Asian History Commons^™

Parks Coble, Jr., Unl History; Chinese Nationalists & Business, Chinese-Japanese Relations, Mark A. Griep, Parks M. Coble Jr.

UNL ORCA Interview Series

Dr. Parks Coble, Jr. was awarded the ORCA in 2005. He was born in Waterloo, South Carolina in 1946 but he grew up in Columbia. He earned his bachelor’s in history at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. Next, he traveled 740 miles northwest to earn his doctorate at the University of Illinois in Champaign. In 1976, he became an assistant professor of history at the University of Nebraska, where he quickly rose through the ranks. His early work focused on the relationship between Chinese business elites and leaders of the Chinese National Government movement during a very interesting …

The Batiandi Li Family, Xifu

Zea E-Books Collection

The novel tells the story of six generations of the Li family over the course of nearly a century and a half, a legendary saga. The protagonists of the Li family in various historical stages of the book are searching for their own identity and the position of the family on the road of life. Sometimes they seize opportunities and create temporary brilliance for the benefit and glory of the family, while at other times they submit to fate and follow the tide of history, content to live ordinary lives like common people.

In 1832 the second brother of the …

Magic Mirrors, Jamie Ho

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

When a beam of bright light hits the convex and polished surface, an image is reflected back onto the wall. This is a description of a magic mirror, an object from the Han Dynasty (206 BC -24 AD), that embodies how Euro-America views China: both technically advanced and shrouded in mystery. The magic mirror also points to the history of photography, as this term was often used in the Victorian era to describe a camera. The image created by a camera is a mimic of reality, both all too familiar and unfamiliar.^[1] Like magic mirrors, the GIFs I create …

A Daughter Of The Samurai, Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto

Zea E-Books Collection

Born in 1874 the youngest daughter of a samurai and former daimyo—a feudal prince under the Takugawa shogunate—Etsu Inagaki grew up surrounded by ghosts of an aristocratic military lineage. Having fought on the losing side in the wars that installed the Meiji emperor, the ­Inagaki family was reduced in power, status, and wealth but not in pride or ­devotion to its traditional roles and customs. Etsu’s upbringing and education were conservative and old-fashioned, guided by the Shinto and Buddhist beliefs her family held. The samurai virtues of honor, ­stoicism, and sacrifice applied to daughters and wives as well as sons …

Reminiscences Of Lafcadio Hearn, Setsuko Koizumi, Paul Kiyoshi Hisada, Frederick Johnson

Zea E-Books Collection

Setsuko Koizumi (1868–1932) was the daughter of a Japanese samurai family in Matsué. In 1891 she married a foreigner — Lafcadio Hearn (1850–1904) — and their union lasted 13 years and produced three children. Hearn adopted her family name, becoming Koizumi Yakumo 小泉八雲,and spent those years in Japan writing, teaching, and achieving international recognition. Setsuko’s Reminiscences tells something of the couple’s moves and travels, but focuses mostly on the character, habits, and eccentricities of her husband. The book is a heartfelt and intimate portrait of a marriage that brought Lafcadio the home and family he had never before enjoyed. This …

Kokoro: Hints And Echoes Of Japanese Inner Life, Lafcadio Hearn, Koizumi Yakumo

Zea E-Books Collection

The works of Lafcadio Hearn (Koizumi Yakumo) played a critical role in introducing his adopted Japan to a worldwide audience. In Kokoro: Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life, he writes, “The papers composing this volume treat of the inner rather than of the outer life of Japan, — for which reason they have been grouped under the title Kokoro (heart). This word signifies also mind, in the emotional sense; spirit; courage; resolve; sentiment; affection; and inner meaning, — just as we say in English, ‘the heart of things.’” After centuries of isolation Meiji-era Japan was forced to adjust …

Understanding Religious Tolerance In Yongchang, China, Liming Gao

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

The formation of China is a process of national integration and a fusion of different beliefs. However, under Chairman Mao (1949-1976) and specifically during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), people were reeducated to focus on Communism and expel remnants of traditional Chinese culture including the various religions. Although, after the Cultural Revolution, China reinstated its policy of religious freedom, there were still strict laws against religion. Despite such circumstances, Chinese people still practice their religious beliefs. The Yongchang area, located in Gansu Province in the northwest of China is a typical region of Chinese culture. At the same time, compared to …

