Shades of Mori Arinori
Recently the Japanese Diet has been debating several competing bills to revise the Fundamental Education Law of 1947. One of the most contested issues is an ef...
Category: General
How much do your students remember?
I’m looking over the Condensed History of China (Thanks, Simon) and thinking to myself “yeah, it’s brutally short, but if my students remember...
Chairman Mao is like Jesus to us
Not really related to anything, but I found it interesting. Chinese students in New Zealand have been protesting this image of Chairman Mao from a student newsp...
Long March Revision: Diminishing Sources
Christian Science Monitor has a substantial article about Sun Shuyan’s new book Long March (previously noted here), leadng this time with the book’s...
A letter from the headman of Taech’uri Village, currently in detention
Dear friends, I guess I should share with you the English text of a letter sent by Mr. Kim Chit’ae (Ji Tae), the headman of Taech’uri Village, which...
Satire, self-parody and court jesters
I was looking for a good way to announce my new position as a member of the Carnival of Bad History team, when Geoff Wade sent this to H-Asia, and Prof. Goodman...
Visualizing cultures
The M.I.T. site is back up. The most controversial part was the section on Old China, New Japan. There is a cache of the old version here The only change that I...
Manifesto from the Suyu Research Institute on the S.Korea-USA FTA plans – The Twilight of Empire?
Dear colleagues, Below I put the English text of the manifesto penned by two of the most promising post-nationalist scholars I know in South Korea, namely Dr. K...
Graduate programs in Japan to be modernized?
The Chronicle of Higher Education is reporting that graduate programs in Japan will be modernized (NOTE: link may require subscription) through a “a five-...
Tombs on Tuesday
Apparently, failure to follow sterile work protocols have resulted in damaging molds in the Takamatsuzaka tomb. I don’t understand why, in situations like...
Tombs on Tuesday
It’s been a good week for archaeology in the news, it seems: Liao tombs in Mongolia, of course Ming-era Imperial (eunuch) tombs near Beijing
Text Slang
Via Wandering to Tamshui a post with illustrations of Taiwanese text slang I suppose there are important points to be made about this, but not this week. I only...
One for the military historians
In preparing the Asian History Carnival, a variety of things turned up in my inbox – in between some very tempting deals on pharmaceuticals. Today I recei...
Asian History Carnival #4
Big thanks to Katrina for putting together our fourth Asian history carnival. You can find it at Miscellany.