Between Nanjing and Chongqing
I posted a piece on Asia Media (July 10 2008) which reviews Steve MacKinnon’s new book, Wuhan, 1938: War, Refugees, and the Making of Modern China (Univer...
Author: C. W. Hayford
Pigs Again: Li Shizhen's Ming Dynasty Map
After my posting last year of “Pigs. Shit, and Chinese History,” Sigrid Schmalzer was kind enough to share this map which she drew based on the work...
Olympics, China's Dreams, and the Fear of Nationalism
The new book Olympic Dreams: China and Sports, 1895-2008 (Harvard University Press) by Xu Guoqi 1 , is a good read but also a serious piece of research which us...
East Meets West
Yang Liu , a Beijing artist trained in Germany, comments in a series of banners on the differences between Chinese and German culture. Ms. Yang’s Website ...
Readings on Tibet
I’ve posted links to interesting recent articles on Tibet on a blog for my teachers’ workshop, ASIA: LEARNING FROM, TEACHING ABOUT.
Five Things That Didn’t Happen (But Might Have)
Kate Merkel-Hess at China Beat had an intriguing list last month, Five Chinese Historical Events That Don’t Get Much Attention, (2/ 11/08) which was in turn ins...
Zhou Enlai and The Chinese Omelette
The lively and informed blog, Jottings from the Granite Studio, January 8 has a well turned piece “This date in history: The Death of Zhou Enlai.” The piece sho...
Asian History Carnival #18
Somehow the items that have caught my eye since the last Asia Carnival are more cultural than historical – future carnivals will right the balance. But culture,...
Don't Toy With China
I wrote an op-ed piece “Don’t Toy With China” for ASIA MEDIA, a web journal run by the UCLA ASIA INSTITUTE. The piece looks at how the real i...
Samurai Baseball: Off Base or Safe at Home?
[A version of this piece was published on Japan Focus (April 4, 2007)] Baseball fans, lovers of a good fight, and those who are curious about how we go about un...
When is a Farmer not a Farmer? When He’s Chinese: Then He’s A Peasant
After Mao Zedong died in 1976, they put his body on display in one of those see-through coffins which Lenin made popular. Shortly after, the NBC evening news co...
Han Dynasty Pig Sty-Latrine
Courtesy of the Minneapolis Museum of Art
Pigs, Shit, and Chinese History, Or Happy Year of the Pig
The intriguing pig map in Alan Baumler’s post, “Pigs” (January 11) reminds us that 2007 is the Year of the Pig. Wikipedia informs us that a person born in the y...
Charles W. Hayford Member Introduction
First, thanks for allowing me into the Frog in a Well project. You’ve set a high standard. I promise not to call it “Frog Blog” or “Frog in th...