Who are the shi?
Since I am teaching Early China this semester, I am drawing from Yuri Pines, Envisioning Eternal Empire: Chinese Political Thought of the Warring States Period ...
Category: Social History
Did Chinese women go to opium dens?
Since someone asked me if Qing women went to opium dens, I thought I would answer and put up some of my evidence. Short answer – I don’t think so, a...
Chinese Manhua and social criticism
I have been preparing a paper for a conference here at IUP, but since the conference is postponed as we are on strike I thought I would share some of it with yo...
Yuan Mei, Food Network star
As Yuan Mei’s Garden of Accord Food Book is now available in English translation, I have been reading the whole thing. One of the things that strikes me is how...
Pictures of Japan
Do you teach about Japan? If so you might want to check out the Toshidma Gallery. Teaching is always better with pictures, and if you do Japan you are probably ...
Celebrate the working class
So, today is Labor Day in the U.S.A., which means that you can celebrate the achievements of the working class without being a Communist. The rest of the world,...
Life imitates The Office
As someone who is a member of an academic department and of two University-wide committees I think a lot about bureaucracy. Since I am teaching Modern China thi...
From all the junks, the one I need more is music
Slate has a piece up on the Asian-ization of Western classical music. It’s more historically informed than you might think for a Slate piece, although it ...
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...
Miss Taiwan?
A hunting parting in Xinzhu, 1935 A great new resource provided by Paul Barclay of Lafayette College. They have digitized a great collection of photos of...
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...
Pigs
How many pigs were there in China during the warlord era? I came across the wonderful site Strange Maps, and one of their offerings was a 1922 map of world hog ...
Working like a slave
I have been to busy to post much of late, as I have been very busy. Not quite working like a slave however, as the slave contract below shows. I use this in cla...