One scholar who has had a lot of influence on my teaching on Early China is Mark Edward Lewis. I sometimes assign Sanctioned Violence in Early China, and if I had the courage I would assign Writing and Authority. The thing I like about his work is that not only does he know literally everything about everything, his work centers around figuring out what the categories of early Chinese thought were. It is a commonplace that the Han dynasty distinctions between the 100 schools of philosophy are to some extent false divisions forced on a much more complex history. Lewis takes this further and tries to uncover what the categories of thought were in Han and pre-Han China. Part of this, particularly in Writing and Authority, is the importance of patterns. There are patterns that govern the changes in the universe, human affairs and the body, and understanding and adjusting and adjusting to these patterns is what knowledge is all about. (Lewis explains all this a lot better than I do.)
Empty history
I’m spending a few weeks in Korea, mainly for the Academy of Korean Studies organised World Congress of Korean Studies that will be taking place this weekend in Chejudo. A few days ago I had the enjoyable experience of visiting the Hongsŏng area (South Ch’ungch’ŏng Province) together with one of our other contributors, Pak Noja. This was a sort of pilgrimage to see the birthplace of Manhae Han Yongun (1879-1944), the Buddhist reformer, poet and political activist whose writing we have been translating together. We also had the opportunity to visit the lovely Sudŏksa temple nearby, a place I would highly recommend.
Seeing the site of Manhae’s birthplace brought a number of thoughts and feelings to mind, but the sense of being somewhere historically significant or imbued with any atmosphere was unfortunately not one of them. Of course, this could be attributed to my attitude as much as anything else. But seeing a place that has been so obviously constructed in very recent times as a facsimile of the location where Manhae may have been born, I think most people might have similar feelings. The site consists of two small thatched cottages (초가집) one of which is the management office and the other a replica of the house where Manhae was born. Higher up, there is also a shrine to Manhae in the usual style of a small building within a walled compound with a grand gate. Besides that there is an expanse of freshly-paved wasteland, a few stele with inscribed poems (시비) and what appears to be a small museum, currently under construction.
Although it seems they were constructed in the early 1990s, the two thatched cottages were nicely done and pretty enough. But I think there were two things about this place that made it profoundly ‘ahistorical’ for me. One was the expanse of paved ground, a barren nothingness, ready to be trampled on by hordes of daytrippers or school children (actually the place seems rather forlorn and only one coach turned up while we were there). The other was the lack of any real context – it seems that whatever material remains of the village where Manhae was born and lived have long since disappeared to be replaced years later by these disembodied symbols of the world that the young Han Yongun existed in.
Noja pointed out this stone inscription, which is of the three additional points written by Han Yongun at the end of the Proclamation of Korean Independence (1919). The rest of the document was written by Ch’oe Namson. An English translation of the three points:
1. This work of ours is in behalf of truth, religion and life undertaken at the request of our people, in order to make known their desire for liberty. Let no violence be done to anyone.
2. Let those who follow us every man all the time, every hour, show forth with gladness this same mind.
3. Let all things be done decently and in order, so that our behavior to the very end may be honorable and upright.
Yesterday I went for a look around the new National Museum of Korea, located at Ich’on in Seoul, on what I believe was once a US Army golf course. As you can see from the picture below, this site of historical education has a similar expanse of emptiness in front of it, heightening the effect of the massive blank walls of the building. In some ways I quite like this sort of brutalist architecture, but you can’t help feeling that this is a crude attempt to impose upon the visiting masses a sense of awe at the weighty authority of Korean history. What I saw of the exhibitions inside (the history section) , was excellent however. I would recommend the parts on Chosŏn dynasty socio-economic life, thought and international relations which are refreshingly clear and lacking in nationalistic tones.
