Jottings from the Granite Studio

For anyone who works in academia, or anybody concerned about the culture of anti-intellectualism in American culture…or really anybody who wants a good laugh while at work–check out this priceless bit from Stephen Colbert. Wait for the bonus at the end when the poor afflicted student mentions the grade he received for the class. (BIG [...]

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Today is the Gaokao (高考) when parents across China send their senior high school students off to take the most important exam of their lives by offering such helpful, encouraging words as, “If you do badly, your mother will die in a pauper’s grave.” Clearly in today’s China-A-Go-Go, competition for elite, urban jobs is [...]

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I’ve never done it. YJ has never done it before either. So last night we had a couple of beers and finally took the big step that every couple must before they get married in China…we went to one of those singing-dancing Xinjiang revue restaurants and it was….not as bad as it could have been.
Definitely [...]

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Illegal iron ore mining is damaging the eastern Qing tombs. Actually mining is too delicate a word for the process—basically people are blowing up huge chunks of land and then looking to see if there any cool rocks that look like iron underneath.
According to the IHT, “China’s heritage protection laws ban explosions, [...]

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Tony Platt of Sac State reviews a new book by historian Jean Pfaelzer on the persecution of Chinese-Americans in 19th-century California.

Between 1840 and 1900, more than 2 million Chinese laborers left their homeland to work in plantations and mines around the world. Twenty-five thousand of them joined California’s Gold Rush. [...]

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Why can’t everybody stop fighting? Can’t we just all get along? Oh yeah, I forgot…because in East Asia, the study of history and the need to save political face while symbolically shifting ancient boundaries around to meet contemporary geo-political exigencies go together like a horse and carriage, PB&J, and Harry & Sally. [...]

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I know I need to lose weight. Everybody tells me this: My doctor, my girlfriend, my colleagues at work, my neighbor, some old guy I saw at the park, a clerk in a store where I was buying a juicemaker…everybody. This is Beijing — free health advice comes standard. Most people just shake their heads [...]

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