What is a Guojia?

Southern Weekend essayist Chang Ping has written a piece on national responsibility in which he unpacks the term “guojia,” arguing that the multitude of meanings associated with the word have important ideological implications. 

Translation by David Bandurski at China Media Project:

Before the National Holiday editors at Southern Weekend had asked me to explore a set of questions: “What have you done for your guojia? What has your guojia done for you? What more can your guojia do for you?” I felt I had no answers because I had no clear idea what these various guojia‘s” pointed to. Subsequently, I discovered answers to this questionnaire by professor Ding Xueliang (丁学良) and I was again faced with these questions. On his blog, he wrote: “The concept of the guojia (国家) gives rises to four different words in English: state, country, land and nation. The differences between these are not readily discernible in Chinese. The word ‘country’ focuses on territory and the people while the word ‘state’ refers primarily to state political power.” As professor Ding answered each question [posed by Southern Weekend] he was specific in each case about his definition of guojia (国家).

Actually, this concept is often used vaguely. This has

Pulling up our Sox…

Down 2-1 in the series, and 5-0 in the bottom of 7th in game 3…we need some karmic assurance.  I don’t have any, but I do have a link to one of the greatest pieces of sports writing ever: John Updike’s 1960 essay on Ted Williams’ last at bat “Hub Fans bid the Kid Adieu.” Simply brilliant, and the opening lines will bring reflexive nods of agreement and approval from any New Englander who reads them.

Fenway Park, in Boston, is a lyric little bandbox of a ballpark. Everything is painted green and seems in curiously sharp focus, like the inside of an old-fashioned peeping-type Easter egg. It was built in 1912 and rebuilt in 1934, and offers, as do most Boston artifacts, a compromise between Man’s Euclidean determinations and Nature’s beguiling irregularities.

Even as I write this the Red Sox have runners on first and third with nobody out in the 7th.  Here’s to hoping.  Oh yeah, and even if you’re not a Boston or baseball fan, do read the Updike article, it’s a wonderful piece of essay writing.

Happy Hua Guofeng Day 2008: The first in the P.H. (post-Hua) Era

As many, if not both my readers know, each October we commemorate Hua Guofeng Day, the anniversary of Hua Guofeng’s elevation as Mao’s chosen successor, the Wise Leader of the Chinese people.  HGFD 2008, of course, is tinged with autumnal sadness, poetically apropos for the time of year, as it is the first Hua Guofeng day since the former Chairman left us to meet Marx this past August.

Thus, we mourn a passing and celebrate a life: Hua Guofeng, 1921-2008.

Next week: Why Boston’s Dom Dimaggio was every bit the player as brother Joe.

Virtual Forbidden City

Just what I need, another way to kill a whole morning of productivity.  As if the Red Sox being in the playoffs hasn’t been sufficiently destructive to my schedule, IBM, in partnership with the Palace Museum in Beijing, has unveiled an interactive virtual Forbidden City.  I have only begun venturing through this online educational tool/video game and I’ll give it a fuller review later.  In the meantime, if you wish to engage in some ‘time theft’ from your company whilst you should be working, I highly recommend checking it out.

More from the world of virtual tours, the British Library has a website in conjunction with its exhibition ”Trading Places – the East India Company and Asia 1600-1834.” You can check out their China section, or get a taste for the whole site from tea to opium, Calcutta to Canton.  I particularly enjoyed this little nugget from the section on opium, summed up in classic British understatement: “Ethical trading it was not.”

The perils of studying the Qing

Via Danwei:

The Beijing News October 7, 2008

Yan Chongnian (阎崇年), a scholar specializing in Qing history and Manchu culture, was attacked on October 5 when he was in Wuxi to promote his new book, The Kangxi Emperor. The prolific author was smacked twice in the face, allegedly because the attacker disagreed with his historical views.

While it was unclear from the report which views got Professor Yan slapped by another dude (what kind of a guy slaps someone, anyway?), Danwei did some digging and came up with these little nuggets of Qing wisdom by searching the internet for “Yan Chongnian” and “traitor”:

Wu Sangui, the general who has usually taken the blame for the collapse of Ming Dynasty (the last Han Chinese Dynasty) by virtue of his surrender to the Manchu invaders, should be reevaluated for avoiding mass bloodshed that may have resulted had he not surrendered; Censorship and crackdown on dissenting views by the Qing ensured social stability despite certain limitation; The Manchu invasion promoted the integration of different ethnic groups, and the human loss it caused was inevitable.

The Qing can be a touchy subject.  I’ve occasionally riled people by (tongue ever so slightly in cheek) correcting their assumption that

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