Did Chinese women go to opium dens?
Since someone asked me if Qing women went to opium dens, I thought I would answer and put up some of my evidence. Short answer – I don’t think so, a...
Category: Republican
Teaching Revolutionary China : China 1927: Memoir of a Debacle
A book that seems to have worked well for me in my teaching is Zhu Qihua China : China 1927: Memoir of a Debacle The class was History of Modern China,, syllabu...
Chiang Kai-shek, Enemy of the People
I have found and interesting source. Dr Jeremy Taylor at the Department of History, University of Nottingham has a site entitled ‘Enemy of the People̵...
Chinese Manhua and social criticism
I have been preparing a paper for a conference here at IUP, but since the conference is postponed as we are on strike I thought I would share some of it with yo...
Multi-cultural Chiang Kai-shek
Here is a nice picture of Chiang Kai-shek and his government’s outreach to minority nationalities. It comes from 蒙藏月報1935,3(6) (Mongolia and Tibet Monthly...
Oriental Women
I have been reading about Lee Ya-Ching, who is billed (incorrectly) by Wikipedia as the “First Chinese civilian aviator.” In her various tours of No...
Unearthing the Nation
Grace Yen Shen’s Unearthing the Nation: Modern Geology and Nationalism in Republican China is a really good book. Shen says that at first “it took a lot o...
Seek truth from facts
The Atlantic has a post by Matt Schiavenza entitled “What’s with the Chinese Communist Party and Slogans” It’s a nice little piece on th...
China becomes air-minded
So, I presented a paper at AAS in San Diego. Obviously the high points were meeting Konrad Lawson in person and eating really good fish tacos, so I could taunt ...
Are Japanese people evil?
There has been some commentary, both on well-known blogs and obscure ones on Robert Farley’s Diplomat article on Japan’s WWII Counter-Insurgency planning and im...
National Library of China- A fine place to do research
Most of our readers who might care already know this, but the National Library in Beijing is a fine place to do research on Republican China. It has it&#...
30 seconds over Taihoku
On February 23, 1938, the Russians bombed Taipei. Given how worried the government was about Taipei being bombed by communists when I was first there in the 80&...
Sun Yat-sen: If only a Revolution -were- like a dinner party
Livebloging 1911 Someone once said “A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined...
Revolt in Canton
Live-blogging 1911 Live-blogging is (for historians) the process of blogging about something in the past as if it was happening in the present. Since this is th...
"China and Christianity": Hu Shi's 1927 View of Nationalism and Rationalism
Over at the invaluable Danwei, Julian Smisek’s “Hu Shi, missionaries, and women’s rights” (July 15, 2010) does a valuable service in tr...