1980s/Contemporary/Korea/Memory/Politics

The June struggle in the British newspapers

Posted on by Owen / 3 Comments

Over at my own blog I’ve decided to mark the anniversary of the events of June 1987 in South Korea by following contemporary reports from the British newspapers on a day-by-day basis. Twenty years ago today, the real action of the June events was getting under way with serious violence on the streets of central Seoul, and the famous siege of Myŏngdong Cathedral began.

Personally I find something exciting about looking back at an event that happened within my memory (at least I have vague memories of the TV news reports) and seeing it as ‘history’. It is also interesting to see how perceptions of the event here and in Korea may have changed since the correspondents first filed their reports from the scene.

All the posts will be accessible from this link.

Meanwhile, at Japan Focus, Paik Nak-chung has an article on the June Struggle and its legacy.

Articles/China/China-U.S./Current Events/English/Japan

Accumulated History: A miscellany

Posted on by Jonathan Dresner / 1 Comment

As always, stuff for which I don’t give a tip of the hat mostly came from HNN

Until next time!

Archaeology/China/English/Maoist era (1949-1976)/Public History

China reconstructs

Posted on by Alan Baumler / 8 Comments

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 Nanjing.

Building at ming palace

The thing they are making is made out of concrete, and just a generic “traditional” decoration, nothing particularly to do with the site. Much more common in the U.S. is the idea of public history that produces things like this

Stones

Continue reading →

Blogroll/English/Web Sites

Ancient Japan Blog

Posted on by K. M. Lawson / 0 Comment

I recently came across the Ancient Japan weblog. Looking through its archives, I see that it has been offering up interesting postings for over a year now and joins the few weblogs out there, at least that I have come across, which directly focuses on Japanese history. I sent off a few questions to the weblog’s author, Joseph Ryan, to learn a bit more about his website:

Q: What is the scope of coverage for the Ancient Japan blog?

A: The material appearing on The Ancient Japan Blog stretches from the Jomon to the Kofun period. Related to that time frame, I plan on posting reviews and purchase links for new books, updates on current Japanese archaeological issues (such as the Takamatsuzuka Kofun restoration), and personal research that I hope will spark exciting conversation.

Q: How did you become interested in the topic?

A: I originally became interested in Japanese history after a rather embarrassing incident at a local fabric store. I was in seventh grade at the time. I went to the store with my mother and her friend in order to buy some generic “Chinese” fabric for some curtains (I thought they’d look great in my room…). My mother’s friend asked me if I was interested in Japanese items as well. Truth be told, I didn’t know where Japan was on a map. I returned home that evening and read general descriptions of Japan’s geography, history, and economy in the Encarta Encyclopedia. Not surprisingly, the small, romanticized blurb on samurai caught my attention. There was no turning back at that point–I believe I bought all the Japanese-related books that Borders and Barnes and Noble had to offer. As to how I became interested in specifically ancient Japanese history, I was puzzled at the vague references to early Korean-Japanese relations and the relatively small amount of space devoted to the Yayoi/Kofun periods in the first book of Sansom’s /A History of Japan /trilogy. I suppose that was like hiding the Christmas presents from the kids–the less the kids know, the more they inquire. I suppose the small amount of researchers in the field, the effects ancient history had on the formation of Japanese society and government, and the overall challenge of peering through two thousand years of mist to a fascinating age keeps my interest alive.

Q: What do you think are the issues and questions related to the study of ancient Japan which those outside of Japan have most taken an interest to? Why?

A: Two words just popped into my head: Kofun and Yamatai. Why kofun? They’re mysterious, huge, and awe-inspiring manifestations of the rivalry between and the power of regional chieftains and Yamato Kings. Why Yamatai? Thanks to the annoyingly vague Wei Zhi, the location of Himiko’s chiefdom of Yamatai will provide fodder for research for generations of scholars to come. As more and more scholars realize that the path toward answering questions on ancient Japan is one of interdisciplinary cooperation, archaeological and traditional historical methods of analyzing these ancient problems are revealing more and more fascinating details. There are surely other topics that Western researchers have found interesting (such as questions surrounding race and origin), but the size, shape, and meaning of kofun, and the location of Yamatai strike me as most attractive to those outside of Japan. (It’s here that I’d like to plug Professor J. Edward Kidder, Jr.’s new book on Yamatai, Himiko, and the nature of Japanese society during the transition from the Yayoi to the Kofun period. It’s called Himiko and Japan’s Elusive Chiefdom of Yamatai: Archaeology, History, and Mythology.)

