For those of you who happen to be in Shanghai, Fudan University will be hosting China’s first international gender studies conference in a couple of weeks. As far as I know, auditing is welcome. It will be held at Fuxuan hotel in Shanghai from June 27-29.
Destruction in the name of progress
Kashgar, China, a city often on the map for historians (especially historians of the silk road) has recently come to the attention of many around the world because of China’s newest policy: tear down the old town to save it (a good explanation of what is going can be found in the NYT article). Essentially, the government argues that because the foundation underneath Kashgar is quite unstable (many of the houses are up on platforms, and it is hollow underneath), they need to tear it all down and rebuild it for safety reasons, in case there is an earthquake. They plan to rebuild the old town in a traditional Islamic style, thus maintaining its original ambiance.
A few interesting things about this current decision. The earthquake argument is understandable to some, and confusing to others. It seems to me that the reason for giving this justification for tearing down the old town would sit well with many Chinese and the international community because of the recent disaster in Sichuan. The Uighers of old town, however, while probably not surprised, find this justification confusing or humorous (according to the Uighers around the old town I talked to). They have lived there for over 1000 years, and the old town has survived many earthquakes and has never fallen down. According to one woman I spoke with, she explained that they saw it as a tragedy to their history that they could do nothing about, and they all strongly feel that they were not given accurate justification for why their homes were taken away from them. They also, at least those I talked to, saw this as a direct attack on their culture, a way for the Chinese to further demonstrate their power over the region in light of growing tension and animosity.
But destroying things in the name of progress is certainly not new for China. It was a common practice of the 1960s and 1970s, of course, but the Beijing Olympics and the coming Shanghai Expo saw similar situations: peoples’ houses torn down with little compensation. Many of Beijing’s old hutongs are still inscribed with the kiss of death, the character “chai.” But this destruction in the name of progress differs from these other situations in its direct relation to cultural autonomy and ethnic tensions. Furthermore, if the Id Kah mosque is any indication of how the new Kashgar Old Town will look, it is likely that it will turn into a Lijiang-type tourist old town with little resemblance to anything except another stop for Chinese shoppers and photographers.
As far as this relates to ethnic tension, The Uighers I spoke with about this situation feel relatively hopeless. But it will be interesting to find out how this will affect a city that already feels more Central Asian than Central Asia itself. Perhaps it will spur on new problems, or it will exacerbate the failure an already dying cause.
And as far as the concept of destruction in the face of progress, it is unlikely that this will end any time soon, as cities constantly upgrade. While this resembles most developing countries, I believe, as China takes this concept to a new scale, it is quite representative of current cultural phenomenons regarding a national understanding of progress. China has been trying to define progress for nearly a century, through education, through politics, through revamping of culture, and throughout the 20th century, many have argued that destruction and replacement is the best way to solve nearly any problem. While it may be a stretch to connect this with the destruction of Kashgar old town, it represents this overall way of thinking, that “new” is always better. Of course this is not limited to China. But any kind of nostalgia for old things is lost on most Chinese people; even in Hong Kong, where it seems everything is new and modern, the people rallied together to save the clock tower in Tsim Sha Tsui, a recognition of the importance of old buildings.
Perhaps this overwhelming desire for the new represents a maintainance of theories of development that were common in the early 1900s, that the most developed countries were the best, and development meant “new.” (even look at publication names: New Life, New Youth, New Women, etc.) Now, instead of worrying about new ideology, this effort of modernity through the new is all put into infrastructure and material things. It will be interesting to see how long this continues, though it is unlikely that the constant construction will end anytime soon (I currently count 5 cities working on new subway lines, and I have no doubt that there are plenty more). However, for the sake of history, I hope that the Chinese cultural understanding of “new” and “modern” will begin to shift.
English/Foreign Views/General/globalization/Japan/Popular Culture/Science and Technology/US-Japan/昭和
Before the miniseries, there was….
I’m not sure when my family got this game, but I remember playing with it in the late 70s. Though Shogun is described as a “digital” game, there’s no electronics involved: magnets in the board turn the dial in each piece until a number shows in the window; that number is how far the piece can move next time. The pseudo-random element takes some of the strategy out of the game1 and so it moves pretty quickly. Below you can see a rare early checkmate — most games involve a lot of piece exchanges before checkmate is on the table — that my 7 year-old managed to pull of in his third game. The numbers swinging around in the pieces is quite enchanting, especially for kids.
