Showing papers in "Modern Asian Studies in 2006"
TL;DR: In this paper, the economic performance of independent India in historical perspective to evaluate the past and reflect on the future is discussed, and it is shown that the turning point in economic growth was circa 1951 in the long twentieth century and circa 1980 in India since independence.
Abstract: This paper situates the economic performance of independent India in historical perspective to evaluate the past and reflect on the future. It shows that the turning point in economic growth was circa 1951 in the long twentieth century and circa 1980 in India since independence. Thus, it is not possible to attribute the turnaround in India's performance to economic liberalization beginning 1991. During the period 1950–1980, economic growth in India was respectable, for it was a radical departure from the past and no worse than the performance of most countries. During the period 1980–2005, economic growth in India was impressive, indeed much better than in most countries. The real failure in both these periods was India's inability to transform this growth into well-being for all its people. And India's unfinished journey in development cannot be complete as long as poverty, deprivation and exclusion persist. Even so, with correctives, it should be possible to reach the destination.
45 citations
TL;DR: The Indian labour migration to Burma and Malaya in the late nineteenth century was an important dimension of British colonial rule in Southeast Asia and coincided with the region's greater integration into the international economy.
Abstract: Indian labour migration to Burma and Malaya in the late nineteenth century was an important dimension of British colonial rule in Southeast Asia and coincided with the region's greater integration into the international economy. Compared to the Chinese, Indians formed an important minority only in these states where they filled a critical need in the urban manufacturing sector (Burma) and the plantation sector (Malaya). Their importance declined after World War Two, both in absolute and comparative terms. There were fewer millionaires and traders among them and their emigration to these territories was largely regulated by law. Moreover, the specific political and economic relationship between the Colonial Office in London and these territories determined recruitment patterns and influenced employment relations and working conditions. In turn, these impacted on the living conditions and mortality suffered by workers and shaped the structure of health services.
43 citations
TL;DR: The authors explored new definitions of good mothering among middleclass families in Calcutta and the way early years education, which has become popular over the last two decades has reshaped women's lives as daughters-in-law and mothers of successful future white-collar workers.
Abstract: This article explores new definitions of good mothering among middleclass families in Calcutta and the way early years education, which has become popular over the last two decades has reshaped women's lives as daughters-in-law and mothers of successful future white-collar workers. Through a detailed ethnography of mothers attitudes to preschool education and the parenting practices associated with it the article explores their roles as consumers within a highly competitive local educational landscape, and argues that it is in through preschool education and the related practises that these women actively shape discourses of politics and modernity. 'Once upon a time there was a simple bird. It would sing songs, but could not recite any of the sacred books. It wouldfreely hop andfly about, but it knew nothing of rules or manners. 'Such a bird is useless,' declared the king. 'In fact by eating the fruits of the forest, it damages the royal fruit-market.' Calling his minister, the king commanded: 'Give this bird an education.'
39 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors employed detailed corporate evidence, verifying the inter-penetration of diverse political, bureaucratic and economic institutions to identify the sources of corruption in the Indonesian corporate economy.
Abstract: This paper is concerned with cronyism and corruption in the Indonesian corporate economy. It employs detailed corporate evidence, verifying the inter-penetration of diverse political, bureaucratic and economic institutions. Although the emphasis is on the 1990s, the historical developments since 1950 within the institutions of the presidency, the military, private Chinese and pribumi corporations, as well as state-owned enterprises, are analysed in detail to identify the sources of this corruption. Equally important are the failures of the bureaucracy, the legal infrastructure, in curtailing corruption and introducing effective corporate governance. The relationship of this spiralling corruption to the 1997 financial crisis is clear. The final section is concerned with the reforms introduced after the crisis. This section also appraises the differences in corporate structures and networks between Western companies and the Indonesian conglomerates, identifying the need for institutional change.
38 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors situate Anglo-Indian gifts within a spectrum of emotionally charged exchange mechanisms through which material goods and objects circulated in British India, including public auctions, commissions, and bequests.
