Jottings from the Granite Studio

This past autumn, a project funded by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences set off a mini-firestorm when they suggested that the Goguryeo kingdom of Northern Korea (37-668) as well as the later Balhae kingdom (698-926) were actually Chinese kingdoms, founded by ethnic minority groups from China. One Korean newspaper even suggested that it was […]

[Read more →]

I’m a little new to the world of blogging, so I was a bit surprised to learn that I could be “tagged” and asked by other bloggers to jot down some number of thoughts or responses to celebrate the end of 2006. I’m not complaining. I want to thank Gracchi over at Westminster Wisdom (one […]

[Read more →]

After this week’s earthquake off the coast of Taiwan, bloggers and the media reported on the internet outages/slowdowns between the PRC and the rest of the world. The funniest take on the subject has to be from Ryan’s (”The Humanaught”) Life in Suzhou Blog:

Apparently, and this is from the not-too-creditable “customer service” representative at […]

[Read more →]

It got lost in the Christmas hoopla this year, so my apologies for not mentioning that Tuesday was the 113th anniversary of the birth of former Peking University librarian’s assistant and Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, Mao Zedong.
With Mao’s birthday so close to Christmas, perhaps we could make the Yuletide more palatable to the […]

[Read more →]

I wrote about this two weeks ago, but I just read a moving piece in the New York Times (via CDT) by Robert Pittman, one of the scientists on the six-week expedition that combed the Yangzi for signs of the Chinese River Dolphin (baiji).
Locally, the Yangtze River is in serious trouble; the canary in the […]

[Read more →]

From the Everything Old is New Again Desk:
The Chinese government this month announced the names of China’s 100 Outstanding Mothers with some of the awardees gathering in Beijing this week to meet with officials.
Wang Zhaoguo, President of the NPC, praised the women for showing their spirit of selfless maternal love, their outstanding moral character, and […]

[Read more →]

Interesting weekend for Japanese history:
December 23 is a public holiday in Japan to celebrate the official birthday of the reigning emperor, Akihito. Akihito used the occasion of his 73rd birthday today to remind Japanese not to forget the lessons of World War II nor forget those who died in […]

[Read more →]

What happens when the forces of global capitalism and cultural imperialism come robed in red and wearing a white beard? Apparently nothing good. A group of graduate researchers from China’s major universities are calling on their fellow Chinese to boycott Christmas. (English article via China Daily)
Citing the increasing popularity of the holiday among the younger […]

[Read more →]

I usually pass up the chance to take online quizzes. I don’t really care what type of dog I would own, job I should have, or which celebrity has the same nose as I do….but this, this I could not simply ignore.
It is a simple online quiz to determine which of history’s many, many lunatic […]

[Read more →]

Monday marks the 735th anniversary of the founding of the Yuan Dynasty by Kublai (Qubilai) Khan. Kublai, the grandson of Chinggis Khan, inherited the easternmost areas of the Mongol empire after a brief spat with his younger brother and declared himself emperor of the new dynasty in 1271. Within a decade, the Mongol armies had […]

[Read more →]