Jottings from the Granite Studio

Today is Veterans Day in the United States.  Woodrow Wilson declared November 11, 1919 as Armistice Day to mark the one-year anniversary of the end of hostilities in World War I.  It was made a legal holiday in 1938, and in 1954 the holiday was renamed Veterans Day and expanded to honor all of those [...]

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After three years and three million dollars, a private suite of rooms, known as the 倦勤斋  (Studio for Retirement from Diligent Service) built for The Qianlong Emperor, have been restored and will open to the public next year. ** The structure, part of the retirement palace in the Northeast section of the Forbidden City, includes a bedroom, [...]

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I usually have two exams and two papers for my courses.  This semester, for reasons passing understanding, I decided on three papers and two exams.  I think somewhere in a brain addled with Olympic enthusiasm, I wanted to shorten the exams (eliminating the essays) and make up that material as part of a “paper.”  Not [...]

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This morning I attended a talk “Tale of Two Cities” given by UCI’s Jeff Wasserstrom.  Professor Wasserstrom is a historian and prolific author, online at The China Beat and The Nation as well as in the real world of books, most recently China’s Brave New World and the forthcoming Global Shanghai: 1850-2010.
I admire the way Professor Wasserstrom engages in [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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The China Beat has had a month-long series on overlooked and recommended readings on Τibet, with noted professor Robert Barnett of Colombia University adding his own list this past weekend.  It’s a good series and a great list.
Frankly, though, I’m in the midst of “Τibet fatigue,” there’s a lot of good material out there on [...]

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Sorry for the sabbatical…post-Olympic malaise plus the start of a new semester and a few key research deadlines, conspired to push my little hobby to the back burner.
I know he’s a divisive figure, love ‘em or hate ‘em, but he’s always worth reading.  Check out this piece in The American Scholar by Ha Jin on [...]

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