Abstract: This paper situates Anglo-Indian gifts within a spectrum of
emotionally-charged exchange mechanisms through which material
objects circulated in British India. At one end of this spectrum was the
market, perhaps best exemplified by the public auctions at which the
personal possessions of deceased Anglo-Indians were sold to any buyer
who could pay the purchase price set at probate. At the other end
of the spectrum of exchange were gifts, commissions and bequests,
forms of exchange that offered the British colonial elite mechanisms
for combating the powerful centrifugal forces that operated within
Anglo-Indian families—most notably disease, death and distance.
38 citations
TL;DR: In the post-disaster reconstruction period, the government was quick to capitalise on this catastrophe as discussed by the authors, and the devastation of Tokyo as a result of the Great Kanto Earthquake presented a significant opportunity to reorder Japanese society both on a physical and psychological level.
Abstract: Sudden onset natural disasters such as earthquakes are absolute physical and psychological levellers which spare no one from the event itself or the aftermath. The resulting physical devastation of a city and the psychological weakening of a population, however, also present opportunities. The opportunity to reorder society is unparalleled by any other historical event except perhaps war and with increasing regularity throughout much of the twentieth century, nation states have used disasters as a pretext to secure long held political goals. In September 1923, the devastation of Tokyo as a result of the Great Kanto Earthquake presented a significant opportunity to reorder Japanese society both on a physical and psychological level. In the post-disaster reconstruction period, the government was quick to capitalise on this catastrophe.
37 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine issues pertaining to the growth of informal economic exchanges and relationships of patronage in the Tibetan refugee community of Dharamsala (H-P), India.
Abstract: This article examines issues pertaining to the growth of ‘informal’ economic exchanges and relationships of patronage in the Tibetan refugee community of Dharamsala (H-P), India. I firstly review the theoretical and methodological challenges posed by investigations of Tibetan refugee modernity, then focus on one particular form of exchange in the informal economy of exiles: rogs ram, or the sponsorship of Tibetans by foreigners. The article argues that symbolic capital comes to play a particularly important role in communities where economic capital is scarce, acting in fact as a proviso to economic capital. The highly unstable character of symbolic capital means that, for Tibetan refugees as for other communities, its conversion into economic capital is arduous and engenders a tense field of negotiations between sponsors and beneficiaries.
37 citations
TL;DR: Shinpei et al. as discussed by the authors cabled Viscount Goto Shinpei, former mayor of Tokyo (1920-1923) and current Home Minister to his long-time friend and Director of the New York Bureau of Municipal Research, Charles A Beard six days earlier, on 1 September 1923, an earthquake with an estimated magnitude between 79 and 82 devastated much of Tokyo and the surrounding Kanto region.
Abstract: ‘Earthquake and fire destroyed the greater part of Tokyo Thoroughgoing reconstruction needed Please come immediately if possible, even if for a short stay’ So cabled Viscount Goto Shinpei, former mayor of Tokyo (1920–1923) and current Home Minister to his long-time friend and Director of the New York Bureau of Municipal Research, Charles A Beard Six days earlier, on 1 September 1923, an earthquake with an estimated magnitude between 79 and 82 devastated much of Tokyo and the surrounding Kanto region The quake and the resulting fires, conflagrations that burned for over two days, destroyed nearly 70% of all structures in Tokyo, inflicted damage with a monetary cost upwards of 55 billion yen, killed more than 120,000 citizens, and rendered just over 15 million people homeless: it was an urban catastrophe surpassed in scope only by the devastation wrought by aerial bombing during the Second World War The Kanto Daishinsai was Japan's most deadly, economically costly, and physically destructive natural catastrophe in history Within a world history context moreover, the 1923 earthquake was one of the most devastating and disruptive natural disasters of the 20th century, yet it is also one of the least studied
34 citations
Abstract: The history of the disputed Paracel and Spratly Islands in the period 1930–56 will be analysed here within a context of regional political and strategic developments. The focus will be on how French and British authorities estimated the economic and strategic value of the two island groups in various periods. The Paracels and Spratlys are studied the way one would examine the pawns in a game of chess. In themselves they are unimportant, but in certain situations they gain significance, and mediocre players may pay inordinate attention to their protection. There is also the faint possibility that a pawn can be changed into a queen, for instance if oil is discovered. In order to understand the constellations that push simple pawns into the limelight, they must be seen in relation to the general balance of forces on the chessboard, and the strategies of all players.
