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It is with sadness that I report Professor John DeFrancis, whose lifelong study of China and Chinese influenced several generations of scholars, passed away in Hawaii on January 2. His remarkable life story and commitment to research and teaching are celebrated in a memorial website which is, of course, blocked in China. Taking some necessary liberties, I’ve appended an essay from that site below. Today is my first day back at work and it promises to be a busy one, but January 8th is such a juicy day in Chinese history I couldn’t leave it alone. In 141 A.D. Han Wudi, an emperor much beloved by territorial chauvanists and future generations of Confucian beareaucrats, ascended the throne. During his 69 years in power, he would greatly expand the reach of the Han Empire, order China’s first census, and, on the advice of scholars such as Dong Zhongshu (179-104), proclaim Confucianism (or at least a version thereof) as the imperial ideology. Han Wudi, as any one of several Chinese telenovelas will beat into your skull, was all about the expansion of power and the centralization of the authority. On January 8, 881, Huang Chao, he of the eponymous rebellion, sacked the Tang capital at Chang’an. The Tang had been in steady decline for nearly a century following the An Lushan Rebellion, and while the Huang Chao Rebellion might not have been the final blow, it didn’t help. Kind of like that time in college you booted all over your date. That last double shot of Cuervo probably wasn’t the only reason, there were three funnels of beer preceding Maybe it’s just me, but I tend to get annoyed at conversations which devolve into endless queries as to my mental capacity. This happens quite a bit in China: Person on plane: “I’m from Sichuan. DO. YOU. KNOW. SI-CHUAN?” Me: “Yes, I do. I’m from New Hampshire. Do. you. know. New. Hampshire?’* Person on plane: [blank stare] Now I’m willing to admit that the average American knows more about toenail fungus than Chinese history or geography but…if I’ve just told you that I first started living in Beijing in 2002 and I’m finishing a doctorate in Chinese history, asking me “Do I like Chinese food?” or “Have I heard of Confucius?” is a pretty good way to make me reach for my iPod. —— *To be fair, there are McDonald’s in Sichuan that have more people at the dinner hour on any given Saturday than live in my whole state, so…yeah, I was being kind of a jerk. I know. Grisly discovery from Xinjiang: Six more or less preserved corpses from the days of the Qing Empire. The bodies were dated based on their clothing and long (over four feet) queues which were still intact and visible. The article identifies the corpses as officials, but it’s a little hard to tell from the accompanying (rather grisly) photograph. There were Han settlers, traders, and officials in Xinjiang beginning from the earliest years of the empire. Not all of whom were there voluntarily. Exile to Ili, in the very far west of the region, was a common punishment for derelict officials. Commission Lin Zexu, of Opium suppression fame, was among many whose penalty for running afoul of a capricious court was the long journey through the Jiayu Pass into the great wasteland beyond.* It would be interesting if more details (documents, possessions) from these six bodies are uncovered, shedding some light on the stories of these men and the fate of their journey to the west. ————– *For a vivid reconstruction of this tortuous road, see the first chapter of James A. Millward’s Beyond the Pass: Economy, Ethnicity, and Empire in Qing Central Asia. h/t: HNN On this date in 1979, Vietnamese forces ousted Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, ending the Cambodian leader’s three-year grip on power. From 1975 to 1979 between 1.5 and 3 million people died in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge reign of terror. The Khmer Rouge government of Pol Pot enjoyed considerable economic, military, and political assistance from the PRC, and the Vietnamese action against Pol Pot was one of several events which precipitated the Chinese invasion of Vietnam in February, 1979. On happier note, January 7 is the “Festival of Seven Herbs” (七草の節句 nanakusa no sekku) in Japan. The Japanese eat a porridge made of seven herbs called, 七草粥, nanakusa-gayu for longevity, luck, and health. Today is also the birthday of Sammo Hung 洪金宝. The stocky (but smooth) Hong Kong action star turns 57. |
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