Nationalism And Education: A Case Study Of Germany And Japan, Sarah Vrtiska

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

In this piece I ask the question: How has education contributed to the formation or prevention of nationalism in Germany and Japan? In examining this, after defining the standard conceptions of nationalism, I apply these definitions to pre-war and post-war Germany and Japan. Ultimately, I conclude that the goals of education, concepts of national identity that are taught, history curricula, and control of education all historically have the potential to contribute to the rise of nationalism within a country. Based on these fields, I find that although there are similar nationalist trends in both countries during the pre-war period, in …

South Korean Nationalism And The Legacy Of Park Chung Hee: How Nationalism Shaped Park’S Agendas And The Future Korean Sociopolitical Landscape, Brandon L. Santos

Chadron State Graduate Theses

Park Chung Hee (presidential term: 1961-1979) is, arguably, the most significant leader in the Korean Peninsula’s modern history. His governance has many trademark elements that have been thoroughly analyzed. These include his economic plans and violent dealings against his political opposition. One often overlooked variable, however, is the significant traces of early Korean nationalism (1890s-1930s) that defined his regime. Park employed these ideas, although controversial, to completely change a nation that was teetering on the brink of destruction into what is now, one of the most well-known republics in the world – economically, technologically, and culturally. It is important, therefore, …

Review Of The Armenian Genocide: Evidence From The German Office Archives, 1915–1916, Edited By Wolfgang Gust, Bedross Der Matossian

Department of History: Faculty Publications

This edited volume should be considered as an significant contribution to the history of the Armenian Genocide. Gust has rendered an important service to scholarship by reviving for the first time in English the voices of the German diplomats and their informants who became eyewitnesses to one of the first genocides of the twentieth century. Almost all of the German observers, be they diplomats or missionaries from the period, agreed on the fact that what happened to the Armenians was an act of genocide. Now that Gust has furnished historians with a plethora of vital documents, it is the task …

The Influences Of The American Boxer Indemnity Reparations Remissions On Chinese Higher Education, Xiaojuan Zhou

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The purpose of this study was to consider the influences of the American Boxer Indemnity Reparations Remissions (ABIRR) on Chinese higher education. These remissions were used to establish two universities, to establish the American Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program (ABISP) to support Chinese students’ studying in America, and to support other higher education- related projects.

This study focused on higher education considering ABISP as an individual case. The ABISP students were selected from all the students who studied in America in the corresponding period in part because of the inconsistencies of research before 1949.

Through tracking 1,152 ABISP students of Type …

Review Of Nazan Çiçek, The Young Ottomans: Turkish Critics Of The Eastern Question In The Late Nineteenth Century, Bedross Der Matossian

Department of History: Faculty Publications

The ‘Eastern Question’, coined by European powers in the nineteenth century, came to denote the diplomatic and political problems posed by the decline of the Ottoman Empire. The historiography on the Eastern Question has been mostly Eurocentric, addressing the diplomatic history of the Eastern Question without taking into consideration the Eastern actors of the Question, that is, the Muslim Turks. One of the major actors to emerge during the height of the Eastern Question was a group known as the Young Ottomans who became extremely critical of the Tanzimat reforms in general and the Ottoman Porte’s handling of the Eastern …

All Good Things Must Come To An End: China Beat’S 1,000th Post, Maura Cunningham, Kate Merkel-Hess, Ken Pomeranz, Jeff Wasserstrom

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

With much gratitude, the China Beat editors say goodbye.

What a difference four years can make—for a blog, a country, and a planet. (“Blog, country, planet” might have made a nice coat of arms if we’d thought of it…) When China Beat launched early in 2008, blogs seemed like relatively new kids on the block, at least to academics. Four years later, the genre is old hat, sharing a landscape with newcomers like Tumblr, Twitter, and other microblogging platforms, and we’re increasingly catching up on China news not on computers but on devices that fit in our palms.

The blog …

Book Review: A Passion For Facts By Tong Lam, Maggie Clinton

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Tong Lam’s engaging new study A Passion for Facts analyzes the processes by which modern modes of apprehending and ordering the social world were forced upon and ultimately embraced by Chinese political and intellectual elites during the late Qing and Republican periods. Lam focuses on the rise of the “social survey” (shehui diaocha) as a means of knowing and constituting a new object called “society” (shehui), as well as the epistemological violence of imperialism that rendered the social survey a seemingly natural way of investigating the world. By the time the Nationalists assumed state power in 1927, Lam argues, “seeking …

Book Review: Superstitious Regimes By Rebecca Nedostup, Stefania Travagnin

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Superstitious Regimes is an interdisciplinary work that sheds new light on the interaction between the state-body and the religion-body in early twentieth-century China, with a focus on the Nanjing Decade (1927-1937). Nedostup develops her analysis from both a diachronic and synchronic perspective. The author underlines shifts and continuities between a few historical periods: Sun Yat-sen’s time, the early years of the Nanjing Decade, the late years of the Nanjing Decade, and the post-Nanjing Decade.