27 citations
TL;DR: The Great Nōbi earthquake of 1891 was the first Daishinsai of the Meiji era, and the strongest earthquake to visit central Japan in 37 years as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: On October 28, 1891, one of the most powerful earthquakes in modern Japanese history rocked the main island of Honshu from Tokyo to Osaka. Centered on the populous Nōbi Plain north of Nagoya, this was the first daishinsai (‘great earthquake disaster’) of the Meiji era, and the strongest to visit central Japan in 37 years. The Great Nōbi Earthquake killed only 7–8,000 people (compared to the over 100,000 destined to die in the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923), mostly inhabitants of towns and villages in Nagoya's hinterland. But its breadth and power were unprecedented in the memories of most Japanese, and the event became the subject of many dozens of books, newspaper and journal articles, paintings and woodblock prints, and even images on fans, plates, and lampshades. This was Japan's first truly national natural catastrophe. It was national in the sense that it was deemed by many of its narrators to have affected the new nation-state directly, and a nationalizing discourse of alarm, regret, recrimination, sympathy, and even patriotism was generated around it by a newly-consolidating modern print media.
27 citations
TL;DR: Li et al. as discussed by the authors argued that central and local actors have differentiated roles to play in decision-making, and proposed a non-dualistic approach to power in Chinese central-local politics.
Abstract: How decisions and policies are made and implemented? This classical question in political science has attracted a considerable literature amongst observers of realpolitik in China, with its continental size, 1.3 billion population and five layers of government. Mirroring the move away from the traditional dualism of ‘top-down’ versus ‘bottom-up’ approaches in the general implementation literature, recent literature on Chinese central–local politics emphasizes the co-participation of central and local actors in decision-making and the dialectical interactive relationship between central and local power. Goodman recognizes, for instance, that central and local actors have differentiated roles to play in decision-making. Li makes the case of interactive central–local power, calling for a reconceptualization of central-local relations in a non-zero-sum schema. Recent studies on the ‘Open Up the West’ national policy augment the claim for ‘disaggregating’ China, and the relevance of the provincial, regional and local as levels and foci of analysis. Against the traditional emphasis over central predominance versus provincial power, this body of literature, adopting a ‘non-dualistic’ approach to power, highlights the co-existence of central and local power in a diffuse, complex decision-making process.
TL;DR: The "Bystander's view" (juwai pangguan lun) as mentioned in this paper is a long memorandum written by a 30-year-old inspector general of the Imperial Maritime Customs Service (IMC) to his supervisors in the Zongli Yamen, the Qing Empire's new foreign office.
Abstract: On 6 November 1865, Robert Hart, the 30-year-old Inspector General (I.G.) of the Imperial Maritime Customs Service, presented to his supervisors in the Zongli Yamen, the Qing Empire's new foreign office, a long memorandum critiquing Chinese administrative practices and offering suggestions for improvement. He criticized corruption and inefficiency at all levels of government, called for tax reform, greater specialization and better technical education of officials, improving contacts with the outside world, and promoting foreign methods and technology. The memorandum, written in Chinese, was entitled the ‘Bystander's View’ (juwai pangguan lun). A few months later it was submitted by the Zongli Yamen to the throne, and together with a similar tract by British diplomat Thomas Wade, distributed to senior Qing officials for comment. It had little impact at the time. But forty years later, when the Empress Dowager Cixi reportedly told the author that she wished she had followed his advice, it became a foundation stone of the mythology of Robert Hart, a symbol of the failure of the Qing court to take full advantage of the Portadown native's wisdom. Hart's premise, encapsulated in the title, was that as an outsider to the Qing system he could see problems that insiders could not. ‘The true face of Mount Lu can only be seen in its entirety by one who stands away from it.’ But the memorandum, for all of its notoriety, was uncharacteristic of Hart.
