China History Podcast

Book of Ch-ch-ch-Changes

Laszlo Montgomery

Part three in the History of Chinese Philosophy podcast series

Although covered before in an old China History Podcast episode, Laszlo takes the Yi Jing (I Ching, sometimes called the ‘Book of Changes’) off the shelf for a total makeover and freshening up. In this brief detour along the history timeline, Laszlo picks the Yi Jing apart and offers up both a history of this timeless classic as well as a brief intro about how it works and the role it plays in the life of some people. The Yi Jing is a book with a lot of staying power and has been kept as a handy reference guide for hundreds of millions of people over the millennia. Listen to what it's all about and see for yourself if the Yi Jing can serve you:

Hidden History

Changing the Guard

Jeremiah Jenne

Jeremiah Jenne looks back on historical reactions to political change in China

Last month, China chose its leaders. As we all knew would happen anyway, Xi Jinping remained in the top job for another five years (and possibly will even longer, according to a few pundits), while the Politburo Standing Committee, the Chinese Communist Party’s “board of directors”, saw new faces as former members retired or were sent into political exile. Each new seat at the table represents the head of interlocking patronage networks with roots and tendrils spreading out from the center and down from the top, throughout the apparatus of Party and state.

Now is also the time for Zhongnanhai-ologists: The China watchers and journalists whose job it is to keep one eye fixed on the gates of the CCP leadership compound, a converted imperial park just to the west of the Forbidden City. Who’s in? Who’s out? What will this mean for the future?

Chinese Corner

A Horse Is a Horse… of Course?

Ash Henson

Chinese characters aren’t pictographs (anymore) – by Ash Henson

From my earliest memories, I’ve always been fascinated by things foreign, and upon first glance, Chinese writing looked really, really foreign. Chinese characters have always held a certain mystique. They are the subject of mountains of misinformation, originating both from the Chinese themselves and from everyone else. Starting with this post, I will be guiding you through the entrancing and enraging word of Chinese characters.

Reviews

Fever Pitch

Robert Foyle Hunwick

Yellow Fever and the sexpat literary review – by Robert Foyle Hunwick

Travel may not be fatal to prejudice, but it’s usually pretty effective against celibacy. It can also be a fast-acting bromide to modesty, especially among writers, and often with tragic consequences. Every few months, it seems, some guy comes down with a case of “yellow fever” and produces a book — called Yellow Fever.

That’s the title of the latest effort in a burgeoning canon of non-fiction, memoirs about sleeping with Chinese girls. These books don’t have many regular readers — I’m beginning to think I’m the only one — though they certainly have a lot of writers. Yellow Fever, subtitled a tale of “Love and Sex in China,” comes from Alex Coverdale, the cover name of a former teacher who says he’s now landed one of the “most sought-after jobs in journalism,” after a London editor was “impressed by some of my random Facebook comments and postings.”

Essays

One Country, Three Systems

Jeff Wasserstrom

The limits on freedom in today’s PRC – by Jeffrey Wasserstrom

When journalists interviewed me during the lead-up to the Chinese Communist Party’s 19th Congress, some grew frustrated by my unwillingness to make predictions. In dodging their forecast questions, I often played the history card.  “Historians like me,” I would say, “are more comfortable focusing on the past than the future.” I sometimes added that it was worth noting how misguided much of the prognosticating chatter about Xi Jinping had been five years before when he first ascended to power. Many analysts seemed certain in 2012 that Hu Jintao’s successor was likely to be either another colorless status quo-maintaining figure or a reformer, perhaps even a liberalizer. In fact, Xi has turned out to be something quite different: a strongman leader with a growing personality cult.

Some illiberal trends were already underway during the second half of Hu’s decade at the top, which lasted from 2002 to 2012, but Xi, far from being a liberalizer, has ratcheted up controls over many spheres of activity. What I could have mentioned to the reporters, but did not, was that I remain keenly aware of how wrong I was myself just over twenty years ago when I slipped up and made a prediction.