[00:12] This isn't really the official start of
[00:15] class, but I just thought I wanted to
[00:16] start with this new like big game that
[00:19] just dropped and it's like making waves
[00:21] I guess in video game communities across
[00:23] the world. And this game for the if you
[00:26] haven't heard of it, that's totally
[00:27] fine. The main character is Sumuku Kong
[00:30] and the the game is based loosely on
[00:33] this great Chinese novel of the 16th
[00:35] century Journey to the West Cog. Yeah.
[00:38] And the thing is uh so have you heard of
[00:41] the Monkey King or Sumukong? Some of you
[00:43] have heard of him. Some of you may have
[00:44] not have heard of him. That's okay. He's
[00:46] like a real iconic figure in Chinese
[00:49] culture. You could say literature.
[00:53] uh he's not a historical character
[00:55] although the journey to the west is a
[00:57] historical journey uh taken during the
[01:00] Tong dynasty to India to retrieve
[01:02] Buddhist sutras and all of that um but
[01:04] starting in like the southern song
[01:07] dynasty don't worry you'll know all of
[01:09] these dynasties pretty soon we cover all
[01:11] of them this semester starting in about
[01:13] like I'd say the 11th century this
[01:15] figure of a monkey uh as kind of the the
[01:18] the sort of accompany the the the
[01:20] accompany of this main t uh you know
[01:23] monk character came to the foreground
[01:26] and his character evolved over the
[01:27] centuries and I think one of the reasons
[01:29] why he's so beloved in China is he's
[01:32] like this fearless person right he's he
[01:34] laughs in the face of danger because
[01:36] he's like a monkey right so it makes him
[01:39] very beloved and makes him like sort of
[01:40] very interesting um he's also kind of a
[01:44] force of chaos in a sense uh is that he
[01:47] literally makes a mess of heaven even uh
[01:50] he gets in trouble with the Jade Emperor
[01:51] all of these really great stories, but
[01:53] in that sort of his sort of causing
[01:56] chaos where he goes, he forces truth to
[01:58] come to the surface. He's got the power
[02:00] to see evil where evil is sort of
[02:02] latently present. Uh so you can see
[02:05] here, I just thought I'd say a few words
[02:07] about him. There's a there's a big
[02:09] debate in Chinese history about where
[02:12] monkey comes from. where the character
[02:14] of Sumukong comes from. Hooser, the
[02:16] great early 20th century intellectual.
[02:19] You don't have to know him exactly, but
[02:21] he's a big name. He actually envisioned
[02:23] that monkey may have come from the
[02:25] Ramayana, from the character of Hanuman,
[02:29] the sort of protector of King Rama. Uh,
[02:32] and there are there is a serious theory
[02:34] that that is actually the origin of his
[02:36] character. Lucin disagreed with that
[02:39] theory. Actually the other big 20th
[02:41] century great writer of Chinese history
[02:43] had another theory. You can see over the
[02:45] centuries this is from a very early
[02:46] edition of the novel. This is from the
[02:49] uh summer palace in Beijing. Right? So
[02:52] the literally depictions from the novel
[02:54] like sused you know uh big you know
[02:57] artistic uh scenes in late imperial
[03:00] China. Uh this is from a temple in
[03:02] Vietnam and you can see here this is
[03:04] monkey and shrines right. So he enters
[03:07] religion, popular religion and of course
[03:09] big opera, right? Opera for performances
[03:11] of Journey of the West, the character of
[03:13] Monkey and all of that. So I thought
[03:15] that I would just say just really if
[03:17] you've been thinking about this video
[03:18] game or you want to go check out this
[03:20] video game at the beginning here, he's
[03:22] been beloved across generations. Every
[03:24] era sort of reinvisions him. You know,
[03:27] this is Princess Iron Fan. This is a
[03:29] story from Journey of the West.
[03:30] Incredible. This is China's first
[03:32] animated film, 1941, made in Shanghai
[03:35] during World War II. And it's kind of
[03:37] like Monkey at that time. You think
[03:39] about the War of Resistance against
[03:41] Japan, right? All of the symbolism with
[03:43] that. Somebody mentioned that they saw
[03:45] the 1986. Oh, where's my 1986? There's
[03:47] my 1986. Journey to the West. This a big
[03:49] TV series. You can get it all on YouTube
[03:51] for free. Really fun. This actor who
[03:54] plays Monkey is really incredible. Like
[03:56] he's comes from like an oporatic
[03:58] tradition. He really carries that forth.
[04:00] Late editions of Monkey, recent editions
[04:02] of Monkey have kind of shown him to be
[04:04] like hyper masculine and muscular and
[04:06] everything like that. It's actually not
[04:08] necessarily how he's been portrayed
[04:10] historically, but again, it tells us
[04:12] something about how his character
[04:14] evolves over time. All right, that is
[04:16] the sort of prelude. Now, let's actually
[04:18] get into dynastic China. This is
[04:20] probably how you thought I would begin
[04:21] the class, which makes total sense,
[04:23] right? Forbidden City. Some of you went
[04:25] to Beijing this summer. Some of you have
[04:27] been to Beijing, I'm sure. This is like,
[04:30] you know, the tragedy with the Forbidden
[04:32] City is once you see this palace, you
[04:33] can't go visit any other palace. They
[04:35] all just look so silly in comparison to
[04:38] this Versailles. I mean, forget about
[04:40] it. It looks like a house. [music] I
[04:41] mean, seriously, this I mean, it's the
[04:43] largest palace structure in the world.
[04:45] It's I've been I've visited probably
[04:48] five times over my lifetime, and every
[04:51] time it's different.
[04:53] When you go in the summer, there's not a
[04:56] lot of shade. You get killed by the sun
[04:59] in the crowds. I went on an academic
[05:01] sort of with an academic delegation this
[05:03] summer. So, we went to all these like
[05:04] secret places and that was really,
[05:06] really fun. But this is a place you
[05:08] absolutely have to visit. There's so
[05:09] much of Chinese history [music] in this
[05:11] palace in the center of Beijing. And
[05:13] I'll just say actually one funny thing
[05:15] about it is this palace was so nice that
[05:17] when the Mans [music] invaded China in
[05:19] the 17th century, they said, "We'll keep
[05:21] the palace." They moved right in. How
[05:24] often does that happen when somebody
[05:25] invades say we'll keep the White House?
[05:26] No, no, I we could do better than the
[05:28] White House. They kept this one. Okay.
[05:30] Okay. So, this is actually a Ming
[05:32] Dynasty palace that was used right up
[05:35] until the early 20th [music] century.
[05:36] Today, a museum. Okay. All right. I
[05:39] thought I was thinking about like how do
[05:41] you even introduce this subject? Right.
[05:43] This is like it's I love this subject.
[05:45] I'm sure you got that from my email.
[05:46] Okay. Uh I I I'm so excited to share
[05:50] about this subject with you. And I
[05:52] realize there's never a good way to get
[05:55] into this subject because it's so big.
[05:57] It's so much to cover. But I'll just
[05:58] say, let's look at a map right here.
[06:01] Okay, this is, as you could imagine,
[06:02] Beijing, right? This is the Forbidden
[06:05] City. This is the palace. I think this
[06:06] map is from about the 1950s or something
[06:08] like that. And there's these three quote
[06:11] unquote high to the to the left, right,
[06:14] to the to the western side of the
[06:16] Forbidden City, right? Anybody know what
[06:19] those three high are? with those three
[06:21] lakes. Anybody have you anybody visited?
[06:24] Have you been to Bay High Park? It's
[06:27] okay. It's okay. Let me just tell you
[06:29] there are three lakes there. Okay. The
[06:32] top lake is the northern lake. Okay.
[06:35] That was an imperial garden and that is
[06:38] today a public park. You can access that
[06:40] one. The second one and the last one are
[06:43] the middle lake in the southern lake.
[06:46] That's Jong Nan High. Have you Have you
[06:49] ever heard of Jong Nan High? That's
[06:50] where the head of the communist party
[06:53] is. That's basically where the nominally
[06:55] the Cinping lives and everything like
[06:57] it's kind of like the White House and
[06:58] the Kremlin together. Okay. Very very
[07:00] big place. Those two lakes are not open
[07:03] to the public. That area is like the
[07:05] compound of the I think you know the
[07:07] center of the party's power structure
[07:09] basically. So there's so much right just
[07:11] in this little how many kilometers of
[07:13] space. Okay. China history from th
[07:16] hundreds of years ago all the way up to
[07:18] history going on today. Right? So the
[07:22] thing I love about this term is that the
[07:25] word high means sea, ocean or lake. In
[07:31] Mongol actually this distinction you can
[07:34] imagine why is not really made between
[07:36] ocean and a big body of water. And sort
[07:38] of some Chinese dialects over the
[07:40] centuries adopted that or also had that.
[07:43] So you can kind of see here I I think
[07:46] and I know this might be sort of a
[07:48] little corny to say but I want to just
[07:50] say it here at the very beginning and
[07:51] I'll just say it once. It's like Chinese
[07:54] history is like a sea or an ocean. Okay.
[07:56] That's it's big. It's how do I say it?
[08:00] It's vast. It's beautiful and it's
[08:01] difficult. It can be dangerous. Right?
[08:03] Of course I'll talk about how history
[08:05] can be dangerous in just a second but
[08:07] it's not like perhaps other kinds of
[08:10] history you've studied thus far. Um,
[08:12] I'll just say that, you know, I started
[08:14] studying it however many like almost 20
[08:15] years ago. I will be a student of it for
[08:18] the rest of my life. I'll never be able
[08:19] to master this, right? It's not
[08:22] something you master. It's just too much
[08:24] stuff. Okay? But that's the thing. This
[08:27] class, what I can do is I'll take you to
[08:30] the ocean and I'll say in that first
[08:32] time you see the ocean, right? Think
[08:33] about that. Think about where you were,
[08:35] especially if you didn't grow up near
[08:36] the sea, right? The first time you saw
[08:37] the ocean, you say, "Wow, that's a
[08:39] beautiful site." Or, "Wow, that's so
[08:40] interesting. Look at the waves.
[08:41] Whatever. Whatever. Whatever. That's
[08:43] what this class can do. It's like we're
[08:45] I'm going to show you across time, okay?
[08:48] From the Joe dynasty, from the origins
[08:50] of writing in China, which is Chong
[08:51] Dynasty, but whatever. Han dynasty, the
[08:54] medieval period, all the way up to the
[08:56] early modern era. I'll show you
[08:58] something about every era that I think
[09:00] is interesting, okay? That I think
[09:02] you'll appreciate. And then it's up to
[09:04] you to go from there, okay? So, so I'll
[09:06] take you to the sea. You can swim
[09:08] however you want to you however far you
[09:11] want to swim. I'm still swimming. Okay.
[09:13] So that's what we're going to do. This
[09:15] is okay. Dynastic China 2024. Okay. So
[09:18] let me say something at the outset here.
[09:22] What I'll do today is I'll introduce
[09:23] Chinese history in the broadest possible
[09:25] terms. How do we think about it? Some
[09:27] key terms. We'll go over the syllabus,
[09:28] the requirements for the class, and then
[09:30] I'll talk we'll I'll give you a
[09:31] geographical tour of China, which is
[09:34] really fun. Actually, it's really fun
[09:35] just to go talk about food and here's
[09:37] this province and here's this province.
[09:39] The rest of the class won't be like
[09:40] that, but you do need to know the
[09:41] geography of China. There will be a quiz
[09:43] in a couple of weeks. Okay, this is the
[09:44] forbidden city that we were just talking
[09:46] about. And you can see here, this is
[09:48] this is I think the largest single hall
[09:51] within the palace complex. This Taiuen,
[09:54] the hall of supreme harmony. Okay, this
[09:56] a Ming dynasty structure. That's don't
[09:59] get overwhelmed. Uh that's like let's
[10:01] say a 15th century structure. Okay. Uh,
[10:03] and this is basically where the emperor
[10:05] had major audiences. Weddings were held
[10:07] here. Enthronements were held here. And
[10:10] you can see it's right here. It's right,
[10:12] it's kind of like in the almost looks
[10:13] like the center. It's like right in that
[10:15] central access. Okay, that's where it
[10:18] is. There's another place and it's not
[10:19] like a famous place. The place of
[10:21] everlasting spring. This chun.
