Jottings from the Granite Studio

In a 1973 conversation so bizarre that I admit to being a bit skeptical, Mao reportedly asked Henry Kissinger, “Do you want our Chinese women? We can give you ten million.”
Mao first suggested sending “thousands” of women but as an afterthought proposed “10 million,” drawing laughter at the meeting, also attended by Chinese premier Zhou [...]

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The Founding of the Zhou Dynasty
On February 13, 950, Guo Wei founded the Zhou Dynasty, one of the “5 Dynasties and 10 Kingdoms” that ruled in China between 907 and 960. Guo Wei was a general in the Turkic Han Dynasty (And yes, the short-lived regimes of this period loved to take their names from [...]

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