Jottings from the Granite Studio

It would be impossible to overstate the importance of Frederic Wakeman to the field of Chinese history. He was simply one of the giants. This month UCTV has posted on Youtube a 3-part lecture series given by Professor Wakeman only months before he passed away in 2006.
Hosted by the Institute of International Cooperation and Area [...]

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It looks as though we’ll be hitting the magical 7 RMB/$1 mark sooner rather than later. News from China’s Central bank this afternoon that the the dollar is down to a record low of 7.196 RMB. (For those Europeans gloating out there at the Americans’ misfortune, the Euro also fell to 10.56 RMB.)
Belt-tightening all [...]

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I wrote about this last week, but the People’s Daily today weighs in on the significance of the discovery at Xuchang. Researchers at the site located in Henan province uncovered a nearly-complete 100,000 skull that has caused great excitement in the Chinese scientific community.
The discovery at Xuchang supports the theory that modern Chinese man [...]

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CCTV reported this morning that over 170,000 passengers had been stranded at the Guangzhou Rail Station due to heavy snow. (Details here.)
For those not blessed to have ever been in China during the Spring Festival travel season (春运), think of the days before the Thanksgiving and Christmas vacations combined and then quadrupled. It’s total bedlam [...]

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Historian Chen Yi-shen from the Academica Sinica has an op-ed piece translated in this morning’s Taipei Times.
Chen argues:
As a historian, it is not difficult to see that the source of the problem lies in the handling of the post-war Treaty of Peace with Japan. This theory of indetermination continues to have a proactive side in [...]

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It must be Song history week here at the Granite Studio. Yesterday I wrote about Yue Fei and today it’s the Liao and the Jin. On January 28, 1005, the Song Dynasty agreed to the Chanzhou Pact with the Khitan Liao. The agreement fixed the boundary between the Song and the Liao and forced the [...]

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