Yan is a very effective and passionate professor. He loves the subject and is able to bring a lot of his own experiences into the lectures. I think that this was my favorite and most helpful class at UCLA. It has helped me for every other social science class I have taken and I think that everyone should take this class. The midterm and final are not very hard if you study. Discussion can be dry but its only once a week. The lecture is great though. Sit at the front of the lecture though because sometimes his accent and soft voice is hard to understand. Take this class!

He is passionate about the subject matter and it shines through in his lectures. The class is a great into to cultural antho and I have found that what I have learned is very applicable to other subject areas.

I took this class Winter 2008, I went into it as a science major thinking this class would be SUPER easy because of the low difficulty rating, it turns out the class is only marginally easy. Even though the two short papers were easy to write, getting an A on the tests actually required a firm grasp of the material. To get an A on the final and hence the class I actually had to read some of the book.

In short, this is an easy class to get a B in, the A might require a little work.

If you are an anthro major, take Yan over any other prof. for anthro 9. If you aren't an anthro major, I highly recommend this class as a GE. In terms of work load, the class is minimal. Unlike other anthros that require at least one 5 page paper, this class only required two 2 page papers: not bad! The tests are very simple and straight forward if you have gone to every lecture. I did not read the book, and only missed a single multiple choice question between both exams, perfect on the short answers. In terms of grade distribution, the class had over 200 students in it, 20 of who got A+'s, 50 of who got A's, and 20 of who got A-'s. I think that is enough said in terms of grading. One small caveat, Dr. Yan is Chinese and very interested in how his native culture compares to American "culture." Therefore, majority of the examples he will give you involve anecdotes from his life. Many students complained because they were sick of hearing about China. Personally, I found it interesting, but many were bored with it. Easy material to conceptualize, low work load, very interesting: highly recommended class.

Professor Yan was a very dynamic lecturer--I'd recommend sitting up front though, because his accent does sometimes prevent you from understanding what he says when he's using the microphone. I like anthropology, so that might be why I loved this course, but I think he did a great job at making it accessable to everyone. If you have the option to do the honors seminar, I'd 100% recommend that too. There isn't too much work and it's incredibly rewarding.

Professor Yan is a great professor, who knows his material inside and out. It may be hard to understand his acccent sometimes, but he tries especially hard to help his students understand the course material. Not an easy easy A, but is definitely do-able if you keep up with the readings and attend lecture.

The subject matter of the class is pretty much dry and boring. Yan tries to make it better by telling personal stories and going on a little tangents. The guy has an accent and badly misprounces a few words, "whales" when saying "wheels," but still it's not too hard to figure out what he's trying to say given the context.
What sucks the most about this class is that the material is insanely easy, but the grading is actually pretty hard if you don't feel like reading through hundreds of pages of dry and wordy anthro text. There's no way to not understand the material as there's almost no analysis or original thought required on his tests. But you must be able to list and describe exactly what he is looking for on test essays because he has an answer key in which he gives points for particular answers. If you don't have his answer then you don't get points.
If you're passionate about hunter and gatherers, is good at remembering things, can stay awake in lectures, and have a bit of psychic ability when answering essay questions then you're sure to love this class. If you're a science major looking for an easy GE with minimal reading and a sure A then look elsewhere.
I was duped by the good reviews on bruinwalk. Took the class, found it boring, went to class most of the time but didn't read much, and got a B.