The game seems to have been invented by a Japanese, but I’m not sure it was ever marketed in Japan. Clavell’s Shogun came out a year or so before this game did, so it’s likely that the title would have been attached to anything with a hint of Japaneseness about it.
The association of ‘Japan’ with ‘digital’ is interesting; the use of ‘digital’ itself is an interesting cultural moment, the transition from ‘transistor’ to ‘digital.’ It’s got to be early in the analog v. digital wars, and the term is clearly being misused, as this is a patently analog game. Like “Shogun,” “digital” is a marketing device intended to invoke emotional responses rather than being descriptive.
especially if you play a cutthroat version which doesn’t allow players to test moves before making them ↩
Beer in China
Robert Bickers has a nice post up at China Beat on the early history of Qingdao beer. Its a good post and sheds a lot of light on the early history of what is now probobably one of the best known Chinese brands. Before WWI Qingdao was a classic example of the nature of Anglo-German capitalism in China. What I find most interesting about Qingdao however is its post 1949 history. There were lots of capitalist corporations in China before 1949, but not many of them made it through the Maoist period. Yang Zhiguo has studied the history of Qingdao brewery after 1949.1 During the Maoist years Qingdao was China’s capitalist face, sort of the first Special Economic Zone, since China needed foreign exchange and one of the few ways to get it was by selling Qingdao beer in Southeast Asia and above all in Hong Kong. Hong Kong was of course a free market city and Qingdao had to take on already established foreign brands. This led to importing foreign machinery, a focus on quality that was unheard of in Maoist production, and killing domestially popular lines like Qingdao Porter (no really) in favor of the standard export version. As China began to open up after 1976 Qingdao was one of the first Chinese branded products to be exported in part because everyone likes beer but also because it was one of the only Chinese products with any hope of competing on world markets. My students are always amazed to hear that in the early 1980s some Americans (like me) would point it out to their friends if they found a product on a store shelf that said “Made in P.R.China”.2 Qingdao was the face of Chinese capitalism in the West for a number of years. Even now it is the face of Chinese beer, given that the other options would be something like the dreadful Reeb.
The (Ongoing) Economic Crisis
One of my students is doing a summer research project on the Japanese financial crisis of the 1990s and we just looked at Jon Woronoff’s book The Japanese Economic Crisis (1992) which was originally published as Japan, the Coming Economic Crisis (1979). Woronoff, who was at one point a correspondent for the journal “Asian Business” and still writes about East Asian economies, was apparently widely panned at the time for being a Japanophobe or maybe just a hater in general, but I was very struck by how many of the issues he raises–banking problems, too much reliance on exports and protectionism, widening social inequalities, insecurity for the elderly, the massive generation gap of the late 20th century, collapse of the company loyalty ethic–became widely acknowledged and commented-upon social and economic problems after the collapse of the bubble. Didn’t he turn out to be right about a lot of things? Has he gotten any credit? This is not my field. My understanding of postwar economic issues is thin (Is MITI a college at M.I.T?). But the many ways in which Japan’s response to its crisis of two decades ago resonate with both the global and Japanese situation today make this feel worth revisiting.
The twentieth anniversary
I have, as it turns out, very little to say that I didn’t say five years ago, but I’ll reproduce it under the fold. Reading this year’s crop of remembrances, and Philip Cunningham’s first-person history, I don’t think my views have changed all that much, except that I see the movement more in the context of the decades before — periodic reformist movements which invariably met with repression whether or not the reforms were eventually pursued — and it’s much less shocking to me now than it was then. Still tragic. And the history since has been, by comparison, oddly quiet.
Continue reading →
Basic principles of Chinese History
From China Geeks via CDT the basic principles needed to write Chinese history. As one commenter pointed out, they would almost work as the principles to write any national history, but they are still pretty good.
Tomb Near Artifacts that Date to Himiko’s Purported Reign Dates Identified
Am I the only person who had a bad reaction to the Tomb of legendary Japanese Queen Himiko found headlines I’ve been seeing?
