Joanna Walley-Cohen is a professor of History at New York University and written two books on the subject on China (Exile in Mid-Qing China: Banishment to Xinjiang, 1758-1820 and The Sextants of Beijing.) In this book, The Sextants of Beijing: Global Currents in Chinese History Joanna Waley-Cohen refutes the long held notion that Chinese civilization is “monolithic, unchanging, and perennially cut off from the rest of the world.”(Waley-Cohen BackCover) Although the book lacks visual aides, there are two small maps in the entire book, it conveys her theory well enough and delivers an explanative, meticulous, although boring, account of Chinese history spanning from 200 B.C.E. until 1997 C.E. Ms. Cohen helps us “understand the many levels at which the Chinese across two millennia have used or integrated elements of foreign beliefs or technologies”(Jonathan D. Spence), and gives the reader a “Complling revisionist history of Chinese foreign relations” (Kirkus Reviews).
One example of how Waley-Cohen debunks the long held Western myth of a xenophobic, isolated China is through the Jesuits. The great profits from the silver trade funded the Jesuits’ entry to China who have been conceived as the “shock troops”(Dave Flynn: Online) of the Counter-Reformation because of their mission to show the "infidels"(Waley-Cohen p.63) across the sea the right religion The Jesuits were successful in their early efforts at converting the elite in China through their teaching of mathematics and astronomy and through them trying to adhere to some Chinese beliefs. However, the book review published by Dave Flynn suggests that they were not successful in China because of conflicts with Chinese traditions that included the “veneration of ancestors and...
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...s The Sextants of Beijing: Global Currents in Chinese History provided ample evidence to support her thesis: China was not xenophobic or isolated in the sense that Westerners believe it was, but the book did not verify it impeccably. Through multiple points, Waley-Cohen demonstrated her knowledge of how China interacted with foreign influence whether for better or worse, but did not do it with the skill expected of a published author in regards to being able to hold the reader’s attention. Waley-Cohen’s The Sextants of Beijing: Global Currents in Chinese History was a very tough read and should not be recommended to anyone besides avid historians or people with great interest in Chinese History. It was definitely not the “Stimulating and refreshing…thoughtful and highly readable” account that Nicholas D. Kristof of the New York Times would lead readers to believe.
Do you believe in equality? Regardless of gender, age, education, religion, etc. all people should be treated the same. However, not everyone is. This literature review shows that. My literature review is on the Gender Matters set of essays. The first essay is The Startling Plight of China’s Leftover Women by Christina Larsen. This essay is about the unmarried, educated women in China and why they are still unmarried. The second essay is The Invisible Migrant Man: Questioning Gender Privileges by Chloe Lewis. This piece is about the struggles and issues that married male migrants face and have faced. The last is Body-Building In Afghanistan by Oliver Broudy. It is about the men who are unemployed in Afghanistan who spend their time working out. My literature review is written in the following order: Larsen’s essay, Broudy’s
History will never forget the pain because it takes an ethnic or even a nation to remember it. The Nanjing Massacre, which is my home country’s pain and shame, is not going to be forgotten and ignored either. The Raping of Nanking by Iris Chang, a Chinese American writer has reshaped my view on the atrocities the Japanese soldiers had committed and raises a question: Why we need to remember the past and face it? Remembering history does not just mean to be blocked by the past and stop moving on but looking for the lessons the history has taught us and prevent the world from making the same mistakes again.
(2050)An Analysis of the Religious Xenophobia, the Regionalism of Chinese Taoism, and the Great Anti-Buddhist Persecution in the Tang Dynasty Writings of Han Yu
Fairbank, John King, and Merle Goldman. "The Nationalist Revolution and the Nanjing Government." China: a new history. 2nd enl. ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006. 279. Print.
Americans “thought [the] Chinese had some kind of superpower since they worked for such low wages and lived in small crowded areas” (“The Chinese Experience in 19th Century America”). The Chinese just wanted to have a better life since that was the reason they came to America and they were just working hard to achieve their American Dream of living a better life than the one in their country. They did not mind working hard for what they wanted and they did, but they were just thought of as different and as exorcists for doing this. There were Yellow Peril novels written about how the Chinese wanted to take over the American government so they could put in place their own culture. On the other hand there were groups of people who did feel the Chinese were welcomed.
