Understanding China

[Ray]

Han Chinese Y Chromosome Test Results

January 24, 2008 in China, Weird Science | Tags: anthropology, DNA, North China, South China, Y Chromosome

This is not shocking, I've seen many test results that show Northern Chinese tend to group with North East Asians (Japanese and Koreans) and Southern Chinese tend to group more with Southeast Asians. The populations also have distinct (but often overlapping) appearances. Many of my Chinese friends have told me it is due to diet and climate. I do not think so.

The early genetic research (The History and Geography of Human Genes, 1996) of Dr. Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza showed that Northern Chinese could be grouped with other Northeast Asians (Koreans, Tungusic groups, Japanese) and that Southern Chinese grouped more with Southeast Asians, making the Han Chinese aggregate an intermediate population between the two, which matches their location geographic location. This new report gives us some detail as to the way this population cline occurred.

Based on what I know of Chinese history, Southern China was settled by the Han much later than the North and the people in the South were considered "barbarian" referred to as the various types of "Yue" (known as the 100 Yue) in later times. Eventually the people region that became Guangdong and North Vietnam were referred to as (Nan Yue, or South Viet). Most of these people were likely Austroasiatic speakers in origin (like present day Vietnamese and Cambodians). Since Northern Vietnam (Annam) was part of China on and off for over 1,000 years; and the south, by the end of Chinese colonization was controlled by Champa, a Malay people (Austronesian).

As far as I know there was a massive influx of Han Chinese into the region during the Song Dynasty due to Barbarian pressure in the north. I know assimilation was fairly complete by the Tang Dynasty as Cantonese speakers often call themselves "Tong (Tang in Mandarin) People" and talk of giving their children "Tong names". They also still refer to their province and themselves as "Yue" to this day. I'm guessing by the Late Tang, the Sinization of the area was complete, but for Annam. Vietnam became independent from China after the disintegration of the Tang, since the "Viet or Yue" people lived in what is now Guangdong as well, I'm guessing by that time the people in Guangdong were mostly Sinized, and considered themselves Han Chinese, but most of the people further South did not.

Also, "South," in China is the area from Shanghai down to the border of the Southeast Asian nations of Laos and Vietnam.

Other nonHan ethnicities lived in the South, such as the Lao/Thai (Tai-Kadai language group) folks also came from Central China and were pushed South by the Han, they still have relatives in modern China like the Zhuang and Dong peoples.

To wrap it up, it is not shocking that Han men (like many men before them all over the world) would move to an area and take it over, while enslaving, killing, or running off the native men using their superior technology and social organization. Then they would marry, rape, or concubine the local women. Men, historically, are not picky about who they have sexual relations with. In a desperate spot any woman (even a barbarian) will do.

This new study provides more detail to earlier studies whose results where along the same lines.

European Journal of Human Genetics advance online publication 23 January 2008; doi: 10.1038/sj.ejhg.5201998
A spatial analysis of genetic structure of human populations in China reveals distinct difference between maternal and paternal lineages

Fuzhong Xue et al.

Analyses of archeological, anatomical, linguistic, and genetic data suggested consistently the presence of a significant boundary between the populations of north and south in China. However, the exact location and the strength of this boundary have remained controversial. In this study, we systematically explored the spatial genetic structure and the boundary of north–south division of human populations using mtDNA data in 91 populations and Y-chromosome data in 143 populations. Our results highlight a distinct difference between spatial genetic structures of maternal and paternal lineages. A substantial genetic differentiation between northern and southern populations is the characteristic of maternal structure, with a significant uninterrupted genetic boundary extending approximately along the Huai River and Qin Mountains north to Yangtze River. On the paternal side, however, no obvious genetic differentiation between northern and southern populations is revealed.

https://pmsol3.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/chinese-y-chromosome-testing/

 

[Ray]

LONG MARCH

In 1934, after suffering a string of defeats, the fledgling Communist Party and three Red Armies found themselves pinned down in the mountains of Jiangxi Province in southern China. After the Nationalist launched a powerful offensive, Mao made a decision for the Communists and Red Armies to flee their southern bases and retreat and meet up with Communist forces in Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia in northern China. This retreat became known as the Long March even though is was not one march, but several marches made up of different contingents of Communist armies on their way to the north.

The Long March is portrayed as China's version of Valley Forge, where a group endured extreme hardship and overcame impossible odds to succeed in a final victory and help found a nation. In reality it wasn't a march , or even strategic retreat: the soldiers ran for their lives, trying just to stay alive, pursued not only by the Kuomintnag but also by the militias and armies of local landlords.

