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Arglebargle III posted:They are encouraged by the fact that the Shang Dynasty which was only attested in the records of the grand historian was previously believed to be mythical as well until contemporary records were found that corroborated Sima Qian's history. The search for the Xia Dynasty is an attempt to replicate that victory over Western archaeology. Needless to say that's a bad motive for good archeological work but it's more complex than party stooges giving marching orders. It's a nationalist pride project in which everyone knows what they're supposed to find. In a way it's worse than if academics were forced to publish results they didn't believe in. I get the sense that the academics are true believers themselves. I didn't realize that archaeology was a competition?
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May 4, 2014 02:43
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| # ? Jun 3, 2024 14:40 |
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It is for China.
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May 4, 2014 02:45
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hailthefish posted:It is for China. Why is that? Is there a history of Western archaeologists spelling out Chinese history based on a preconceived idea of Chinese inferiority rather than evidence or is this just nationalistic furor drummed up by the party as part of their "century of humiliation" narrative?
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May 4, 2014 02:47
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There totally was, actually, and for pretty much the entire world, not just China. For a long time archaeology was at least partially about legitimizing and aggrandizing Europe and Christianity. That it is so (generally, not always) nonpolitical in the west now is fairly remarkable really.
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May 4, 2014 02:55
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Fojar38 posted:Why is that? Is there a history of Western archaeologists spelling out Chinese history based on a preconceived idea of Chinese inferiority rather than evidence or is this just nationalistic furor drummed up by the party as part of their "century of humiliation" narrative? There is archaeological evidence showing that there are older civilizations than China and also that some of those civilizations reached much higher levels of development（China 4500 BP vs. Egypt 4500 BP=not even remotely a contest). Hence the need to exaggerate and even make up stuff whole cloth in order to prove that, with the exception of the ~100 years between the Opium War and 1949, China has always been the best civilization.
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May 4, 2014 03:17
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Fojar38 posted:I didn't realize that archaeology was a competition? Chinese tend to see the world in terms of two monolithic entities: "the West" and China. And up until the the 1970s the relationship between the two was portrayed as openly antagonistic. There's been a prevailing sense of competition with the West in China for hundreds of years. It's a cultural thing at this point.
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May 4, 2014 03:35
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computer parts posted:Which museum was that? I'm interested as hell in Chinese history and I'm sad that I'm only able to visit one major city when I'm over there this summer (granted it is Beijing but still). Liangzhu Cultural Museum in Hangzhou. It's not a good place to visit if you like Chinese history, but a great place if you're interested in Chinese historiography. Unfortunately a lot of the "real" Chinese historical buildings were destroyed in the cultural revolution, or for construction projects. The Beijing ring road used to be the city walls.
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May 4, 2014 03:45
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Arglebargle III posted:Chinese tend to see the world in terms of two monolithic entities: "the West" and China. And up until the the 1970s the relationship between the two was portrayed as openly antagonistic. There's been a prevailing sense of competition with the West in China for hundreds of years. It's a cultural thing at this point. That's surprising, I thought that the antagonism was rooted in the rise of the Communist party and the context of the Cold War.
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May 4, 2014 03:50
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Arglebargle III posted:Chinese tend to see the world in terms of two monolithic entities: "the West" and China. And up until the the 1970s the relationship between the two was portrayed as openly antagonistic. There's been a prevailing sense of competition with the West in China for hundreds of years. It's a cultural thing at this point. I would say it's more "China" vs. "Not China."
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May 4, 2014 04:05
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Fojar38 posted:That's surprising, I thought that the antagonism was rooted in the rise of the Communist party and the context of the Cold War. The Opium Wars, culminating in the Convention of Peking are probably a good "starting place" for those wanting to know why China is not particularly fond of the West.
