courses; they differ not in depth so much as in content. The former concentrates on modern Chinese culture while the latter concentrates on traditional Chinese culture.