Saturday, November 25, 2023

old and new - Japan views from drone-flying friend

These examples come from DJI Mini camera drone: Up goes the drone and 360 degrees later there is a panorama to add to Google Maps.
One is the prehistorical burial mounts in Sabae-city in Fukui-prefecture.
The other is the new bullet-train station at Tsuruga (port visible in the distance on the Japan Sea).
Service begins March 2024.

王山古墳群 [Ozan Kofun group]

敦賀駅 [Shinkansen station at Tsuruga for the Hokuriku line]

Wednesday, May 24, 2023

Yongle dadian (永樂大典) now digital version [Library of Congress]

Library Completes Digitization of Yongle Encyclopedia, Largest Reference Work of Pre-Modern Era

The Library of Congress has completed a yearslong effort to digitize the Yongle Encyclopedia (Yongle dadian 永樂大典), the largest reference work created in pre-modern China, and possibly the world. Digital publication of the 41 volumes held in the Library's collections provides open access to one of the most extensive attempts in world history to capture the entirety of human knowledge in book form.


Learn more.


Wednesday, October 5, 2022

The art of protest in Hong Kong

Two photos from recent cycles of the annual Art-Prize held in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Click the image itself for a full-size view of the file, or use the bottom right corner Download button to appreciate the artist detail.


and from this past week in 2022 by J. Chanhttps://flickr.com/photos/anthroview/52367693076/

Thinking about the connections between art and protest, there are several dimensions that come to mind to begin with. 
Maybe readers have these and more experiences to add, too.

<>art as protest (instrumental) medium to get a response; also as outlet for aspiration, frustration, suffering, and so on
<>art as protest (representational) recording or mirror to show self and others what is taking place
<>art as irony or means of inverting meanings (taking powerholders' art and using it for protestor purposes)
<>art as emblem or badge for those who protest (asserting identity of the group/community)

Thursday, September 8, 2022

Recent publications on Xinjiang genocide

"Forum: The Uighur Population in China and R2P: Pursuing Accountability and Protection for the Uighur and Muslim Minorities in China." By Jacob, Cecilia; Adrian Gallagher, and Charles T. Hunt. _Global Responsibility to Protect_ 13 (2021), 5-8. https://brill.com/view/journals/gr2p/13/1/gr2p.13.issue-1.xml

This forum contains seven more articles, as below. -some PDFs are open access, some require login.

Settler Colonialism and the Path toward Cultural Genocide in Xinjiang
Author: Michael Clarke
Global Responsibility to Protect 13 (2021), 9–19
Online Publication Date: 16 Feb 2021
+
Atrocity Crimes in Xinjiang: Moving beyond Legal Labels
Author: Sophie Ryan
Global Responsibility to Protect 13 (2021), 20–23
Online Publication Date: 16 Feb 2021
+
China and the Uighurs: Options for Legal Accountability
Author: Andrew Garwood-Gowers
Global Responsibility to Protect 13 (2021), 24–28
Online Publication Date: 16 Feb 2021
+
R2P Sidelined: The International Response to China's Repression of Muslim Minorities in Xinjiang
Author: Rosemary Foot
Global Responsibility to Protect 13 (2021), 29–32
Online Publication Date: 16 Feb 2021
+
United Nations' Response to Mass Atrocities in China
Author: Nadira Kourt
Global Responsibility to Protect 13 (2021), 33–36
Online Publication Date: 16 Feb 2021
+
Rescuing Humanitarian Intervention from Liberal Hegemony
Author: Thomas Peak
Global Responsibility to Protect 13 (2021), 37–59
Online Publication Date: 30 Nov 2020
+
R2P and Prevention: The International Community and Its Role in the Determinants of Mass Atrocity
Authors: Alexandra Bohm and Garrett Wallace Brown
Global Responsibility to Protect 13 (2021), 60–95
Online Publication Date: 08 Dec 2020

--[see also this] review of Mamtimin Ala's book Worse Than Death, mentioning a few other books on the genocide also written by Uyghurs or Kazakhs, appeared yesterday in the Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet, https://www.svd.se/a/a75x6a/ett-pagaende-folkmord-som-hela-kina-appladerar [in Swedish, but amenable to translate.google.com].

Wednesday, May 25, 2022

writing on Xinjiang lately

Just published (Feb 2022, with D. Mahmut): 'Corrective "re-education" as (cultural) genocide: a content analysis of the Uyghur primary school textbook Til-Ädäbiyat. In The Xinjiang Emergency. Manchester University Press.

 

Book chapter (Nov 2021): '"Turning Sheep into Tigers": State Securitization of Islam, Societal Insecurity and Conflict in Xinjiang, China.' In The Politics of Muslim Identities in Asia. Edinburgh University Press.