The Long March is said to have lasted 368 days and covered 9,650 kilometers (about 6,000 miles). It began in Jiangxi on October 16, 1934 and crossed 24 rivers, 18 mountain ranges (5 covered with snow) and 11 provinces before it ended at the caves of Yenan (Yennan, Yanan) on the edge of the Gobi desert in northern China. During the march, 235 days were occupied by day marches and 18 by night marches. The army averaged a skirmish a day and spent 15 days in major battles.

Of the nearly 80,000 marchers who started the journey only 6,000 made it to Yenan. Of the 200,000 participated in the march—with many joining the march after it began—40,000 reached Yenan. Among the survivors were nearly all the high ranking Communist officials in Chinese government for the next 40 years—Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Lin Biao and Deng Xiaoping. On their way north, the Communist redistributed land to the peasants, organized guerilla groups and armed the peasants with captured Kuomintang weapons.

The Long March is recalled fondly with great idealism as a time when tens of thousands of Chinese peasant selflessly volunteered to join the fight. Hundreds of nationalist films and documentaries have been made about the event. It is difficult to determine fact from fiction. As of 2008 only about 500 Long March veterans remained alive. For generations they were considered heroes. Today some young Chinese regarded them as puppets of Communist propaganda.

Major Events and Myths of the Long March

The Long March began in October 1934, when the First Red Army set out from Yudu in Jiangxi province. They would eventually traverse some 12,500 km over 370 days and arrive in Wuqi, Shaanxi province on Oct 19, 1935. Pursued by the numerically superior Kuomintang army, the Long Marchers often had to cross difficult terrains, snowy mountains and swamps. Fatigue, hunger and sickness claimed many lives, and only one-tenth of the force that left Jiangxi completed the Long March.

Events and names familiar to Chinese include the Zunyi Conference, where Mao consolidated his leadership of the Red Army; Zhangjiajie, in Hunan province, the starting point of the Second Red Army's Long March; and Jiajin Mountain in Sichuan province, the first snow mountain on the route and the place where the First Red Army joined forces with the Fourth Red Army. The Red Army traversed the areas of many ethnic groups, including Miao, Dong, Qiang, Tibetan, Hui and Mongolian.

Arthur Waldron, a professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania wrote, "In the 1930s, the two sides came to blows, as Chiang launched a series of encirclement campaigns against the rural base areas where the Communists were steadily building a state-within-a-state. The last of these campaigns, in 1934, proved so successful that the Communists had to break through the Nationalist lines and flee to the Northwest." [Source:Arthur Waldron, a professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, China Brief (Jamestown Foundation), October 22, 2009]

The march began with a simple order to retreat from bloody battle in Fujian and move on as quicky as possible. Burdened by heavy equipment Mao's forces moved slowly and were quickly caught by the Kuomintang. One survivor remembered the leaders telling the wounded, "If you can walk, then go. If you cannot, you will be left behind." Medics remember leaving wounded behind because there were simply too many of them to carry.

The first major obstacle of the Long March occurred in the mountainous region of West Yunnan, where the Yangtze River passes through a series of gorges with thousand-foot-high cliff wall. The Nationalists thought they had the Red Army trapped when they secured all the ferries that crossed the river. According to Communist lore a Red Army commando force captured a Kuomintang group at a ferry crossing after marching 85 miles in 24 hours. Dressed in Kuomintang uniforms the commandos crossed the river and persuaded the nationalist troops on the other side to send of over the ferryboats. In the middle of the night the Red Army crossed the Yangtze, established a fort on the other side and secured their route to the north. [Source: People's Almanac]

The next major obstacle was the Tatu (Dadu) River in western Sichuan. Mao's plan was to beat the Nationalists to the river by tying them up in an area inhabited by the Lolo, a hill tribe notorious for its hatred of the Chinese. After convincing the Lolo that the Kuomintang were their bitter enemy, the Red Army took a short cut across Lolo land to the Tatu River. If the Lolo had not allowed them to this the Red Army would have been forced to march through Tibet. [Source: People's Almanac]

The Red Army first tried to cross the flooding Dadu River at Anshunchnag but were unable to so and then trekked 130 kilometers over trackless Himalayan foot hills to Luding, a small settlement in a Himalayan valley not far form the Sichuan-Tibet border

In May 1935 the Kuomintang troops arrived before the Communists at Luding Bridge, 120-meter chain link footbridge that spanned the Dadu Rive. According to legend, by the time the Communists got to the bridge it had all of its planks removed and was guarded by a regiment of Kuomintang soldiers armed with machine guns. At night 22 brave Communist commandos, the story goes, went across the bridge--in some places hanging from the chains and pulling themselves forward hand over hand with grenades in their teeth--and captured the bridge, allowing the marchers to proceed. Mao later told Edgar Snow that the crossing the Dadu River was the single most important event of the Long March. Of the 80,000 soldiers that began the march in 1934, 20,000 made it as far as Luding Bridge.