TL;DR: The idea of the separation of inferior spaces from normative ones is seen in this article as a key trope for interpreting modern Indian history, and the concept of "provincialism" is used as a metaphor for Indian culture.
Abstract: 'Provincialism', or the separation of inferior spaces from normative ones, is seen in this essay as a key trope for interpreting modern Indian history.' Provincialism, or provinciality, is a space recognizable instantly. It is marked by slowness, by absence of the new and recent, by what is seen on the national level as a brake-effect in an otherwise promising march forwards. Cities, which is what I concentrate on in this essay, are characterizable as provincial by a certain appearance: a topography of narrow streets, by the sloppy merger of the inside and outside, by an absence of discrimination between the jungle and the civilized as animal life proliferates on the roads. Their space is marked by a lack of discipline, and this lack is further exacerbated by an attitude almost aggressive, at any rate stubborn, that seems to embrace every other dimension of life. The provincial citizen is one whose body identifies with the provincial space. It revels in an indifference to the rules of obedience to arbitrary external exercises of power. The provincial space and its citizen are marked in the use of languages by the dominance of regional language over English. Overall, the provincial space is signified in the state as an obstacle, political, economic, and most of all cultural, to what could otherwise 1I would like to thank the American Institute for Indian Studies for funding the research, and Brandeis University for the Madeleine Haas Russell Professorship in Non-Western Studies for the opportunity for writing, on this topic. Much of the central interpretive inspiration for the paper comes from the ideas of Som Majumdar, who made the pain of alternative narratives explicit in his discussion and work. Also responsible is Sanjay Srivastava who gave me a glimpse of what I wanted to say through a chance remark that Lucknow-ites were behind Delhi-ites in that they had not 'cottoned on' to the value of a metropolitan rather than a provincial education. Thanks to both these astute ethnographers who may well be impatient with the rest
TL;DR: Hong Kong had rarely figured in Mainland Chinese scholarship as mentioned in this paper, and only one university in all of China had a research institute dedicated primarily to studying Hong Kong, which was a kind of bureaucratic no-man's land.
Abstract: In July 1997, when Hong Kong reverted to Chinese sovereignty, this former British colony became a new kind of place: a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the People's Republic of China (PRC). In the several years leading up to the 1997 transition, a sudden outpouring of Mainland Chinese scholarship stressed how Hong Kong had been an inalienable part of China since ancient times.2 Until then, however, Hong Kong had rarely figured in Mainland Chinese scholarship. Indeed, Hong Kong suffered from what Michael Yahuda has called a "peculiar neglect": administered by the British but claimed by China, it was "a kind of bureaucratic no-man's land."3 Only one university in all of China had a research institute dedicated primarily to studying Hong Kong. As part of this new "Hong Kong studies" (Xianggangxue), in 1997 China's national television studio produced two multi-episodic documentaries on Hong Kong: "One Hundred Years of Hong Kong" (Xianggang bainian) and "Hong Kong Vicissitudes" (Xianggang cangsang). The studio also produced two shorter documentaries, "One Hundred Points about Hong Kong" (Xianggang baiti) and "The Story of Hong Kong" (Xianggang de gushi). The "Fragrant Harbor" that PRC historians had generally dismissed as an embarrassing anachronism in a predominantly
TL;DR: For example, this article argued that the CMCS was the institution most thoroughly representative of the whole period after the opening of the treaty ports down to 1943, and argued that it was the central core of the system.