[10:24] Okay, it's in the back. It's right over
[10:26] there. I highlighted it right there. I
[10:28] bring out these two sort of parts of the
[10:31] palace to you because in a way they kind
[10:34] of represent two tides of Chinese
[10:37] history or two ways of thinking about
[10:39] Chinese history. Okay, there's junction,
[10:42] right? Official history. What is
[10:45] official history? Now, when you think
[10:47] about history in China, don't just
[10:48] think, oh, I'm sitting down. I'm
[10:49] thinking about history. Oh, that's so
[10:51] fun. No sh refers to a k a kind of
[10:55] writing. It's a genre of writing. There
[10:58] are officially 24 official histories
[11:01] across China, Chinese history. The
[11:04] dynasty that follows the previous
[11:07] dynasty writes the official history of
[11:08] its predecessor. Okay. Ironically, we do
[11:12] not yet have an official history of
[11:14] theQing dynasty, the last dynasty.
[11:16] That's an ongoing big football project
[11:19] of of a game of, you know, tension
[11:21] within China today. Okay. How to write
[11:23] that history of the last dynasty. but
[11:25] quoteunquote we have 24 um that's this
[11:28] official history you know emperors
[11:31] dynasties battles natural disasters
[11:32] recorded by state authorities okay but
[11:36] then there's something else okay that's
[11:38] not all we look at that's not all we
[11:41] talk about there's also this kind of
[11:42] idea in Chinese of yes wild history
[11:47] that's outside things that happened in
[11:50] the past that are not in those official
[11:52] histories but are still worthy of
[11:54] talking about that are still worthy of
[11:55] remembering. Okay. And that's like
[11:57] folklore, families, women, popular tales
[11:59] not recorded by state authorities. And
[12:02] you know, so you one way you can think
[12:06] about Chinese history is that it's the
[12:08] tension between these two things. Okay?
[12:10] It's like also going back to the sea
[12:12] metaphor, high tide and low tide,
[12:14] whatever you want to say. Okay? There's
[12:15] the stuff that's officially recorded. On
[12:17] this day, the emperor said this, but
[12:19] then there's all this unofficial stuff
[12:21] that we piece together and say what was
[12:22] really going on. Okay, this what is so
[12:26] great about Chinese history is that you
[12:28] actually don't need a textbook. There
[12:29] are so many sources. There's art,
[12:31] there's so much writing, there's private
[12:34] writing, there's writing by scholars,
[12:36] there's debates, there's so much you can
[12:38] look into. But take a look at again that
[12:41] sort of palace. What I said is that
[12:44] looking at itself at the palace, it kind
[12:46] of tells you a story about Chinese
[12:47] history. This is that sort of like
[12:49] juncture type of place. The things that
[12:52] happened in the hall of supreme harmony
[12:53] are recorded in official type of
[12:55] histories. But the stuff that happens in
[12:57] the rear of the palace, this is the
[12:59] hogong. That's where the imperial family
[13:02] lived. Okay? That's actually where they
[13:05] lived. They didn't live in the front of
[13:06] the palace. This is a that's an
[13:07] expression in Chinese. Hogong, the back
[13:08] of the palace. That's the imperial
[13:10] family. That's where they actually
[13:11] lived. And that's where all of By the
[13:13] way, if you watch Chinese dramas, family
[13:14] dramas, they're all about that. Okay?
[13:16] Nobody really cares about this, but
[13:18] they're all about that, right? What's
[13:19] going on? the the romance, right? All
[13:22] this stuff, you know? Yeah, sure. Wild
[13:24] history has a lot more to it than just
[13:26] that, okay? I'm not endorsing any drama,
[13:28] by the way. Uh but but but it's a way to
[13:31] think about it. This is an incredible
[13:33] hall. We will return to it in the last
[13:35] class of the semester because in this
[13:38] palace of everlasting spring and the
[13:40] rear of the palace, on its walls are
[13:42] depicted murals of the probably the
[13:45] greatest novel of Chinese history, Hong
[13:47] Mong, A Dream of the Red Chamber. images
[13:50] from that novel uh were painted on the
[13:53] walls of this kind of residential
[13:56] complex for the imperial family uh you
[13:58] know one of the consorts in the 19th
[14:00] century that sort of uh p that that
[14:04] those scenes or that novel is all about
[14:05] a family in decline right so it's
[14:08] actually I've always thought it's
[14:09] extremely moving and thoughtprovoking to
[14:11] think that the emperor that the imperial
[14:14] family has these images on that wall
[14:17] okay all right So let's talk about why
[14:20] would you even take this class? Okay,
[14:23] why talk about dynastic history? Why get
[14:25] into it? Well, the the answer could be
[14:28] because like China's a really important
[14:30] place today, right? I think it's going
[14:31] to have the largest economy in the
[14:33] world, whatever. It has the second
[14:34] largest population. It's an important
[14:36] place. There's a lot of interesting
[14:37] technological developments going on with
[14:39] that, you know, all of that stuff. My
[14:41] favorite of which are these like robots
[14:44] that I'm sure if you've been to China
[14:46] recently, I'm sure you've encountered
[14:48] these. If you stay in a hotel and you
[14:50] get takeout,
[14:52] somebody brings it to the hotel front
[14:54] desk and then this this Gichi red this
[14:56] robot sends it to your room so you don't
[14:59] have to actually talk to any human
[15:00] beings. Okay, this was a this was a
[15:03] thing that came in during COVID, I
[15:05] think, and now it's just like standard
[15:07] across the country. So, I mean, you
[15:09] could set you get medicine, you get all
[15:10] this stuff like that, but it was like my
[15:12] first night in China this summer. I was
[15:14] I arrived at like 1:00 a.m. for a
[15:16] conference and then this like I got a
[15:18] phone call and this it was like a
[15:21] robotic voice and it said, "I'm here."
[15:22] And I'm like, "What's going on?" And
[15:24] then, "Please open the door." And I open
[15:26] the door. It's one of these. And they
[15:27] go, "Please press this button." And I
[15:29] press the button and then it's like and
[15:30] then there was this like rice and like
[15:32] all this food, right? And it's like
[15:34] they're walking all over these hotels,
[15:36] right? And they even say like, "Please
[15:37] excuse me. I need to get to the
[15:39] elevator." So, it's I don't know why we
[15:41] don't have them yet, right? And and and
[15:43] and if any budding anthropologists in
[15:45] the room, there's so much to study about
[15:47] these these robots, right? About how
[15:50] humans interact with them and such like
[15:51] that. But yes. Okay. So, I understand
[15:54] the current scene of China is worth
[15:56] paying attention to is is is relevant,
[15:58] is important. Okay. But then we get back
[16:00] to this question, why study dynastic
[16:02] China? One reason, okay, is that if you
[16:06] spend time in China and you talk to
[16:09] people in China, people in China talk
[16:10] about their history all the time. Okay,
[16:13] from from the top leadership all the way
[16:15] down to everyday people, people driving
[16:17] cabs that you'll meet, you know, just in
[16:19] day-to-day life. Okay, history really
[16:21] matters in this place. Okay, it's the
[16:24] way that people talk about issues in the
[16:26] present. Um, it also is really
[16:30] contentious, right? I just mentioned to
[16:31] you this kind of like question of the
[16:33] official Ching history. There's been an
[16:35] ongoing project to write the official
[16:37] Ching history in theory since the days
[16:40] of like Mao and Joe and Lie. It started
[16:43] and then it stopped because of the
[16:44] cultural revolution and then it got
[16:45] started again in recent years and now
[16:47] it's kind of again controversial. How do
[16:49] you officially record that history? That
[16:51] should tell you something. There's all
[16:53] of these debates. There's all these
[16:54] tensions that go on within China about
[16:56] how to understand what happened in
[16:59] dynastic China. Okay, we don't pay
[17:02] attention to Well, the Wall Street
[17:03] Journal did a cover of it. Okay, but
[17:06] that kind of signals its importance,
[17:08] right? So, I do not think in any way
[17:12] that this class, Dynastic China, is less
[17:14] relevant or less practical than modern
[17:17] China. I'd say if you had to pick, take
[17:19] this one. Forget about modern China.
[17:22] Okay. the 20th century. It's a tough
[17:25] century. This we cover a lot more
[17:27] centuries here. Okay. So, you get more
[17:29] bang for your buck. Okay. But they're
[17:31] both good. I mean, they're, you know,
[17:32] take it take it in 2026. Yeah. Okay. Um,
[17:36] so now let me tell you another reason
[17:39] kind of building on what I was just
[17:40] talking about is that people in China
[17:44] like to talk about their history. They
[17:46] have a long there's a long recorded
[17:47] history in China. So, that means there's
[17:49] a lot to talk about. There's a lot to
[17:51] debate and there's a lot to analyze. I'm
[17:53] sure many of you may be familiar with
[17:55] this opening sentence. Has anybody read
[17:59] Sanguani, Romance of the Three Kingdoms?
[18:02] I think m Professor Dung has a class on
[18:04] Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Some of
[18:06] you might be taking it or want to take
[18:07] it. You should you should take it. It's
[18:09] an interesting This is another one of
[18:11] those two those great novels. Okay, we
[18:14] talked about Journey to the West a
[18:15] little bit earlier. This is Romance of
[18:17] the Three Kingdoms and there's a this
[18:19] opening lines of it right this
[18:24] writes there's a saying there's a saying
[18:26] in our country that
[18:29] you know long divided it must unite long
[18:31] united it must divide think about that
[18:34] for just a second and then let me show
[18:36] you this quote okay by Mark Elvin 1973
[18:40] the Chinese empire is the major
[18:42] exception in the preodern world to what
[18:44] would appear to be the rule that units
[18:46] of territorial and demographic extent
[18:48] comparable to China are not stable
[18:50] entities over long periods of time. So
[18:54] one of the things where you say why look
[18:56] at it, why study it? Why think about it
[18:59] is because actually this kind of does
[19:01] seem to happen, okay, that there are
[19:04] periods of division where everything
[19:05] falls apart, okay, and it looks like,
[19:08] okay, this is going to be Italy and this
[19:10] is going to be France and this is going
[19:11] to be Switzerland and then all of a
[19:13] sudden it comes back. Rome comes back.
[19:16] Okay, Rome comes back and it keeps
[19:18] coming back and you're like, why? Right?
[19:21] What's going on? Right? And people, you
[19:23] know, across the centuries noticed this,
[19:26] right? It was like a thing they they
[19:28] noticed and talked about it or even
[19:29] anticipated. That's not to overstate
[19:33] continuity in Chinese history. I don't
[19:35] want you to think, oh yeah, 20,000 years
[19:37] ago that was China and China today it's
[19:38] like the it's not the same. It's very
[19:41] different. Tons of things happen. Tons
[19:43] of things change. But this conversation
[19:46] that we're talking about right here is
[19:47] very old, right? So I think Chinese
[19:50] history is good for training your mind
[19:52] about how to think about big difficult
[19:54] questions. You have a ton of data. You
[19:56] have a ton of information. You can think
[19:58] on different scales. When people do
[20:00] climate history, what's the first place
[20:01] they look to? They look to China, right?
[20:04] Because China wrote about its climate
[20:05] for people in China wrote about climate
[20:07] for like thousand at least 2,000 plus
[20:10] years, right? All all sort of
[20:12] meteorological phenomenon, comets, etc.
[20:15] All of these records are in those
[20:17] histories that I was talking about, you
[20:18] know? So, it's really, really great to
[20:21] think about history, right? If you
[20:23] haven't taken another history course
[20:25] here before, this is a great
[20:26] introduction. Even if you don't want to
[20:28] continue with China, right? You want to
[20:30] go and do England, take this class and
[20:31] then go think about England, take this
[20:33] class and then go think about India.