 

Reflection in Journal of Genocide Research (2020): 'Why Scholars and Activists Increasingly Fear a Uyghur Genocide in Xinjiang'.

Article in Space & Society (2020, with O.Klimes): 'China's Neo-Totalitarian Turn and Genocide in Xinjiang'.    

 

Guest-edited Special Issue of Central Asian Survey (2019): 'Securitization, Insecurity and Conflict in Contemporary Xinjiang'

 

Brill monograph (2013): The Art of Symbolic Resistance: Uyghur Identities and Uyghur-Han Relations in Contemporary Xinjiang.

Wednesday, July 28, 2021

new book - changing funeral traditions, urban China

Hong Kong-based anthropologist author publishes - $29 in paperback or free as ebook (choice of PDF, Epub, or mobi - for Kindle & other reading devices).

https://luminosoa.org/site/books/m/10.1525/luminos.105/

The Funeral of Mr. Wang
Life, Death, and Ghosts in Urbanizing China
 by Andrew B. Kipnis

In rural China funerals are conducted locally, on village land by village elders. But in urban areas, people have neither land for burials nor elder relatives to conduct funerals. Chinese urbanization, which has increased drastically in recent decades, involves the creation of cemeteries, state-run funeral homes, and small private funerary businesses. The Funeral of Mr. Wang examines social change in urbanizing China through the lens of funerals, the funerary industry, and practices of memorialization. It analyzes changes in family life, patterns of urban sociality, transformations in economic relations, the politics of memorialization, and the echoes of these changes in beliefs about the dead and ghosts.

     "This book is highly original and addresses a topic of central importance to understanding Chinese family life and the limits of a party-state's regulatory power over the society and individual citizens. Original and systematic fieldwork is expertly used to illustrate core arguments. To my knowledge there is no competing ethnography." — Deborah Davis, Professor Emerita of Sociology, Yale University

     "The Funeral of Mr. Wang is a vivid portrait of how the transition from life to death is negotiated in the midst of a rapidly transforming urban Chinese society. Showing how death in contemporary China generates interconnected processes of cultural recombination among family members, funeral service providers, bureaucratic regulators, strangers, and ghosts, this book will be critical reading for all students of China and of death in contemporary societies." — David A. Palmer, coauthor of The Religious Question in Modern China

Thursday, July 22, 2021

More Uyghur documenters, U. British Columbia: Xinjiang Documentation Project

[cross-posting from the listserv for East Asia Anthropology 22 July]

... excellent words from Dr. Guldana Salimjan, who is a professor in the Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies department at Simon Fraser University, as well as co-director of the Xinjiang Documentation Project (https://xinjiang.sppga.ubc.ca/) at the University of British Columbia. She is a Kazakh scholar originally from Xinjiang.

[EXCERPT to give opening lines]
What China Studies Scholars Can Do about the Xinjiang Crisis
        University of Westminster Contemporary China blog, July 21, 2021

Special commentary

Written by Guldana Salimjan

In 2019, at a dinner conversation with several established China scholars, I mentioned that it is dangerous for me to return to China and do further research because of the dire situation in Xinjiang. A professor from China was puzzled, 'Why is that? I go back to my field site every year!' I sighed but quickly explained to her, 'Because right now the government has campaigns targeting Turkic Muslim people, and I am from one of these communities.' She still expressed disbelief and continued, 'But you are not Uyghur—they are outrageous.' I was utterly shocked this time and my mind went blank.

Friday, July 16, 2021

Documentary lens on Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region since 2017

=-=-=-= Documenting the Undocumentable: China's Re-Education Camps. BY YI CHEN.
Documentary magazine, AUGUST 18, 2020.

=-=-=-= Summer 2021 The Uyghur Chronicles, https://www.theatlantic.com/the-uyghur-chronicles/

=-=-=-= Different subject: Uyghur poets. These sessions are connected to the people included in the dragnet pulling so many lives into confinement of body and mind:
The Uyghur Poets. Heart and Soul. BBC Radio, Fri 16 July 2021. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct2gj2
+ Joshua L. Freeman thread on the poetry of Tahir Hamut Izgil https://twitter.com/jlfreeman6/status/1415646458926313472

=-=-=-= Reference list (live document updated regularly): Online bibliography on the genocide in the Uyghur region (East Turkestan): https://uhrp.org/bibliography/

Friday, July 9, 2021

This month marks 100 years of the CCP

Feature story on July 9, 2021 at National Public Radio's morning show, Morning Edition, {about 6 minutes playing time)

A few hours after broadcast many of the radio stories are put into transcript form to share or copy/paste.