Gittings, John. The Changing Face of China: From Mao to Market. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006. Print.
The Chinese empire had once been one of the greatest and most powerful empires in the world. Before the 19th century, China had a large population and was ruled by families or dynasties. It was considered technologically advanced as China had a history of many miraculous inventions, such as: writing, magnetic compasses, movable sails, porcelain, abacus and paper money. Although China was isolated from the rest of the world, it coped well on its own, and saw no need to begin trading with the west, (as Lord McCartney proposed in 1793), since it was a self-sufficient nation. At that particular time, the Chinese empire was still able to exclude the ‘barbarians’, thus forcing them to only trade at one port. However, China soon took a turn for the worst as important ...
The Sun of the Revolution by Liang Heng, is intriguing and vivid, and gives us a complex and compelling perspective on Chinese culture during a confusing time period. We get the opportunity to learn the story of a young man with a promising future, but an unpleasant childhood. Liang Heng was exposed to every aspect of the Cultural Revolution in China, and shares his experiences with us, since the book is written from Liang perspective, we do not have a biased opinion from an elite member of the Chinese society nor the poor, we get an honest opinion from the People’s Republic of China. Liang only had the fortunate opportunity of expressing these events due his relationship with his wife, an American woman whom helps him write the book. When Liang Heng and Judy Shapiro fell in love in China during 1979, they weren’t just a rarity; they were both pioneers at a time when the idea of marriages between foreigners and Chinese were still unacceptable in society.
Chan, Sucheng. Chinese American Transnationalism : The Flow of People, Resources, and Ideas Between China and America During the Exclusion Era. Philadelphia, PA, USA: Temple University Press, 2005. Web.
Although it was Columbus who discovered the New World in 1492, China could have easily discovered it decades earlier. If China had discovered the New World, the culture of the west would be very similar to that of the east. Chinese culture would probably be the most dominant culture in the world, since China would have control of the east and west. “After freeing itself from it’s conquest by the Mongols, China was seeking to restore and preserve its cultural independence” (Latourette 238). The best way to preserve the fading culture of Buddhism and Taoism would be to spread it throughout the west. If the Chinese had spread their culture throughout the west, we might be speaking Chinese, not have freedom of religion, and we might be limited to Chinese beliefs.
Fairbank, John King. The Great Chinese Revolution 1800-1985. New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1986.
The Great Wall has come to signify archetypal Chinese attributes in modern-day society and is central to how China characterizes itself. However, it is not a single ‘Great Wall’ rather it is a set of walls, built intermittently over thousands of years by different dynasties for varying purposes. The idea of a singular Great Wall is a misnomer which developed after centuries of different cultural elucidations. The history of the Great Wall is a history of cultural encounters that have shaped modern ideas about China within the country itself as well as outside. (Huang, 2006)
Lessons for Women was written by Ban Zhao, the leading female Confucian scholar of classical China, in 100 C.E. It was written to apply Confucian principles to the moral instruction of women, and was particularly addressed to Ban Zhao’s own daughters. As her best remembered work, it allows the reader insight into the common role of a woman during this fascinating time-period. The work starts off by Ban Zhao unconvincingly berating herself, and claiming how she once lived with the constant fear of disgracing her family. This argument is rather implausible, for the reader already knows the credibility of Ban Zhao, and how important her role was in ancient China.
China is an extremely large country, and the customs and traditions of its people vary by geography and ethnicity. Since ancient times, China has been known as the “Celestial Empire.” This refers not only to China’s strength and position as East Asia’s Middle Kingdom, it also captures a more profound meaning. Chinese people, through various dynasties, created a rich and abundant culture to all over the world. And Chinese culture is the only culture in the world to have a continuous recorded history of 5,000 years. It has left behind countless literary classics, historical documents, cultural relics, and national records reflecting its immense scope. Culture includes religion, food, style, language, marriage, music, morals and many other things
Gittings, John. The Changing Face of China: From Mao to market. Oxford University Press, 2005.