Red Army Soldiers on the Long March

Mao Guangrong joined the Red Army as a destitute 15-year-old orphan. During the battle to defend the Communist base at Yan'an, a bullet tore through Mao Guangrong's back and came out through his groin. It took five men to hold him down as they stuffed the wound with cloth to staunch the bleeding; the only treatment the troops could muster as they found against enemy forces. But nine months later, he was back in battle against Chiang Kai-shek's. Nationalists. It was simple; if the People's Liberation Army won the civil war, 'we could have shelter and land. And we wouldn't suffer starvation. And we wouldn't be oppressed.' [Source: Tania Branigan, The Guardian, September 27, 2009]

Mao Guangrong, a soldier who joined the Red Army when he was a destitute 15-year-old orphan, told The Guardian,'Chairman Mao was a very simple person; he didn't wear smart clothes. He used old clothes we made ourselves and they had patches. After he finished his meals, he would walk out and talk to ordinary people... it wasn't like now, when it's so difficult to meet leaders.' [Source: Tania Branigan, The Guardian, September 27, 2009]

Mao Guangrong told The Guardian,'After one village had turned red, we would start the propaganda work about what should be done next; what kind of people should be killed; despotic gentry, [harsh] landlords and local tyrants,' Mao Guangrong recalled. 'Also, beggars needed to be killed, because they didn't live on their own labor. 'It was very easy to kill somebody. If you said anything reactionary they would kill you and if you didn't follow their leadership they killed you.' [Source: Tania Branigan, The Guardian, September 27, 2009]

Life on the Long March

The Communists are said to have traded opium for supplies and forced women to leave behind newborn children with peasant families out of concern that crying babies would endanger the troops.

While many officers rode on horses, soldiers walked. Many were proud of their uniforms and kept their spirits up singing songs with lines like "Play the violins!" Set up the revolutionary government!" Edmund Jocelyn, author of the 2006 book The Long March, told the Los Angeles Times, the "marchers recall the Red Army as like joining a new family. They fell in love with the Chinese Party. That love carried them through the abusive relationship that was to come."

When the marchers stopped Mao reportedly tended his vegetable garden along with other peasants.

A few women on the Long March were allowed to fight as guerrillas, but most did supply and support work. A young woman by the name of Kuo Chun-Ching disguised herself as a man and received the Red army's highest decoration after she was wounded in battle.

Suffering on the Long March

The soldiers were often hungry, on the verge of starving, some times eating grass and woody plants they could forage. In the winter they suffered in the cold. One Long March medic who talked to the Los Angeles Times recalled getting hit by a nighttime snowstorm before he and his comrades could build a fire or set up a ten, While the members of the climbed beneath a pile of canvas and huddle together, one young soldier insisted on keeping watch. By morning he had frozen to death.

At the Battle of Xing River, Mao's division lost half of its numbers. Survivors remembered wading neck-deep in ice-old water and watching bodies of slain comrades float by as enemy planes dropped bombs on them. Many froze to death in their wet uniforms.

During the winter crossing of a mountain pass by one battalion, more than 300 soldiers became snow blind. Medics recall the difficulty in finding vegetables and herbs in the middle of winter needed to help them.

Good Websites and Sources: Wikipedia article Wikipedia ; Paul Noll site paulnoll.com ; Chinese Government Account of Events chinadaily.com; Long March Remembered china.org.cn ; Long March map china.org.cn ; Communist China Posters of the Long March Landsberger Posters ; Books: The Long March by Edmund Jocelyn and Andree McEwen (2006) and The Long March by Sun Shuyun, based in accounts from 40 of 500 participants that were still alive in 2005. Links in this Website: WARLORDISM AND CHIANG KAI-SHEK Factsanddetails.com/China ; EARLY COMMUNISTS IN CHINA Factsanddetails.com/China ; MAO, HIS EARLY LIFE, TACTICS AND REVOLUTION Factsanddetails.com/China ; JAPANESE OCCUPATION OF CHINA Factsanddetails.com/China ; CHINA AND WORLD WAR II Factsanddetails.com/China ; COMMUNISTS TAKE OVER CHINA Factsanddetails.com/China

 

[Ray]

Hardships in Sichuan on the Long March

During the summer of 1935 the Long March passed though the Great Snowy Mountains of Sichuan where Mao wrote, "on Pao-tung Kand peak alone, one army lost two thirds of its transport animals. Hundreds fell down and never got up again."

Later, the Red Army was almost defeated when the Kuomintang advanced on them after factional fighting between Red Army forces led by Mao and forces commanded by Zhang Kua-tao, one of Mao's main rivals wihin the party. To escape the Red Army advanced through the mountains of western Sichuan where they were forced to steal from hostile native tribes to survive. "To get one sheep," Mao later wrote, "cost the life of one comrade." [Source: People's Almanac]

In September the Red Army passed through the steppes of central China where many perished from starvation and disease during a period of unusually strong rains. Describing this phase of the march, Zhou Enlai later wrote: "For us, the darkest time in history was during our Long March...especially when we crossed the Great Grasslands near Tibet. Our condition was desperate. We not only had nothing to eat, we had nothing to drink. Yet we survived and won victory."