The article says
Archaeologists had previously claimed that the tomb, built in the traditional keyhole-shape design, was built in the fourth century and therefore too modern for Queen Himiko.
But a team led by Professor Hideki Harunari has discovered new clay artefacts close to the site, which radiocarbon dating indicates were made between 240AD and 260AD. According to records from the Chinese court, with which the Yamatai kingdom had links, Queen Himiko died around 250 AD.
The evidence seems quite circumstantial to me, from the oddly specific radio-carbon dating to the fact that they haven’t studied the tomb itself, to the treatment of Himiko and Yamatai as unequivocally Nara-centered.
I was just commenting on Jonathan Jarrett’s article about rehdroxylation rate dating that it would be nice to have better dating technology, as a safeguard against wishful thinking and distortions of the archaeological record.
Student Protests in Han China
June is the month to blog about student protests in China. There have been a lot of them, and like other types of protesters Chinese students often consciously or unconsciously use scripts. American protesters want to occupy an administration building, French students want to go on strike (or whatever) and they do these things because the students are embedded in a political culture where these are the proper ways for students to protest. This is not to say that new forms of protest are not developed, but that students, like everyone else, tend to choose a their actions from a set of roles that they are familiar with. Jeffery Wasserstrom’s book on student protest is probably the best source on the patterns of student protest in 20th century China. How far back do Chinese traditions of student protest go? To a certain extent they can’t go back too far, since China did not get its first modern university until 1898. On the other hand there have been students and schools in China for a very long time. The most interesting of the early protests come from the Latter Han dynasty. In the decade of the 160’s, during the reigns of Emperors Huan and Ling, students at the Imperial University (太學) were noted for their political activism. Like most university students, these were in an anomalous position in society. Imperial University students were members of the elite, but not elite enough to get government jobs just based on their family. Like later students they were also frustrated by their prospects. By the Later Han the curriculum at the University was considered hopelessly out of date and attending was no longer a reliable route to office. Students were deeply concerned with the problems of the state, which is not surprising, and they were particularly concerned with the problem of corruption and favoritism in official appointments, which is also not surprising, given that they were the ones most likely to be passed over if jobs were not given on merit. During this period the student’s enemies were not the Communist Party, but the eunuchs and their faction, who were rivals of the great aristocratic families. The emperors tried, without much success in the Later Han, to balance and stay above these factions.
In the first years of Emperor Huan, the fashion of student debate and criticism had taken the form of seven-character slogans, arranged in rhyming couplets, which were chanted in unison, shouted in the streets, and frequently written on walls…Short, pithy opinion combined with a good beat and rhyme made slogans such as these popular and influential. In a comparatively short time, under the name of “pure judgments” (qingyi 清義) they developed into a style of criticism that could be applied to any official or scholar and, as the name would indicate, such assessments were regarded as impartial and accurate summaries of character. Their most [20] effective practitioners, notably the student leader Guo Tai 郭泰, a man of humble birth but considerable intelligence and literary skill, gained immense prestige and a large following.1
So basically they were student-rappers. And, like later Chinese student protesters they looked to reformist officials with rhymes like this
A model for the empire,
Li Yuanli;
Fearless of powerful enemies,
Chen Zhongju
Hmm. I guess it worked better in the Han pronunciation. Of course the students lost, and many of them and many of those they supported in the regular bureaucracy were purged in 169. As became normal in Chinese politics the losers were accused of forming a faction (部黨). This was a serious accusation, since there was no tradition of loyal dissent in China. Just as there was little hope that Zhao Ziyang and the student protesters at Tiananmen would be able to work out a compromise that would preserve both the party and the students’ principles there was not much possibility that that bureaucracy and the eunuchs were going to work out an accommodation. Both were competing to be the exemplars of virtue for the empire, and there could be only one of them.