Abstract: For John King Fairbank the establishment of the foreign inspectorate of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service was a key symbolic moment in modern Chinese history His landmark 1953 volume Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast culminates with the 1854 Inspectorate agreement,which,heargued,‘foreshadowedtheeventualcompromise between China and the West—a joint Chinese and Western administration of the modern centers of Chinese life and trade in the treaty ports’ Without the CMCS, he implied, there could be no modern China It was the ‘the institution most thoroughly representative of the whole period’ after the opening of the treaty ports down to 1943, he wrote 2 By 1986 he was arguing that it was the ‘central core’ of the system ‘Modernity, however defined, was a Western, not a Chinese, invention’, he claimed, and Sir Robert Hart’s Customs Service was its mediator 3 Sino-Western administration in the treaty port world—‘synarchy’ as Fairbank dubbed it—became a key strand in Western historical writing about modern China and its foreign relations Fairbank and others located it in a long tradition of joint administration practised by successive rulers of China Younger, politically radical scholars such as Joseph Esherick in the late1960s argued that the idea of synarchyobscuredtherealityofaWesternassaultonChina,offoreign
TL;DR: This paper reconstructed Hart's activities during the Boxer Rebellion based on a recently discovered file in the archives of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service held at the Second Historical Archives in Nanjing, which contains more than one hundred exchanges between Hart and Qing officials written after the end of the Siege of the Legations.
Abstract: This article focuses on Robert Hart during the Boxer Rebellion. My reconstruction of his activities is based on a recently discovered file in the archives of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service held at the Second Historical Archives in Nanjing. While it has long been known that Hart corresponded with Qing officials during the Siege itself and while a few letters have been published, the file contains more than one hundred exchanges between Hart and Qing officials written after the end of the Siege of the Legations. I have further relied on a box of documents dealing with the Boxer Rebellion in the Hart Manuscript Collection at the Queen's University of Belfast, including Hart's notes on his meetings with Qing officials. These materials provide insight into the way Hart was able to persuade the Qing and foreign countries to begin negotiations and illustrate the critical role he played in fashioning the Boxer Protocol signed on 7 September 1901.
TL;DR: In the early 1890s, Hart was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Statistical Society of London as mentioned in this paper and became the Inspector General of the Maritime Customs Service, a position that bore general responsibility for its publications and involved himself deeply in its statistical projects.
Abstract: In 1890 Robert Hart was elected Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. Hart had sent copies of the statistical publications of the Maritime Customs Service regularly to the Society, but he himself was no statistician. He did publish one piece in the Journal of the Statistical Society of London, but this was no more than an extract of a conclusion Hart wrote to reports written by the Commissioners at China's Treaty Ports on local opium consumption. But Hart, as Inspector General of the Maritime Customs Service, bore general responsibility for its publications and involved himself deeply in its statistical projects. H. B. Morse, who would serve as Statistical Secretary, wrote: ‘while weak in the fiscal and economic field, he was a marvel in organisation and the direction of the work of others’. Within the Customs Service, it was the Statistical Secretary who had immediate responsibility for the statistical publications of the Customs. He was stationed in Shanghai, China's busiest port, rather than Beijing, where the Inspectorate had its offices close to the Zongli Yamen, the Qing agency overseeing China's relations with Western countries.
TL;DR: In 2003, a group of scholars from China, Europe and the USA gathered at Queen's University Belfast to attend an exhibition and then to present and discuss papers on the career in China of Robert Hart as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: In September 2003, academics from China, Europe and the USA gathered at Queen's University Belfast. They came first to attend an exhibition and then to present and discuss papers on the career in China of Robert Hart. Largely forgotten in Britain and even Northern Ireland, although not in the academic field of Chinese Studies, Robert Hart was born in County Armagh and studied at Queen's before travelling to Hong Kong in 1854 as a young recruit to the British Consular Service for China and Japan. He soon found himself despatched to the British consulate at Ningbo to study consular procedures and learn Chinese with the aid of a Chinese tutor and one of the Confucian classics, the Mencius. At this time, much of south China was engulfed by the Taiping Rebellion, which was inspired by Christianity.
TL;DR: As Inspector General of the Maritime Customs Service, Robert Hart (1835-1911), born in County Armagh in Ireland, was a chief fiscal administrator of the Chinese Empire.
