China History Podcast

The Five Elements

Laszlo Montgomery

The ninth and final part in the History of Chinese Philosophy podcast series

Laszlo emerges from the post-holiday festivities to finish off the series, picking up from last episode with the life and work of Wang Yangming. The differences between the two main schools of Neo-Confucianism is further discussed: the Lu-Wang School of the Mind (xinxue) and the Cheng-Zhu School of Principle (lixue). We also saved philosopher Zou Yan and the Five Elements (wuxing) for last. And that completes this nine-part set course meal in the History of Chinese Philosophy. If anything spoke to you, you're now armed and ready to do as many deeper dives into all these schools of thought as your heart desires. For more like it, explore Laszlo’s archive of podcasts at Tea Cup Media.

Chinese Corner

Mum’s the Word

Eveline Chao

To learn Mandarin like a child, listen first – Eveline Chao

Editor’s note: If you’re resolving to pick up Mandarin this year, Eveline Chao has some encouraging insight about language acquisition for you in today’s Chinese Corner column. No matter where you are along the learning path, we’d love to answer your burning questions about Chinese. Send your linguistic quandaries to [email protected] with the subject “Chinese Corner,” or tweet a #chinesequestion at Liz Carter @withoutdoing or myself @annemhdc. – Anne Henochowicz

Ask enough expat parents, and you’ll eventually find someone whose child, upon moving to China, spent months as a near-mute. Then one day out of the blue, they began spouting fluent streams of Mandarin.

Reviews

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

Rob Moore

Rob Moore reviews The Book of Swindles by Zhang Yingyu

"These moral degenerates are extremely crafty, so the gentleman needs to make his defenses airtight."

So goes the commentary appended to ‘Stealing Silk with a Decoy Horse,’ the first tale in Christopher Rea and Bruce Rusk's abridged translation of The Book of Swindles, a Ming dynasty collection originally penned by Zhang Yingyu. Like with any good heist story, ‘Stealing Silk’ allows the "gentleman" reader to straddle both sides of the line, disapproving of the obviously unethical actions of the swindler while at the same time waiting with bated breath to see just how the swindle came off. Zhang's solemn pronouncement is made with a nudge and a wink, since the success of the collection upon its publication in 1617 demonstrates that the author knew too well that the only thing better than alerting the reader to nefarious criminals is to let them in on the crime.

Dispatches

Festival of Peace

Alec Ash

Christmas with migrants in Beijing – Alec Ash

'Twas the day before Christmas, and all was calm. Shops were shuttered, homes were locked; the streets were full of lights and the sound of jingles. A winter chill hung in the air, and after a year of hard work, men and women of the village dragged luggage over the frost-bitten tarmac – going home for the holidays.

Yet these migrant workers, on the outskirts of Beijing, were not celebrating Christmas. It was not a holiday in China, and they did not want to go home, nor to shutter their shops and lock their doors. The lights were from police cars patrolling the streets, jingling their alarm bells, making it clear there was no other choice than to leave.

Essays

Emojis on the Wall

Ting Guo

On Hong Kong campuses, a bulletin board Cold War – Ting Guo

As someone who grew up in post-Tiananmen mainland China, democracy walls on Hong Kong university campuses always evoke a sense of bittersweet nostalgia in me, for the liberal era I was just young enough to miss. The campus walls pay tribute to the original Democracy Wall in Beijing, where in 1978 people put up posters expressing their political opinions and recalling their suffering during the Cultural Revolution. The Democracy Wall and the “Beijing Spring” it had ushered in were both shut down in 1979, foreshadowing the bloody end to the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.