Q: What are other good resources online for those who might be interested in the study of ancient Japanese history?

A: I sure wish there was more online–it would save me a bundle not having to buy $80 monographs in order to get a prodding historical question answered! If people don’t know Japanese, it can be very difficult to find trustworthy, detailed information on the Internet. A list of appropriate websites would make this already long post too long, so please check out my new post here. It’s a work in progress.

Thanks to Joseph for his replies, and be sure to check out his links to useful websites on ancient Japan. It looks like the blog may become a group effort in the future. If you are interesting in joining the weblog as a contributor, leave a note introducing yourself here.

Religion/Web Sites

Encyclopedia of Shinto

Posted on by K. M. Lawson / 0 Comment

I was just catching up on my reading of H-Japan postings, when I came across an announcement that I thought might be worth sharing with those who don’t subscribe to the mailing list. It announces the new online:

Encyclopedia of Shinto

Not only can its contents be read in English and searched online, but I was delighted to find that it has released the contents under a Creative Commons license (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs) that gives visitors the freedom to copy and distribute the material they find there if they provide attribution.

The Online Release of the Encyclopedia of Shinto
May 25, 2007

The 21st century Centers of Excellence (COE) Program at Kokugakuin University (Tokyo, Japan) is pleased to announce the completion, in March 2007, of the online version of its Encyclopedia of Shinto (EOS). EOS was compiled as part of the four-year (2002-2006) COE program entitled “Establishment of a National Learning Institute for the Dissemination of Research on Shinto and Japanese Culture” (please see the address below).

The online EOS is a revised and translated digital version of the entire contents of the reduced-sized edition of the Encyclopedia of Shinto edited by the Institute for the Study of Japanese Culture and Classics (IJCC) at Kokugakuin University; it was published by Koubundou in 1999. The original encyclopedia is comprised of nine sections, three of which have been translated into English and published in print form (Section Two, Kami; Section Four, Shrines; and Section Eight, Schools, Organizations, and Personalities). Under the COE program, all nine sections have been newly edited and translated into English, and photos, audio, and video files have been created and linked to the text; the entirety is available on the web.

40 researchers both within and outside of Japan contributed to the translation and correction process, and around 30 staff members of the COE project were involved with editing and uploading the information. The Encyclopedia of Shinto is designed for anyone who would like to know about Japanese culture related to Shinto in English, and presents a wide range of material related to Shinto with clear academic explanations. It should also be helpful for Japanese people when explaining Shinto in international situations. EOS has been partially available on the web for some time, and has already been accessed many times. However, in light of its recent completion, we hope that an even greater number of people will be made aware of its existence and will use it frequently.

In the future, we plan to supplement and improve the content further, hoping to make EOS an even more accessible and reliable reference source.

The new online Encyclopedia of Shinto is a product of considerable expenditure and effort, and therefore we sincerely hope that you will make full use of it.

Inoue Nobutaka
Project Leader
Professor, Kokugakuin University

URL of the online Encyclopedia of Shinto: http://eos.kokugakuin.ac.jp/
Questions should be directed to Inoue Nobutaka, Kokugakuin University

China/English/Maoist era (1949-1976)/Post-Mao/Public History

The Chairman is pleased

Posted on by Alan Baumler / 6 Comments

Mao Smoking

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 under the revolutionary memorial. The exhibit itself is not much of a plug for his continued importance. There is a barker outside urging you to come in, and the signs all emphasize that it’s free, unlike special areas at a lot of Chinese monuments. There are a bunch of pictures and text and stuff like that and this statue. As you can see, the Chairman is smoking, as he often was. He has a real cigarette in his hand and on the table in front of him are a bunch more, which I think are offerings. They are all different brands, and there is a break in the chain that surrounds that statue so you can go up and offer him one, not that I saw anyone do that. So, Chinese people may no longer be willing to offer their red, red hearts to Chairman Mao, but some of them will at least bum him a smoke.

Koguryo/Korea/Korea-China/Nationalism/Sport

… and then they came for Taekwondo

Posted on by Owen / 4 Comments

Another sign of Korea’s increasing sense of insecurity in the face of rapidly growing Chinese economic and political power, or another sign of China’s aggressive attitude toward Korean cultural heritage, designed to assert cultural hegemony and keep its ethnic minorities in check? This time the Chinese have apparently got their sights on Taekwondo:

Concern is rising among Korean officials that China might try to assert taekwondo as its own homegrown sport.

