Session 9A: 19th Century China

[Anonymous]

From today's morning lecture I found a key concept I hope to use to understand different periods in history ( old and modern). This is the Qing Longevity Factor of Accommodation and Expansion. We learned that the government's abitlity to be perceived as accommodating ( culturally, economically,etc) together with their expanding their borders ( both for resources as well as a statement to the world of their power) are factors which should stand the test of time. In modern times, the accommodation part of the equation is easy to spot, but the expansion part.....can it mean more that a physical border? Can it be a mentality that moves across through borders and changes peoples' thinking. The discussion and information on Growth vs. Development is also good to ponder and to introduce the concepts we learned, followed by discusssion. Students could do research on a country or recreate their own imaginary country....then develop the ideas of handicraft production, hiring out to work for someone else, and starting a buying/selling or import/export business. By blotting out the names of countries on a world map, and inserting the students make up countries, they could re-write a piece of history in a simulation. Another aspect would be to also blot out the names of rivers, lakes, and mountains and reassign their locations to see how students would use those resources in developing their made up country.

[Anonymous]

This lecture was extremely informative and all too short. I was really getting into the economics aspect of things - input vs. output, etc., and I'm particularly interested because my Int'l. Studies small learning comm. is going to participate in the Int'l. Economic Summit for students this year. I've never studied Economics, and never finished reading much on it (too many assumptions for me) so just touching on it to explain the direct effect of the decisions made in China and Japan was really interesting. Maybe I should pick up a copy of Economics for Dummies. In any case, it kind of surprised me that Japan apparently relied on abortion to keep the population under control. You'd think with all the junipers in the countryside, they'd have a long tradition of homemade birth control.

However, I really focused on the Opium War as the most easily accessed and most interesting in the high school classroom, particularly given the current drug war activity in Mexico. Linking the selling and reselling of drugs as a viable commodity for the growth of British economy is sure a study in contrasts. Once again, we find the "if they'll buy it; sell it" mentality at the base of some really poor decisions. Comparing that to the current complaint about all the products in U.S. being made in China is like comparing a Tasmanian devil to a puppy. I would really like to make this a computer research project to make an outline of the high points of the Opium trade and war, and find a parallel between that and current drug trade, including the drug trade during the Viet Nam war. Who supplies, who trades, who grows, who profits, who monitors law and who pays the real price.

[Anonymous]

I agree with Matt that one of the most interesting parts of the morning lecture was the brief comparison between the economies of Japan and China from the Qing expansion into the 1800s. Though the largest regime on the planet with 40 million people, China was growing but without the kind of development that Japan experienced. Japan's development, or increase of output per hour of work, led to surpluses in education, infrastructure, and weapons. These advantages led to subsequent victories in the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars. The explanation of China's superior growth while dealing with a developmental disadvantage compared to Japan is an important point to make in class when discussing Japan's rise to power in the region.

[Anonymous]

Hello Pucone,

I also think that students are for the most part very interested in learning about drugs. I have to say that sometimes students know more about drugs than we assume. I've been teaching ninth graders for seven years and I have to say that their health teachers are doing a darn good job in informing them of what is out there and what can happen to them if they decide to use drugs. The population of kids that I serve, especially the males are exposed to drugs and mariguana seems to be the drug of choice.

I sometimes wonder if the government can really do something about the drug war that we face here in our country. Even if drugs were eradicated; people will always find something new to get the high that they are looking for, sometimes putting their lives in danger.

I was curious to know who was the major producer of opium and I wasn't surprise to find out that Afghanistan came in first place.

Check out the brief blurp from CBS News: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/08/25/ap/asia/main4378838.shtml

[Anonymous]

The effects of war are devastating and countries are greedy in wanting to gain control over other countries in order to gain land and power. It was horrible that so many innocent people had to die during WWII, but we must not gloss over the fact that before the United States bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan massacred 300,000 Chinese civilians when they took over Nanking.

The Japanese Americans who were in the United States when the bombing of Pearl Harbor occured were the objects of mistrust and were wrongfully stripped from their property and driven to various camps. According to history none of them were massacred and there is evidence from the internees that life went on in the camps. The United States apologized for what they did, but the Japanese government has yet to apologize to China for what they did in Nanking.

Check this website out: http://www.unitedhumanrights.org/Genocide/nanking_massacre.htm

[Anonymous]

While I have a pretty good grasp of Western history, I am not a history teacher so all the history Clay provided for us on this day really opened my eyes to the ways of the world. He was throwing so much information at us, all of it very interesting, that I didn't take the best notes, thank you to all of you for reviewing the main concepts. The concepts of a country's development: accomodations, expansion, and longevity can really be applied to any country, as some of you have suggested.

