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Prayer wheels outside of a monastery near Daocheng, Sichuan. The monastery belongs to the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism and was almost completely destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. In recent years, the monks have managed to restore many of the original structures and halls. Photo taken in May, 2010. Today’s a big dissertation working day so I’ll leave you with this gem, a 1958 film produced by the CIA and the National Security Council: “China Leaps Forward.” Enjoy. h/t to fellow historian G.T. If you heard bedlam this afternoon in the hutongs of Beijing, I’m sorry…it was the day of our semester semi-circumambulation of the 2nd Ring Road. The idea started many years ago as a full circumambulation of the 2nd Ring, which actually walking along the highway for its entire circumference. We did this for several semesters until we realized that it was really boring and then we started modifying it and modifying it until now it’s more of a trapezoidal stroll through the avenues, streets, and alleyways of Xicheng and Dongcheng. We took the subway down from Weigongcun, 20 students packed on a train, and got off at Xizhimen to make a token appearance along the 2nd Ring, but only as far as Financial Street. A left on Chang’an took us past Xidan (I pointed out the venerable Sanwei Bookstore) and Zhongnanhai (where we were hustled onto the sidewalk by the local donut patrol and scolded for loitering out front) and finally through Tiananmen and up Nanchizi to Grandma’s Kitchen. Living in Dongcheng, I forget how isolated our students are out on the West Third Ring and I was mystified at their surprise over such Grandma’s commonalities as “milkshakes” and “a Today is an anniversary of sorts — actually two anniversaries — in the history of violence in China. June 21 marks the 110th anniversary of Empress Dowager’s fateful proclamation giving tacit support to the various groups known as “The Boxers” in their crusade of destruction and righteous anger against all things foreign. It is also the 140th anniversary of an earlier incident in the city of Tianjin, when tensions between local residents and the foreign community exploded into a day of violence that left at least 40 people dead. I’ll save the latter for a little thing I like to call “my dissertation.” Today, I’m talking Boxers. I was looking at an electronic version of a Chinese high school textbook. Now, I’ve long been a critic of China’s so-called “Patriotic” Education policy but the account given in this textbook isn’t too off, at least in the parts of the story that are told. The basic premise is that the “Chinese people,” having been pushed beyond endurance by the presence of foreign missionaries (“the spies of the imperialist powers”) began to organize self-defense groups in Hebei and Shandong. Eventually, these groups made their way to Tianjin and Beijing where they |
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