Jottings from the Granite Studio

We’re old. Not chronologically per se, but simply in our habits.  Nevertheless, we decided to fight the gravitational pull of our couch and go out for the evening on the town with our friends B. & V.
Dinner was at El Fogoncito over by Wanda Plaza.  I grew up in New Hampshire, so I can hardly [...]

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Why Daqing? Well, the Party claimed it was the spirit of hard work, self-reliance, plus selfless devotion to party, country, and Mao Zedong thought which was responsible for Daqing’s incredible productivity. That said, it probably didn’t hurt that they struck oil there in 1959.

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June wasn’t an a particularly auspicious month for the Song Dynasty (960-1279). Thursday marked the founding of the Southern Song by what was left of the Song court who had just been chased out of the north by the Jurchens. In the confusion, they left behind two emperors, Song Huizong (Zhao Ji 1082-1135, [...]

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It’s always exciting to move into a new house. That sense of expectation, of planning where to arrange things, that glorious feeling of being home. It’s probably less thrilling if you’ve moved into your new home because the bank foreclosed on the old house. Even less so if the new place is half [...]

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Last month’s devastating earthquake continues to threaten the lives and homes of the people of Sichuan province. The deadly May 12 earthquake dramatically changed the landscape of the province. Landslides tumbled into riverbeds, blocking the flow of water and endangering the lives of those living downstream from these natural dams. The PLA and government engineers [...]

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On this date in 1963, Mao Zedong launched the “Learn from Lei Feng” campaign. The most important lesson I’ve learned from Lei Feng is to look out for falling telephone poles, but maybe I’m not the target audience. Anyway, in case you missed it, Lei Feng was a young soldier in the PLA whose selfless [...]

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Zhou Enlai (1898-1976)
Today is the birthday of Zhou Enlai, born in Hui’an in Jiangsu Province in 1898. Zhou’s grandfather was a minor official but like many scholar families in the late Qing, the Zhou clan had fallen on hard times, and despite many attempts, Zhou Enlai’s father failed to pass the imperial examinations. At the [...]

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Zhang Heng (78-139) was quite the Han dynasty renaissance man. Despite his fame as a poet of considerable talents, a celebrated scholar of the classics, and an official serving at court, Zhang’s greatest and best-known contributions actually came in the field of science and engineering.
He is credited with several accomplishments including a key feature in [...]

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This is a subject near and dear to my own heart and research.
On this date in 1856, French missionary Auguste Chapdelaine (1814-1856) was executed in Guangxi province on the orders of the Xilin County magistrate. Prior to 1860, missionaries were forbidden to travel outside of the ‘treaty ports,’ an injunction that many routinely ignored at [...]

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Liu Bang becomes Emperor Han Gaozu
On this date in 202 B.C.E., Liu Bang was named emperor of the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.E.-220 C.E.) following the defeat of his chief rival, Xiang Yu. Previously Liu had used the title “King of the Han,” but after consolidating control over all the territory of the fallen Qin dynasty [...]

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