Nedostup’s interdisciplinary study is of interest for a large readership: students and scholars of Chinese studies, Chinese politics, Chinese religions, and Chinese history would all benefit …

Book Review: Dream Of Ding Village By Yan Lianke, Mike Frick

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Unsurprisingly, the Chinese government levied a “three nos” ban—no sales, no distribution, and no promotion—against Dream of Ding Village after its publication in 2005. Though the storytelling relies heavily on dream sequences, Yan takes little poetic license when exposing the depth of the state’s culpability in spreading HIV among poor, medically-naïve farmers. He is just as uncompromising when detailing how officials denied responsibility for the ensuing AIDS epidemic, even as they profited from its human tragedy. No one in Ding Village receives medical care, mental health counseling, food assistance, or a chance to hold the blood heads legally accountable. Cast …

Changsha: Photographs By Rian Dundon, Rian Dundon

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Rian Dundon, whose photographs have previously appeared at China Beat, will soon be releasing a new book of photography on China, Changsha. Dundon’s book will feature a forward written by friend of the blog Gail Hershatter and includes his photos of and essays on the Hunan province city of Changsha. For more information, and to pre-order a copy of the book, see the book’s website (pre-sales of the book are part of a crowd-funding campaign raising funds for its first run with the publisher, Emphas.is). Below is a special teaser of Changsha material that Dundon has prepared for China Beat …

The Taiwan Elections In Historical Perspective, Sebastian Veg

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

During a recent trip to Taipei to observe the January presidential and legislative elections, like many people with little first-hand knowledge of Taiwan, I was struck by the unique traits of Taiwan’s democracy. The elections also seemed relevant to many debates in China, not only because they were closely followed and tweeted by critical voices on the mainland, but also because of their significance against the broader historical and geographical context of the history of modern China, a connection which holds true even if one subscribes to the view that Taiwan had no previous connection with this history before 1945 …

Book Review: Developmental Fairy Tales, Nicole Kwoh

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

At the 1996 APEC Economic Leaders Meeting, Jiang Zemin concluded his speech on economic development with a quote from Lu Xun: “For actually the earth had no road to begin with, but when many men pass one way, a road is made” (1921). This quote highlights the important role played by the first generation of modern Chinese literature in shaping the current rhetoric of building a road to progress. In Developmental Fairy Tales: Evolutionary Thinking and Modern Chinese Culture, Andrew F. Jones explains the construction of this ubiquitous concept of cultural and historical progress. With a focus on Lu …

Salvaging Memories From The Ruins Of The Three Gorges, Daisy Yan Du

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The Three Gorges Dam is the largest hydro-electric power station in the world. The construction of the dam began in 1994 and was completed in 2009. Proponents bill it as a symbol of China’s rise on the global stage, while critics worldwide see it as a huge humanitarian crisis that has the potential to worsen in years to come. The biggest controversy of this project concerns the forced migration of around two million people, who, due to the rising water, have been displaced from their hometowns along the upper reaches of the Yangzi River in Chongqing and Sichuan and Hubei …

Digital Chinese Whispers: Death Threats And Rumors Inside China’S Online Marketplace Of Ideas, James Leibold

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The Chinese internet is a wonderfully raucous and interesting place. It has greatly expanded the scope of public discourse and activity, despite the party-state’s extensive censorship regime. Not surprisingly, the world’s largest cyber-community exhibits tremendous depth and diversity: progressive cyber-activists and professional agitators; navel-gazing starlets and steam-venting gamers; mundane infotainment and the banal waxing of quotidian life; and, sadly, dark corners of fear, hatred and paranoia. It’s all there; it simply depends on where one looks. Like other technologies before it, the internet is normatively neutral, and thus can be put to good, bad and anodyne uses: individuals—not tools—shape the …

Behind Bo Xilai’S Halo, Xujun Eberlein

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In the wake of Bo Xilai’s sudden downfall, shortly after what could be called an online carnival among China watchers—probably more in celebration of a rare, real-life political drama than anything else—international media is changing its tune and beginning to paint a more sympathetic image of Bo than previously reported, by focusing on Chinese people’s love of him. Reuters, for example, has a report titled “In China’s Chongqing, dismay over downfall of Bo Xilai” that quotes a working “stick man” (棒棒军, a porter-for-hire) who praises Bo as “a good man” that “made life a lot better here.” The Telegraph‘s Malcolm …

