The following is copied word for word from the exhibit “The Road to Rejuvenation” at The Chinese National Museum in Beijing (and as far as I know has not been published online prior to this). The exhibit focuses on China’s history from 1840 to the present. The Chinese National Museum reopened in March 2011, offering the most official and most recent account of China’s history as told by the Communist Party (for more on the museum I recommend this excellent NYT piece about the difficulties the Party had in agreeing on how the past should be portrayed). This is the story taught to hundreds of millions of Chinese students; it shapes every discussion of China’s future. I hope this series of posts will help foster discussions of […]

As we saw yesterday, China is a diverse country with hundreds of distinct dialects/languages that are closely connected with local culture. However, for the past 100 years, the government has been encouraging the adoption of a single national dialect based on the Beijing accent. Originally, the language we know as Mandarin, was only spoken by officials and the people who lived near the capital (the language shifted with the capital as it moved from Nanjing to Beijing). It was a necessity due to the fact that officials came from all corners of China, and would be otherwise unable to communicate orally. Near the end of the Qing Dynasty, it was decided that this language of officials should become the national dialect, known as Guoyu (国语 […]

A few weeks ago a Chinese friend told me what worries him the most: a form of Nationalism that asserts China’s natural position is “glorious” and that the country only falls from this status when “outside forces” limit its growth. Equally concerning to him was that these ideas were predicated on a kind of racial superiority, sometimes referred to as Han nationalism (大汉族 DaHanzu Greater Han Ethnic group). This small group of people maintain that not only was China weakened in the 19th century by western influence, but was susceptible to these forces specifically because they were being led by Manchurians. The ultra-nationalists take this misreading of history to illustrate that China can only be strong when Chinese (Han) culture is purified of foreign influences and […]

When I hosted a group of European visitors the other day, one of them asked a question that I think many of you might have been wondering about, “What happened to China’s historical buildings?” Considering the historical centers of many European cities, it’s an understandable question. Note: Some of China’s best known cities like Xi’an and Beijing have a number of ancient buildings given that they are historic capitals, but throughout the country they are considerably harder to find. The Communists destroyed it The Party is often the scapegoat when it comes to explaining many of the choices made in modern China. In this case, not entirely without reason, Chinese temples and artifacts were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, but other works were well preserved. However, […]

Yesterday we took a careful look at the budget of my office’s unpaid intern, and some of you questioned her spending habits. So today we’ll be looking at the importance of social obligations, and why spending more than 20% of your monthly budget on friends and family doesn’t strike this young woman as an optional expense. Her 150rmb dinner for four seems like an extravagant expense considering that she usually spends less than 10rmb on meals for herself. However, hosting meals may be one of the most important ways of building guanxi. This usually means ordering more food than any group of humans could possibly eat, with as many meat dishes as possible (since meat is more expensive). Where I currently work, a small banquet […]

In the run up to the Party’s 90th anniversary the People’s Daily said that history “is the precious wealth of the party”, which we saw yesterday when we looked at the Party’s narrative of history. Today I thought we should take another look, and consider the implications of a slightly different perspective (links in the post refer to current events, not sources). A New History In the 1700’s China had managed to export millions of pounds of silver worth of silk, tea, and porcelain. The Qing dynasty had managed to convince the Chinese people that the west had little of interest, and China was becoming incredibly wealthy. By 1730 the British East India Company was desperately trying to find a way to get the flow of wealth […]

After watching “The Founding of the Party” a few months ago, I was left with several questions about how the last 200 years of Chinese history is presented in the country’s school system. My two favorite sources for this kind of information though couldn’t clearly remember what they had been taught. “It was all state published books,” one of them said, “And in China we have a saying ‘to believe only in books is no different than having no books at all.’” Which wasn’t very satisfying. So from further reading, and conversations that have ended in slogans reminiscent of the cultural revolution, these are the basics of China’s narrative. 1840’s – Britain leads the first Opium War ending in the the treaty of Nanjing, which is the […]