People slept in shelters made from bushes tied together and subsisted on wild roots and herbs. Despite the heavy rains safe drinking was in short supply and some marchers were forced to drink their own urine. By the time the red Army arrived on the Kansu Plains there were only about 6,000 people left. [Source: People's Almanac]

End of the Long March

On October 25, 1935 the Long March ended when the southern Red Army joined the northern Red Army in Yenan in northern China. The participants in the Long March were not sure where and when their journey was to end. There were frequent debates as to what the final destination would be.

The end of the Long March was not some great "promised land" but rather was an impoverished corner of the Gobi desert that could barely support its own population let alone the Red Armies.

Soldiers didn't have enough clothes to keep them warm. Women were ordered to return because there wasn't enough food to feed them. Barely a month after the marchers were told their journey was over they were told to pack up and prepare to continue. The kidnaping of Chiang Kai -shek by one of his own generals is what saved them. One of the terms for his release was recognition of the Communists as legitimate, so a united Chinese force could devote its attention to the Japanese.

But even then the march wasn't over for the 21,000 troops under the leadership of Kuo-tao, one of Mao's main rivals. Their mission was to get help from the Soviets on their border with western China. But Mao purposely gave them contradictory orders, allowing them to be trapped by a Muslim warlord. Only 400 reached the border. The rest were killed or captured.

Truth Behind the Long March

It is hard to call the Long March a great victory, The Communist Army was largely on the run and when it fought a battle it was usually defeated, suffering huge losses. Many historians think the Chiang Kai-shek allowed the Communist to escape. Six weeks after the Long March began Mao's army was reduced from 86,000 to 30,000 troops at the Battle on Xiang River. At most 15,000 died; the rest fled.

Many of the reported events of the Long Mrach, it seems, never happened or were exaggerated. The Luding Bridge incident appears to be a complete fabrication. There were no Nationalist troops at the bridge and there was no battle: only a skirmish with no casualties. The local warlord, who controlled the bridge and hated Chiang Kai-shek, let Mao's army pass and was later made a minister in the Communist government.

Many questions have been raised about the original story line. The distance covered now appeared to have been 6000 miles not 8000 miles and some question whether it lasted until 1936.

Mao's role in the Long March was often inaccurately reported. It has often beem claimed that he walked the entire 6,000 mile distance but in fact he was carried much of the way on a litter by porters and used the time to read. While Mao's troops suffered huge losses, not a single senior party member was killed or even seriously wounded.

The Long March was third longer than was necessary as Mao dragged the Red Army in a huge loop so he could go near the Soviet border to receive arms because the Soviets said that whoever made first contact with them would be recognized as the leader of the Chinese Communist Party.

It also appears not all the participants of the Long March were enthusiastic volunteers. Some were press ganged captives. Sun Shuyun, author of a book on the Long March, interviewed one man who said he was barely into his teens when he was forced to join the Red Army and he only did so because his father was arrested and would not be released until the man agreed to join the army. The man thought of deserting but stayed on because he feared being caught and executed.

Driven by desperation and hunger, the armies took hostages for ransom. Purges continued until there were practicably no officers left to command battles

Legacy of the Long March

Even though the Red Army lost most its men during the Long March, the event was a turning point for the Communist Revolution. According to popular lore, the Communist forces and the People's Liberation Army (Red Army) were battered and worn but defiant. Self-sacrifice and compassion shown towards civilians made the Communists into heros. Over the next decade the Red Army regrouped, drew new recruits and wore down and ultimately defeated Chiang Ka-shek's forces.

What motivated the marchers? A top general at the time later told Sun, "I had nor idea then and now. I doubt that even Mao knew what it was." For the general, a survivor who rose up from extreme poverty, communism was a beautiful dream that gave him hope for a more just and advanced society.

 

[Ray]

According to a poem by Mao Zedong:

The Red Army, never fearing the challenging Long March,
Looked lightly on the many peaks and rivers,
Wu Meng's range rose, lowered, rippled,
And green-tiered were the rounded steps of Wu Meng
Warm-beating the Gold Sand River's
waves against the rocks,
And cold the iron chains of Tatu bridge,
A thousand joyous li of fresh snow on Min Shan
And then, the last pass vanquished, the Armies smiled.

The Long March has been preserved in exhibitions, ballets, books, a seven-part made-for-television movie, and even a Long March video game. The 60th anniversary of the event was commemorated with a television special featuring dancing soldiers with bayonets and a motorcade on a theater stage with an actor playing Deng Xiaoping waving through the sunroof. The Communist party reportedly has plans to build a Long March theme park in central Hunan province.