Sunday, May 30, 2021

article, "Dossier: Uyghur Women in China’s Genocide"

Creative-commons (open access) announced May 30, 2021. See also Fiskesjö' cumulative listing of related writings by others

Abstract

In genocide, both women and men suffer. However, their suffering has always been different; with men mostly subjected to torture and killings, and women mostly subjected to torture and mutilation. These differences stem primarily from the perpetrators' ideology and intention to exterminate the targeted people. Many patriarchal societies link men with blood lineage and the group's continuation, while women embody the group's reproductivity and dignity. In the ongoing genocide against the Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in East Turkistan, the ideology of Chinese colonialism is a root cause. It motivates the targeting of women as the means through which to destroy the reproductivity and the dignity of the people as a whole. It is a common misunderstanding to associate genocide with only mass killings, and the current lack of evidence for massacres has led some to prematurely conclude there is no genocide. But this overlooks the targeting of women, which is also a prominent part of the definition of genocide laid out in the Genocide Convention. State policy in China intentionally targets Uyghur and other Turkic women in multiple ways. This dossier is focused on analyzing China's targeted policies against Uyghur women and their "punishment," as rooted in part in ancient Chinese legalist philosophy. In doing so, this dossier contributes toward further exposing Chinese colonialism and the genocidal intent now in evidence.

Recommended Citation

Friday, April 2, 2021

Hong Kong professor, "why I stay here"

Blog article (Op/Ed) late March 2021 by Dr. Gordon Matthews at CUHK, https://hongkongfp.com/2021/02/21/academic-gordon-mathews-why-i-am-staying-in-hong-kong-for-now/ to discuss what is gained and what is lost by teaching and researching at the university campus, even while free speech and thinking is threatened by Mainland controlling forces.

Wednesday, March 31, 2021

When scholars describe Chinese governance

with a critical voice and eye, then central government reactions can be harsh. The March 2021 statement issued by the Association for Asian Studies points this out, https://www.asianstudies.org/aas-statement-on-chinese-government-sanctions/

Statement by the AAS Board of Directors
March 29, 2021

The Association for Asian Studies (AAS), a scholarly, non-political, non-profit professional association with approximately 6,500 members worldwide, wishes to express its solidarity and support for our esteemed colleague and member, Professor Joanne Smith Finley of the University of Newcastle, UK, who is one of nine people sanctioned on March 26, 2021, by the Chinese Foreign Ministry for ostensibly "maliciously spread[ing] lies and disinformation."

Professor Smith Finley is a respected scholar and an elected member of the China and Inner Asia Council of the AAS. She organized two valuable panel sessions at the recently concluded 2021 AAS Annual Conference that examined Chinese state policies in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Her research, like that of other AAS members, manifests scholarly scruples, analytical forthrightness, and a balanced but critical approach. It highlights the obligation of scholarship to examine and acknowledge significant social issues. The sanctioning of Prof. Smith Finley and members of her immediate family represents a reprehensible blow to academic freedom under the terms of UNESCO's 1997 Recommendation concerning the Status of Higher-Education Teaching Personnel, which calls upon all UN member states to protect the freedom of thought, expression, and movement of higher education teaching personnel and, in particular, the right to disseminate freely the results of their research.

As a community of scholars, the AAS regrets the levying of sanctions by the Chinese Foreign Ministry against individual researchers and scholarly organizations. These actions quell the production of knowledge and hinder the capacity of researchers to provide national and international publics, policy makers, and academe well-informed analyses of Chinese society, politics, and culture.

=-=-=-=-=-= Documenter of Xinjiang genocide gives (listserv) rejoinder,
...strange that this AAS statement does not include by name the two other 'sanctioned' scholars as well, Björn Jerdén, the Swedish political scientist and China scholar, and Adrian Zenz, the German anthropologist who has done more than most of us to research and valiantly expose the atrocities in China. Zenz in particular has already been very viciously attacked by the Chinese propaganda machine, Jerdén also...

And the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) institute is not even hinted at by the AAS ... even though the targeting of an independent institute, too, is a new low from Chinese regime. It's the largest European China-focused such institute. A group of 32 research institute and think tank directors have put their feet down: https://statement-china-sanctions.vercel.app

Friday, January 29, 2021

Shanghai frozen in time, 360 degrees

Stitching many digital pictures together yields 195 Gigapixel panoramic portrait of the city at this time,

Saturday, January 23, 2021

article 1/2021, Racism with Chinese Characteristics

https://chinachannel.org/2021/01/22/chinese-racism/

Racism with Chinese Characteristics (7 min read) -January 22, 2021 by Magnus Fiskesjö
How China's imperial legacy underpins state racism and violence in Xinjiang

-----[opening paragraph; excerpt]
Due to incidents last year in the Chinese city of Guangzhou, where Africans were evicted and forced to sleep on the street simply because they are African, there is a growing realization around the world that Chinese racism exists. Despite the government's denials, racism against Africans in China is often blatant. In one widely circulated clip, one can see a white and a black woman both trying to enter a shopping mall: only the white woman is permitted, and both leave in disgust. Just as in the West's past, in China contempt for Africans is also often mixed up with patronizing exoticization. Chinese comedians wear blackface on state TV. In Shenzhen's Windows on the World theme park, dark-skinned ethnic minority people are choreographed to perform either as primitive Africans, or as primitive themselves.