Book Review: Chiang Kai-Shek’S Interpersonal Relationships: Perspectives Across The Strait, Sherman Lai

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

This book brings together papers and panel discussions of a conference on Chiang Kai-shek held in Taipei in January 2011 with the joint participation of historians from both the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Taiwan. It reflects new scholarship on Chiang Kai-shek in the Chinese-speaking world and showcases the approaches that historians in the PRC adopt in handling challenges that their Western colleagues do not encounter. While Chinese historians have enormous audiences, they do not share the academic freedom enjoyed by their colleagues in the West and Taiwan. Because their careers and livelihood are dependent on the Chinese Communist …

Republican China, Kate Merkel-Hess

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Several years ago, I gave a talk on my research to a community group. My first slide included the words “Republican China” and as I waited to begin I heard a woman in the front row lean over and whisper to her neighbor, “I had no idea they have Republicans in China too!”

At this time of bruising primary battles, though, the China that the Republicans have seems more relevant—as China, imagined and real, has played a recurring role in the raucous Republican primaries. Here’s a rundown of some of the ways China has popped up on the campaign trail …

Hong Kong Identity And Democratic Values, Sebastian Veg

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

When Peking University Professor Kong Qingdong’s diatribe on Hongkongers and their lingering colonial infatuation swept over the Internet in late January, the widespread and growing uneasiness about mainland Chinese in Hong Kong suddenly had a face. Triggered by a viral video of a Hongkonger telling off a mainland family in the subway because their daughter was eating dry instant noodles, Kong’s interview sparked a wave of predictable but nonetheless justified outrage in Hong Kong. It took place against the background of the annual mainland shopping spree over Chinese New Year (in a previous episode, Dolce and Gabbana staff in Tsim …

Excerpt: Heaven Cracks, Earth Shakes, James Palmer

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

When the Tangshan Earthquake hit northern China on July 28, 1976, the country was in the midst of a tumultuous year that would grow even more chaotic with Mao’s death less than two months later. In retrospect, the massive earthquake has been viewed as a sign of trouble to come and a signal that major changes were on the horizon. In his new book, Heaven Cracks, Earth Shakes: The Tangshan Earthquake and the Death of Mao’s China, James Palmer delves into the history of 1976, tracing the developments of that pivotal year for all in China, from the leaders residing …

How Chongqing People View Bo Xilai, Xujun Eberlein

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

One April day in my birth city of Chongqing, I encountered a rare quarrel in People’s Park. The park is one of several places in downtown Chongqing that offer low-cost “baba cha” (open-space tea), where retirees and others with time on their hands lounge under leafy banyan trees with their teacups and bird cages for a good part of the day. Two fiftyish men sat at a plastic table drinking tea and chatting about Bo Xilai, their city’s ousted leader. One of the men said that Bo’s promotion of “people’s livelihood” had been a fake show, because during his four-year …

Whither The "Year Of China"?, Denise Ho, Jared Flanery

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

To conclude my Chinese history lecture course at the University of Kentucky, I introduce my undergraduates to the concept of “soft power” and suggest that Confucius Institutes are emblematic of China’s cultural diplomacy, which aims to project a peaceful image abroad. Confucius Institutes are centers for teaching Chinese language and culture overseas; they are organized by an office known as Hanban in the Ministry of Education, though their funding comes directly from the Chinese government’s treasury. There are now over 350 Confucius Institutes in the world, and two of these are in the state of Kentucky.

Literacy And Development Within China’S Minorities, Alexandra Grey

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Outside of China, people are agape at the prospect of learning to write Chinese: “So hard! Too hard.” Back in Australia, I know first generation migrants who speak Chinese at home but have never learnt to write; they gape along with everyone else. But for all the jaw-dropping, these people can read and write the national language of their home (for the Aussie-Chinese, that’s English). What about the people inside China for whom ‘Chinese’ is a foreign language? They are a significant minority, and, on the Chinese scale, a minority still means millions of people. ‘Chinese’ is usually loosely used …

Book Review: China And Orientalism, Fabio Lanza

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

This slim, sharply-argued volume should be a mandatory reading for all of us who work on post-1949 China. China and Orientalism is a refreshing and often eye-opening analysis on how knowledge of the object called “China” has been constructed in the West since the end of Maoism. That knowledge, as Vukovich cogently demonstrates, is fundamentally flawed.

Writing as a “barbarian” outside the disciplinary gates— i.e. a self-declared non-sinologist (pp. xii-xiii) —Vukovich argues that, since the late 1970s, Western knowledge production about the PRC has been dominated and defined by a new form of Orientalism. But while for Edward Said the …