In 1741, China is the largest regime on the planet with 142 million people and is growing (nearly tripling), but now developing, while Japan has no population growth, but has tremendous development as does the rest of the world. It doesn't seem right to me that so many people are stagnant, that so many people could be held back because of tradition. What would have happened if the Quing chose to have open trade with the West and welcomed the industrial development of the country?

Hypothetical questions don't really take us far, I know, but China is now developing and they continue and are guaranteed to always be the largest regime on the planet. We, the West, are now in the same place as the Quing Emperor was when making the decision to let in the outsiders or not. He chose not to, stunting the country's advancement. If we chose to not let the East in, we will stunt our own development as a country and as a people. Our traditional perspectives of the East come from lack of historical knowledge and an abundance of stereotypes. Bridging the gaps between the two hemispheres, is prudent and important. Letting the East into our classrooms is a major step in helping our students engage the importance of East Asia in their lives.

[Anonymous]

The Taiping Rebellion is thought to have been one of the bloodiest revolutions in world history with 20 to 30 million dead give or take a few. Its leader and instigator was a Cantonese clerk named Hung Hsiu-chuan, who fell into a trance after failing his civil service exams, saw Heaven, and was inspired to rebel against the Manchu. Confucious, what happened? He established the Taiping Tienkwo, the Heavenly Dynasty of Perfect Peace, and, based on his notions of Christianity, set out to rid China of idols. The Taipings captured more than a third of China from their capital in Nanking, smashed several Qing armies, but were horrible administrators ravaging the countryside they captured. At their height, the revolutionaries threatened Pekin and Shanghai.

The China campaigns of this period saw the participation of two of my favorite Victorian heroes, Brigadier General Harry Flashman, VC, KCB, and Major General Charles "Chinese" Gordon. Flashman was sent as an intelligence officer by Lord Elgin to the Taipings to determine their intentions towards Shanghai. The British, because of their treaty with the Qing, were attempting to remain neutral, but they knew the Taiping needed a port to trade with the outside world. Flashman is captured under a safe conduct after negotiations between the Manchu and the westerners break down over the admission of diplomats to Pekin. Flashman is taken to the Forbidden City and is later housed in the Summer Palace. He escapes, joins the Anglo-French expedition that captures the city and participates in the burning of the Summer Palace at the orders of Lord Elgin. His adventures are almost too incredible to be believed.

I am always surprised that Flashman did not meet Gordon, for he too participated in the burning of the palace. Gordon would become the Achilles of the Taiping Rebellion. He was seconded to command the Ever Victorious Army, a mercenary group organized by the merchants of Shanghai. After winning several battles, he left the army refusing to return after his Imperial allies sacked a city and executed leaders he had promised safety. He was finally induced to return and shut the rebellion down missing only the re-capture of Nanking which he had engineered. Gordon would later die at the seige of Khartoum.
Farwell, Byron. Eminent victorian soldiers: Seekers Glory. New York:W.W. Norton and Co.
1985
Fraser, George, ed. Flashman and the Dragon. Glasgow: William Collins Sons & Co.
1985

[Anonymous]

I really liked hearing about how China grew 1. Handicraft production and 2. Hiring out commerce. It was fascinated to understand the differences in development between China and Japan.

It is difficult to explain the current balance of powers in the world. We have to delve into history and see the cause and effect of events that lead to some countries taking on the Industrial Revolution and other's not. In class students often want think one country is just smarter or more hard work than another but having the ta simple reasoning helps explain why the world is the way it is today.

[Anonymous]

I too thought this session was interesting because it was getting closer to home for me as
well due to my families involvement in trade with China. I am now curious to find out more about it all, since it ended in the twenties it has always seemed like a fantasy. [Edit by="lgates on Sep 25, 10:48:32 AM"][/Edit]

[Anonymous]

I recently saw a book of shoes designed for the bound foot. They were truly facinating in some weird way. They were beatifully decorative. Foot binding is very strange due to its crippling effect but it did have the effect of keeping women subserviant. They would have a harder time running away if they needed to. An interesting contradiction I found was that Chinese tatoos were considered a disfigurement. The idea being that the body is a God given thing and it is a form of desicration to draw pictures on it. Tatoos were sometime given as a mark on the face to identiify an evil doer etc. There is a Chinese opera dedicated to a man tatooed after leaving his military duties. I guess in 1911 when foot binding was outlawed Chinese tatooing of western society started up with dragons and chinese character and has grown to be even more popular today.[Edit by="lgates on Sep 25, 12:00:23 PM"][/Edit]

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