... ... truncation

-----[concluding paragraph]
Before the Communists took power, their declared ideology was "internationalist" and anti-imperialist, even promising to restore independence to all peoples conquered by the Chinese empire, including the Tibetans, Uyghurs, Hmong, and so on. But after 1949, official Communist mythology reclaimed all these groups as genetically "Chinese" peoples who cannot split away from the fatherland. Today, the erstwhile ideal of equality between indigenous nationalities in what was once the Chinese empire is being shed altogether. In Xinjiang it has been replaced with a Nazi-style purification of the nation, intended as a final solution that will obliterate China's ethnic and cultural diversity inherited from the Qing empire. Unfortunately, this state racism is not likely to go away until it is broadly recognized and rejected – including by the Chinese people.

---See also, Magnus Fiskesjo: Online bibliography (periodically updated) on the genocide in the Uyghur region (East Turkestan):

Monday, December 21, 2020

new book (2019), Japan & China interrelations of 15 centuries

excerpt from December 2020 obituary for Dr. Ezra Vogel (90), published by the Japan Times online.

At the age of 89, he published "China and Japan: Facing History" (2019), which reviews the history of political and cultural ties between the two nations over 1,500 years. Vogel hoped that the book would offer an accurate portrayal of how the two countries learned from each other over the centuries, but also serve to encourage the Chinese and Japanese leaders to forge a more constructive relationship going forward.

Thursday, June 18, 2020

making heritage - SW China drum (documentary)

Announcement cross-posting June 18, 2020:
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
William Nitzky's new film Bang the Drum, which explores the heritage-ization of bronze drums in southwest China.

The film is available to view in full until June 24 at https://vimeo.com/422967661.
The movie background and trailer is in this blog post http://atig.americananthro.org/bang-the-drum/

Wednesday, August 14, 2019

documentary, China - One Child Nation

Feature story 13-Aug-2019 was broadcast on National Public Radio (online; also on air in USA).  

Source link to audio and to read the transcript of the story,

Excerpt follows.

=-=-=-=-=-=-= One Child Nation =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Filmmaker Nanfu Wang grew up in rural China under the country's one-child policy, which was announced in 1979 and not officially rescinded until 2015.

Born in 1985, Wang never knew a life without it — as a kid, she remembers seeing propaganda promoting the rule everywhere.

"At some point, it just became a normal part of life, just like the air, the water, the tree," she says.

"And you just stop paying attention, stop questioning, because it has always been there."
There were propaganda matchboxes, lunchboxes, murals and songs on TV.

=-=-=  trailer, https://youtu.be/gMcJVoLwyD0

Monday, May 28, 2018

each generation in Taiwan sees the place through different eyes

radio segment that offers introduction to some of the generational differences, 

https://www.npr.org/2018/05/28/615010184/what-it-means-to-be-taiwanese-and-why-its-different-depending-on-generation

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

video set - Ming China

cross-posting from email announcement 18 April 2018:
Modules on China in World History

Compelling Topics and Expertise for your Classes
China expert Sara Schneewind explores Ming maritime expeditions, exchanges East to West in history, and confronting the practice of foot binding in these three videos. Her engaging presentations are perfect for the classroom or to increase your own understanding of these subjects. 

Background articles, primary sources with DBQ and lesson plan suggestions are also included as well as PowerPoint slideshows for each program.

2 PD hours are available for each module.
Ming Voyages in China's History: 
The Truth about the Maritime Expeditions Led by Zheng He of the Ming Dynasty
Video Presentation
Duration: 48 min [2 PD Hours]
Speaker: Sarah Schneewind
Easternization (not "Westernization"): 
Modernity is a Global Formation
Video Presentation
Duration: 35 min [2 PD Hours]
Speaker: Sarah Schneewind
Footbinding: 
Confronting the Very Strange
Video Presentation
Duration: 34 min [2 PD Hours]
Speaker: Sarah Schneewind
About Our Speaker
Sarah Schneewind holds degrees from Cornell University, Yale University, and Columbia University.  She has published a number of books on Ming dynasty China and teaches courses on Chinese, Japanese, and Korean history from 1200 BC to AD 1895 at the University of California at San Diego. More information including more on her publications and projects can be found here.

