Local democracy in China (Special finals week edition)
On his recent trip to Washington Hu Jintao was asked about democracy in China. To the surprise of some observers he did not immediately grow horns and start eat...
Author: Alan Baumler
Moral Panic
Tim Burke has been blogging on moral panics in the context of oral sex, rape, and children’s television. Reading his stuff I was struck by the most famous...
Oracle Bones
In Peter Hessler’s Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China’s Past and Present* I found the story of Xu Chaolong.(p.194) I found it interesting because of what it ...
China at war
Via Gusts of Popular Feeling I found this site by John Dower where he uses Japanese woodblocks to teach a number of things about the Japanese history of the war...
What is a professor?
The importation of new professions into China has always been something that has interested me a great deal. Perhaps the most interesting of these is academics,...
齊芳罷官 (Qi Fang removed from office)
Qi Fang, China’s contestant for the Miss Universe pagent, has resigned. (abdicated?) The China Daily story linked to above gives most of the sordid detail...
Where are the Chinese women?
From IHT via some blog I forgot, here is a little review of a book on “Chick Lit” Chick Lit is a marketing category full of books about young women ...
The Chinese are everywhere
From Granta via Reason here is a little thing by Lindsey Hilsum on Chinese businesses in Africa. It’s really just a little journalistic squib mostly about...
I won't cry for the wasted years
Reading Mote’s Imperial China 900-1800 I came across an interesting quote (p.45) On the (rather irregular) death of Emperor Zhuangzong of the Later Tang i...
Pruning hooks into spears
K.C. Johnson calls our attention to a post by which discusses the state of military history. K.C. is mostly interested in getting military historians the repres...
Nomads and China
As the final installment in our exciting series of syllabus posts I present my last class for the semester, Nomadic Empires and China It is a topics class, so i...
Taiwanese Heroin
It has been rainy rather than snowy around here of late, which is very unusual for this time of year. While walking in a cold wet rain I began to try and think ...
Asia on the move
As we have been posting syllabi and asking for comments I thought I would do something radical and post one for a class that I will not be teaching until next F...
Notes from the Chinese Underworld
I appear to have been guilty of smuggling, or at least receiving contraband goods. Probably the Triads or somebody like that was involved as well. Too cool. Whi...