No need for Clever Speech
It is recorded in the Han chronicles that when Emperor Wen visited his pleasure park he went to the area called Tiger Garden. There he questioned the official in charge of the park about the various animals. The official did not respond. The caretaker beside him, however, answered in great detail. Emperor Wen instructed Zhang Shizhi [an attendent] that the caretaker was to be given administration of the gardens because of his ability. But Zhang reminded him of Zhou Bo and Zhang Xiangru, who were virtuous with words to those above them in rank. Zhang advised that if Wen accepted the clever speech of the caretaker as a virtue and raised him in rank, the world must then bow to [the vagaries of] the winds. People will compete in clever speech and truth will become unimportant. The emperor agreed and the clever caretaker was not promoted. Gerhart “Tokugawa Authority ”Monumenta Nipponica 52.1 Story from Shi ji 102
Military history MIA? WIA? KIA?
There has been a good deal of discussion on Cliopatria and elsewhere on the topic of military history. This discussion was sparked off by a piece in the National Review, in which John Miller argued that academic military history is dying because of opposition from tenured radicals. To the extent that military history still exists “Social history has started to infiltrate military history, Trojan Horse–style” and instead of getting “Blitzkrieg, the Bismarck, and the Bulge” students hear about French hairdressers. It is a very ignorant piece. Here is the webpage of Steve Zdatny, the poser who Miller attacks for claiming to teach military history. Zdatny seems to be an interesting guy whose research seems to touch on a lot of issues having to do with war and resistance in France. I bet Zdatny, unlike Miller, also knows the difference between a teaching field and a research field.
Getting the Chinese to work hard
NYT has an article on American firms’ opposition to new Chinese labor laws. China has been pushing unionization of foreign firms, forcing even Wal-mart to accept unions. In particular the All Chinese Federation of Trade Unions has been trying to organize migrant workers. The basic complaint of the foreign firms is that it will be hard to get workers to work hard enough if you are forced to coddle them. The laws themselves are apparently not all that big a change, but the impression seems to be that these laws may actually be enforced. “If you really abide by the Chinese labor laws,” said Anita Chan, an expert on labor issues in this country and a visiting fellow at the Australian National University, “migrant-worker wages would go up by 50 percent or more.”
Labor groups have always been fairly critical of the ACFTU, for the obvious reason that they are not going to be mistaken for the IWW any time soon. I suspect that these laws will not represent a change in the nature of Chinese unions and that these will continue to be “enterprise” unions. Probably one reason for this push for unionization is simply a desire to have more state control over things. On the other hand, state unions would not have to do much to make the situation of Chinese workers considerably better, as this interview shows
Li Qiang: How is the method to count piecework? Do you know your pay rate?
Worker: The pay rate is different for different products.
Li Qiang: Can you give me an example for the pay rate?
Worker: Such as changing color dolls…
Li Qiang: What is the brand of it?
Worker: Disney.
Li Qiang: What is the piecework rate for it?
Worker: It used to be 11.20 Yuan for 100 pieces, or 0.112 Yuan each.
Li Qiang: How many people are needed to work it out?
Worker: Eight people.
Li Qiang: That is eight people work on the doll, getting 11.20 for 100 pieces.
Worker: But the rate is lowered to 7.80 Yuan.
Li Qiang: Why?
Worker: Because some workers would get over 1000 Yuan monthly if calculated by 11.20. The factory administration lowered the pay rate to reduce cost.
So this is not really hourly work, nor is it peicework. Workers get 1000 Yuan a month period. This is exactly the type of thing unions are supposed to fight for. Not just the right to bargin for a particular wage, but the right to have a wage at all. There are all sorts of things reported in the press, late payment of wages, strange living charges etc., that add up to not just a bad deal for labor but no deal at all. Making even the most marginal effort to improve the position of workers would be popular, make the government look good, and not really cost anything. I have doubts much will happen, and no illusions that gains will happen everywhere in China, but there is at least a possibility that things will improve. If nothing else, there are limits to the number of poor workers even in China, and eventually firms are going to have to bargin with their workers. Even the most limited set of legal rights would help.
Asking Stupid Questions… so you don't have to
My father, in his brief teaching career, used to say to his students “If you have a question, you have to ask it. Odds are good that other people have the same question, and they’ll be grateful to you for asking.” He also said that “There are no stupid questions. Only stupid answers.” So, I appeal to the wisdom of the collective….