[20:34] Okay? You can you can do all of that
[20:36] stuff. Okay? History is ancient, but
[20:39] it's an ongoing conversation and really
[20:41] uh filled with nearly endless
[20:42] perspectives. And here's the key point.
[20:44] this class about eavesdropping into that
[20:45] conversation. This goes back to that
[20:47] image that I was given to you. I take
[20:48] you to the ocean, you swim. Okay, you
[20:51] eavesdrop into the conversation. This is
[20:53] a huge conversation. Lots of people are
[20:55] going to say stuff. Lots of You're going
[20:57] to have dowists. You're going to have
[20:58] Buddhists. You're going to have
[20:59] Confucians. You're going to have
[21:00] Confucians who hate other Confucians. Uh
[21:02] you're going to have terrible emperors.
[21:05] You're gonna have some decent emperors,
[21:07] but really bad emperors, too, right? You
[21:10] know, you'd have everything, right? And
[21:12] the it all comes together as people over
[21:15] the centuries try to make sense of it
[21:17] right and that's that ongoing
[21:19] conversation that conversation continues
[21:20] in China to today. So you get a little
[21:23] in this class you get to eaves drop on
[21:24] it right think about it a little bit
[21:25] okay so here are the class goals and
[21:28] aspirations okay first of all let me
[21:30] tell you what the game plan is and it's
[21:32] like a really intimidating slide so just
[21:34] buckle up okay there you go so so
[21:37] basically that's the game plan okay not
[21:39] this part okay so not this this part's
[21:42] modern China okay so that's the thing I
[21:44] take two classes one does this and then
[21:46] one does this okay so so uh look what I
[21:51] can tell you is I'm a historian
[21:53] primarily of this era, right? The Ming
[21:56] andQing dynasties, the last two imperial
[21:59] dynasties. That's my specialty. That's
[22:00] what I love. But the thing is is that
[22:03] because this is the class you're taking
[22:05] at MIT that is dynastic Chinese history.
[22:08] I feel I I have to give every era its
[22:10] due. So, I really try I really go out of
[22:13] my way even though I'm not like the
[22:16] biggest fan of the Han dynasty, you
[22:19] know, like I'm I don't I I love the Tong
[22:22] Dynasty as a sort of like a historian
[22:25] who works on another period, but I will
[22:27] give you what I think is the essentials
[22:29] to know about that era. Every period
[22:31] that we cover, I try to get you, you
[22:33] know, that those kernels, right, that
[22:35] say, "Oh, wow, that's really
[22:36] interesting. I didn't know that before."
[22:38] So that when you look at this by the end
[22:40] of the semester, you'll say, "I know
[22:42] what happened pretty much across this
[22:44] whole time span, right? I know
[22:46] something. I can say something about
[22:48] it." Okay? And then that way you go off
[22:52] in your winter holiday and you can have
[22:54] great conversations with your parents,
[22:57] right? Or friends or you can travel and
[22:59] you can visit places and say, "I know
[23:01] what that is. I know when that was
[23:02] built. I know what I know what's going
[23:04] on here." Okay. All right. So class,
[23:06] goals and aspirations,
[23:08] learn something about China. 20% of
[23:10] humanity. This is a good aspiration. We
[23:13] should learn something about China,
[23:14] right? Especially in the United States,
[23:16] right? I mean, it's credible. I have to
[23:18] say it. Okay. Learn something about
[23:19] history. Okay. So there's two things
[23:21] here. This is a class about China. It's
[23:24] also a class about history. Okay? Of
[23:27] course, these things can overlap, right?
[23:29] But history is a discipline. It's a way
[23:31] of thinking. Okay? We have certain ideas
[23:34] in history. primary sources. Secondary
[23:37] sources. Okay, this is a secondary
[23:40] source. This is a secondary source.
[23:42] These are not primary sources. Primary
[23:44] sources referring to the original
[23:46] sources that were written in the
[23:49] original language by people at the time.
[23:52] Okay? Those are the premiums in history.
[23:54] Okay? But of course, we as historians,
[23:57] we write textbooks. We write books,
[23:59] right? So just realize history is not in
[24:01] a textbook. Okay? Textbooks are like the
[24:04] least. We historians look down on
[24:07] textbooks, okay? We we don't like
[24:10] textbooks, right? Because with
[24:12] textbooks, you have to edit, you have to
[24:13] take out, you have to do that. Go back
[24:15] to the originals. Make your own
[24:17] textbook, right? That's what we're going
[24:19] to do in this class. Okay? So, that's
[24:22] that's what I want you to think about
[24:23] history. I don't want to turn you into a
[24:25] walk encyclopedia. Sort of I do
[24:27] actually. Uh that would be nice, but to
[24:29] equip you to approach related issues.
[24:31] One of the things I say, and I'll just
[24:32] tell you right up here, yeah, it's a
[24:34] it's a contentheavy class, right?
[24:36] Because I sort of I don't know if it's
[24:38] oldfashioned or what, but like I think
[24:40] you just need to know it, right? I think
[24:43] you need to know it. You need to leave
[24:44] this class in command of knowledge.
[24:48] Okay? And one of the things that you
[24:50] will realize, you might think, oh, this
[24:51] is a lot. I, you know, why do we have to
[24:53] know all this stuff? When you go to
[24:55] China, you will realize that people that
[24:59] you encounter in everyday life know so
[25:02] much about history. Okay? They blow they
[25:05] will blow away the average American
[25:08] about what they can say about history
[25:09] that happened 2,000 years ago. Even if
[25:11] it's wrong, even if it's wrong, okay?
[25:14] Even if it's just like kind of like
[25:16] romanticized or whatever, but they talk
[25:18] about it. They know it. So, you got to
[25:20] know it. Okay? That's the That's the
[25:22] thing, okay? And it's not, and let me
[25:24] just emphasize here why you should take
[25:26] it, why I think you should take this
[25:28] class, why I think maybe this weekend
[25:30] you should convince your friends to take
[25:31] this class, okay? Is that it's not
[25:34] something you can just pick up like with
[25:36] a book. Like so many people think with
[25:39] history, oh yeah, I'll I'll over the
[25:42] summer I'll read a book and catch up.
[25:45] No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You
[25:47] don't. With computer science, with
[25:48] physics, you don't just read a book over
[25:50] the weekend and become an expert. Okay,
[25:53] Chinese history is one of those fields
[25:54] where you got to take a class in it. You
[25:56] actually you got to drill it. You got to
[25:58] know it. You got to think about it from
[26:00] all these different angles and then you
[26:01] can say you know something about it.
[26:03] Okay, it's not actually something that
[26:05] you just pick up with osmosis. Okay. Or
[26:07] what you can pick up by osmosis by
[26:09] reading Wikipedia and sort of bad
[26:10] history, right? But that's what we're
[26:12] going to try. We're going to try to do
[26:14] something better than that in this
[26:15] class. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And this
[26:17] knowledge will stay with you. I always I
[26:19] always say that. I always say that,
[26:20] right? 50 years from now, let's say 30,
[26:24] you graduate from MIT, you're talking to
[26:26] your relatives or your children or
[26:28] whatever it is. What are you going to
[26:29] talk to them about? You're going to talk
[26:31] to them about this class. You're going
[26:33] to say, "Hey, you know, the three
[26:34] kingdoms, I know something about that
[26:36] because this is the type of thing that
[26:37] people want to talk about, not whatever
[26:39] Python or whatever, right? Like, you
[26:41] know, it's like it's not it's not a
[26:42] table of conversation, right? This is
[26:44] this is I guarantee you I guarantee you
[26:47] a holiday break of great conversations
[26:49] after this class." a minimum. Okay. So,
[26:53] why do I like Chinese history? Oh, wow.
[26:55] Where to begin? Okay. Well, I went to
[26:57] China for the first time in like right
[26:59] around the right before the Beijing
[27:00] Olympics. And that was me many years
[27:02] ago. You can say I changed a little bit,
[27:04] maybe a little bit. That's me in Taiwan.
[27:06] I think I'm in a Yonga Dawang, which is
[27:08] like a breakfast place. And I love it.
[27:10] Right. I go like you get the you get the
[27:12] dojang, the the the soy, it's soy beans,
[27:15] sort of a milk substance with yo, this
[27:18] fried doughnut. It's like heaven. You
[27:19] know what I mean? It costs like $2,
[27:21] right? And it's just like it's
[27:22] incredible. Huge lines, right? Um, so
[27:26] that was me. And then, okay, food. So,
[27:28] it's not just about the food, but we but
[27:30] we can talk about food. I don't think I
[27:32] have to convince most of you. China's
[27:35] got really good food, right? It's got a
[27:36] ton of different types of food. Okay.
[27:38] Uh, the US Chinese food has gotten
[27:40] better in my lifetime, but it's still
[27:42] it's that's right. It's was starting at
[27:44] zero. So I mean so so the thing is is
[27:47] that it is better but it good Chinese
[27:49] food in the US tends to be expensive in
[27:51] China you just get so much right you
[27:53] have so many options everything like
[27:55] that we can talk about food I have
[27:57] another class called nature and
[27:58] environment in China we do a whole week
[28:00] on food so if you really want to talk
[28:02] about food maybe consider that class but
[28:04] we'll do a little bit of food here okay
[28:06] uh and then this is me playing ma jang
[28:08] right so what I'm trying to say what I'm
[28:10] trying to say is that you get in right
[28:13] when you go to a place and Maybe it
[28:15] won't be China for you. It could be
[28:16] Japan or it could be Mongolia. It could
[28:18] be Russia. It could be
[28:20] Italy. You know, something's going to
[28:22] grab you. It might not be the coliseum.
[28:25] It might be just like everyday life, you
[28:27] know, drinking espresso, you know, in a
[28:29] Florentine afternoon. And you go, I just
[28:32] love this. I really love this. And then
[28:34] you go, I want to learn the language,
[28:36] and I I want to I want to understand
[28:38] what happened here. And I want to
[28:40] understand what happened here in the
[28:41] 19th century. I want to understand what
[28:42] happened here 2,000 years ago. Okay, I
[28:44] want this to happen to you. It doesn't
[28:46] have to be China. It can be, right? It
[28:48] could be Mexico. It could be any place,
[28:49] but someplace that you weren't born in
[28:51] and then you go there and you go, "Wow,
[28:52] I really want to understand this place."
[28:54] That's a wonderful part of the human
[28:55] experience. I hope you all have it.
[28:57] Okay? But that kind of happened to me in
[28:59] China. Okay? And it wasn't one moment,
[29:01] right? It was many meals. It was many
[29:03] gambling sessions. It was it was it was
[29:06] it was this is me on the many years ago
[29:09] probably going to Tibet. I can't
[29:11] remember, but it was on one of those
[29:13] sleeper trains, you know, back in the
[29:14] day. I have to say I have become like a
[29:17] middle-aged Chinese person in the sense
[29:19] of because I've been in China now for
[29:22] the like the past 20 years and I've seen
[29:24] all this change. So, I remember like,
[29:26] oh, the green trains that went super
[29:28] slow and like you had to stay on them
[29:29] for like overnight. Like the train I
[29:32] took the train from Beijing to Shanghai.
[29:33] The first time I took it, it was like I
[29:35] was standing. It was I was eating
[29:37] instant noodles praying that they
[29:39] wouldn't like tip over in a very crowded
[29:42] car because we didn't even have there
[29:44] weren't even tickets left for a bed,
[29:46] right? I mean, and now it's like, oh,
[29:48] it's it's business class highspeed rail
[29:50] all the way, right? I mean, it takes
[29:52] four what five hours? Five hours, right?
