Reason number 88 why the Patriots are going to the Super Bowl.

This has nothing to do with Chinese history and everything to do with Boston sports. If you don’t care about the latter, then click here to read historian Ken Pomeranz’s marvelous post on The China Beat about Han Dynasty reformer/usurper Wang Mang.

Bill Belichick cheated. Fine. He ordered a minion to videotape the opposing team’s coaching staff to see if he could decode their signals. Two things. The Barry Bonds defense: Everybody does it, people have a grudge against Belichick and so he was the one they busted. Second, ‘Camera-gate’ (eyes rolling) had exactly 0.0% to do with the Patriots subsequently going 17-0.* Was it stupid? Absolutely. But Belichick’s that kind of guy. He’s monomanaically obsessed not only with winning, but supremacy, and for Bill that means having crushed your enemies and made their mothers weep. Think of him as the Khubilai Coach. (Yeah, I know Ghengis would have been better, but the alliteration didn’t work, sue me.)

The opposing coach this weekend is Norv Turner. Even if you know nothing of NFL football, all you need to do is read this casino anecdote by ESPN.com columnist Bill Simmons to know everything you need about Coach Turner: We’re eating breakfast

January 18th, 2008

The history of the PRC according to Ai Wei Wei

In a fascinating interview in the Australian newspaper The Age, Beijing-based artist Ai Wei Wei gives his own take on modern Chinese history:

“It is very important to understand China that you know very soon after 1949, even before the Communists had total control, because of the severity of the problems facing China (what Mao called the ‘three mountains’ on China’s back of feudalism, imperialism and bureaucracy) they developed into a totalitarian state that could not tolerate dissent.” He says the party is like the Mafia, its only purpose being to protect and maintain its power.

Ai says the Chinese Communist Party gutted any remaining ideological basis for being.

“The goal of the CCP was to overthrow private property, but every one of the 70 million members of the party today raise their hands at one moment to announce their lives will be sacrificed to end capitalism. This is the biggest lie and if you have 70 million professional liars who are controlling the whole nation … it’s a madhouse.

“Why can’t you clearly speak out and talk about historical events — what’s wrong with you? Why are you (the party) so timid and scared to have debate?”

Ai

January 18th, 2008

2,500-year old sword found in Jiangxi

From the Shanghai Daily:

CHINESE archaeologists have discovered an elaborately decorated sword, believed to be 2,500 to 2,600 years old, in an ancient tomb in the eastern province of Jiangxi. “It is reckoned the oldest ever excavated in the country,” said Xu Changqing, chief of the excavation team.

A dragon pattern was carved on both ends of the scabbard, he said.

No word yet on when knock-offs of this priceless artifact will be made available for purchase at your local Great Wall souvenir trap store, though I’m guessing we won’t have to wait long.

January 18th, 2008

Jeffrey Wasserstrom on the Shanghai Mag-lev Protests

In the wake of last week’s protests in Shanghai over construction of a new mag-lev train, historian Jeffrey Wasserstrom has a great piece in The Nation looking at the history of collective action in Shanghai. It would be a mistake to ignore parallels between the current Shanghai protests and earlier events in the city’s history that began with daily-life concerns and calls simply for greater government responsiveness, yet ultimately swelled into broader movements that challenged the legitimacy of an authoritarian ruling party. Protests of this sort took place in the 1940s against the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-Shek, triggered by hyperinflation. When students of the Tiananmen generation first took to the streets in Shanghai in the mid-1980s, their grievances were largely about the living conditions on campuses but mushroomed into a much more radical set of demands that caught the world’s attention in the Beijing Spring of 1989.

A must-read.

January 18th, 2008

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