An update on the week’s events here in Beijing, though compared to the seething hot beds of revolution which are Tripoli and, apparently, Madison, Wisconsin, Beijing has been rather quiet.
The second looks at the meaning of drought in Chinese history, and why drought was often the most destabilizing of natural disasters in China’s past.
(Though I guess when you start writing about the weather, it’s probably time to wrap up the guest blogging gig.*)
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*Update: Sure enough, last night…it snowed. Not enough to really make a difference and it was almost certainly the work of the Weather Modification Gnomes BUT not the best timing.
This reminds me of a Jon Stewart spoof of a Glenn Beck clip:
It might be true, it might not be true. But what if it’s true?! Let’s talk about it as if it’s true and leave the audience the impression that it is indeed true.
Not sure really which post you’re talking about. There’s not a drought? Droughts aren’t bad? There haven’t been calls for new protests over the weekend? Help me out here.
I actually have an historical question to ask you, but on the post I wanted to comment on was closed. It’s slightly related to the last days of Qing.
I took time to read Ian Morris’ book, Why the West rules for now. He mentioned that during the Boxer Rebellion when the foreign troops enter Peking (or Beijing), most of the foreign soldiers were from Japan. He wrote that this is something which many people do not know, or because of movies, television, etc. we the public seem to have some misconceptions of the past.
I also watched a documentary about the military history of British Asians (Asian meaning from the Indian subcontinent). I think from what I remember, the show sort of implied that it was also British Asians who did a lot (maybe most, but I’m not sure) of the fighting during the Opium Wars.
I guess my question is, was it true what I read and heard? That a lot of, or maybe most, of the foreign soldiers in the two famous conflicts I mentioned were non-European?
I do have a lot of images in my head of what the past was like, and to be honest, I was influenced greatly by movies. I appreciate any information though.
That’s true. Troops from India were used during the Opium War, something noted in both British and Chinese sources, and according to Joe Esherick’s excellent book, The Origins of the Boxer Uprising, of the 20,000 troops that set off from Tianjin to lift the siege of the legations, half were Japanese and “most of the rest Russians and Indians under British command.”
Great stuff, but if you get a chance please tell Lucia Pierce that she is doing the lord’s work right there. I helped kids apply for schools in the US and no matter how many ways I explained it they would NOT understand that the entire application process is more important than their GRE score. Or that writing your own letter of recommendation (and asking me to edit it) was not going to work. I forwarded her stuff to one of my kids, and because she went to Yale and she is an older woman, he believes her. Bless The Atlantic!
Thanks. Be sure to check out her piece today for the Atlantic on the difficulty for many Chinese students adjusting socially to living/studying in the US…or just read any of my fenqing fans for a more graphic demonstration.