[29:54] Five hours now, right? It's totally
[29:56] changed, right? But there were a lot of
[29:58] fun experiences on Chinese trains back
[30:00] in the day. you talk to Chinese parents
[30:02] or you talk to people of a certain
[30:03] generation, they will have stories for
[30:05] you about taking long, long train rides
[30:06] in China. Uh, and the whole generation
[30:09] who grew up in the culture revolution
[30:10] have these especially. Yeah. Uh, and
[30:12] then I've gone back. Oh yeah, I wrote a
[30:14] book. I was there this summer talking
[30:16] about my book. Right. And then, oh yeah,
[30:18] the last thing I want to say. So, I got
[30:21] into it. I continue to go back. I can't
[30:23] tell you the number of times I've been
[30:24] there. I probably live there, you know,
[30:26] for a few years overall, but it's like
[30:29] more every year I go for a few months.
[30:31] This summer I went for, you know, a
[30:33] month and a half or something like that.
[30:35] The one thing that I say that really
[30:37] really has struck me in terms of changes
[30:40] when I first went to China, hey, how you
[30:42] doing? When I first went to China, you
[30:44] know, the coffee was terrible. Uh, and
[30:46] it and for somebody addicted to
[30:48] caffeine,
[30:50] uh, it was brutal. And I had to drink a
[30:53] ton of tea to make up for it, right? And
[30:55] it's just like too much tea. You know
[30:57] what I'm saying? Uh, but I love tea,
[30:59] don't get me wrong. Coffee is now way
[31:01] better. Okay, coffee I and I actually
[31:04] tweeted about this like when I got back.
[31:06] Coffee in China is now better than
[31:08] coffee in the United States. I come back
[31:09] here and I'm like, this I'm just so
[31:11] disappointed. The thing is is that what
[31:14] China has actually accidentally
[31:16] perfected and I say is in you can also
[31:18] find this in Thailand. You also find
[31:19] this now in Korean cafes is nondairy
[31:23] espresso drinks. And it's just it it's a
[31:25] world that like Starbucks is just out to
[31:27] lunch. They're not getting this. You
[31:29] take espresso, you create an Americano
[31:32] with sparkling water and you add lemon.
[31:35] Incredible. Grapefruit. Incredible. Liy,
[31:39] whatever. like all of these they call
[31:41] Chongi Cafe, right? trying me cafe like
[31:44] creative Americanos and I and I say like
[31:47] why don't you take this global you know
[31:49] this is this is the next thing I mean
[31:51] this is the next bubble tea for sure but
[31:54] it's like I I think that there's an
[31:55] interesting thing of like they feel like
[31:57] oh but maybe it's we're not doing it
[31:59] right like the Italians enough with the
[32:01] Italians enough with the cappuccinos we
[32:04] got to go to the next phase it's all
[32:06] these milky drinks it tires you out
[32:09] right this is like the absolute pickup
[32:12] low calorie too. Love it. So, check out
[32:15] coffee in China next time you're there.
[32:17] Okay, that's been an interesting change.
[32:18] All right, let's talk about syllabus.
[32:19] All right, so I just have like a bunch
[32:21] of I usually I used to do a printout
[32:23] syllabus, but then MIT students told me
[32:25] that like nobody does that anymore. So,
[32:28] then I felt like a historian, but in a
[32:30] bad way. So, I said like, okay, let's
[32:33] just put it all online, right? So, uh no
[32:35] prerequisites. You're all welcome to
[32:37] enroll. You can bring guests. Just let
[32:40] me know. You can bring your parents.
[32:41] Some people bring their parents, right?
[32:42] If they're visiting, right? They want
[32:43] to, you know, again, what are you going
[32:45] to bring your computer science classes?
[32:46] Come on. Right? You want to bring them
[32:48] here, right? Okay, that's fine. Just let
[32:49] me know that they're coming. Okay? Uh
[32:51] it's Chinese. Chinese is not a
[32:53] prerequisite. Some of you are doing a
[32:55] Chinese minor. Okay? That's fine. And
[32:58] for all of the primary sources that I
[33:00] give you this semester, I'll try to give
[33:02] you the Chinese original if you want to
[33:04] look at it. If you're learning Chinese,
[33:06] take challenge yourself. Take a look at
[33:08] it. Right? You don't have to look at it,
[33:10] but you can. So that's an option. If you
[33:12] want to do the minor for this class, you
[33:14] should be looking at those. Okay. Um, so
[33:18] that looks good. Study guides. Okay. So
[33:20] the thing is is that when I first taught
[33:23] this class, it was like essays and then
[33:25] I was like, I'm done with essays. I had
[33:27] a I had a historical evolution at MIT
[33:30] and I realized if you teach the class on
[33:31] Chinese history, you got to offer an
[33:33] exam. For those of you who know about
[33:35] Chinese history, you know how important
[33:36] exams are in Chinese history. you'll
[33:38] realize, yeah, you you need an exam. So,
[33:40] I just do midterm. We're going to have a
[33:42] final. Don't worry. The average of the
[33:44] midterm last year, it about every year
[33:47] tends to be about a 90. Most of the
[33:49] students who take the class, let's just
[33:51] be frank here, modern China, we get 40
[33:53] or 50 maybe. Mo many many people get
[33:56] A's, A minuses, A pluses, whatever. Uh
[33:59] some people will get B's, the occasional
[34:02] C. If you get below a B, you're trying.
[34:05] Okay. uh you if you get in the B range
[34:08] uh it's it's you know what I mean to say
[34:11] here is if you put the work in you put
[34:13] the effort in there shouldn't be a huge
[34:15] issue okay with getting the grade that
[34:18] you want okay uh it is a challenge you
[34:21] do have to study all right you do have
[34:22] to study and some people will bomb the
[34:24] midterm some people and everything like
[34:26] that and that's that's okay it's not the
[34:27] end of the world we'll figure it out
[34:29] I'll show you the group here's the
[34:30] grading rubric we'll talk about this
[34:32] okay so first things attendance let's
[34:35] say let to say something about
[34:36] attendance right up at the front. There
[34:38] are two excused absences over the course
[34:40] of the semester. You come in, you scan
[34:42] the QR code. That's how we know that
[34:44] you're in class. Okay? You have two
[34:46] excused absences. Just let us know.
[34:48] Okay? I realize some of you want to take
[34:50] this class and you have a conflict with
[34:53] another class. That's a partial
[34:55] conflict. Not a complete conflict, but a
[34:57] partial conflict. If you have a partial
[34:59] conflict and you can come to 50% of
[35:02] these classes, then the Linda, the TA
[35:06] and I will make an an arrangement for
[35:08] you. You can come. We will not take you
[35:10] down if you have a class conflict that
[35:12] you show us your schedule and you show
[35:13] us I have this conflict at this time and
[35:15] we'll give you two extra writing
[35:17] assignments over the course of the
[35:18] semester. And that way we just take the
[35:20] question off the off the table. So you
[35:21] can but if you want that arrangement,
[35:24] you got to let us know in the next week
[35:25] or so, okay? Because we need to know
[35:27] that. All right. So, we're happy if to
[35:30] accommodate, but otherwise we're really
[35:32] hoping everybody will be here, you know,
[35:33] most of the time. Okay. Um, so there's
[35:37] so in terms of writing, the major
[35:39] writing that you will do over the course
[35:41] of the semester is your discussion
[35:42] responses. I'll tell you about what I
[35:44] expect from those discussion responses
[35:46] in just a second. There are 10 of them.
[35:48] Each of them is worth two points. If you
[35:51] do a decent job on them that you get the
[35:53] two points, right? That's as simple as
[35:55] that. You can do it late. It's worth one
[35:57] point if it's late. Okay, that's just
[35:58] it's just we every time like in every
[36:01] semester somebody comes and says I'm I'm
[36:03] didn't do any of them. I didn't know
[36:05] that, you know, they were required or
[36:07] something like that. Okay, just letting
[36:09] you know we will accept it late. That's
[36:10] what it's worth if it's late. Okay,
[36:12] there's a geography quiz. All of the
[36:15] quizzes and the tests with the exception
[36:17] of the final, okay, there will be a
[36:20] retake and it's open to everybody. Okay.
[36:24] So, what that means is you come in, you
[36:25] do the geography quiz. If it didn't go
[36:27] well, you can take it again and I'll
[36:29] just take the highest score. If you
[36:31] can't make it the day of the geography
[36:32] quiz because you have to take an absence
[36:34] or you have one of those conflicts that
[36:35] I just mentioned, that's fine. There
[36:37] will be one retake. Okay? Same with the
[36:40] classical text quiz, right? Where I quiz
[36:42] you on with Confucious and the Dowist
[36:44] and all that. One retake offered
[36:47] midterm. We do one retake offer for the
[36:49] midterm, too. Okay? And it's like a
[36:51] totally it's a new exam. Some people
[36:53] like literally take everything twice
[36:55] because they just like the challenge.
[36:57] I've had that. MIT students are
[36:59] incredible. Okay. It's like you took
[37:02] this midterm, you got a 95. I want to
[37:04] take it again. All right. We're going
[37:07] for that five points, right? I get I got
[37:09] it. Okay. All right. Uh so there is a
[37:12] timeline uh project. It's not It's not
[37:14] bad. You just propose a topic. This is
[37:17] where you can kind of follow your own
[37:19] interests. If you want to do the history
[37:21] of a certain type of fashion in China,
[37:23] Chinese certain type of Chinese food,
[37:25] you can follow that over time. You just
[37:27] create a timeline. I give you all the
[37:29] sort of way. How do you create the
[37:30] timeline? That's it's not bad. And the
[37:32] final exam and then that's the final
[37:33] grade. One thing that we do, and I just
[37:35] want to say we're really uh excited this
[37:37] semester, we have a TA from the HAS
[37:39] program, Linda Rinsswan, uh who's
[37:41] wonderful to join us. Anthrop anth
[37:44] historian his history a historian of
[37:47] nuclear energy. So really really excited
[37:49] to have Linda and Linda does had does
[37:51] does know Chinese history fairly well.
[37:54] So definitely co correspond with me,
[37:56] correspond with Linda during the
[37:57] semester as as I try to do in all my
[38:00] classes. We'll do one sort of it's like
[38:03] a required office hour mid semester. So
[38:06] you come to my office, Linda and I will
[38:08] greet you and we talk for 10 minutes
[38:10] about whatever you want to talk about
[38:12] typically about what what confuses you
[38:15] in Chinese history or questions about
[38:16] the midterm or questions about whatever.
[38:18] Right? So everybody does that and that's
[38:21] also part of the grade. Okay? So you you
[38:23] you do have to do that once you're happy
[38:25] to answer questions at any time. Okay?
[38:27] But that's that's uh that's what we do
[38:29] expect. Okay. All right. So let me just
[38:32] say something final point about the
[38:33] discussion posts. Okay. So, discussion
[38:36] posts. Um, yes, I'll do I I've changed
[38:40] this. I'll do Wednesday. I'll give it to
[38:43] you Wednesday before 3:30. I'll give you
[38:46] a little bit extra time than Tuesday.
[38:48] So, get them in before that time, the
[38:50] Wednesday class. Okay? Basically, what
[38:53] you have to do is you have to look at
[38:55] the readings uh and you have to answer a
[38:58] question. I'll give you an example uh
[39:00] for next week's discussion post just a
[39:02] second. You write two paragraphs. Okay?
[39:05] Uh and the the the two paragraphs,
[39:09] right? I'll tell you exactly how we want
[39:11] the structure of these paragraphs to
[39:12] look like. You have some agency and
[39:15] creativity in it. Don't worry. But I'll
[39:17] tell you about what we're looking for.
[39:18] Okay. Um so the thing I want to just
[39:21] remind you all the facts, inferences,
[39:24] uh judgments and opinions, right? How
[39:27] you sort of separate out those things,
[39:29] right? facts, things that we know to be
[39:31] true based on evidence. Bees make honey.
[39:34] Inferences, statements of the unknown,
[39:35] based on the known, derived from reason,
[39:37] right? Judgments, and then all the way
[39:39] to opinions, like I like whatever ice
[39:41] cream. Okay? When you write a post, I
[39:44] don't want just opinion, right? I hate
[39:47] Confucious, so congratulations. Okay?