Saturday, March 3, 2018

historical early photos - China, middle-kingdom

project via twitter, https://twitter.com/tongbingxue

 Among the photos, comments, and video clips is this one from Urumqi in 1928 (Sven Hedin trip there the meet governor),
https://twitter.com/twitter/statuses/965842678238740480





Thursday, June 30, 2016

Language Immersion Programs - what works

from monthly newsletter from Asia Society:

Nancy Rhodes, Language Education Consultant, Center for Applied Linguistics, presented to the Chinese Early Language Immersion Network (CELIN) Leadership Forum on the lessons she learned through interviews with sixteen top immersion language specialists. Heather Singmaster shares these lessons, as well as examples from immersion programs across the country, in a new Global Learning blog post.

Thursday, March 3, 2016

journal that includes photo essays among its articles

This call for authors to submit articles may be of interest to those keen on visual communication, but to those wishing to view examples, too, this article points to a place to see stories published to date:

Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review, a quarterly, open-access online journal, is accepting proposals for photo essays for the September 2016 and March 2017 issues (and beyond).

     Photo essays include: 1) 20-40 high-quality images with descriptive captions and complete source information, 2) a curator's statement, and 3) a longer non-peer reviewed essay (8-15 pages) contextualizing the photographs and highlighting their significance for current trends of inquiry in Asian studies. This essay can be written by the curator or by an invited scholar. To view archived Cross-Currents photo essays, please click here.

     The photographs should be taken in China, Korea, Japan, or Vietnam. They may be contemporary images taken as part of the curator's research or archival materials. Please consult the Cross-Currents mission statement to determine whether the proposed essay fits within the journal's historical and disciplinary scope. Obtaining copyright permissions for all images is the responsibility of the curator.

     Proposals should include: 5-10 sample images (as a single PDF); a one-page description of the theme of the essay and the timeliness/importance of the images to scholars of Asia; a brief bio paragraph about the curator; and complete contact information. 

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

documentaries - SW China 2015

(1) ... release of Some Na Ceremonies<http://www.berkeleymedia.com/films/some_na_ceremonies>, a
31-minute film I developed in collaboration with two Na filmmakers, Onci Archei and Ruheng Duoji. Also the founders of the Moso Folk Museum, they
are from Luoshui Village next to Lugu Lake in southwest China, and we collaborated on a media training project and film festival in 2005-2006.
Some Na Ceremonies is a rather unique film because it opens with a short excerpt from that film festival to frame that this is a living,
contemporary place where people are actively engaged in and thinking about representations, then it moves to four ceremonies that map onto
people's ideas of what would be more 'traditional.' These four ceremonies, all filmed and edited by Archei and Duoji over a period of several years, include chanting by Daba ritual specialists, funerary activities, ritualized dancing, and participation from family members and villagers involved in the ceremonies. You can get a sense of what they look like from this trailer, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCbt2b7qx_w

The DVD is divided into five chapters (one for each ceremony) so that educators could either show the entire 31-minute film in class, or show
one or more of the ceremonies as relevant. There is no droning narrative voice, a deliberate choice meant to give more immediacy to the sensory
aspects of the ceremony and make viewers work to decipher what they are seeing. Each ceremony has a somewhat different approach to subtitled
translation and explanatory text: one ceremony has both, one has only translation but no explanation, one has explanation but no translation,
and the final ceremony is unmediated by explanation or translation. The result is that the film can provoke some very interesting reflection and
discussion from students. A study guide is available as well to help guide that discussion and provide further background on Na communities
 [Tami Blumenfield at Furman College]


(2) There's another relatively new film, Mosuo Sisters, that offers a neat >perspective of two young women from a Yongning village.
>http://itvs.org/films/mosuo-sisters  Much of the rhetoric, again, is ....

(3)  video 'A Chinese Tribe That Empowers Women' produced by ABC Australia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoTrARDa8BU.  This is
another one 'Tisese: A Documentary on Three Mosuo Women' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjqBAZfhuT0.