Ko Eui-min, chairman of the World Taekwondo Federation Technical Committee, said, “China is doubted to have been adopting its Northeast Asia Project in taekwondo.”

Northeast Asia Project is an attempt to distort ancient Korean history in the northeastern territory of what is now China, including the Koguryo Kingdom (37 B.C.-A.D. 668) and the Palhae Kingdom (698-926).

“I was really upset to hear that the broadcaster at Changping Stadium in Beijing said taekwondo is a Chinese martial art, during the 2007 World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) Championships,” he said.

On the first day of the biennial competition, he introduced taekwondo, saying, “Taekwondo originated from Korea, combining Japanese and Chinese martial arts.”

The paradox is that Taekwondo is both a highly nationalistic subject in South Korea and perhaps Korea’s most well-recognised international cultural export. Can something like this be globalised and at the same time so firmly embedded in nationalistic discourse? The next paragraph in the above-linked article actually brought a wry smile to my face (my emphasis):

“I feel really sorry that we have not tried to protect taekwondo while China is preparing for the event. Although many renovations have been under way inside the taekwondo governing body after new leaders like the president and general secretary took office, we still have a lot of things to do,” said the 68-year-old taekwondo master, who resides in Germany.

It is a bit unfortunate that this blog hasn’t covered the whole Koguryŏ history controversy in much greater detail. Fortunately though, the subject has produced plenty of good English-language commentary over the last six months or so. The stand out examples are Andrei Lankov’s piece at Japan Focus; Yonson Ahn’s article at History News Network; Andrew Leonard’s introduction at Salon.com; and Choe Sang-hun in the International Herald Tribune. If you still want some more, I’ve managed to collect a variety of related internet resources in my del.icio.us links tagged Koguryŏ.

China/Class/English/Post-Mao

Guards! Guards!

Posted on by Alan Baumler / 1 Comment

 

Security guard at Shanghai Public library (a very nice lady)

One thing I’ve been noticing a lot (I’m in Shanghai) is that China may be the best-guarded society in the world. There are guards everywhere. By guards I mean people in uniform who don’t seem to have much to do. At the top you have people who guard Chairman Mao, i.e. real military types. Then regular cops. Then those traffic police in grubby yellow vests whose work seems to be mostly harassing bike riders. Then you have huge, unending masses of security guards.1 Guards at libraries and archives. Guards at the gate to any sort of courtyard or parking area who sit in a little glass box and wave at you as you go by. Guards at stores and shopping centers and hotels. People who are wearing guard-type uniforms, but it is not really clear what they are guarding. The lower down you go the more ill-fitting the uniform seems to be, and the less likely it seems that the person is going to stop anybody from doing anything.

So why are they all there? Are they really afraid somebody is going to walk out of the library with a book? Some are universal and need little explanation. All modern states seem to want cops. And they all seem to want military guys at the appropriate places. The guy in the little box is a figurative (and possibly literal) descendant of the guards at the entrance to the compound of a work unit (单位). They used to be there to mark out the territory of the unit and to make you get off your bike as you came in the gate as a sign of respect. (Respect for what I’m not sure. Mostly the guards it seemed.) Today China does not have a system of space that is quite as delimited as that, but guards are still around. Why? Well part of it is no doubt that it is cheap to hire people to do stuff like this, and so you don’t need much of a reason. In more developed countries a human security guard is a pretty huge investment. In China it is cheap, especially if they have no special training, which seems to often be the case. They also do serve in a way to delimit space just like the old danwei guards did. There is an awful lot of disorder (乱) in China. If you are not careful street hawkers, homeless people and counter-revolutionary elements may set up shop in “your” space. So any government office or private entity that can afford it will hire some guards. It is sort of interesting to figure out what rules they are enforcing. As an American I am used to fairly distinct lines between public and private property, and clear rules about what I can and can’t do. Here of course things are different, and guards enforce whatever rules seem appropriate and in very different ways to different people. I can take a nap on a bench. A beggar can’t. This space that looks public actually belongs to us (look, we are guarding it.) All of them seem to be enforcing a certain amount of civility on the people who need it enforced on them. Best of all, from the state’s point of view most of them do it without being paid by the state. Zwia Lipkin wrote about some of these issues in the Nationalist period.

  1. All of these security guards are completely unarmed. I don’t want to be all American and insist that you can’t be a guard without a gun, but at least a billy club would be something. ↩

Contemporary/English/General/Historical analogies/Korea/Korean War/US-Korea

Analogy Alert: Iraq/Korea

Posted on by Jonathan Dresner / 7 Comments

this via:

White House spokesman Tony Snow said Bush would like to see a U.S. role in Iraq ultimately similar to that in South Korea.