[39:50] But that's not a post. Okay? I I we want
[39:52] a combo, right? You can give me the
[39:54] opinion at the end in the second
[39:57] paragraph. The first paragraph, we want
[39:59] you to focus on facts and inferences
[40:02] based on the primary sources of that
[40:04] week's reading. So you look at the
[40:06] question, you try to answer based on the
[40:09] primary sources, and then in the second
[40:11] paragraph, you can expand into judgments
[40:13] and opinion. Okay? So that way you know
[40:16] what we expect. You know how to do it.
[40:18] All right? So laid it out, I think
[40:21] really just clearly and nicely for you
[40:23] there. Let's take a look at what we're
[40:24] doing next week. I have to tell you this
[40:27] is just give you an example for next
[40:28] week. So next week on Monday you come in
[40:31] I'm going to like rush you through the
[40:33] rise of agriculture the origins of state
[40:36] formation in China and we end up on next
[40:39] Monday with I think one of my favorite
[40:41] lectures of the whole semester the rise
[40:43] of writing in China and writing is super
[40:45] fascinating is it's a technology and
[40:47] China was a very early place to have it
[40:50] so what is writing what counts as
[40:52] writing right one of the questions I
[40:54] think we have are emojis writing right
[40:57] what counts as it you can answer that
[40:58] question if you'd like next week. Right?
[41:00] So, this is what we're kind of doing,
[41:02] right? So, you look at it, you'll notice
[41:05] up here every week, you'll see, wow, it
[41:07] looks like there's a lot of reading.
[41:08] There's not that much reading. You just
[41:11] have to break it down. The primary
[41:13] sources are what you really need to
[41:15] focus on. That is the original, right?
[41:18] Translation of oracle bone inscriptions,
[41:21] something like that. Translations of Joe
[41:24] Bronzes, right? You'll see those are
[41:25] primary sources. That's what you focus
[41:27] on. But if you're like, I don't really
[41:30] understand what this is, then you go to
[41:34] secondary source, which for the
[41:36] beginning part of this class will be
[41:38] Leong's Early China. Very nice book.
[41:40] I've given you sort of selections from
[41:41] it. I've uploaded them. Right. This is
[41:43] like a pretty like sophisticated book of
[41:47] early Chinese history, right? It's it's
[41:49] like really good. It's it's fairly
[41:51] comprehensive. Yeah. And then if you're
[41:53] like, I took a look at this and I still
[41:56] don't know what's going on. We have the
[41:59] textbook big picture. Okay, so this is
[42:02] the optional textbook. Okay, I provide
[42:05] you with three different ways to break
[42:09] down sort of an era's writing or an
[42:11] era's sources. The primary sources,
[42:14] secondary sources, and a textbook. The
[42:17] secondary sources in the textbook are
[42:19] optional for you. Okay? If you want to
[42:22] read it, you can read it. If you feel
[42:24] you need it, some some errors you might
[42:26] feel, I know three kingdoms, I don't
[42:27] need it. Right? I know Tong Dynasty, I
[42:29] don't need it this week. I'll just do
[42:30] primary. But some errors you might be
[42:32] like, oh, you know, North South
[42:34] Division, I want to read the textbook.
[42:36] Right? So, it's there if you need it.
[42:38] Right? So, it's not as much as it looks.
[42:40] Okay? And I got the uh dynasty China
[42:43] geography quiz study guide. I put up all
[42:45] the study guides. Don't worry. Okay.
[42:47] Questions?
[42:49] How's it sound?
[42:52] Interesting. Yeah. How do you compare to
[42:55] your other classes? Yeah. Pretty good,
[42:57] right? Yeah. Like, let me know. Let me
[42:59] know. You know what I mean? You know,
[43:00] like, all right. So,
[43:04] let's talk about how we talk about
[43:06] Chinese history. Periodization.
[43:09] All right. There are ways. This is just
[43:12] getting you into like foot in the door.
[43:15] Foot in the door. Remember that long
[43:17] sort of like list, that chronology I
[43:20] gave you of all those reigns, dynasties,
[43:22] whatever. Here's how we break it down.
[43:25] First, preodern China. Preodern China.
[43:30] This is like it's a loaded word. When
[43:32] does modernity begin? It's like it's
[43:35] kind of a useless phrase, okay? Because
[43:38] like 50 years from now, it's like
[43:40] they'll be like, "Was the 20th century
[43:41] modern? It looks pretty old to us,
[43:44] right?" But for the sake of
[43:46] conversation, for the sake of dialogue,
[43:49] you should know that in China officially
[43:52] in Chinese textbooks in China today,
[43:55] modernity begins with a very actually
[43:57] western centric notion of the opium
[43:59] wars. Okay? Middle of the 19th century.
[44:03] Okay. Basically, so you have like modern
[44:05] history, preodern history
[44:09] coming back.
[44:11] Ah, good. Thank you. Okay. I said to the
[44:16] computer, thank you. Okay. So, so, so
[44:19] preodern. Sometimes we could also say
[44:21] traditional. Okay. Uh, so this is just
[44:25] like I'm not endorsing these terms. I'm
[44:27] just letting you know these are the
[44:29] terms you may encounter. Okay. Uh, so
[44:32] when we say imperial China, imperial
[44:35] China, that has a very very fixed
[44:38] beginning and end date. That is not like
[44:40] open to interpretation. Imperial China
[44:42] begins in 221 B.CEE or or or BC,
[44:46] whatever have you. Okay, it begins when
[44:48] Chin Shaong proclaims himself to be the
[44:51] first emperor. He was the first person
[44:52] to do it. Realize writing was invented
[44:56] in China approximately in 1200 BC.
[45:00] China's got a thousand years of recorded
[45:03] history before there were any emperors.
[45:05] Before there were any. So this is the
[45:08] amazing thing about thinking about scale
[45:10] in terms of Chinese history. When when
[45:12] Confucious was alive, he was already
[45:15] thinking about the deep past in
[45:17] antiquity. We think of Confucious and we
[45:19] go, "Wow, that guy lived a long time
[45:21] ago." He was thinking of other people
[45:22] thinking living a long time ago, 600
[45:25] years ago, right? So this is just
[45:28] imperial China begins with the
[45:29] proclamation of the first emperor, which
[45:31] was a new form of sort of royal
[45:34] kingship. you know that sort of like
[45:37] superseded everything that came before
[45:39] it. That imperial system remains
[45:43] basically the primary form of governance
[45:47] in China until 1912. Well, this is
[45:51] another thing of like when does it end?
[45:53] 1911. The Shinhai Revolution, many of
[45:56] you been familiar with it, might have
[45:57] heard of it, broke out in 1911. The
[46:00] emperor abdicated in early 1912. So, as
[46:04] a historian of late imperial China, I
[46:06] insist on 1912. Okay? But you will
[46:08] sometimes see 1911. It's not okay. What
[46:11] are we talking? We're talking about a
[46:12] couple months here. Okay? It's I won't
[46:14] mock you down if you say 1911. Okay? Uh
[46:18] it's it's when China had an emperor.
[46:20] Okay? That's what we're talking about.
[46:21] All right? We also sort of have a few
[46:24] periods periodizations that we can say.
[46:27] Now, think about sort of like history
[46:29] that you might have encountered in AP
[46:31] world. I haven't taken AP World in like
[46:34] a million years. So I don't know like
[46:36] and I heard now it's starting like 1500.
[46:38] Is that right?
[46:39] >> 1300.
[46:40] >> 1300. Still way way too late. What a
[46:43] tragedy. Okay. But it's a it's it's it's
[46:45] it whatever it is. So you basically
[46:47] start in like the late medieval period
[46:49] or medieval. Okay. We have early China.
[46:53] Okay. This is again really good book on
[46:56] early China. What is early China? Early
[46:58] China basically means the origin of
[47:00] whatever we can talk about when it
[47:02] happened to basically
[47:06] the end of the Han dynasty about 200
[47:12] common era 200 AD okay approximately
[47:15] like that okay appro roughly then we
[47:18] enter we can talk about another era
[47:21] called the middle period or medieval
[47:23] China and that's from that end of the
[47:25] Han that's a a great way I know
[47:27] everybody will here. Well, this is a
[47:28] better way to think about it. The three
[47:30] kingdoms period, right? Okay. The three
[47:32] kingdoms period is like the end of early
[47:34] China. You can think about we're
[47:36] entering a new era at that point. Okay.
[47:39] So, you can say that's approximately
[47:40] medieval China, which you go when does
[47:43] quote unquote medieval or middle period
[47:45] China end?
[47:46] I mean, you some people say, do you put
[47:48] it before the Mongols? Do you put it
[47:50] after the Mongols? Is it about a
[47:52] thousand? Okay. I'm just doing really
[47:54] really traditional rain dates here. I
[47:58] founding of the Ming dynasty. You don't
[48:00] have to it's approximate. Okay. And then
[48:02] the last two dynasties are something
[48:05] like late imperial China. Sometimes
[48:07] you'll also hear this like early modern
[48:09] China. It all depends on what type of
[48:11] historian you're talking to. If you're
[48:13] talking to a European historian, you
[48:16] might say early modern because that's
[48:17] how they talk. Okay. Late imperial China
[48:20] is how like if we if the Chinese
[48:22] historians are together in in a in a in
[48:25] a bus that's how we go oh late imperial
[48:27] right because we all know what that
[48:28] means okay so either one is fine okay
[48:31] but just realize this is how you break
[48:33] it down this very long periods yeah of
[48:35] history all right usually
[48:38] should we look at this I don't know
[48:43] the computer answered the question well
[48:45] uh I always I mean let's let's just well
[48:48] take a peek Okay. This is like this
[48:51] really like Let's see. Is it going to
[48:54] go? Okay. H this like very forboding
[48:58] music. Oh, no. It then it then it just
[49:00] like it just All right. Let me try one
[49:02] more time. Let me try one more time.
[49:04] Okay. If it goes This is like a kind of
[49:06] fun sort of like
[49:08] It's going to go.
[49:12] Okay. I'm losing patience with it. Okay.
[49:14] Let's So basically that was a sort of
[49:16] like it's like a looking at the borders
[49:18] of Chinese uh reigns over time, right? I
[49:22] can show it to you. I'll put a link
[49:23] online. Okay. So we're going to get now
[49:26] maybe for the last half hour of class.
[49:29] I'm going to talk about sort of like a
[49:31] few more like big questions, big ways to
[49:33] think about Chinese history. And then
[49:35] we'll do a tour of China, which is like
[49:37] always again really fun. Uh so let's
[49:40] talk about a Chinese history hack. North
[49:42] and south, east and west, right? Okay,
[49:45] these are just cardinal directions,
[49:46] right? So, we have a western Joe and we
[49:50] have an eastern Joe, right? We have a
[49:53] western Han and we have an eastern Han.
[49:57] That basically means in the early period
[49:59] of China, in early China, basically we
[50:02] have Western capitals and eastern
[50:05] capitals. Okay. Yeah. As time goes on,
[50:09] this changes. This shifts. Okay. the
[50:12] Tong dynasty in middle in medieval China
[50:15] 7th century 8th century 9th century
[50:17] approximately around here there's a
[50:20] still a western capital and still an
[50:22] eastern capital of Chongan Xian and
[50:24] Lyang but once you get to about the year
[50:27] 1000 this shifts and now we don't have
[50:29] western eastern capitals we have
[50:30] northern and southern capitals and
[50:32] that's that Beijing and Nanjing right
[50:34] you know Beijing northern capital
[50:36] Nanjing southern capital so what's going
[50:38] on well what you have to realize is that
[50:40] over a very very long period of time the
[50:43] Chinese people migrated south okay there
[50:46] was a major migration of people okay
[50:48] from from the north China plane okay to
[50:51] the south as the south is basically
[50:53] filled in with rice agriculture okay the
[50:56] south that area south of the Yangzi
[50:58] river don't worry I'll show you where
[50:59] the river is in just a second it was
[51:00] really swamp and marshland okay it
[51:04] population as early as the Han dynasty
[51:07] as early as around the year zero there
[51:09] were people moving down there. Okay,
[51:12] that picked up over the first thousand
[51:15] years of this era, right? So from the
[51:17] year zero to about the year 1000, the
[51:19] population moves south. And then by the
[51:21] time you get to that medieval era,
[51:24] sometime in the medieval era, most of
[51:26] the people, most of the population of
[51:28] China lives in the south. Okay? And the
[51:30] south actually ends up becoming
[51:33] rather wealthy, right? Because they they
[51:35] grow rice, they have surpluses, they pay
[51:38] taxes. Okay? Where do they pay taxes to
[51:40] the north? Okay, so this is a very
[51:43] interesting dynamic, right? So
[51:45] basically, let me just phrase it to you
[51:47] this way. You look at over here that's
[51:48] that's Diana, big goose pagod. You'll
[51:51] recognize that in a few weeks from now.