Thursday, September 10, 2015

Digital image collections at Lafayette College's Skillman Library

Digital image collections at Lafayette College's Skillman Library
 730 High St, Easton, PA 18042 telephone (610) 330-5000
http://digital.lafayette.edu/collections/eastasia

[<>] The Truku-Japanese War Commemorative Postcard Collection
The Truku-Japanese War of 1914 was the culmination of Japan's 20-year campaign to disarm and assert sovereignty over Taiwan's Indigenous Peoples. This 100-postcard set provides an intimate photographic portrait of camp life, logistics, battles, terrain, and Japanese interactions with Taiwanese conscripts, allies, enemies, and objects of ethnographic interest. From May to August of 1914, the government deployed 3108 soldiers, 3127 police, and 4840 laborers (over 11,000 people) against a Truku population of roughly 10,000 people. The goal was to avenge previous uprisings and to finalize the conquest of the island colony. After burning several Truku villages, taking prisoners, confiscating rifles, and killing countless combatants, the Japanese declared victory on August 23, 1914. Mr. Fang Hsien-hui 方���� lent these items to the Puli Municipal Library for a November 2014 exhibition. The Library's Mr. Chen Yi-fang ��x方 arranged the transfer of digital images to the East Asia Image Collection, as well as providing invaluable advice. We also thank Dr. John Shufelt and Dr. Wang Peng-hui 王�i惠for their contributions to this project.

[<>] Japanese Imperial House Postcard Album
This postcard album is titled "Haeyuru kōshitsu," which means "the Glorious Imperial House." It contains 78 picture postcards. The album appears to have been compiled in Japan just after the Shōwa Emperor's enthronement ceremonies in November, 1928. Photographs of the Meiji, Taishō and Shōwa emperors and empresses, artistic renderings of the various state Shintō ceremonies associated with Japanese kingship, the celebration of imperial matrimony, and the Crown Prince Hirohito's 1923 visit to Taiwan are the main themes. - See more at: http://digital.lafayette.edu/collections/eastasia#sthash.bJ5yr1cm.dpuf

[<>] T.W. Ingersoll Co. Stereoviews of the Siege of Port Arthur
These one hundred images from the Russo-Japanese War are mostly set in Dalian, away from the battlefront. The lengthy descriptions on the backs, reproduced in the "description.text.english" field, display a strong pro-Japan bias. Russians are absent in the imagery and maligned in the text. Local Chinese purveyors of goods and services are featured as enterprising, eager, and well treated by the Japanese. Laudatory portraits of Japanese officers and Western war-correspondents are also prominent. Descriptions of major battles are found throughout the sub-collection. This complete set of stereoview cards was generously donated by Richard Mammana.

[<>] Imperial Postcards
The Imperial Postcard Collection consists of imagery from Japan and its colonies, wartime China, and selected areas of the wider imperialized world, from 1900 to 1945. "Manners and Customs" cards from Manchuria, North and Central China, Korea, Taiwan, Honshu, and Hokkaido are prominent. Also included are images associated with the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), the Manchurian Incident (1931) and the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937), as well as portraits of Japanese heroes, royalty and statesmen. 1,194 postcards, 18 envelopes and two trading cards. - See more at: http://digital.lafayette.edu/collections/eastasia#sthash.bJ5yr1cm.dpuf

[<>] Tsubokura Russo-Japanese War Postcard Album
These 105 picture postcards were purchased as an album that appears to be correspondence "from the battleground " �榈丐瑜� by one Tsubokura Monnosuke 坪�}�y之助 to Tsubokura Jirō 坪�}二郎, both of whom resided in Yotsuya Ward, Tokyo. Monnosuke was enlisted in the Fifth Army's Third Assistant Porter Company 出征第五���獾谌��a助��a�. A majority of these cards are government-issue commemorative and soldier's consolation cards, while twenty-one of them are "pin-up girls." The 73 cards with legible postmarks were mailed between June 5, 1904 and April 15, 1906. A few of these cards were to and from other addressees and senders.

[<>] Sino-Japanese War Postcard Album 1 and 2
     <1>From the July 7, 1941, dedication: "This postcard album was published with war relief contributions....Thus, it is hoped that it will accompany troops and be used for mementos." These postcards are watercolors of scenes from China, painted by Mutō Yashū 武藤夜舟, Kojō Kōkan 古城江�Q, Seno Kakuzō ��野��i, Kobayakawa Atsushirō 小早川�V四郎, Kojima Matsunosuke 古�u松之助, Mikuni Hisashi 三��久, Mikami Tomoharu 三上智治 and others. There are 92 postcards in this album.
     <2> This album shares publication details with "Sino-Japanese War Postcard Album 01." Michael J. Stosic (1914-2010) presumably collected this album during his tour of combat, as a member of the 317th Troop Carrier Group, which was stationed variously in New Guinea, the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines, Okinawa, Korea, and Japan. The original owner was Satō Kichinoshin. 53 postcards, including images of Chinese Treaty Ports, Arawashi Japanese fighter planes, and other Chinese themes.

