Welcome to the sixth Asian History Carnival with some of the great blog postings related to Asian history from around the past month.
China
EastSouthWestNorth is one of the best blogs online covering the Chinese media in English and often offers full translations of Chinese media articles with commentary. In a recent posting, complete with an article translation, we learn of an example of what happens when massive numbers of online gamers respond to rumors of a pro-Japanese conspiracy on the part of the game’s designers. A flag looking suspiciously like Japan’s found in the online historical/fantasy setting of the game gets a closer evaluation in the posting.
Matt from Blind Man and the Elephant discusses Lydia Liu’s Translingual Practices and the work of American missionary Arthur Henderson Smith, especially his work Chinese Characteristics in his recent posting Arthur Smith and Chinese Characteristics
Dave and Stefan over at Blogging…Walk the Talk continue to post wonderful Hong Kong related historical articles based on contemporary historical documents and media. One recent posting looks at local resistance to British on April 1st, 1899, when the flag was to be hoisted in the New Territories leased from China. Another entry looks at Immigration and the Sanitary Laws of Hong Kong in the 19th century, especially during the outbreak of a plague in 1894-5.
Dave and Stefan also bring up the Kowloon-Canton Railway, its controversial status in 1899, and the uses of railway lines to increase imperial power – drawing a direct connection to China’s Tibetan line today.
Alan Baumler at Frog in a Well: China also wrote a posting about the Tibetan rail line and Sun Yat-sen’s earlier dreams of a similar railway in the aftermath of the 1911 revolution.
Our newest member at Frog in a Well: China Scott Relyea has posted about two illustrations he came across from Chengdu in 1912 and what we can learn about the growth market economy and crony capitalism in China.
Dan Harris over at the China Law Blog confesses his pro-capitalist views and sympathy for David S. Landes’ explanation of Why China Stagnated in some of his recent writings.
Korea
Gerry Bevers over at Korean Language Notes has continued his now 13 chapter long examination of the history of Ulleungdo for the purpose of challenging Korea’s claims to the controversial Dokto/Takeshima islands. His thirteen postings include clippings of the royal annals in the periods discussed in Classical Chinese, modern Korean, and English translation. His first posting on the topic, in May of this year, can be found here.
Over at the Sanchon Hunjang, there is an interesting posting about a memorial table in a Seoul park, the author Taemin’s attempt to understand the tablet, some of its more interesting features, and questions one might raise about the nearby explanations provided on site. Read Owen Miller’s comments on the posting here at Frog in a Well.
Here at our own Frog in a Well: Korea, Pak Noja (Vladimir) has been busy posting some English summaries and comments on recent Korean historical works he has been reading. See his postings on South Korea’s welfare policies in the 1960s, Patriotic School Athletics in the colonial period and after, and South Korea’s War on Rice (or the “쌀밥 전쟁”)
Asia All Around
I have put other postings on regions which didn’t merit their own section this time below:
In a posting by Matt at No-Sword there are some interesting quotes from and comments about the English writing of two famous Japanese writers (Natsume Sôseki and Dazai Osamu). While your visiting No-Sword, which often has postings on Japanese language, literature, and pop culture, don’t miss Matt’s own translations of Japanese literature in the links at the left.
Joe Kissell writes a posting about the history of the Indonesian language and contests the simplistic claim that the language is nothing more than an “artificial language”
Michael Turton from The View From Taiwan posts a summary of a July Meet Up on the history of martial arts in Taiwan. In includes something of an outline of points from each period which might be worth further discussion, with perhaps reference to Craig Colbeck’s posting on Karate and modernity over at Frog in a Well: Japan.
Resources and Articles
Mutanfrog links to a scanned online wartime comic which claims to show Americans how to accurately identify their enemy.
Owen here at our own Frog in a Well: Korea wrote a posting about the Glossary of Korean Studies.
In a separate recent posting, I noted that Yun Chi-ho’s Diary can be viewed online at history.go.kr.
Jonathan Dresner has pointed to some of the gems at the Korean Heritage Library in his posting here.
Read about UC Berkeley’s Japanese Historical Text Initiative announcement here.
T. Mills Kelly has written an interesting article on the Role of Technology in World History Teaching at World History Connected.
Check out this wonderful collection of Chinese propaganda posters at Maopost.com. The collection is being constantly updated and includes translations of the text.
After being down for a short period of time, Japan Focus is up and running again with a new design.
Alan Baumler points to an online biography of Western Language Publications on Chinese popular Religion.
Thanks to everyone for their submissions! The next Asian History Carnival will be hosted at the Mutantfrog Travelogue on September 9th.
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