[51:53] That's Shi, the capital of Shanchi
[51:55] province. This a very very historic
[51:57] city. It's basically like a a great
[52:00] number of the early imperial capitals
[52:02] are located there. Okay, this is uh this
[52:05] is kind of what you might think of South
[52:07] China looking like, right? mountainous,
[52:09] green, uh, uh, water, humid, and rice.
[52:14] Okay. So, that's that's what that's
[52:16] South China in a nutshell. Okay. All
[52:18] right. So, then we go back to that's our
[52:21] map. Okay. Here's this is the Mongol
[52:24] Empire. Okay. Mongol Empire. The Mongols
[52:27] create once the sort of their capital
[52:29] their their reign in China is
[52:31] established they start they move their
[52:34] capital to Dad the great capital which
[52:37] is Beijing they they are kind of the
[52:40] ones who actually move it to Beijing
[52:42] right so the Beijing actually gets its
[52:44] start not as a Han Chinese capital okay
[52:47] it was actually the northern the
[52:49] northern peoples right non-han peoples
[52:50] who started it so after the Mongol
[52:53] period you get that Nanjing in Beijing
[52:56] mix. That's in the late the last two
[52:58] dynasties, southern capital and northern
[53:00] capital. And what you can kind of say
[53:02] even to this day is that the economic
[53:06] heart of the country, the most basically
[53:09] profitable part of the country, highest
[53:11] incomes are in that greater Shanghai
[53:13] area also in Guangdong, Pearl River
[53:16] Delta area. Okay, those southern hubs,
[53:19] okay? Those are the economic engines of
[53:21] the country. The political center of the
[53:23] country is in the north. Okay. And
[53:25] that's basically a bit been that way for
[53:27] a few centuries actually go a number of
[53:29] centuries, right? And that's what the
[53:31] the southern southerners end up paying
[53:33] for defense, right? The northerners
[53:35] handle frontier defense, right? When you
[53:38] see where Beijing is on a map and you
[53:40] see where historical Mongolia was,
[53:44] Beijing is almost not in China, right?
[53:47] That's why it has all those sandstorms.
[53:49] It's almost in what is it, the Gobi
[53:50] Desert or whatever it is. It's re it's
[53:52] really far up north actually. Um, so
[53:55] that's a sort of Chinese history hack.
[53:57] Think of north, south, east, west,
[54:00] right? That tells you a lot about what
[54:02] era you're in. Tells you a lot about the
[54:04] sort of geography and the in the sort of
[54:06] geography of power of the era. Okay,
[54:08] talk about north and south. Okay, some
[54:11] of you will, if you taken a class with
[54:13] me before, you might have seen this
[54:14] slide before. Let's talk about north and
[54:17] south. Okay, what is north China? What
[54:20] is South China? Okay, well, let me just
[54:22] pause here for a minute. What what is
[54:24] the northern United States like? Is is
[54:28] Maryland north?
[54:30] Is it south?
[54:33] It's north. Why do you say it's north?
[54:37] >> Okay. Right. So, you've answered this
[54:39] question by referring to like a
[54:42] historical political geography. That's
[54:45] great because there is no real objective
[54:48] answer to this question, right? Aside
[54:50] from doing that, the same is true in
[54:52] China. Basically, in the 20th century,
[54:54] there was a line drawn and it was like,
[54:56] "Okay, this is this is the Chinland
[54:58] Mountains over here in the Hawaii, the
[55:00] Hawaii River. Draw a line. If you're to
[55:02] the north, that's the north. If you're
[55:04] to the south, that's the south." And
[55:05] that the joke I've always made, right,
[55:07] is that in the I think 1950s, I think we
[55:09] went over this 1950s, Joan lie, uh,
[55:12] basically made it so that if you're
[55:13] above that line, you got free subsidized
[55:17] or free central heating from the state.
[55:19] And if you're below that line, you
[55:20] froze. uh because the south was
[55:23] generally warmer. But you know, this is
[55:26] the whole thing. It's one of those
[55:27] things where it's like, how do I
[55:28] describe it? I once did a new year f uh
[55:33] Chinese New Year spring festival in
[55:36] Guangyen, which is in the northern part
[55:37] of Sichuan province. You could imagine
[55:40] how frozen I was. That's pretty far
[55:42] north, but staying south, right? That's
[55:45] one of those border places, you know. I
[55:47] went to bed at night with like eight
[55:49] blankets over me. I shared a bed with
[55:51] like a 60- year old man and and and for
[55:55] days and I and there were so many
[55:57] blankets over me I couldn't move. So
[56:01] when I woke up I was just like I'm up
[56:04] and then somebody came and took off the
[56:06] blank. I mean, it was just incredible
[56:08] that it was I don't want to say that's
[56:10] there are many warm parts of the south.
[56:12] Don't get me wrong. If you're in
[56:13] Guangdong or Hong Kong, that's warm. You
[56:15] know, that's a nice place to be in the
[56:16] winter, but just to know this is this is
[56:19] a very large area with a very diverse
[56:21] climate. Okay. So, that can be really
[56:23] cold. So, this is a Mason Dixon line.
[56:26] Okay. This is kind of like this kind of
[56:27] idea. Yeah. Uh but there are cultural,
[56:31] you know, traits that we associate with
[56:33] northerners. There are cultural traits
[56:36] we associate with southerners. Again,
[56:38] nothing is ever absolute, but we can
[56:41] talk about that when we get into more
[56:42] specific geographies. Okay, let's say
[56:45] political jurisdictions of the PRC
[56:47] today. I, you know, I realize this is a
[56:49] dynastic Chinese history class. Um, so
[56:52] you might be kind of like, why do we
[56:54] need to know this? And I think the
[56:56] reason you have to know this is because
[56:58] well you you do need to know the
[57:00] geography of China today to appreciate
[57:02] where things are happening right to be
[57:05] able to have a conversation about it
[57:07] just realize there are 20 34 total units
[57:09] 23 provinces there also these autonomous
[57:12] regions Tibet is today recognized
[57:14] autonomous region Jang in Mongolia Ning
[57:17] Sha the Hoy autonomous region and
[57:18] Guangshi Dwang autonomous region so
[57:20] there's all the also special zones right
[57:23] Shanghai Chongqing and so forth Um, so
[57:26] you know, just you know, we can talk
[57:27] more about I have the whole geography
[57:29] quiz for you. Uh, and I have the study
[57:32] guide to tell you what exactly you need
[57:34] to know. Okay. One other sort of like
[57:38] way to think about Chinese geography is
[57:41] this line. This is called the Hu Tong
[57:44] Chong line. And it was so interesting
[57:45] this summer. I finally got a chance to
[57:47] visit Tong Chong. And you see, you might
[57:50] not find that impressive, but like
[57:51] actually Tong Chong is not a
[57:52] particularly famous place. The only
[57:54] reason why Chinese people across the
[57:55] country know about it is because of this
[57:57] line. But it's actually a great place.
[57:59] Uh, and it's it's a really fun part.
[58:01] It's in Yunan Province. I have some
[58:02] photos when we go through the when we go
[58:04] through the tour here. Right. But the
[58:06] key is is that basically this is 64%
[58:10] of the area of the country and in 1934
[58:13] it had 4% of the population. Okay? And
[58:17] this is in 2015 it had 6% of the
[58:20] population. Okay? So this is actually
[58:22] something that hasn't changed all that
[58:24] much, right? Most Chinese people live in
[58:27] the red zone, right? They live in this
[58:29] this area, right? This very high dense
[58:31] area like you know the big cities, you
[58:33] know, city with two million people
[58:34] doesn't count as anything in China,
[58:36] right? This is all that over here,
[58:37] Tibet, Sing Jang, lots of land, not so
[58:40] many people. Okay, so that's like a sort
[58:42] of big way to do it. All right, so I was
[58:45] going to do let me just say
[58:46] pronunciation. Should I say this? Let me
[58:49] do it really really quickly so that you
[58:51] know I know many of you probably know
[58:52] Chinese. Uh many of you speak Chinese.
[58:55] Uh you know Chinese is tonal. That means
[58:58] that it's very hard to be a beginner in
[59:00] this language right because you're
[59:01] constantly asking for like you're
[59:04] constantly saying you know horse I miss
[59:06] you but it's really your mom right? You
[59:08] know, there's a there's all the it's
[59:09] it's tricky when you're when you're
[59:11] getting into it, right? Because uh
[59:12] because the tone makes the difference,
[59:14] right? Just realize that uh ju maybe
[59:16] just going through a few things here.
[59:18] The Z in the Z, right? It's like Z is
[59:21] like a a hard. Okay. But these are words
[59:23] that like I sort of encounter in the in
[59:25] in in research, right? So, you know, oh,
[59:29] okay. X, right? You see X, okay? It's
[59:32] like uh it's like an sh, right? So,
[59:36] right something like this. Okay. So,
[59:38] just know like this is how this is how
[59:40] the pronunciation works. Okay. All
[59:41] right. What do I got? All right. Let's
[59:43] start uh let's start talking about
[59:46] China's geography. We got like 20
[59:47] minutes left. Cover the country. Okay.
[59:50] I'm going to start purely for no
[59:53] apparent reason in Sichuan province.
[59:56] Okay. It's just because this is what my
[59:59] PowerPoint told me to do. I I opened it
[01:00:01] up. I was like, "All right, let's we got
[01:00:02] to start somewhere. Let's start over
[01:00:04] there." Okay. You have probably
[01:00:06] encountered Sichuan province before
[01:00:08] because it's actually a pretty famous
[01:00:10] province. It's got like compared to
[01:00:12] other Chinese provinces, it's got a lot
[01:00:14] of international cache in part because
[01:00:16] look at all the Sichuan restaurants all
[01:00:18] over the Cambridge Boston area, right?
[01:00:21] When Chinese food traveled, right?
[01:00:23] Sichuan high was a sort of kind of
[01:00:26] cuisine that just traveled. A lot of
[01:00:29] times the restaurants are not owned or
[01:00:31] operated by people from Sichuan, but
[01:00:34] they just created Sichuan restaurant. I
[01:00:36] don't know why, but it was like there it
[01:00:38] is. You will also sometimes see Sichuan.
[01:00:40] All right, that's again that older
[01:00:42] transliteration system. Same thing. It
[01:00:44] refers to that province. Okay, there it
[01:00:46] is. In western China, Sichuan is famous
[01:00:49] for spicy food. Okay, a lot of parts of
[01:00:52] China today have spicy food to be frank.
[01:00:55] It's also famous for hot pot, right?
[01:00:57] Sichuan is like where hot or chongqing.
[01:01:00] Now I again I'm sort of like biased here
[01:01:04] because I'm a historian of the imperial
[01:01:06] period. I sort of take Chongqing and
[01:01:08] Sichuan together. Culturally they are
[01:01:11] together. They all speak a very similar
[01:01:14] kind of Mandarin dialect. Okay. But
[01:01:16] Chongqing was se was siphoned off from
[01:01:19] Sichuan in the late in the 1990s. Okay.
[01:01:22] And it's now it's sort of its own sort
[01:01:25] of it's a separate political entity
[01:01:27] today. But you can see Chongqing and
[01:01:28] Sichuan culturally they're kind of in
[01:01:30] this. This is Chongqing right here.