Mao Flirts and Waits After the Long March

The Long March ended in the village of Yenan in Shaanxi Province, where Mao set up a military command post and directed the Communist army for the next 13 years. Young people from all over China came to Yenan to join the revolution or simply catch a glimpse of history.

Mao spent his time reading and relaxing, discussing poetry and plans of equality between the sexes with attractive women, and encouraging revolutionaries such as Zhu De and Zhou Enlai to take up ballroom dancing. In Yenan Mao developed the Yenan Rectification campaign, aimed at purifying beliefs of new recruits to the Communist Party and ensuring their loyalty and fealty to Mao as the ultimate authority. The campaign was a precursor to grander and more destructive purges that occurred when the Communists took power.

According the book Mao's Brothers and Sisters," Mao's second wife He Zichen became enraged with her husband's flirtation with an American journalist named Agnes Smedly and her beautiful Chinese translator Lily Wu. According to the book the two women "became the target of all the female comrades."

One night He reportedly burst in on Mao and Wu while they were talking about poetry and called Mao a "rotten egg" who "wants to usurp me with capitalist dances." She pulled Wu's hair "until her head started bleeding" and got into a fight with Smedly after calling her an "imperialist" who was "to blame for everything." Smedly reportedly said He was "weak and monastic, an unsuitable companion for a revolutionary leader."

Mao fine tuned many methods of political terror—purging real and imagined enemies—that would serve him well when he was leader of China. He also sold opium to raise money for his army.

Westerners and Chinese Communists in the Long March Period

Most people in the West had never heard of Mao until he was interviewed by American journalist Edgar Snow. Snow's book Red Star Over China made both men well known. Snow was later kicked out of China and prohibited from entering the country until 1960. In 1970 he was the first journalist to report that Mao wanted to meet Nixon. In 1972, Snow died, attended by doctors sent by Zhou Enlai.

The West was also not aware of Kuomintang atrocities until another famous American journalist, Theodore White, reported that Chiang Kai-shek's army warehouses overflowed with grain while people in the Hunan province were starving to death, and eating bark and leaves to survive.

Another famous Western associated with Mao was Sidney Rittenberg. Born in South Carolina, he lived in China for 35 years, shared rice gruel in a cave with Mao, and taught him about American life. He served as Communist Party functionary and as an advisor to the Gang of Four during the Cultural Revolution and spent 16 years in Chinese jails in solitary confinement after being falsely accused of spying. Today he is regarded as one of the leading China experts in the United States. Among those who have sought his advise, counsel and help are Bill Gates and executives with Intel and Levi Strauss.

Long March Tourism

Mu Qian wrote in the China Daily, "When the Red Army trekked through some of China's most remote and treacherous areas during their Long March, they could never have imagined the same route would become part of the travel itinerary for travelers 70 years later. Today, many places along the Long March have become tourist destinations as China tries to boost "red tourism". The National Tourism Administration recently selected the "Long March Route" as one of 12 national tourism routes. [Source: Mu Qian, China Daily, June 9, 2011]

On the website of China Travel Service, "red tours" rank at the top of themed tours, above "folklore tours" and "international horticultural exposition tours". The itineraries offered by the company cover many areas of the Long March - from Jiangxi province, its starting point, through Guizhou, Yunnan and Sichuan, to Shaanxi, where the Red Army ended its journey. China CYTS Tours launched its "Year of Red Tourism" in 2011 with the theme, "Retracing the Long March". Its first group of tourists went to Guizhou's Long March sites such as Loushanguan, Chishui and Maotai.

"With an increase in living standards, people are looking for a more spiritual travel experience," says Ge Qun, vice-president of China CYTS Tours. "The reason 'red tourism' has become more popular is that Chinese people want to know more about history." Equipped with better infrastructure, many of these areas are more accessible today, and their natural beauty is attracting some travelers.

Places where important events during the Long March happened are now hot destinations on "red tours", such as the former site of the Zunyi Conference which consolidated Mao Zedong's leadership of the Red Army, and Luding Bridge where the Red Army crossed the Dadu River in 1935. On the Long March, the Red Army traversed the areas of many ethnic groups, including Miao, Dong, Qiang, Tibetan, Hui and Mongolian. Their diverse cultures are also one of the attractions of tour itineraries related to the Long March.

Zhangjiajie, in Hunan province, was the starting point of the Second Red Army's Long March. With its breathtaking rock formations, the area is one of the most popular tourist sites in China and was the setting for many scenes in the blockbuster Avatar. Jiajin Mountain in Sichuan province, the first snow mountain on the route of the Long March and the place where the First Red Army joined forces with the Fourth Red Army, is now a national forest park known for its rich botanical and zoological resources.