“The Korean model is one in which the United States provides a security presence, but you’ve had the development of a successful democracy in South Korea over a period of years, and, therefore, the United States is there as a force of stability,” Snow told reporters.

and this via

Missing from much of the current discussion is talk about the success of democracy in Iraq, officials say, or even of the passage of reconciliation measures that Mr. Bush said in January that the troop increase would allow to take place. In interviews, many senior administration and military officials said they now doubted that those political gains, even if achieved, would significantly reduce the violence.

The officials cautioned that no firm plans have emerged from the discussions. But they said the proposals being developed envision a far smaller but long-term American presence, centering on three or four large bases around Iraq. Mr. Bush has told recent visitors to the White House that he was seeking a model similar to the American presence in South Korea.

Discuss.

China/English

We get mail

Posted on by Jonathan Dresner / 0 Comment

Paul Chiasson’s contribution to Menzies’ thesis has been getting press again. Though it’s been pretty thoroughly rejected by knowledgable academics — that’s studied and debunked, for those of you who don’t understand the academic process —

What is hard to understand is why, if there are what look like grave mounds on Cape Dauphin, they haven’t been excavated, and any human remains subjected to mitochondrial DNA analysis. Results of this kind of scientific investigation would then take over from mud-slinging on the Internet, such as the accusation that Library and Archives Canada, in cataloguing this book as history rather than fiction, is merely advancing “a publisher’s plans to deceive the public” (maritimeasia.ws/topic/1421bunkum.html).

I got an email earlier today following up on this:

From: Andrew Sark
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 12:11 pm
To: Jonathan Dresner
Subject: Chinese in Cape Breton

Dear Mr. Dresner,

Greetings from the North. I am Andrew Sark of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada. I have recently come across your response to an article on the Internet “http://www.froginawell.net/china/2006/05/satire-self-parody-and-court-jesters/” I would like to share information regarding this site and possibly contribute to your University and studies with a co-authored study on the area.

I am a Mi’kmaq man, father of one son, adventurer and explorer. The Cape Dauphin area has always offered inspiration and awe, mystery and a sense of quest. I have lead many groups of people into the cave area, known to the Mi’kmaq as Kluscap’s Caves.

The notion that Chinese were here is usually disputed by local Mi’kmaq but with no academic proof. I would like to explore the ruins, investigate from every angle and offer a more precise and non-bias interpretation of the area.

If you are interested in helping me, please forward any information to my email including pictures of the area.

Thanks,

Andrew Sark
Cape Breton, NS-C

Mr. Sark appears to be an educator with the Cape Breton University Integrative Science Program, “which bring[s] together conventional western science knowledge and understandings from the holistic world views of Aboriginal peoples, especially the Mi’kmaq First Nations of Atlantic Canada,” particularly the Sunflower project. Mr. Sark seems to be supportive of the Chiasson/Menzies thesis, at least in the abstract, which is kind of interesting: he’s a Mi’kmaq himself, and part of a project trying to integrate conventional and indigenous ideas about ecology and investigative science, but he seems to be very doubtful about the Mi’kmaq rejection of the thesis. Mr. Sark also doesn’t seem to have read my post too closely, because what it contains is David Goodman’s viciously funny and effective review of Chiasson’s book from a full year ago.

It seems odd that there’s been nothing new in a whole year. Maybe this Menzies thing is dying down after all? Would excavations and DNA testing actually put this to rest, or would the absence of evidence be explained away by its partisans? Should we be wasting energy actually studying this stuff? (No comment on whether blogging it is also a waste of time: as long as newspapers keep printing it, we’ll have to keep reminding people of how ill-founded the whole discussion is).

Well, it’s not my field, but anyone who really, really wants to “contribute to your University and studies with a co-authored study” is welcome to contact Mr. Sark.

China/Current Events/English/Identity/Public History/Taiwan

A rose by any other name

Posted on by Alan Baumler / 11 Comments

Democracy Hall

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 Hall. This is actually sort of interesting, as lots of states have to deal with the “problem” of old historical monuments. This is a particularly big problem for the CKS memorial, as it is HUGE and right in the middle of town. I used to walk across it every day to change buses and stopped in to see the movie about his life about 50 times. The movie was unimpressive, but the AC in the place would lower your core temperature to the point you could walk a mile in the Taibei summer without breaking a sweat. Although there have been some protests about the renaming, the bigger problem is the symbolism. The tiles are all blue, as a symbol of the Nationalist Chinese flag. Will they be painted green? Also, the dimensions of the building are symbolic.