[01:01:32] Okay. Right there. Okay. Uh it's also
[01:01:35] home to Oh, let me just say one thing
[01:01:37] about hot pot. The the problem I feel
[01:01:40] about talking about Chinese food today
[01:01:42] is that now China has beencome so
[01:01:46] flattened and in a sense it's a good
[01:01:48] thing. It's it's part of the progress of
[01:01:50] the country. It's part of the wealth of
[01:01:51] the country. But now every place has hot
[01:01:54] pot, right? It's not like, you know,
[01:01:55] you're going to go and you, oh, I got to
[01:01:57] go to Sichuan. I got to go try the hot
[01:01:59] pot. It's like, you're going to get hot
[01:02:00] pot in Kuning and Yunan. You're going to
[01:02:02] get, you're going to get hot pot in
[01:02:03] Beijing, whatever. They have I realize
[01:02:05] they have a Beijing hot pot. It's
[01:02:06] different. I get it. But the point is
[01:02:08] nowadays, if you're in a provincial
[01:02:10] capital, you can pretty much get the
[01:02:12] food of all the other parts of China. It
[01:02:14] might not be good, but they will have
[01:02:17] it. Okay? So, it's like it's like it's
[01:02:19] kind of like Mexican in the US, right?
[01:02:22] Massachusetts has it, right? Like, if
[01:02:24] you want to eat it, they they have it,
[01:02:26] right? Is it as good as Arizona? I don't
[01:02:28] know. But like, you get what I'm saying.
[01:02:30] All right. So, uh it's also home. The
[01:02:33] panda, right? Sichuan's most famous
[01:02:35] export besides the peppercorns. Okay. Uh
[01:02:39] right. And and and the panda, right? We
[01:02:41] talk a lot about the panda. The Just
[01:02:43] realize something about the panda. Just
[01:02:45] realize it is not important in Chinese
[01:02:48] history. Okay? I don't I'm not I'm not
[01:02:51] breaking any hearts here. It's a very
[01:02:53] very lovable vegetarian bear. It fits so
[01:02:57] well with so many of the aesthetics of
[01:03:00] modernity in so many ways, right? Like
[01:03:02] it is sort of friendly vegetarian and a
[01:03:06] bear. How how do you get that
[01:03:08] combination, right? I mean, it's like
[01:03:11] evolution, right? I mean, okay, it is
[01:03:13] actually a bear. Okay, so it is like
[01:03:16] related to like the Russian brown bear
[01:03:18] and all of that stuff. How did this
[01:03:20] happen? Well,
[01:03:22] I don't know how many years ago a bear
[01:03:25] moved to Sichuan and said, "I like it."
[01:03:27] And then just said, "I'm just going to
[01:03:29] eat bamboo all the time." Right? And so,
[01:03:31] like, so basically, you ended up with
[01:03:33] that. Okay. uh the the panda became a
[01:03:37] symbol in actually really the communist
[01:03:41] era because the panda was not associated
[01:03:44] with imperial symbols, right? The dragon
[01:03:48] is an imperial symbol. The tiger is a
[01:03:50] very ancient symbol. The elephant even
[01:03:53] is an ancient symbol. All of these
[01:03:54] things like are fair game. You can see
[01:03:56] them in imperial history. You can see
[01:03:57] them in ancient history. The nobody
[01:03:59] talked about the panda. Nobody was
[01:04:01] impressed by the panda. Okay. But then
[01:04:03] that's why perfect. We're having a
[01:04:05] communist revolution. We're throwing out
[01:04:06] all the old. We got a new animal right
[01:04:08] here. It's the panda. And it worked. You
[01:04:11] just got to say it worked. It was
[01:04:12] incredible marketing. And now it it's
[01:04:14] it's on the World Wildlife Foundations.
[01:04:16] Like it's their emblem, you know? I
[01:04:18] mean, this is like it's the most famous
[01:04:19] bear in the world. Let's face it. Um,
[01:04:21] and then the other thing is with
[01:04:22] Sichuan, you get this great culture of
[01:04:24] tea houses that go back to the 20th
[01:04:26] century. Sichuan also had a great number
[01:04:28] of mafias. It's like we could talk about
[01:04:31] mafias in China. The south was loaded
[01:04:34] with them and they would hang out in the
[01:04:36] tea houses and there was so many
[01:04:38] interesting things that happened there.
[01:04:39] It's got a great lifestyle. The way that
[01:04:41] people talk about life in Sichuan, they
[01:04:42] say it's right. It's like easygoing,
[01:04:45] easy life. There's even this expression
[01:04:48] when you're young, don't go to Sichuan.
[01:04:50] When you're old, don't leave it. Okay?
[01:04:52] There's there's expressions in China for
[01:04:54] like everything that kind of give you
[01:04:56] advice. And this is one of those
[01:04:58] advices, right? So I I didn't listen to
[01:05:00] this expression. I went and you know you
[01:05:03] can see what am I doing now right? So uh
[01:05:05] so it continued. Um one interesting
[01:05:08] thing about Sichuan is that it is a
[01:05:10] basin. It is a geological basin. What
[01:05:14] that means is that it is surrounded on
[01:05:16] basically all mo all sides. To get into
[01:05:21] Sichuan is difficult. To get out, there
[01:05:24] is one really easy way to get out, which
[01:05:26] is through the Yangzi River, but it only
[01:05:28] flows in one direction. So is you can
[01:05:31] send rice out of Sichuan. You can send
[01:05:33] people out of Sichuan, but getting into
[01:05:35] Sichuan is rather difficult. That is
[01:05:38] actually why across Chinese history,
[01:05:40] it's been a place to flee to. So during
[01:05:43] the Tong Dynasty, we're going to have a
[01:05:45] really, really big rebellion called the
[01:05:47] Anlan Rebellion. It's one of the most
[01:05:49] famous devastating civil wars,
[01:05:52] rebellions of Chinese history. The
[01:05:53] emperor will go from Xian, he will go
[01:05:56] from Chan. Don't worry, you you will
[01:05:58] memorize all these places. You will know
[01:05:59] what I'm talking about. And he will flee
[01:06:02] into Sichuan. And actually, this
[01:06:04] actually happened in the 20th century as
[01:06:07] well. Some of you will know this, right?
[01:06:09] Jang Kaishek's government, Jangu's
[01:06:11] government when Japan invaded from the
[01:06:14] east, right? in Nanjing fell the
[01:06:16] government basically had to move to the
[01:06:18] west and it moved to Chongqing which is
[01:06:20] again basically the Sichuan region okay
[01:06:23] so that's where they held out for the
[01:06:25] war more or less so just realize this is
[01:06:28] a big part of the sort of geography uh
[01:06:31] of Sichuan that gives it its interesting
[01:06:33] flavor there's another expression that I
[01:06:34] love here when China has yet to fall
[01:06:36] into chaos Sichuan is the first to fall
[01:06:39] when China has yet to been pacified
[01:06:41] Sichuan has yet to been pacified again
[01:06:42] because it's hard to get too, right? So,
[01:06:45] that gives it a unique culture in a way,
[01:06:47] you know, really interesting. Okay, now
[01:06:49] we continue on with our tour and let's
[01:06:51] go. We're going to go from Sichuan. You
[01:06:53] can see where Sichuan is right here.
[01:06:55] Okay, that's Chongqing. Now, we're going
[01:06:57] to go to the northeast. We're going to
[01:06:59] go to Shyenshi province. Okay, now Shy
[01:07:01] Province is if you love history and you
[01:07:03] take this class, this is the province
[01:07:04] you really got to go to. It's loaded
[01:07:07] with history. You basically cross the
[01:07:09] Chin Mountains down here in the southern
[01:07:11] part of the province and you get right
[01:07:12] up here. the it's called the Guanjong
[01:07:14] region. Don't worry about it. But Xian,
[01:07:16] right, Western Peace, literally or Chong
[01:07:20] An was its older medieval name. That's
[01:07:22] the capital of the province. That tower
[01:07:24] that you see right there, that was built
[01:07:27] a very long time ago. That was built in
[01:07:29] the medieval period. It is not very
[01:07:31] common across China to see towers that
[01:07:34] are that old. It's an incredibly
[01:07:36] impressive piece of architecture. You
[01:07:38] probably know this place because, of
[01:07:39] course, the Terracotta Warriors are
[01:07:41] here. All right. more or less there.
[01:07:44] This is where you would go if you're
[01:07:45] going to go see them and that's
[01:07:46] certainly something to go see. We of
[01:07:48] course will cover them in probably a few
[01:07:51] weeks. Okay, so we will cover all of
[01:07:52] this. Let's talk a little bit about
[01:07:54] local food, right? Again, the caveat
[01:07:58] being nowadays in Xian you can get
[01:08:00] whatever fish you want. You can get hot
[01:08:02] pot, whatever. So again, you know, it's
[01:08:05] all flattened, but there are still local
[01:08:07] tastes and there are still local
[01:08:09] specialties. Northerners in general eat
[01:08:11] wheat. They eat uh you know not not as
[01:08:15] riceheavy. So that it's a noodle eating
[01:08:17] culture. Okay. Most of North China eats
[01:08:20] noodles. And she is famous for it all
[01:08:24] different types of noodles and noodle
[01:08:25] type dishes. This is a salamian a
[01:08:28] chishan salamyan. Right. So salamian is
[01:08:31] it's from a county. It's like a sort of
[01:08:33] it's a very nice it's got like a vinegar
[01:08:35] taste. It's a little spicy. It's a
[01:08:36] noodle dish. This is Does anybody know
[01:08:38] what this is?
[01:08:40] Yeah. Palo Yro palmo, right? This is a
[01:08:43] lamb sort of. You take a like it looks
[01:08:45] like a naan bread and you you you you
[01:08:48] you destroy your hands by cutting it up
[01:08:52] into a million little pieces and then
[01:08:54] they pour like a soup in it with lamb.
[01:08:56] It's delicious. It's super heavy. So
[01:08:59] like when you eat this like you don't
[01:09:00] eat anything else for the rest of the
[01:09:01] day. Okay. Uh so it's it's it's fun.
[01:09:04] It's it's it's it's really good. Now,
[01:09:06] let me just tell you, when you're
[01:09:08] learning Chinese history for the first
[01:09:09] time, you're learning Chinese geography
[01:09:11] for this first time, you will say, "How
[01:09:13] is this true? This is totally not fair."
[01:09:16] The province right next to Shanshi
[01:09:19] Province is called Shansi Province.
[01:09:23] Are you kidding me? Right? Like you say,
[01:09:25] couldn't they couldn't they put it in
[01:09:26] another place? Yeah. Listen, you just
[01:09:28] got to learn it. You just got to learn
[01:09:30] it. In English, this will be
[01:09:32] transliterated. Okay? the one that I was
[01:09:35] talking about, the ancient capital with
[01:09:36] the terracotta warriors and all that
[01:09:38] stuff. Two A's. Okay, there will always
[01:09:41] be two A's. Shi, it's in the third tone.
[01:09:45] Okay, it's another tone. If you come
[01:09:47] over to this one, you go east, it's the
[01:09:50] first tone, one A, right? Shi. Okay, so
[01:09:54] for a Chinese person, these don't sound
[01:09:56] alike. But when you're when you're in
[01:09:58] the US and you're like, okay, what's
[01:09:59] going on? You're like, seriously, I have
[01:10:01] to learn this. Yes, you have to learn
[01:10:03] it. So not the same. Okay, it actually
[01:10:06] will make it easy for the geography quiz
[01:10:08] because you'll know that approximately
[01:10:10] in this area there's a place and you
[01:10:13] it's approximately spelled the same way.
[01:10:15] Okay, Shaji province really great place.
[01:10:17] Lots of interesting stuff, lots of great
[01:10:19] dowist temples, old temples to visit.