In a recent article, Tom Englehardt wrote
When a dynasty fell in ancient China, it was believed that part of the explanation for its demise lay in the increasing gap between words and reality. The emperor of whatever new dynasty had taken power would then perform a ceremony called “the rectification of names” to bring language and what it was meant to describe back into sync. We Americans need to lose the emperor part of the equation, but adopt such a ceremony. Never have our realities and our words for them been quite so out of whack.
The rectification of names is an old established Confucian principle, to be sure, and I can believe that it plays a role in the Chinese historiography (though I admit I haven’t spent a lot of time reading traditional Chinese histories of the ends of dynasties, so I can’t be sure), but I really wonder about the ceremonial aspect of this. Did the Imperial institution actually reify the principle into ritual?
It also came to my attention recently that the famous Chinese Communist quip on the effects (or success) of the French Revolution — “It’s too soon to tell” — is variously attributed to both Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai (a.k.a. Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai) (Ho Chi Minh gets mentioned sometimes, too). The Zhou stories seem to have a bit more detail to them (though he wasn’t alive on the Revolution’s bicentennial, the sesquicentennial’s a possibility), but both attributions range from the pre-’49 era to the 1970s, have various interlocutors (mostly “a journalist,” though Kissinger comes up a lot, too) and I can’t find any specific citations. Does anyone have a specific citation which might pin this down?
Update: In the absence of answers, I’ve now thrown the question to the H-Asia folks. We’ll see if they come up with something interesting.
Remiss in my duties…. yours, too!
Mea maxima culpa. Due to a regrettable lack of focus on bloggerly things, I’ve let my carnival friends down. First, I never congratulated Roy Berman on a wonderful September AHC. If you haven’t read it yet, you should: he did a great job of rounding up and presenting the material, and it could well inspire you to …. submit to the upcoming carnival: That’s right, the next AHC is just days away (two days, to be exact), so get your nominations for your best work over the last month to Nathanael Robinson, Quickly!
While you’re considering what of your recent blogging is good you might also consider taking a look at the September Carnival of Bad History, and if you think any of your blogging is worthy, send it in to that one, which is also coming up shortly. If you’ve got history blogging which is more Early Modern (actually, they still need a host for October, which I can tell you, is really fun), or just plain ol’ Historical (Jeremy Boggs is hosting this weekend’s edition of the grand HC, and I have very high expectations), you’ve got plenty of outlets.
Finally, a rare political plug: American Historical Association Members needed for free speech resolution
In other news
WWII, of course: The last barracks in New Jersey where Japanese Americans were interned has been demolished to make way townhouse developments. Why were they in NJ, I hear you ask? They were working in a food processing plant, which was actually a welcome change for some after the boredom of the other camps, but they were still isolated and not free. Obviously, there are shades of good and evil: new revelations of Japanese medical experimentation on POWs. New PM Abe dances around the Yasukuni question..
Everyone’s been talking about how Nationalist PM Abe is, or is going to be, etc. His views on the Yoshida Doctrine era suggest he’s …. well, actually, I think he sounds like a pretty mainstream Republican most of the time, which does represent something of a change from the 60s and 70s, but not so much from the last twenty years.
Japanese corporations dominate the list of economic entities as big as countries. Though, to be really accurate, the GDPs of the US and Japan should be reduced by the amounts credited to the various corporations….
Finally, Iva Toguri d’Aquino, infamously tagged with the “Tokyo Rose” label, passed away. Here’s a short roundup of some of the best commentary I’ve seen
I can’t wait until they have calendar implants….
Mea maxima culpa. Due to a regrettable lack of focus on bloggerly things, I’ve let my carnival friends down. First, I never congratulated Roy Berman on a wonderful September AHC. If you haven’t read it yet, you should: he did a great job of rounding up and presenting the material, and it could well inspire you to …. submit to the upcoming carnival: That’s right, the next AHC is just days away (two days, to be exact), so get your nominations for your best work over the last month to Nathanael Robinson, Quickly!