Red Rock Treks is a company set up by Englishman Ed Jocelyn, who retraced the entire marches of the First and Second Red Army on foot, in 2002-03 and 2005-06, and who co-authored the book The Long March, which was published in five languages in 2006-07.

Detailing the itinerary he designs for foreign travelers interested in the Long March, Jocelyn says: "From a Tibetan village in the valley of the Blackwater River, we will first cross two of the great snow mountains of western Sichuan province. At 4,450 meters, the pass over the second of these is the highest point of Mao's entire march. ..We then enter the infamous grasslands, a vast region of prairies, swamps and bogs more than 3,400 meters above sea level on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, where hundreds of Mao's soldiers perished in 1935.

"Finally, we explore the ancient and long-disused trail into Northwest China via the stunning valleys of Lawa and Baozuo. Accompanied by a Tibetan horse team, we will trek and live alongside yak herders whose way of life has changed little for hundreds of years...This is a true exploration not just of history, but also of a country and culture rarely seen by outsiders."

Image Sources: Ohio State University, Agnes Smedley and Landsberger Posters Stefan Landsberger's Chinese Propaganda Poster Pages

Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, National Geographic, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, Lonely Planet Guides, Compton's Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

LONG MARCH - China | Facts and Details

 

[Ray]

The Long March was a great victory that Mao organised.

It is enshrined in the hearts and minds of all Chinese.

To be fair, the above commentary of the Long March is a western view and not a Chinese view and hence it will obviously have its western biases.

The western nitpicking aside, there is no doubt that it was a saga of great sacrifice and hardship.

 

[Ray]

It would be worthwhile to get a translated version of the Long March as reported in the Chinese archives.

 

[Ray]

Forbidden City

The Forbidden City - Interactive Map - Former Imperial Palace - Beijing, China


There is an interactive map.

Worth a look!

 

[Ray]

China shop — II
Jug Suraiya | Nov 4, 2011, 12.00AM IST

The soldier is 178 cm tall and weighs 180 kg. He'd make mincemeat out of me. Fortunately, he's 2,200 years old and made of terracotta. He is one of the 8,000-odd famous terracotta warriors of Xian in west central China. Billed as the Eighth Wonder of the World, the terracotta army was made in 221 BC to protect the palatial tomb that Qin Shi Huang, the self-proclaimed first emperor of China, had built for himself. Qin unified the country, introduced a common script and ordered the Great Wall of China to be built to keep out the barbarians from the West. To ensure there was no challenge to his authority, he destroyed Confucian writings and had scholars executed. His was the first of the many dynastic dictatorships that China has witnessed over 2,000 years, and which continue to this day under the successors of Emperor Mao, whose enormous portrait looms over Tiananmen Square. Daily, thousands of devotees queue for hours to file past his adjacent mausoleum. Maoism has been replaced by capitalism, but the worship of absolute power still rules supreme in the Middle Kingdom, as it has done since the days of Qin Shi Huang.

Like all other public buildings and landmarks in China, Tiananmen Square is huge. Its vastness is deliberate; it represents the architecture of the intimidation of the individual by the state. It's been the same for over 2,000 years. When he was having his Great Wall built, Qin Shi Huang decreed that every family in China would have to send one of its members to work on the project. My guide in Beijing, Susie (name changed) says that for every kilometre of the Wall built, over 200 workers died. Susie mentions this number unemotionally, in the same way she says a little later that 'only about a hundred' students died in Tiananmen Square when the democracy movement was brought to an abrupt and brutal end by the mailed fist of the state. Like her 1.3 billion-plus co-citizens, Susie accepts that greatness comes at a price.

In terms of the sheer size of its public works - from Qin Shi Huang's Wall and terracotta army to the Bird's Nest stadium designed for the 2008 Olympics to the 16-lane, 70-km-long Chang' An Avenue that runs through Beijing - China is indeed breathtakingly great. ts giant scale reduces the individual to insignificance. But that doesn't really matter because the individual doesn't really matter. What matters is the collective, the totality of the state. And in its totality, in the size of its population (which but for the one-child norm would have reached 1.6 billion by now, Susie tells me), its economic growth rate, the evident discipline of its people (cab drivers never cheat you, nobody pees in public, everyone knows their job and gets on with it without fuss or argument), China has achieved a greatness in which many, if not all, its citizens take pride.

Based as it is on the pursuit of power for the sake of power, unfettered by restraints of ideology or any objective other than the acquisition of even more power, China's in-your-face gigantism can be scary for the visitor. Chinese cities are wreathed in a perpetual haze of pollution from the endless construction sites, the endless vehicles. The smoky breath of the fire dragon obscures the skies. What would happen if the dragon roared flame? Would it set the world - including its own people - ablaze with its uncontrolled and uncontrollable power?

