Nationalism sucks
A very sad post from the Economist on the problem of the zodiac heads. Basically, a wealthy Frenchman has agreed to donate two of the bronze heads stolen from t...
Category: Public History
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...
Those who keep remembering the past
I just got an e-mail asking me to subscribe to The Current Digest of the Chinese Press. Given the prices I don’t think I will, but you might want to consi...
Managing History in China
Historic Preservation is the process of preserving historic stuff, mostly building and sites. China has lots of history. 5,000 years of it, in fact. Historical...
Zhang San and Li Si's Excellent Adventure
China Hush reports that the Chinese film and TV industries have been ordered to stop making time-travel dramas, on the grounds that “The producers and wri...
Private views of Chinese history
Recently I went to the Jianchuan museums, which are in Anren, just outside Chengdu. It is an interesting place first because it is huge, financed by mogul Fan J...
What do you really think Mr. Jiang?
Chinese museums are one of the best places to look at the changing interpretation of historical figures and events. Last weekend I went to Famen temple outside ...
Distressing China
Xian has a historical district. Actually it has several, and all of them are sort of new. I was not here 20 years ago, but I assume like elsewhere in China the ...
Show me the money
From the Times via CDT an article about a group of Chinese intellectuals who are asking for some new people to be put on Chinese currency. This is actually a bi...
"President" Chiang Kai-shek
So, what is the current status of Chiang Kai-shek in China? He is the most troublesome of the Republican era-figures for the mainland to figure out. Anyone who ...
China reconstructs
One thing about China is that they are always re-building historical sites. Here are some guys building a new…something…. at the old Ming palace in ...
The Chairman is pleased
How is the cult of Mao doing? Well, this is a statue of the Great Helmsman at Yuhuashan in Nanjing. It is part of a rather temporary-looking exhibit on his life...
A rose by any other name
As many of our readers already know, the Taiwanese government has re-named the Chiang Kai-shek memorial in Taibei, now known as the Taiwan Democracy Memorial Ha...
We’re not in Hebei anymore, Toto
A Chinese Peasant Pearl Buck has been getting a good deal more attention in China of late. Part of it is no doubt the fact that she wrote about China and won th...