Jottings from the Granite Studio

A few links, some of which might require a quick annotation or gloss on key words:

–Michael Turton reports on The View from Taiwan that The National Palace Museum in Taipei has begun digitizing its immense collection “of loot Chinese Art treasures.”

–EastSouthWestNorth has translated an article by the “Off Track Scholar” (壞軌書生) entitled “Commemorating the Return, Commemorating Lu Xun,” originally published on InMediaHK. Off Track Scholar argues that decolonization, in this case the return of Hong Kong, is less about throwing off old masters than about doing away with a colonial mentality of obsequiousness of, what Lu Xun called, “the lackeys of colonialism.” Off Track Scholar suggests:

In a society that has just been de-colonized, obsequiousness will not disappear immediately afterwards. Obsequiousness will hide within society and take revenge on behalf of the imperialists under different guises. Therefore, the degree to which a former colony has waken up from colonialism depends on the number of people who are still under the sway of obsequiousness.

I couldn’t agree more about the destructiveness of colonialism or the long-lasting effects of decolonization–in fact, that’s the subject of my research. But in this case, “obsequiousness” seems to include in its definition “fighting for the right to vote.” Hope I’m wrong about that…

–The blog Wish You Were Here has a great post on Chinese-Filipino contacts dating back as early as the 10th century C.E. (h/t Global Voices Online)

And yes, many of these links are blocked in China, so if you’re behind the GFW, you’ll have to use a proxy.