[<>] Lin Chia-Feng Family Postcards
The Lin Chia-feng (林佳��) Family Postcard Collection contains 370 colonial-era postcards (1900-1945)  from Taiwan, Japan, Korea and China. Industry, tourism, colonial governance, monuments, festivals, and public works are prominent themes. Noteworthy sets include: "Famous Places of Niigata 新��名所", "Commemorative Postcards of the Yilan Waterworks 宜�m水道通水�念", "Japanese Police Inspection of Canton ��|��兵��书��g", "The Ancient Ruins of Gyeongju �c州古�E", "40 years of Colonial Rule in Taiwan Commemorative Exhibition 始政四十周年�念台湾博�E会", "Yamagata Aquarium 山形�h水族�^" and "Luodong Timber Industry �_�|�恿炙�." These postcards were lent to Lafayette College by Lin Shuchin and John Shufelt and were collected by Lin Chia-feng.

[<>] Japanese History Study Cards
This set of 48 playing cards was designed to help children memorize phrases and terms related to "national history." They were published in October 1935, as Japan was putting itself on a wartime footing. The army was ratcheting up pressure on the Nationalist government of China by stationing troops ever deeper into areas south and west of the puppet state of Manchukuo, which had been under Japanese occupation since September 1931. The cards are thus all related to soldiering and martial values. It was published by the Jinseidō company in Kanda, Tokyo, and sold for 15 sen and promised to "make entrance examination preparation truly fun." These cards were generously donated to Skillman Library Special Collections by Richard Mammana.

[<>] Pacific War Postcards
The Pacific War Collection contains 36 postcards sent from Japanese civilians to surrendered Japanese soldiers in the Philippine Islands, Sumatra, and the South Seas. All of these postcards were processed by the Civilian Censorship Detachment (CCD) of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (also known as SCAP). Each record contains a postcard and its contents (usually personal communications to family members), an English translation of the address, and the backs of the cards, which contain postal information and the CCD's censorship stamps. Identifiable postmarks range from August 19, 1945 to March 10, 1946.

[<>] Michael Lewis Postcards
517 colonial-era (1895-1945) postcards from Japanese governed Taiwan. Various postcard companies, genres, printing formats and time periods are represented. Noteworthy are several official commemorative sets 台湾�t督府始政�念 issued by the Taiwan Government General 台湾�t督府, and dozens of b/w cards published between 1900 and the 1920s. These older cards contain several thematic elements and represent postcard companies that drop out of the historical record by the mid 1930s. These postcards were lent to Lafayette College for scanning and publication by collector Michael Lewis.

[<>] Gerald & Rella Warner Postcards
These items were collected in Taiwan by Gerald and Rella Warner during Gerald's service as US Consul between August 26, 1937 and March 8, 1941. Warner Taiwan Postcards contains 201 postcards and 139 b/w commercial photographs from that period. Many of these images also appear in colonial-period albums such as Suzuki Hideo  �木秀夫, ed., Taiwan bankai tenbō 台�侈�界展望. (Taipei: Riban no tomo, 1935) and Katsuyama Yoshisaku �偕郊�作, ed., Taiwan shōkai saishin shashinshū �_�辰B介最新写真集 (Taipei, 1931). Gift of Dallas Finn.

[<>] Gerald & Rella Warner Dutch East Indies Negatives
US Consul to Taiwan Gerald Warner and his wife Rella created these 275 photographic negatives between June 11, 1938 and July 27, 1938. Most (257) were taken in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) during a vacation from consular duties in Taiwan. The remainder were taken in Hong Kong harbor (17) and Shantou (1). The following themes are most prominent: working conditions and equipment in ports and harbors, tourist attractions (including Borobudur, Balinese drama, and temple architecture), agricultural scenes, village life, and local markets. The captions for these images are taken from hand-written comments in the Warners' photo albums. Gift of the Estate of Gerald and Rella Warner.

[<>] Gerald & Rella Warner Manchuria Negatives
US Vice Consul to Mukden (Shenyang) Gerald Warner created these 298 photographs between March 22, 1934 and August 2, 1935. Noteworthy are images of a parade for the 30th Anniversary of the Russo-Japanese War 日露�檎�, complete with floats, Japanese revelers in Russian costumes, and crowds celebrating victory. Pictures from Manzhouli �褐堇�, with its mixture of Russian, Manchu and Chinese architecture, are also prominent. The North Manchuria Railway, the Zhaoling 昭陵 and Fuling 福陵 Mausoleum complexes, Shisheng Temple, life in Shenyang's old and new quarters, and several other topics--from coal mines to military drills--are also depicted.  Gift of the Estate of Gerald and Rella Warner.

