Chinese Students Comment on, and Explain, Contemporary 
Chinese Hip-hop
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Understanding Chinese HipHop originated during mandatory online learning during the Summer 2020 semester at the University of Jinan [UJN], Shandong, China in response to the initial Covid-19 outbreak.  Observation and analysis of student interaction with their foreign teacher revealed the need for a Vygotskian shared space for inter-cultural communication in which the students determine the discursive rules, beginning with a cultural compare and contrast analysis founded on shared, known iconography, lexis and/or concept, scaffolded in an ongoing, semi-structured (and semi-improvisational) action research course design by the foreign teacher in accordance with core Critical Thinking [CT] lesson goals and objectives.  Subsequenty, in a blended learning, traditional face to face classroom workspace during the subsequent Fall 2020 semester, sophomore English majors jointly participating in the Writing and Listening courses were asked to compare and contrast Chinese and Western hiphop as a means of facilitating critical thinking [CT] skill instruction - commencing with basic English text structure knowledge of information aorganizational patterns as prototypical rules for Western discourse construction.  Students were asked to do their comparison using case studies of Chinese rap songs - The Bridge and Empty Fort Strategy by Gai and My New Swag by Vava - as if explaining them to foreigners unaware of the specifically Chinese context in which they were created.