Also like Tiananmen, the aftermath of the purge was not what you might expect. Although people were in fact fired and executed and exiled, in practice the witch hunt did not and could not go very far. In part this was because the dispute was between two factions of the elite, and the eunuchs could not massacre the entire bureaucracy. In part this was because many government officials were unwilling to hunt people down, and many not connected with the Faction were eager to give them shelter. Sima Guang tells a number of stories of men like Zhang Jian, who managed to escape capture with the help of many people he had never even met. Many members of the local elite were eager to associate themselves with a certified Man of Virtue like Zhang, and many of these helpers suffered severely because of it. Eventually Zhang found his way back into government, becoming Captain of the Guards.
Zhang Jian was crticized for his escape and its costs by Xia Fu, who said “He brought this misfortune upon himself, and then he pointlessly caused the involvement of other good and honest people. In order the one man might escape death, ten thousand households suffered misfortune. How could one live with that?” Xia Fu hid himself on a mountain and became an ironworker, dying before he could return to office.2
Zhang Jian and Xia Fu demonstrated two of the ways that protesters could deal with defeat, and here too the Han figures were part of a developing tradition. Withdrawing from politics (into business in the 1990’s onto a mountaintop in the 170’s) was a standard option. Sima Guang approved
Your servant Sima Guang remarks:
If the empire is following the proper Way, true gentlemen assemble at the court of the ruler to correct the misbehavior by the men of mean spirit, and there on-one who dares not submit. When the empire has lost the Way, gentlemen retire into seclusion and do not speak out, hoping that they may avoid misfortune from the men of mean spirit, and yet still it happens that some of the fail to escape.
The men of Faction lived in a age of confusion and disorder, when all things were out of place and the four seas were in turmoil. They sought to solve problems by the words in their mouths, giving judgments of good and bad so as to wipe out evil and restore purity. They sought to seize the snakes and vipers by the head, and trample on the tails of the tiger and the wolf. But it was they themselves who were injured and wrongfully punished, and the ill fortune reached their friends. Men of quality were destroyed, and the nation moved on to disaster. The pity of it! Only Guo Tai hand the insight and understanding to preserve his own life, while Shentu Pan (two men who retired from politics) realised what would happen and took appropriate action, not waiting till the final day. This is exceptional wisdom!
Obviously China has changed a lot in 2000 years, but it was odd for me to read some of this stuff and see some of the same roles and scripts being used that far back.
Pretty much all of the information in this post comes from Rafe de Crespigny’s work and translations, which are now available online
from Political Protest in Imperial China: the Great Proscription of Later Han 167-184 Second edition [Internet] 2007. This is a revised version of an article first published in Papers on Far Eastern History, The Australian National University, Canberra, no. 11 [March 1975], pp. 1-36 ↩
see Emperor Huan and Emperor Ling: being the Chronicle of Later Han for the years 157 to 189 AD as recorded in Chapters 54 to 59 of the Zizhi tongjian of Sima Guang, translated and annotated by Rafe de Crespigny. Asian Studies Monographs, New Series No. 12, Faculty of Asian Studies, The Australian National University, Canberra 1989 ↩
Ron Takaki has passed away
AndrewMc passes on the word from AsianWeek that one of the founders of ethnic studies and real multi-ethnic immigration history has passed away. Takaki was an Americanist primarily, but as I said at PH,
Takaki’s scholarship on ethnicity and immigration were part of the generation of scholarship which cracked the “Great White Men” historiography in both US and World studies.
Certainly my own scholarship on migration would be inconceivable without scholars like him raising issues and questions.
….the next generation, and ours, building on Takaki’s foundations, which began to make the study of migration truly transnational.
I never got to meet Takaki, though I suppose I was only a handshake away from him during my Berkeley sojourn, but I benefitted immensely from the institutions he helped build and the scholarship he fostered.
Association for Asian Studies Publications
I just received Tools of Culture: Japan’s Cultural, Intellectual, Medical, and Technological Contacts in East Asia, 1000s-1500s, part of the Asia Past and Present book series. I hadn’t ordered a book from the AAS previously and didn’t know what to expect. A pamphlet? Something printed on a desktop? I was pleasantly surprised to see that this inexpensive paperback book (just $22.40 with the AAS member discount!) is a high quality product equal to anything you would see from a university press. I haven’t read the book, but the form is reassuring, and the blurbs by prominent premodern Japanese historians on the back also convince. This looks like an excellent publishing option. As it gets harder to publish with the usual suspects, alternatives such as the various East Asia Center presses (Harvard, Michigan, Cornell), the new PMJS Papers, and other options that I probably don’t know about yet become attactive and important ways of maintaining scholarly standards while still getting our work into print.
