Chinese history lectures online: Frederic Wakeman, Jr.

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 Studies at the University of California, San Diego, the series was titled “The Last Millennium of Chinese History: From Culture to Nation.” If there was anyone from US academia qualified to tackle such a such a broad and ambitious lecture topic, Fred Wakeman would have certainly topped the list.

Thematically, Professor Wakeman argues against the theory that the period from the Song to the Qing was characterized by relative continuity and progressive advancement of China’s economic, social, and cultural conditions, what historian Paul J. Smith refers to as the Song-Yuan-Ming transition. This narrative, suggests Professor Wakeman, downplays the importance of such ruptures as the loss of North China in the Song, the Mongol Invasion and the Sino-Mongol wars, and the conquest of China by the Manchus. It is Professor Wakeman’s view that China’s past millennium instead was a period rife with conflict, discontinuities, ethnic,

January 28th, 2008

Dollar drops again…

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 around.

January 28th, 2008

Follow-up to Skulls, Race, and Origins

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 originated in what is present-day Chinese territory rather than Africa.

There are still scientists who insist on the multi-regional evolution model, which holds that modern man descended from several indigenous archaic human populations in the Old World, such as the Neanderthals, who resided in Europe, or from the so-called Java man, or Peking man in Asia.

The oldest human fossils found in China so far are those of the 1.7-million-year old Yuanmou Hominid. All ancient human fossils unearthed in China share a common morphology: shovel-shaped fore-teeth, a rectangular eye pit and a flat face, which indicate that ancient man living in China evolved continuously along an uninterrupted evolutionary chain for 1.7 million years.

The Xuchang man helps support the multi-regional theory.

Extraordinary archaeological discoveries are critical to maintaining our national identity as well as the history of our ancient civilization.

January 28th, 2008

Thousands of travelers stranded by snow…

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 under the best of circumstances.

One can only imagine what’s going on in that train station right now, the restroom situation alone would probably be sufficient to give even the hardiest traveler a lifetime supply of nightmares, and God only knows what will happen when the “line” forms for the first train out. It’s going to make a rugby scrum look like tea at Tiffany’s.

There is also a Chinese perspective on the New Year travel chaos posted at 1510: “Spring Festival Travel is an all-out War” (Zh)

January 28th, 2008

Chen Yi-shen: “Let’s put an end to this mock governance”

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 that it denies Beijing’s staunch assertion that Taiwan is part of China’s territory.

However, there is the added difficulty from within: For KMT individuals like former chairman Lien Chan (連戰), the position of sovereignty is obviously more important to the Chinese Communist Party and further from the DPP.

In 2005, when Beijing passed its “Anti-Secession” Law, Lien and People First Party Chairman James Song (宋楚瑜) gladly visited China as though it were a long-lost friend, behavior that I strongly criticized.

Faced with a pan-blue majority legislature, Chen was unable to pass the special legislation needed to implement transitional justice as budget requirements were boycotted.

The so-called “green rule” produced some results, but on the whole, is exiting in the awkward position of a mock of a government.

Between 2004 and last year, I noted that as a limbo state with diametrically opposed political

January 28th, 2008
« Newer Entries  
  Older Entries »

日历

January 2008
M T W T F S S
« Dec   Feb »
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28293031