A last memory lingers. In Zhujiajiao town in a courtyard i see a songbird in a cage and a sparrow on the ground outside, each looking at the other. Which is better? To be a caged but secure songbird or a free but homeless sparrow? Or are both fated to envy each other? That's the puzzle that China poses the visitor from India. Songbird or sparrow? Which would you choose if the choice was yours to make? But remember: the sparrow has at least the illusion of choice, the songbird doesn't.

China shop — II - The Times of India

Jagdish is a well know journalist and a satirist.

He is my classmate, though I have not met him after leaving school!

 

[DMF]

My Indian friends here, the China you are looking at is like a monster, that is true, because the China is not at a normal situation. China's social structure, culture and the territory domain were formed 2300years ago, and basically not changed until 150 years ago, when the West came to China to sell opium, the west throw China down on the ground and injured by then, now China is struggling to get on her own feet again. For the last 100years, China began to accept the west cultures, to reform the country by borrowing the west technology, the famous "5.4 movement" in the early 1990's and the culture revolution in the 1960's, all efforts is transfer the Old China, but the new China still not formed yet, still on the way to be formed. Even the last month, the CCP again talk about culture matters. So the present China is in an abnormal period, the old almost destroyed, the new China is coming, but need time
The old China was based on the Confucian teaching, the principle is "中庸"ï¼Œmeans to achieve the correctness by a middle way(not extreme way), religion have been only a tool to comfort the people's mind, and some thing like philosophy, Chinese established the morality and ethic not on religion, but on the humanity, not lured by the happiness of paradise and intimidated by the fire of hell, Confucian once said: 己所不欲，勿施于人，whatever you do not like by yourself, do not impose it on others, restraint your selfishness, consider others and maintain the social order. The old Chinese moral standard was higher then most of rest world.
After get up from the ground, tidy up the clothes, clean up the bleeding nose, settle down in calmness, China will restore to be the leading country again, and will show the real color again, maybe in about the next 30 to 50years.

 

[jat]

My Indian friends here, the China you are looking at is like a monster, that is true, because the China is not at a normal situation. China's social structure, culture and the territory domain were formed 2300years ago, and basically not changed until 150 years ago, when the West came to China to sell opium, the west throw China down on the ground and injured by then, now China is struggling to get on her own feet again. For the last 100years, China began to accept the west cultures, to reform the country by borrowing the west technology, the famous "5.4 movement" in the early 1990's and the culture revolution in the 1960's, all efforts is transfer the Old China, but the new China still not formed yet, still on the way to be formed. Even the last month, the CCP again talk about culture matters. So the present China is in an abnormal period, the old almost destroyed, the new China is coming, but need time
The old China was based on the Confucian teaching, the principle is "中庸"ï¼Œmeans to achieve the correctness by a middle way(not extreme way), religion have been only a tool to comfort the people's mind, and some thing like philosophy, Chinese established the morality and ethic not on religion, but on the humanity, not lured by the happiness of paradise and intimidated by the fire of hell, Confucian once said: 己所不欲，勿施于人，whatever you do not like by yourself, do not impose it on others, restraint your selfishness, consider others and maintain the social order. The old Chinese moral standard was higher then most of rest world.
After get up from the ground, tidy up the clothes, clean up the bleeding nose, settle down in calmness, China will restore to be the leading country again, and will show the real color again, maybe in about the next 30 to 50years.

Cofusiaism is good for China's isolation but not good i the global world were petty compitition is perhaps the greatest idea yet! What better way to improve yourself the competition? Looking inwards is good and having patience is vertue but the old form of though is what kept China out of competition and let China loose its edge even though China is united and Europe was not. The other factor is change, which is good overall. You
and your country are good people, its niceguy and cir and the CCP that are not IMO. They protect the CCP thinking that they are protecting China. There is difference between the culture known as China and the CCP. I take pleasure in hitting politicians expecially the largest criminal orginization in the world, ie CCP. North Korea, Burma, Syria, Iran, Pakistan. I take jabs at the US Europe and Japan's rise of nationalism. But mojority of the time on this forum, and others any attack on the CCP in a verbal manner is taking but nationalistic chinese as an insult on them, as if I insulted their family. That kind of nationalism is pretty damn backwards.
When Indians abroad like Sikh wanted a seperate homeland and marched on at embassy's of India, there was no pro India counter protest. Mojority of NRI's understood that Sikhs were wronged and are entitled to their own opinon. Same with Kashmiris etc...
suprisingly when the Tibetans dicided to hold a protest in Calgary, Canada, the Chinese student orginization, a funded by the CCP started a pro China march against Tibetans at the same time. wtf? I've seen this before but this is Chinese trying to protect their image? who gives a rats ass? The Tibetans already damaged CCPs image. This face saving thing is complete BS IMO.