Books and Articles/English/Foreign Views/Gender/General/globalization/Historiography/Japan/Journalism & Mass Media/martial arts/Popular Culture/江戸
Young Samurai Book One (of at least three): Harry Potter Bushido
I almost didn’t check Chris Bradford‘s Young Samurai: The Way of the Warrior out of the library when I saw it, but some instinct told me that it was something I should read. Perhaps it was the realization that Young Samurai was the first book in a series — oddly, though, there was no information on the other books1 — and therefore likely to have some serious publicity support from the publisher. Perhaps it was the realization that the publisher was Disney/Hyperion, which more or less guarantees a pretty substantial distribution and readership. Perhaps it was the hope that I might find, finally, some historical fiction worth recommending…..
The book is about a young English boy who’s shipwrecked in Japan in 1611, and gets adopted by a samurai family, while being stalked by the ninja pirates who killed his father and crewmates. So it was a bit Karate Kid and a bit of the story of Will Adams (more Samurai William than Shogun); nothing surprising, really, but all a bit familiar. Aside from fairly predictable ahistorical elements,2 commonplaces of martial arts fiction, and the implausible interpersonal relationships, nothing out of the ordinary.
I was about halfway through the book, though, when I realized what I was reading: it was the scene where Jack, the young Englishman, shows up at the school of his adopted father/patron — a formidable warrior — and all the students are introduced to the instructors at a big banquet. I put down the book, walked into the other room and said to my wife, “It’s Harry Potter in Japan!”
[spoilers, of course, under the fold]
As near as I can tell from the websites, the second book is coming out in the UK shortly, with the third book scheduled for next year and a TV deal in the works, but nothing on the US side about when the sequels might be available here. ↩
ninja, yes, and wakou pirates (who are also ninja) off the coast of eastern Japan in 1611, and the post-Enlightenment attitudes of the protagonist ↩
Male and female lightly engaged in erotic excess
The behavior of the people, the cosmic order, and the stability of the state were all linked in traditional Chinese political theory. Disorder in one would lead to disorder in the others. This cosmology had been pretty much worked out by the Han Dynasty. A good illustration of this principle comes from Commands and Admonitions for the Families of the Great Dao dating from 2551
Formerly, during the latter generations of the Han house, strong men began to carve up the empire. The mighty encroached upon the weak, and the people became deceitful and shrewd. Male and female lightly engaged in erotic excess. The government could not relieve the situation and families did not impose prohibitions. Cities were plundered and the common people were victims of injustice, even to the extent of being made slaves. The people were being devoured )ust as mulberry leaves are consumed by silkworms, and because of their grievances they began to consider revolt.
The pneumas [emanating from) their resistance blocked the heavens. This caused the five planets to depart from their measured movements, aphelial and parhelial comets to sweep the skies, and the fire star to depart from its position as adjunct. Then powerful ministers began to fight among themselves and hosts of treacherous people led one another [in rebellion].
After more than a hundred years, the Wei house received the mandate of Heaven and eradicated all of these evils. Calendrical signs showed that this was so. Their ascension was-recorded in the River [Chart} and the Luo [River Writings} and in other portents suspended in the heavens. Conforming to the celestial dispensation and the propitious times, I received the mandate to be Master of the Kingdom. The Martial Thearch [Cao Cao] launched the empire.
If anyone is wondering, the reason I keep posting all these little quotes and stuff for use in class is so that future teachers of Chinese history will know where to find them. The main future person I want to be able to find them is me, since the web seems a better place to keep ones notes than a hard drive.
translated Stephen Bokenkamp in Early Daoist Scriptures, p.179 ↩
Edging out the competition
For all those keeping track, behind youtube, the most recent site to be blocked by the firewall is blogspot. This means, for our readers in China, that China Beat is no longer available.[1]
Silver lining: China Beat fans in China without a VPN will have to read Frog in a Well instead.
[1] And perhaps even more devastating, my personal research blog is no longer available.