[<>] Gerald & Rella Warner Taiwan Negatives
US Consul to Taiwan Gerald Warner and his wife Rella created these 369 photographic negatives between August 26, 1937 and March 8, 1941. Depicted is the daily life of the dwindling and besieged Western community on the eve of the Pacific War. Just as prominent are urban and rural scenes of Japanese, Taiwanese, and expatriate life in Taiwan. The Warners' short trips to tourist destinations in Tainan 台南, Taroko Gorge タロコ峡, Sun Moon Lake 日月潭, Mount Kappan 角板山,  and Orchid Island �t�^�Z (Lanyu) are also illustrated. Unposed photographs of the neighborhoods, festival life, and pastimes of the Japanese residents of Taipei are noteworthy. The captions for these images are taken from hand-written comments in the Warners' photo albums. Gift of the Estate of Gerald and Rella Warner.

[<>] Gerald & Rella Warner Japan Slides
567 color slides from the personal collection of US State Department official Gerald Warner and his wife Rella Warner. The great majority were produced between 1947 and 1951, during the US Occupation of Japan. Included are scenes of postwar reconstruction, urban and village life, military reviews, May Day parades,  and portraits of formal and informal aspects of Japanese-Western diplomacy. Pictures of domestic life and scenery in Karuizawa �X井�g, Yokohama 横浜, Kobe 神�� and Tokyo, as well as photos of Yoshida Shigeru 吉田茂, Ikeda Hayato 池田勇人, Douglas MacArthur, Syngman Rhee, Lyndon Johnson, and Ural Johnson, are also included. Gift of the Estate of Gerald and Rella Warner.

[<>] Gerald & Rella Warner Souvenirs of Beijing and Tokyo
These sixty-one hand-colored b/w prints and lithographed postcards were collected by Gerald and Rella Warner during State Department postings in China (January 1932 to August 1935) and Japan (July 1948 to June 1950). Included are forty commercial photographs and twelve postcards of tourist sites in Beijing from the "Nanjing Decade" (1928-1937), when Beijing was also known as "Peiping." Also included are eight photos of landmarks in Tokyo during the period of U.S. Occupation (1945-1952).

[<>] Woodsworth Images
These 25 prints and 18 postcards of colonial Taiwan were collected on-site by David Woodsworth (1918-2010) in the fall of 1940. Woodsworth's brother-in-law and host Donald Bews (1911-2008) was director of the McKay Memorial Hospital in Taipei from 1939 to 1941 and intimate of US Consul Gerald Warner (1907-1989). Prominent are images of Taiwan Indigenous Peoples, their artwork, architecture and natural environment. Also featured are pictures of the Sun Moon Lake resort area. Images scanned and used with the permission of Andrew Woodsworth.

[<>] Scenic Taiwan Book
'Taiwan no fūkō' (Scenic Taiwan) 台湾の�L光is one of many photo albums published in the 1930s that depict different areas of the Japanese Empire. This particular volume was published in Wakayama Prefecture in or after 1938, though it appeared in a less censored form in 1934. Its editor, one Yamazaki Kin'ichirō (or Kane'ichirō) (1897-1985), published several albums of Taiwan, Manchuria, and Hokkaidō photographs in this same decade. 'Scenic Taiwan' extols the good results of Japanese colonial rule, both in picture and in text. This digital version features the editor's translations of all captions, along with the original Japanese, providing a resource for studies in colonial architecture, discourse, and East Asian folkways.

[<>] Taiwan Photographic Monthly Periodical
- See more at: http://digital.lafayette.edu/collections/eastasia#sthash.RFSm3U5h.dpuf

Monday, August 17, 2015

review - Strong and Weak points of education in China

The Good, Bad, and Ugly Dimensions of Chinese Education
August 16, 2015 - 9:01pm

In his book, Who Is Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon? Why China Has the Best (and Worst) Education System in the World , Dr. Yong Zhao offers a fascinating tour of Chinese education and a nuanced analysis that reveals the secrets that make it both "the best and worst" in the world......



An expanded review of Who Is Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon? Why China Has the Best (and Worst) Education System in the World will be published soon in Frontiers of Education in China.

Friday, May 29, 2015

video series from Asia Society - Chinese language matters

newsletter item announcing upcoming series to be released step by step:

We are proud to curate this video series, Great LOL of China, with Jesse Appell, Beijing's funniest American comedian, in order to bring to light the diverse yet unique aspects of Chinese people and society. Think of these as conversation starters; they won't provide answers to all of your questions, but we hope they will pique your interest and lead to further inquiries and understanding about China, and all that it is reputed to represent.


A new video will be released every other week. Enjoy and pass it on! For videos, behind the scene photos and related blogs, visit http://asiasociety.org/china-learning-initiatives/great-lol-china.