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May 4, 2014 04:19
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ProfessorCurly posted:The Opium Wars, culminating in the Convention of Peking are probably a good "starting place" for those wanting to know why China is not particularly fond of the West. This line from the Wikipedia page should tell you all you need to know about those endeavors: quote:The original plan was to burn down the Forbidden City as punishment for the mistreatment of European prisoners by Qing officials. Because doing so would jeopardize the treaty signing, the plan shifted to burning the Emperor's garden estates of Qīngyī Yuán and Yuánmíng Yuán instead. e: Honestly I think outside of the 1950s the Chinese really didn't differentiate between "Westerners are terrible shitheads" and "Everyone outside of China are terrible shitheads". computer parts fucked around with this message at 04:25 on May 4, 2014 |
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May 4, 2014 04:22
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ProfessorCurly posted:The Opium Wars, culminating in the Convention of Peking are probably a good "starting place" for those wanting to know why China is not particularly fond of the West. Well, there's a long history of xenophobia/looking down on other cultures that predates any of those events, not to say that they didn't have an influence (though they are certainly played up, especially when compared to internal strife that produced similar results).
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May 4, 2014 04:29
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computer parts posted:e: Honestly I think outside of the 1950s the Chinese really didn't differentiate between "Westerners are terrible shitheads" and "Everyone outside of China are terrible shitheads". People over here generally don't distinguish. It's right in the language. Chinese (or Korean or Japanese depending on the country) is one category, and "foreigner" is the other. "Foreigner" is a single group and everyone in it is the same. Fojar38 posted:Why is that? Is there a history of Western archaeologists spelling out Chinese history based on a preconceived idea of Chinese inferiority rather than evidence Yes. It's surprising to think about now, but up to the 20th century China's history of innovation and progress was not acknowledged at all. Joseph Needham did a huge amount to change that--before he started publishing, people didn't know/accept basic things like that China invented gunpowder, which we all learn in school today. Things have changed a lot in this field over the past century. Nationalist ideology in China does not care that things have changed. Fojar38 posted:or is this just nationalistic furor drummed up by the party as part of their "century of humiliation" narrative? Yes.
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May 4, 2014 04:52
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ProfessorCurly posted:The Opium Wars, culminating in the Convention of Peking are probably a good "starting place" for those wanting to know why China is not particularly fond of the West. Do you, or does anyone else, have any books to recommend on this subject? My knowledge comes from James Clavell novels. 
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May 4, 2014 05:11
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Count Roland posted:Do you, or does anyone else, have any books to recommend on this subject? My knowledge comes from James Clavell novels. The Search for Modern China is basically the perfect book for describing China's history from the 19th Century to the present, even though it's a bit pricy (we used it for a textbook in my history class).
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May 4, 2014 05:30
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Count Roland posted:Do you, or does anyone else, have any books to recommend on this subject? My knowledge comes from James Clavell novels. The Search for Modern China doesn't focus on that period specifically (it goes from the Qing to the "present,") but it's the kind of book that the word ”magisterial" was invented for. You should read it and so should everyone. e: slowwww
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May 4, 2014 05:33
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Podcast wise the China History Podcast is a reasonable overview/introduction. I'm pretty sure he does a few episodes on the Opium wars. In terms of archaeology being politicised, it's pretty analagous (at least in my layman's eyes) to the space race being politicised. You can look at it and go 'how does doing science and engineering = politics?' but that's missing the point that the space race was about showing the 'other side' that your ideology produced a better society because you had better educated scientists and could afford to spend more resources on it. The Chinese see their cultural and political sophistication as proof that they're a 'better' society than anyone outside. It's akin to nobility who see being able to trace one's ancestors further back in the aristocracy as making one more aristocratic. Age makes something more valuable. Thus there's a definite motivation for Chinese architects to demonstrate that China has been the longest lasting and thus the 'best' civilisation. Plus obviously because being around longer means they're more advanced than other civilisations because stagnation or non-linear cultural development are not things. Also as Grand Fromage (who knows way more about this than me) said, China has a strong tradition of taking authorities fairly uncritically and also tying in previous dynasties to the current one. Thus Chinese historians pretty much need to see all cultures and civilisations in China as a continuous development even if many of the ancient cultures they claim direct desendancy from may never have encountered one another. The fact that they existed in China and one of them was before the other is pretty much definite evidence that culture A became culture B because otherwise that would mean that one of them wasn't Chinese and who else has ever lived in China? 
