When the Chinese went out for Jews
For the benefit of our Chinese readers, as well as anyone else who has not seen this excellent piece, I would like to introduce Scott Seligman’s “Th...
Author: Alan Baumler
Bald Chinese
There is a nice post up at the Atlantic (by Garance Franke-Ruta) on Colombia, the image of the USA before, like Guanyin, she became male. The thing I found most...
Random China stuff
Ever thought about doing a blog post on the history of the Chinese wheelbarrow, drawing many of your facts from Needham, but illustrating it with lots of cool p...
Yellow Kid
So, there I was, looking for pictures of Li Hongzhang, and I found this Apparently Li met the Yellow Kid. For those of our readers who may be American, Li Hongz...
Are Japanese people evil?
There has been some commentary, both on well-known blogs and obscure ones on Robert Farley’s Diplomat article on Japan’s WWII Counter-Insurgency planning and im...
Teaching (about Japan)
Update Here is the final version As is the tradition here at the Frog, I am posting an early draft of a syllabus, in hopes of getting some suggestions. This is ...
Japanese views of China
December 13 seems as good a day as any to talk about Japanese imperialism. One of the books I taught this semester was Ishikawa Tatsuzo Soldiers Alive.1 It̵...
Rustic poetry
The contrast between the center and the periphery is a common theme in Chinese literature. To be an official sent from the capital to the provinces, or a sent-d...
When the internet gives you bad historical analogies…..
From Washington Monthly using the Chinese exam system as an analogy for the S.A.T., referring to an essay from n+1. The anecdote that began the n + 1 piece disc...
If we want to revere China, there is no greater reverence than to put the Chinese ways into practice
Thanks to Columbia University Press I just got a copy of David Kang, East Asia Before the West: Five Centuries of Trade and Tribute1 This is a very fine book, ...
Thurify yourself
One of the things we have read for the May Fourth class I am teaching is Liang Qichao’s On the Relationship between Fiction and the Government of the Peop...
Blood of the martyrs
The Chinese student group asked me to come out and talk at their showing of Jackie Chan’s 1911. As it was competing with the Stillers game attendance was ...
Fire and protest in China
The Atlantic has a nice set of pictures of the Great Wall up, for your teaching pleasure. The one I found most interesting is this. Is the Great Wall on fire? W...
Very superstitious
Above is a charm carried by a Chinese soldier in 1938, re-printed in the journal Youth Front in 1938. It seems to be a Communist publication, although this bein...