 

[asianobserve]

My Indian friends here, the China you are looking at is like a monster, xxx.

Well my friend in the eyes of most of us in SEA China is a "Monster Empire." China already lost the fight in SEA even before it seriously started. You lost in the crucial battle for hearts and minds, remember Imperial Japan? USSR? (Both were percieved as "Evil Empires.")

 

[J20!]

Here are my thoughts/Views about China, after interaction with the Chinese and reading up some of the history


1. China only understands the language of power, there is no concept of morality/Dharma/Karma. While this might seem obvious, for a State, but I'm extending it to a people i.e the Chinese

2. Chinese culture is based on deception. Judge them ONLY by their actions, and not their words (seems obvious, but it's true!)

3. China is NOT Dharmic/Buddhist ! Buddhism was wiped off during the Tang Dynasty, materialism is the the only thing they follow

4. China (and the Chinese) remain quite ethnocentric. This is not a civilization like USA which will spread culture and change people's/country's loyalties by promoting protestant Christianity. It is selfish and self-absorbed

5. Face (sociological concept) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, this is true for most East Asian societies though

(Please refrain from "oh you're stereotyping, you're being racist" etc etc)

I haven't even gone through the whole thread, but that is the most INSULTING analysis I've ever heard. I know its your own opinion, but yes, you are stereotyping due to your own bias. You're saying the Chinese people are selfish, straight out. If that isn't stereotyping and RACIST, I don't know what is.

 

[LurkerBaba]

I haven't even gone through the whole thread, but that is the most INSULTING analysis I've ever heard. I know its your own opinion, but yes, you are stereotyping due to your own bias. You're saying the Chinese people are selfish, straight out. If that isn't stereotyping and RACIST, I don't know what is.

IMO being self-centered is not a bad thing. It's way better than showing fake morality

 

[nimo_cn]

IMO being self-centered is not a bad thing. It's way better than showing fake morality

Right, being self-centered gives the right to insult others willfully.

You are totally a jacka$$, I am being self-centered when saying that.

 

[J20!]

Well my friend in the eyes of most of us in SEA China is a "Monster Empire." China already lost the fight in SEA even before it seriously started. You lost in the crucial battle for hearts and minds, remember Imperial Japan? USSR? (Both were percieved as "Evil Empires.")

What have we done to warrant your EVIL EMPIRE status exactly? Imperial Japan massacred millions of my country men so they could rule Asia using our resources. The USSR was a brutal regime. Please don't insult us. If China had done any of those things, we'd be sanctioned and isolated, like Iran, or North Korea. China is recovering from being brutalized by occupiers, like JAPAN or the Europeans, its pulling its people from the depths of poverty and oppression. We are improving as a people and as a country, we've grown from Mao, and Tienanmen, Chinese citizens are not oppressed, we're working hard towards better futures for our children. so if we're such a horrible country, maybe Malaysia should stop trade with us, stop diplomatic relations with us, I mean, we're an Imperialist monster that might invade and massacre your children and families, like the "imperialist Japan", you so eloquently compare us to.

If you're gonna post, try to post facts, not bullshit that'll insult members and their respective countries.

 

[LurkerBaba]

Right, being self-centered gives the right to insult others willfully.

You are totally a jacka$$, I am being self-centered when saying that.

There is a difference in being self-centered and being rude. One can be both, as in your case

 

[J20!]

IMO being self-centered is not a bad thing. It's way better than showing fake morality

Yeah, nice hate thread LukerBaba. I'm sure saying the Chinese are an evil selfish race makes you sleep better.

How is a corrupt India any more moral than China? Is letting an abused neglected and starved Indian peasant woman trying to feed her children protest in the street instead of giving her the opportunity to provide for her family more moral than fighting to bring a better life to Chinese citizens?

Lecture me on morality when you can actually feed your own people instead of being the world's largest Importer of weapons...

 

[nimo_cn]

There is a difference in being self-centered and being rude. One can be both, as in your case

The only people who is rude is the one who invented the ridiculous being-self-centered theory to defend his rudeness, I am just following suit.

 

[J20!]

There is a difference in being self-centered and being rude. One can be both, as in your case

Well you're both. And a racist for calling every Chinese person I know, including my family, "selfish".

 

[nimo_cn]

Yeah, nice hate thread LukerBaba. I'm sure saying the Chinese are an evil selfish race makes you sleep better.

How is a corrupt India any more moral than China? Is letting an abused neglected and starved Indian peasant woman trying to feed her children protest in the street instead of giving her the opportunity to provide for her family more moral than fighting to bring a better life to Chinese citizens?

Lecture me on morality when you can actually feed your own people instead of being the world's largest Importer of weapons...

J20, you forgot to mention you were just being self-centered when posting this.