While you’re considering what of your recent blogging is good you might also consider taking a look at the September Carnival of Bad History, and if you think any of your blogging is worthy, send it in to that one, which is also coming up shortly. If you’ve got history blogging which is more Early Modern (actually, they still need a host for October, which I can tell you, is really fun), or just plain ol’ Historical (Jeremy Boggs is hosting this weekend’s edition of the grand HC, and I have very high expectations), you’ve got plenty of outlets.
Finally, a rare political plug: American Historical Association Members needed for free speech resolution
For fun: the Kim Jong Il Random Insult Generator. Best one I got was “You ultra-right lackey, we will annihilate you with a fresh revolutionary upswing!” The News site that comes from is pretty substantial, too.
Catching Up… lots of catching up.
Mea maxima culpa. Due to a regrettable lack of focus on bloggerly things, I’ve let my carnival friends down. First, I never congratulated Roy Berman on a wonderful September AHC. If you haven’t read it yet, you should: he did a great job of rounding up and presenting the material, and it could well inspire you to …. submit to the upcoming carnival: That’s right, the next AHC is just days away (two days, to be exact), so get your nominations for your best work over the last month to Nathanael Robinson, Quickly!
While you’re considering what of your recent blogging is good you might also consider taking a look at the September Carnival of Bad History, and if you think any of your blogging is worthy, send it in to that one, which is also coming up shortly. If you’ve got history blogging which is more Early Modern (actually, they still need a host for October, which I can tell you, is really fun), or just plain ol’ Historical (Jeremy Boggs is hosting this weekend’s edition of the grand HC, and I have very high expectations), you’ve got plenty of outlets.
Finally, a rare political plug: American Historical Association Members needed for free speech resolution
In Other News: It could be Menzies, or it could be garden variety nationalism, but Zheng He’s getting more popular in China.
And, A brief history, including new DNA analyses, about Taiwan’s indigenous populations
Self-Immolation Tactics as Media Spin, Cultural Pretense and Strategic Initiative: Japanese and Jihadist Cases (A “companion reader” for Yuki Tanaka’s upcoming (Oct 10) Reischauer Institute lecture)
Next Monday (Oct 10), Professor Yuki Tanaka of the Hiroshima Peace Institute will be delivering a lecture at Harvard, under the auspices of the Reischauer Institute, titled “Japan’s Kamikaze Pilots and Contemporary Suicide Bombers: War and Terror”. Operating under the assumption (which may very well come back to bite me for a classic Roseanne Roseannadanna moment) that the content and main theses of Professor Tanaka’s lecture will be basically unchanged from his November 2005 Japan Focus article http://www.japanfocus.org/products/details/1606 of the same title, I would like to post here a piece I have written that should be considered not necessarily a rebuttal of the professor’s positions, but rather, a companion reader it is hoped will add some perspective to the lecture. Before moving on to my piece, I would like to take the opportunity to wish Professors Tanaka and (moderator) Andrew Gordon the best of success with the lecture, and to express my regret that I cannot attend in person to enjoy the talk and participate thereafter in the stimulating discussions that will no doubt follow. So, without further ado…
Self-Immolation Tactics as Media Spin, Cultural Pretense and Strategic Initiative: Japanese and Jihadist Cases
“THE AMERICANS LOVE PEPSI, WE LOVE DEATH”
“War is our best hobby,” a proud young mujahedin commander told British journalist David Blair in Peshawar, shortly after the 9/11 attacks. “The sound of guns firing is like music for us. We cannot live without war. We have no other way except jihad…The Americans love Pepsi-Cola, we love death”.[1] What a stinging little Information Age soundbite that is, I recall thinking the first time I read it, as clouds of asbestos-laced concrete dust and atomized human remains were still settling over downtown Manhattan. “We love death”! What chance did the rest of the world stand against fighters possessing such awe-inspiring primal überwarrior mojo?