The square shape of the building represents the spirit of the mean and of rectitude (chung-cheng which is also Chiang Kai-shek’s name); the three-tiered staircase symbolizes the Three Principles of the People; the two-tiered eight-cornered roof eaves, built in the shape of the character jen (man) and coming together at the pao-ting converge with the sky, symbolizing revered Mr. Chang’s belief that “Heaven and Man are One”1)

Of course one could come up with Taiwanese justifications for these dimensions, which is probably what was done in the first place. It seems, however, that this will be yet another chapter in the fight over the past. Chiang actually did quite well for himself. Unlike Sun Yat-sen, Chiang’s actually called attention to his Christianity, which was not allowed in the case of Sun. Mao had to suffer the indignity of having other revolutionaries honored in what was orginally his space. Chiang’s statue is still all by itself, and its hard to see what they can do with it.

CKS

Of course Chiang has had to suffer the ultimate indignity. The museum of his life has been replaced by an exibit on the Taiwanese democracy movement, whose chief enemy was of course Chiang. If they keep changing memorials like this Taibei will become St. Petersburg.

  1. Frederic Wakeman “Funerary Rites: The Remains of Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Tse-tung” Representations 10 (Spring 1985 ↩

Academia/China-Japan/English/General/Historiography/Japan/Medieval/Pedagogy/Premodern

Reflecting on a semester

Posted on by Jonathan Dresner / 0 Comment

We’ve been talking about our syllabi for a while here at the Frogs, but we haven’t done a lot of post-semester commentary. I had two Asia courses this semester: Early Japan and Problems and Issues of Contemporary China.

The China course went like gangbusters, and the books worked surprisingly well as a set. The Hessler was a solid starter, and I think I’m going to use it as my closer next time I teach the 20c China course. I followed it up with Cohen’s historiography, which was risky: only one of the five students in the class had anything like a serious historical background. Still, the theoretical perspectives he was describing are still very much alive, and it gave us a structure to talk about a lot of what came after. Qian Qichen’s diplomatic memoir was a nice corrective — focusing on strengths, and the Chinese perspective on the world — and the pre/post-9/11 talks transcribed in the appendices are great texts in themselves: I highly recommend them for anyone teaching a world politics or recent China course. My only concern is that it felt a little light. But if there had been more students, then the student-led reading/discussion section would have been denser. Anyway, aside from one supplemental reference which got underused, if I get to teach this course again, I’m keeping everything. I think it would work pretty well for undergrads, too.

The Early Japan course was a bit more mixed. I’m still trying to do too much, it seems: I need to spend more time on skills in the surveys, especially when I don’t have a core text. Berry’s Culture of Civil War in Kyoto was a great “slice of life” text, and actually sparked some discussion at a point in the semester when interest has often flagged. I can’t in good conscience give up the Genji and Heike readings, but I think I’m going to have to be more selective about the rest of the readings. I really want to add at least one good monograph on an earlier period, to parallel Berry. I’m thinking about Farris or Friday, and about adding student research and presentations to the document-based analysis assignments.

I need to look ahead now. I’ll be teaching my Qing course in the Fall, and so far it’s looking like a small crowd: perfect for the kind of scholarship I’m assigning. I want to work in a stronger research component than I had last time, though, to give students more of a chance to stretch their legs, so to speak.

Contemporary/Events/Korea/Korea-China/Late Chosŏn

Two talks this week

Posted on by Owen / 0 Comment

A couple of very interesting talks coming up at short notice for anyone who happens to be around in LA or Seoul in the next couple of days (or perhaps both if you’re the jetsetting type).

Tomorrow fellow frog blogger Pak Noja (Vladimir Tikhonov) will be giving a lecture at the Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch:

Politics of Conscription: Militarized Statehood in Postcolonial Korea – Dr. Vladimir Tikhonov
Tuesday May 22, 2007, 7:30 pm
2nd Floor, Somerset Palace, Seoul

Meanwhile, on Wednesday afternoon, Jeong-il Lee will be giving a talk about Kija in late Chosŏn Korea along with another talk about Korean memories of Ming China at the UCLA Asia Institute:

“Kija with Qizi: Re-packing Antiquity and Civilization in Late Choson Korea” – Jeong-Il Lee
Wednesday May 23, 3:30-5:30 pm
10367 Bunche Hall, Los Angeles

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