Abstract: As Inspector General of the Maritime Customs Service, Robert Hart (1835–1911), born in County Armagh in Ireland, was a chief fiscal administrator of the Chinese Empire. Hart was a British citizen, yet he was employed by the Chinese government and was responsible for hundreds of Western (mostly British) and thousands of Chinese employees. His ability to straddle cultures has been noted by the historians Bruner, Fairbank and Smith who refer to a trait of cultural sensitivity that was unusual among the merchants of the treaty ports in China. The source of this cultural sensitivity is of interest and some insights can be gleaned from his Irish origins. The employment under Hart of many persons from Ireland, family and others, in the Chinese Maritime Customs (CMC) has also raised questions about nepotism and favouritism. We will see that Hart did not only favour his family but was generally well disposed to long-standing acquaintances, whether they were Irish or not. Furthermore, his Irish contacts in both Ireland and China were of advantage to him in his career and his attainment of higher social status. Our examination of Hart's network of Irish contacts and his ideas about Ireland also reveal his multi-national identity. This seemed to allow Hart to be both pro-British while also retaining a critical perspective, as might be expected by someone who by place of birth, social class and religion was not from the heart of the English establishment.
TL;DR: Asad as mentioned in this paper argued that the languages of Third World societies are weaker in relation to Western languages (and today, especially to English), they are more likely to submit to forcible transformation in the translation process than the other way around.
Abstract: It is as if bombings have become a trend in Indonesian society. Tempo Interaktif, 25 December 2000. To put it crudely: because the languages of Third World societies – including, of course, the societies that social anthropologists have traditionally studied – are ‘weaker’ in relation to Western languages (and today, especially to English), they are more likely to submit to forcible transformation in the translation process than the other way around. Talal Asad (1986: 157–8)
TL;DR: For example, Morrison as mentioned in this paper pointed out that an imperial policy is essentially a commercial policy, and that the way we have swindled the Chinese in the case of the Pekin Syndicate and the Chinese Engineering and Mining Company was worse than that of the British Empire.
Abstract: ‘An imperial policy is essentially a commercial policy’(Charles Addis, 1905)‘Look at the way we have swindled the Chinese in the case of the Pekin Syndicate and still worse in the case of the Chinese Engineering and Mining Company’(G.E. Morrison, 1906)
TL;DR: The role of people's agency in the reshaping of caste in contemporary rural Orissa has been discussed in this paper, where the authors argue that it is the aggregate efforts of different groups of people in local situations to constantly redefine the form and meaning of caste that maintains its relevance.
Abstract: Caste in contemporary Indian society has often been seen as a remainder of waning tradition. Advent of egalitarian liberalism and/or capitalism is taken to be the force of change which is destroying or restricting the relevance of caste in contemporary society. Against such a view, this paper will argue that caste remains an important frame of reference for defining people's identity especially in rural society. In particular, I would like to discuss the role of people's agency in the reshaping of caste in contemporary rural Orissa. It is the aggregate efforts of different groups of people in local situations to constantly redefine the form and meaning of caste that maintains its relevance. I feel this aspect has been neglected in many previous theories, which have tended to consider caste concerns merely in terms of the presence or absence of ‘hierarchy’ or in terms of ‘substantialized’ group formations.
TL;DR: In the previous chapter we saw how Gandhi is at pains to articulate his own vulnerability as a human being, both sexually and emotionally as mentioned in this paper, which is an important strategy for winning the trust of his readers and interlocutors.
