The study on the authentic interpretation of 'patriotic education sites' in Shanghai

Abstract

In this dissertation, I would like to focus on the authentic interpretation to patriotic education sites in Shanghai. Before looking into the authentic interpretation, we shall understand the background of patriotic education in China and in Shanghai. Patriotic education is the tradition of Chinese nation and now it’s part of political education in mainland China, whose purpose is to encourage the national to love the country and love the Communist Party of China. Place’s patriotic education is an important way to help the people know the places and come to understand of the patriotic stories happened in the history. With lots of photos, illustrations, sculptures used and many activities advocated, historical stories are commemorated to the public.

In this dissertation, I would classify the typology of the patriotic education sites into 10 categories in three different levels and search the typical sites in each category to find out each individual site its age, physical nature of the place, architectural aesthetics/ design, construction, date of opening to the public, date of patriotic education site and level of patriotic education site. This will be the original finding in my dissertation, as to my knowledge, there was never been a category system of the patriotic education sites in Shanghai. To analyze the authenticity to the objective place’s patriotic education, I will attempt to find out the political significance of the site, the authentic location of the site and the authentic fabric of the place.

I will try to find out the issues of the authentic location and fabric in the place’s patriotic education. Whether the authenticity of the location and fabric playing an important role in the patriotic education depends on whether they are the part of the history of that time. When the location and fabric in the site are the parts of the education to help the public to understand the stories and the culture of that time, the authenticity of the location and fabric in the sites has a positive impact on the objective of place’s patriotic education. Otherwise, the unauthentic location and fabric will mislead the visitors. But to keep the authentic new location and new fabric will help the later generation to understand why and how we are doing now in the future.