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May 4, 2014 05:44
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dilbertschalter posted:I would say it's more "China" vs. "Not China." This... including what is hands-down my least favorite word in the entire Chinese language: "國外". I guess you could translate it as "overseas" but it gets used in contexts that "overseas" would NEVER be used in English. Medicine is easier to buy "overseas"? Is medicine easier to buy in North Korea? Namibia? Working conditions "overseas" are better? Are working conditions better in Japan? Panama? People "overseas" are more open minded? In Saudi Arabia? In the Vatican? I also like when people go to one random country use 國外 to refer to their country-specific experiences as if they apply to every non-China foreign country. I met a guy who studied in France, and apparently people in 國外 protest/go on strike at the drop of a hat, take a month of vacation in August, host salons, eat bread regularly, etc. Yep. They totally do that in every non-China country, definitely not your unique France-specific experiences, because other countries don't have unique traits, only China and Everything Else. China exceptionalism at its best.
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May 4, 2014 06:55
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hitension posted:This... including what is hands-down my least favorite word in the entire Chinese language: "國外". I guess you could translate it as "overseas" but it gets used in contexts that "overseas" would NEVER be used in English. Reminds me of another pet peeve of mine- life in China is "hard mode" and people everywhere else have it easy.
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May 4, 2014 07:16
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hitension posted:They totally do that in every non-China country, definitely not your unique France-specific experiences, because other countries don't have unique traits, only China and Everything Else. American right wingers do this poo poo, too, and loving HARD.
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May 4, 2014 08:14
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VideoTapir posted:American right wingers do this poo poo, too, and loving HARD. Everyone does it.
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May 4, 2014 08:14
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drilldo squirt posted:Everyone does it. I don't. Everyone except me does it. Foreigners do it.
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May 4, 2014 09:59
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hitension posted:This... including what is hands-down my least favorite word in the entire Chinese language: "國外". I guess you could translate it as "overseas" but it gets used in contexts that "overseas" would NEVER be used in English. This is, of course, hyperbole. People are saying certain things to you because you're white, but they're definitely not lumping you in with Koreans, Arabs, Africans, etc.
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May 4, 2014 10:02
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dilbertschalter posted:Reminds me of another pet peeve of mine- life in China is "hard mode" and people everywhere else have it easy. So Chinese life is filled with hardship, struggle and pain to the point that the rest of the world is relatively coasting along, but it's still the product of a superior and more sophisticated society?
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May 4, 2014 14:13
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WarpedNaba posted:So Chinese life is filled with hardship, struggle and pain to the point that the rest of the world is relatively coasting along, but it's still the product of a superior and more sophisticated society? Nationalism does spring some weird flowers, right?
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May 4, 2014 15:02
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dilbertschalter posted:Reminds me of another pet peeve of mine- life in China is "hard mode" and people everywhere else have it easy. Constant shifting of rhetorical focus.
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May 4, 2014 15:35
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VideoTapir posted:Constant shifting of rhetorical focus. Well, if you would prefer to stay on topic, your previous comments are misleading and off-base (of course every country has "this is ARE COUNTRY" types), that doesn't mean that the particular brand of silliness found here is endemic everywhere.