Abstract: In the previous chapter we saw how Gandhi is at pains to articulate his own vulnerability as a human being, both sexually and emotionally. Given the importance of dialogue in Gandhi’s work as a whole, especially evident in the form of Hind Swaraj, the foregrounding of vulnerability is an important strategy for winning the trust of his readers and interlocutors. As one eminent political philosopher has argued, it is only through the mutual and reciprocal recognition of vulnerability that dialogue can be secured by rooting it in a radically honest sense of inwardness.1 In this sense, Gandhi’s foregrounding of vulnerability is a key strategy for securing interpersonal communication through a mutually shared acknowledgement of what Matustik has called being shaken and wounded.2 Gandhi’s self-confessed vulnerability extends to his openness about his ignorance in crucial matters. He suggests that it is because he makes no attempt to disguise his ignorance from his pupils that he ‘never lost their love and respect’. In terms which recall his invocation of radical honesty as the structuring motif of An Autobiography as a whole, he claims that ‘In all respects I showed myself to them exactly as I really was.’3 In this sense, ignorance and vulnerability are not just the condition and medium of self-revelation in An Autobiography, but are the enabling conditions for his autobiographical project.
TL;DR: A long, well-established practice of publishing books to commemorate events and personages has been established in Thailand as discussed by the authors, which includes volumes commemorating deceased persons which are distributed to participants at cremation ceremonies.
Abstract: Thailand has a long, well-established practice of publishing books to commemorate events and personages. Among these are volumes commemorating deceased persons which are distributed to participants at cremation ceremonies. They contain obituaries written by the deceased's superiors, peers, and subordinates as well as relatives. Commemorative books are also published by government agencies, private companies, schools and individuals. While most are published in the Thai language, Chinese communities in Thailand also produce a large number of such books in Chinese. There has been no slackening of the practice; rather the publication of commemorative books has been gaining strength over the past decades.
TL;DR: Mei Niang as discussed by the authors was one of the most celebrated Chinese women writers of the twentieth century, who achieved great fame in Japanese-occupied territories, only to have their achievements tempered by condemnation of the environments in which they forged their early careers.
Abstract: From 1939 to 1941, Mei Niang (b. 1920) penned three of her most famous novellas, Bang ( Clam )(1939), Yu ( Fish )(1941), and Xie ( Crabs )(1941). Each of these works sheds light on the struggle of Chinese feminists in Japanese-occupied north China to realize ideals that stood in stark contrast to the conservative constructs of ‘good wives, wise mothers’ ( xianqi liangmu ) favoured by colonial officials. The contemporary appeal of Mei Niang's work is attested to by a catch-phrase, coined in 1942, that linked her with one of the most celebrated Chinese women writers of the twentieth century, Zhang Ailing (1920–1995): ‘the south has Zhang Ailing, the north has Mei Niang’ ( Nan Ling, Bei Mei ). Both women attained great fame in Japanese-occupied territories, only to have their achievements tempered by condemnation of the environments in which they forged their early careers. The Chinese civil war that followed the collapse of the Japanese empire propelled the two writers along divergent trajectories: Zhang Ailing moved to Hong Kong and the United States, where she achieved iconic status, while Mei Niang remained in the People's Republic of China, to be vilified. As one of the pre-eminent ‘writers of the enemy occupation’ ( lunxian zuojia ), Mei Niang was persecuted by a Maoist regime (1949–1976) dedicated to the refutation of the Japanese colonial order in its entirety.
TL;DR: In this paper, it was shown that between 40 and 50 percent of the military contribution is derived from the sale of opium. But they did not say anything about the Imperial Government thus drawing any revenue from what it is committed to regard as a tainted source.
Abstract: Already between 40 and 50 percent of the military contribution is derived from the sale of opium. I say nothing about the Imperial Government thus drawing any revenue from what it is committed to regard as a tainted source.
TL;DR: The first financial and contradictory consequences of the post-Boxer period was Sir Robert Hart's successful arrangement with the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation of a loan of Ts10,000 a month for the chief Chinese negotiator, Prince Ch'ing [I-K'uang], on the one hand, while in Shansi the Protestant Church refused to accept any indemnity for the Christian lives lost.