A few years after my first sobering encounter with the “Pepsi” quote, I came across the line once again in a wonderfully incisive book by Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit titled – obviously with a tip of the hat (and perhaps a slight cock of the snoot) to the late Edward Said – Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of its Enemies (New York: The Penguin Press, 2004). But what I experienced upon reading the quote this time around was not shock and awe at the mujahedin commander’s paradoxically nihilistic yet triumphant contempt for my bourgeois frailty; rather, thanks in part to Professors Buruma and Margalit and my own research of the kamikaze subculture of the Asia-Pacific War, it was a spark of realization that the remark could just as easily have come from the text of a Japanese admiral’s pre-attack send-off speech to kamikaze pilots in 1945 or a passage of Ernst Jünger or Oswald Spengler as from the mouth of a media-savvy jihadi in 2001.[2] I found this notion somehow comforting – my bogeyman’s zeal rendered derivative and thus a bit pathetic now – but at the same time, it still disillusioned me; how many millions, I wondered, had marched (or sailed or flown) happily off to their deaths over the last century or two after having their heads filled with chauvinistic bunk like this, and how many other millions innocent of any such crusading fervor had been destroyed as “collateral damage” in the process? Would the carnage this century prove to be even worse?
Double Ten
Coming soon is Double Ten, the anniversary of the Oct. 10, 1911 Wuhan revolt that led to the collapse of the Qing dynasty and the foundation of the Republic of China.
Journalism is supposedly the first draft of history, but in this case the first draft was surprisingly good.
Chinese Troops Revolt
_______
Desert to Rebels at Wu Chang After
Two Conspirators Are Beheaded
HANKOW, China, Oct. 10.- Troops at Wu-Chang have gone over to the rebels and cut off communication with that place, following the arrest of twenty-eight revolutionaries at Wu-Chang, capital of the Province of Hu-Peh, and the beheadings of four of the number in front of the Viceroy’s Yamen to-day. The arrests and executions followed the discovery of a revolutionary plot in the Russian concession here. A bomb was exploded, whereupon a search revealed a factory for the manufacture of explosives and a plan for an attack on Wu-Chang.
Much firing can be heard this afternoon in the direction of Wu-Chang. Several large fires are seen.The authorities had feared that the soldiers were disaffected. Chinese gunboats are patrolling the harbor. A message from Chung-King says that the leaders of the movement, in protest against the Government’s plan of building railways with foreign capital, are protecting the missions in the district where the rebels are operating.New York Times, Oct. 11, 1911
Arita Drug & Rubber Goods, Kobe?
An astute student in my Japanese Women class sent me this link [very adult content] with the thought that I might use it…. to stimulate…. class discussion! I’m actually quite intrigued… by the historical context and puzzle it presents. For those of you who wisely refrained from clicking through on first link, it’s a catalog of sexual devices and medicinals, bearing the imprint
Arita Drug & Rubber Goods Co.
Export and Import
1 Motomachi St.
Kobe
Tel. Sasanomiya (3) 1465
Electrons, the ultimate export
Preview of a documentary on gold-mining in China
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho5Yxe6UVv4
I hope my son never sees this post, which suggests that you really can make a living playing video games. I suspect I will end up showing it to my students as an example of the new Chinese economy.
The comments also show a nice divide between those who think the movie is about the exploitation of Chinese labor and those who think its about those awful Chinese ruining games
If you thought the Chosŏn dynasty was over, think again
Actually, strictly speaking, 88-year-old Yi Hae-won was crowned queen (or should that be empress?) of the Great Han Empire (大韓帝國) last week, rather than the Chosŏn kingdom. The accession of Korea’s new monarch has apparently been greeted with some sarcasm from the public (off with their heads!) and some have even accused the royal descendants of just copying this whole idea from a popular current TV drama about an imaginary Korea with a constitutional monarchy (life imitating art? – never!).
In other royalty-related news, it seems that the main gate of Kyŏngbokkung Palace, Kwanghwamun, will soon be dismantled so that it can be moved 14.5 metres south of its current position. Maybe it’s just me but it seems as though the whole thing of restoring Kyŏngbokkung to exactly how it was 100 years ago is going a bit over the top. And I rather like it the way it is now, with ivy growing over the walls.
Frog in a Well nominated for best Asian group blog
Cool.
Asia Blog Awards has nominated Frog in a Well for Best Asian Group Blog in a new edition run by AsiaPundit. Vote here!