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May 4, 2014 16:46
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dilbertschalter posted:Well, if you would prefer to stay on topic, your previous comments are misleading and off-base (of course every country has "this is ARE COUNTRY" types), that doesn't mean that the particular brand of silliness found here is endemic everywhere. You must be new here. http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_blackshirt.html quote:When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers of Ur-Fascism must also be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy. The comparison is a little loose here; there isn't necessarily derision or enmity in the Chinese attitude toward the rest of the world. Also, the post you're referring to was specifically about people dividing the world into "my country" and "not my country" with the latter being as uniform as the former. I don't think you're going to find that kind of person EVERYWHERE. Maybe every country large enough to have large numbers of people who've never traveled abroad AND which has a strong tradition of nationalistic propaganda. VideoTapir fucked around with this message at 17:21 on May 4, 2014 |
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May 4, 2014 17:15
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VideoTapir posted:
Swap out "country" for "region" and that's basically Europe.
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May 4, 2014 17:25
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But China doesn't actually divide the world into "my country" and "not my country" the way that hitension was suggesting. The existence and use of the word 國外 isn't necessarily evidence of that, just like 河馬 (hippopotamus, "river horse") doesn't mean Chinese people literally think hippos are a type of horse.
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May 4, 2014 17:31
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dilbertschalter posted:I would say it's more "China" vs. "Not China." No they also count a lot of nearby not China as China because they once sent a tribute to some random dynasty.
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May 4, 2014 17:53
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WarpedNaba posted:So Chinese life is filled with hardship, struggle and pain to the point that the rest of the world is relatively coasting along, but it's still the product of a superior and more sophisticated society? Well, you see, it WOULD be so much better, China would be the richest and most powerful country, as the product of the superior and sophisticated society that's been around the longest, except those drat western imperialists sabotaged China's future during the century of humiliation, obviously.  
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May 4, 2014 20:12
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I know I'm coming off like the internet China defence force (where did proprc go anyway) but the west basically did do those things you know.
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May 4, 2014 20:14
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The fact that China is still chugging along even after getting hosed over so hard by foreign powers is pretty impressive, actually.
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May 4, 2014 20:16
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B-but it's so hard being white! Waaaaaagh!
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The whole corruption issue that is still one of the biggest problems of China, started earlier than Western interference though, right?
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May 4, 2014 20:20
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Not saying it's invented out of whole cloth, but the assumption that if the West had just left Qing Dynasty China alone long enough, China would rule the world is.. optimistic. The Century of Humiliation sucked poo poo for China and they got hosed over pretty hard, but they hosed themselves pretty hard too between the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, which some might argue would never have happened without Western intervention but who the hell knows what -would- have happened and trying to make arguments based on 'what should have been' is silly, and especially silly to argue from a default standpoint of 'everything wrong with the world is solely and completely the fault of white people' but this is D&D after all.
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May 4, 2014 20:21
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Bloodnose posted:"English readers are probably unaware of the smallness of the established salaries of provincial magnates. They will scarcely credit that the Viceroy of, say, Canton, ruling a country with a population larger than that of Great Britain, is allowed at his legal salary the paltry sum of 60 pounds sterling a year; so that, in order to live and maintain himself in office, accumulating fabulous riches the while, he resorts to extortion and the selling of justice. Actually the 1912 book I was quoting was repeating what he had said in an 1896 book so yeah China was plenty good at loving itself over. I mean if China was really so awesome, how would the European powers have been able to accomplish any of their imperialism anyway? Even combining the entire eight nation alliance wouldn't match China's population. Not even close.
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May 4, 2014 20:36
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As long as we aren't going around pretending that the west did China any favours, I'm cool with China's own mistakes.
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May 4, 2014 20:38
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Bloodnose posted:Actually the 1912 book I was quoting was repeating what he had said in an 1896 book so yeah China was plenty good at loving itself over. So how old is this legal corruption system?
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May 4, 2014 20:44
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5000 years and yeah the Qing were hosed up in plenty of ways, I just don't think it's healthy to completely absolve the west of responsibility here. "Century of humiliation" and "unequal treaties" can be said without airquotes etc
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May 4, 2014 20:45
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