[01:10:22] Also noodles, right? Dawian I believe is
[01:10:25] from here. This is like a knife cut
[01:10:27] noodle is famous from this region, you
[01:10:28] know, hanging the hanging temples over
[01:10:31] there. This really fun. Okay, continue
[01:10:33] on.
[01:10:35] Let's go. I think our next one. Let's
[01:10:37] go. It's coming. Okay, Beijing. Okay,
[01:10:39] the imperial capital Beijing. So, if you
[01:10:41] look over here, we went from Sichuan and
[01:10:44] we're going to the northeast. Okay, we
[01:10:47] went through Shanshi. We went through
[01:10:49] Shanchi. I sort of cut through HB. Okay,
[01:10:51] and then now we're here in Beijing. How
[01:10:54] many of you have been to Beijing? You've
[01:10:56] been there. You've been there. You've
[01:10:57] been there. How was it? What do you
[01:10:58] remember? It was kind of smoggy.
[01:11:01] >> It was kind of smoggy.
[01:11:03] >> Okay. What do you remember?
[01:11:08] >> Yeah, the palace is incredible. Yeah.
[01:11:11] What else do I remember? The weather is
[01:11:13] terrible. Look, you just got to you just
[01:11:15] got to say the [snorts] weather. It's
[01:11:17] like hot and then all of a sudden it
[01:11:19] rains and it's like it's not a nice
[01:11:21] rain. It's like a killer rain and it's
[01:11:24] like I don't have an umbrella big enough
[01:11:25] to handle this. And then there's tons of
[01:11:28] traffic. I realized just being there
[01:11:30] this summer, even though like all the
[01:11:31] cars, many cars are now electric and
[01:11:33] there's great public transit everywhere,
[01:11:35] the traffic in Beijing is still really
[01:11:37] bad. So, it's like whenever we were
[01:11:39] like, "Oh, I'll be there in a half
[01:11:40] hour." It's like, "No, just say an
[01:11:41] hour." Okay. It was It's It's really But
[01:11:43] it's loaded with historical sites. It's
[01:11:46] an incredible place. I've been there,
[01:11:47] you know, probably a dozen times in my
[01:11:49] life, you know, over the years. And I've
[01:11:51] You don't see everything, right? You
[01:11:53] could always go back and see something
[01:11:55] new there. So, it's it's really really
[01:11:57] fun. Of course, many people who go to
[01:11:59] see the Great Wall will go to Beijing to
[01:12:02] see it. You actually don't need to be in
[01:12:04] Beijing to see it. There's Great Wall in
[01:12:06] Gansu Province out west. There's Great
[01:12:08] Wall in other provinces, but Beijing has
[01:12:10] the most famous ones. Like the panda,
[01:12:13] just realized that this quote unquote
[01:12:15] Great Wall was oftentimes not very
[01:12:17] important. It was a little bit more
[01:12:19] important than the panda. Okay, it was
[01:12:21] mainly it was important in certain
[01:12:23] periods of time in history and other
[01:12:26] periods of time just nobody cared. Okay,
[01:12:28] it just depended who was like
[01:12:29] controlling Beijing at the time. Okay,
[01:12:30] we'll get into all of this. Okay, but
[01:12:32] just realize I I'll say one thing here.
[01:12:35] I was going to say I have a little video
[01:12:37] here I'll show you about Dongbe. Has
[01:12:39] anybody ever been to Dongbe? You've been
[01:12:42] to Dongay? Why did you go to Dongbe?
[01:12:44] This is northeast China, Manuria. Where
[01:12:46] did you go? Because I I was born there.
[01:12:50] >> Oh, no way. You were born in Gil
[01:12:52] Province. Fantastic. Fantastic. Where
[01:12:54] else you went there?
[01:12:55] >> Uh skiing.
[01:12:56] >> You went skiing? Oh, nice. Okay. Yeah,
[01:12:58] you went to like Halongja.
[01:13:00] >> Yeah. Yeah.
[01:13:01] >> Nice. I I was in Leoning this summer. I
[01:13:04] had a very nice time. Great historical
[01:13:06] place. Uh I was going to say so Dong is
[01:13:09] definitely unique. Uh it's unique in a
[01:13:12] number of ways. So you will see if you
[01:13:13] go up to uh Haleyongjang, one of the
[01:13:16] provinces, you go to Harbin, it's like
[01:13:18] almost in Russia and it does have some
[01:13:20] old sort of Russian architecture that's
[01:13:22] around. It's very interesting to kind of
[01:13:24] see. Uh Manuria is very important in the
[01:13:27] 20th century. You realize that like
[01:13:29] during World War II, it's a big sight of
[01:13:31] contention. Japan sort of sets up a
[01:13:33] puppet government in Manuria. I guess I
[01:13:35] would say what would I say about it?
[01:13:37] Just realize that first of all and I
[01:13:41] this is again one of those things I
[01:13:43] notice over the years that people in
[01:13:45] China today associate people with from
[01:13:48] Dongbe with being very funny with being
[01:13:50] humorous. Okay. And there's all of these
[01:13:53] folks I'll just see if see if my video
[01:13:55] plays. You could you can watch these
[01:13:57] shows on Chinese TV. It's like a
[01:14:01] humorous talk show.
[01:14:05] So, so she's like from Dongbe. She's got
[01:14:08] a Dombbe accent
[01:14:12] >> and and and there's this like there's
[01:14:14] like this kind of humor and I don't know
[01:14:16] exactly how to describe it, but it's
[01:14:18] like people just think Dome people are
[01:14:19] funny. I don't I I I I don't know what
[01:14:22] is there a scientific basis of this. I
[01:14:24] don't know, but just realize that like
[01:14:26] that's what people will say. Okay. So,
[01:14:28] do you think it's true?
[01:14:30] >> Yeah.
[01:14:30] >> You think it's true? You think it's
[01:14:31] true? They're a little bit funnier.
[01:14:32] Like, you know, I don't know. Like, are
[01:14:34] there parts of America where you'd say
[01:14:36] like, "Okay, people from that state are
[01:14:37] just funny." Do we have that?
[01:14:39] >> Where are people funny? I don't think
[01:14:41] Massachusetts people are that funny. I'm
[01:14:42] going to be honest with you. I'm from
[01:14:43] here. Where where are people funny?
[01:14:46] >> I feel like it's more that we know where
[01:14:48] people are. Excuse like jerks.
[01:14:51] >> Okay. See, I see. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
[01:14:53] Okay. Yeah. Yeah. We know where people
[01:14:56] have attitude. Yeah. Yeah. Attitude for
[01:14:58] sure. Yeah. Uh Yeah. you know, you know,
[01:15:01] humor. It's kind of an interesting
[01:15:03] question, right? Like like who's funny,
[01:15:05] who's not, right? But like this is one
[01:15:07] thing just to kind of throw in there,
[01:15:08] right? All right. So, continuing on, we
[01:15:11] don't have a ton of time left. I want to
[01:15:13] take if you go south from Dong Bay, from
[01:15:16] northeastern China in that area all
[01:15:19] around Beijing, basically the south of
[01:15:20] Beijing ma mainly, you get to this north
[01:15:23] China plane and it's flat. This is a
[01:15:25] very very old area. Okay, what I mean by
[01:15:28] that is people have been farming here
[01:15:30] for thousands of years. Very very early
[01:15:32] Chinese history starts, you know, is
[01:15:35] around here in a big big way. And this
[01:15:38] is a fascinating place because on the
[01:15:41] one hand, it's so important. It's near
[01:15:44] at least the capital in the later eras.
[01:15:47] It's also where the Yellow River sort of
[01:15:50] it gets to the North China plane. And
[01:15:53] this is where the Yellow River gets
[01:15:54] really violent because the North China
[01:15:56] plane is flat. So the Yellow River every
[01:16:00] few hundred years changes course across
[01:16:02] the North China plane and you can it's
[01:16:04] devastating floods, crop failures and
[01:16:07] there's chaos. That's in a way one of
[01:16:09] the things you could say this is again a
[01:16:11] generalization. Northerners have a sort
[01:16:14] of like let's say the state has been
[01:16:16] more interventionist in the north,
[01:16:18] right? The state kind of originates in
[01:16:20] the north, right? around in some ways
[01:16:22] the control of the yellow river because
[01:16:24] you have to control it is the south very
[01:16:27] far far away right it's less control
[01:16:30] more lass fair more like oh you know
[01:16:32] tanga right heaven's high the emperor is
[01:16:35] far away right it's a different
[01:16:36] relationship you know that's what's this
[01:16:38] it's sort of this is one of the ways
[01:16:39] that you could think a little bit about
[01:16:41] south north yeah uh confucious is from
[01:16:44] the north China plane right he's from
[01:16:46] Shandong province we'll encounter him in
[01:16:48] a bit a number of the big early
[01:16:50] confusion philosophers ers are from this
[01:16:52] area. Okay. So, it's got like an
[01:16:55] association, you could say, with um with
[01:16:59] with Confucianism and with ancient
[01:17:01] learning and with, you know, again, the
[01:17:03] area around the late imperial capitals
[01:17:05] as I mentioned, but it's also a place
[01:17:07] you could say of in sometimes like
[01:17:09] lawlessness, okay, in rebellions, right,
[01:17:12] that threaten the state. One of those
[01:17:15] big Chinese novels, right? Water margin.
[01:17:18] This is the we've already went over. My
[01:17:20] god, just one class. We went over three
[01:17:21] of the big novels today. Yeah. Uh, this
[01:17:24] takes place, you could say, in this
[01:17:25] area. It's like outlaws, right? So,
[01:17:27] there's it's a very interesting
[01:17:29] location. It's a very interesting place.
[01:17:30] All right, two minutes left. I use it.
[01:17:32] By the way, I always use like all of
[01:17:34] class time. Okay. I just like I just
[01:17:36] keep talking. You know what I mean?
[01:17:37] Like, I just can't shut up about this
[01:17:39] stuff. I apologize, but like I just love
[01:17:41] it. Okay. One really, really, really,
[01:17:44] really, really fascinating thing that's
[01:17:46] important in dynastic Chinese history is
[01:17:48] this thing. North to south the Grand
[01:17:50] Canal. This was like the superighway of
[01:17:53] dynastic China. It is constructed,
[01:17:55] believe it or not, you won't believe
[01:17:56] this, but it's like when I tell you
[01:17:58] this, it's like, well, where is it? Go
[01:18:00] back. Go back, please. Here we go.
[01:18:03] Where's my date? No, it doesn't. There.
[01:18:04] Okay, whatever. I'll just tell you. The
[01:18:06] origins of the Grand Canal go back to
[01:18:08] the seventh century. Okay, so you got
[01:18:11] me. This is one of those things in China
[01:18:13] where you're like, "What? Really? What
[01:18:14] do you mean? You mean like a canal was
[01:18:17] constructed in the seventh century and
[01:18:19] then remained being used until like a
[01:18:22] 100 years ago? Yes. Basically, yes. Uh
[01:18:25] it doesn't it didn't flow in exactly the
[01:18:27] same area. The origins of the Grand
[01:18:29] Canal were actually this southern this
[01:18:31] this one that you see here. It connected
[01:18:33] the Tong Dynasty capital of Lyang with
[01:18:36] the south. Okay. Then in later years it
[01:18:39] got expanded and eventually in the late
[01:18:41] in the later period it basically
[01:18:42] connects Beijing and the South. that
[01:18:45] goes all the way down. You could say
[01:18:46] like to Nanjing, Hjo, that area all the
[01:18:48] way from north. It's like you get on
[01:18:51] there and you and you can go north
[01:18:53] south. It's like you can transport
[01:18:54] grain. The emperor can travel it if he's
[01:18:57] going to the south, right? It's a super
[01:18:59] important way that the empire was
[01:19:02] connected. Today there's highspeed rail.
[01:19:04] At that time there was the Grand Canal.
[01:19:06] Okay, I realize we're out of time. So go
[01:19:11] home, tell your friends. Tell your
[01:19:14] friends, enjoy the weekend. I'll see you
[01:19:15] on Monday. We'll finish up our tour of
[01:19:17] China and continue onward.