Abstract: There was nothing unusual in an indemnity per se. Indeed, an indemnity could be seen as a forward step in European civilization, replacing the regime of indiscriminate plunder which preceded it—although it could equally be argued that in their pacification of north China following the razing of the Siege of the Legations in 1900 the Allies, through their looting of the Tientsin and Peking areas in disregard of recently agreed definitions, had acquired both indemnity and plunder. Indeed the chaos was such that among the first financial and contradictory consequences of the post-Boxer period was Sir Robert Hart's successful arrangement with the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation of a loan of Ts10,000 a month for the chief Chinese negotiator, Prince Ch'ing [I-K'uang], on the one hand, while in Shansi the Protestant Church refused to accept any indemnity for the Christian lives lost; consequently the authorities voluntarily agreed to establish a University on Western lines, to be maintained by the authorities, and to operate under joint control for ten years at the annual cost of Ts 50,000.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyse the joint family system, with its particular gendered spaces and hierarchies of power, exploring how these dictate and limit the interaction of its members, and pattern the relationships formed within them.
Abstract: The division of domestic space within South Asian households is indicative, and even reflective, of the social status of South Asian women. This article argues the dependence of South Asian women's positionality upon their position within the confines of the home, making a case for the correlation between women's domestic roles and their (self and social) identities. Through an analysis of the contemporary literature written by South Asian women, this article will analyse the joint family system, with its particular gendered spaces and hierarchies of power, exploring how these dictate and limit the interaction of its members, and pattern the relationships formed within them. The positionality of second wives will also be investigated, to trace exactly how the newcomers establish themselves in relatively hostile environments. The body language of the women will be paid particularly close attention, as much of what is being investigated is often not directly verbalised. This article also examines how the private spaces of home can be both sanctuary and prison for South Asian women. It will be seen that for South Asian women, not only their identities, but their survival, may be dependent on their successful staking out of positions within their domestic territories.
TL;DR: The Blechynden family history is studied in this article, with particular reference to ideas of individuality and race, and a discussion on the construction of British imperial identity outside Britain and in the context of the formation of empire.
Abstract: The voluminous Blechynden diaries, in the British Library, offer incomparable opportunities for studying (among other things) domestic life among middle-level British residents of Calcutta around the start of the nineteenth century. This paper is concerned with a small part of the history of the Blechynden household, focusing on Arthur Blechynden, son of Richard and his successor as superintendent of roads. Richard's diary runs to more than 70 volumes and Arthur's to seven. These sources permit none of the structural analysis that was made the basis of family history by Peter Laslett and others; but they touch several points of the richer canvas painted by Laurence Stone, and those genres that are concerned with individual lives, with emotion, with relationships, and with identity, the kinds of subject approached by the contributors to Roy Porter's collection Rewriting the Self . In this paper some of these issues will be taken up, with particular reference to ideas of individuality and of race. That discussion will then lead on to another, on the construction of British imperial identity outside Britain and in the context of the formation of empire, an aspect that seems worthy of more attention than it has received.
TL;DR: In this paper, an analysis of the intense and enduring Maoist interest in and discussion on cosmology, and their relationship with the Cultural Revolution is presented, where the author seeks to approach the question through a different angle: an analysis on the question of why Mao and Maoist ideologists went such an extreme in seeking their political goals, and how they would justify the chaos and disasters the Chinese society suffered from 1966 to 1976.
Abstract: The Cultural Revolution has reached its fortieth anniversary (19662oo6), but many questions about it remain unanswered or the answers themselves are controversial. Among the questions, why Mao and Maoist ideologists went such an extreme in seeking their political goals, and how they would justify the chaos and disasters the Chinese society suffered from 1966 to 1976, are perhaps the most fundamental one. To answer this question, Mao and China scholars have provided interpretations from political, economic, social, and cultural perspectives. This article seeks to approach the question through a different angle: an analysis of the intense and enduring Maoist interest in and discussion on cosmology, and their relationship with the Cultural Revolution. Maoist cosmological discourse held that within an infinite time/space continuum, everything in the universe incessantly develops contradictions from within and constantly engages in dialectical transformations between oppositions. Mao himself and Maoist ideologists drew deeply on this thesis when they responded to the scientific findings and theories that had cosmological implications, whether matter is divisible or the universe has a limit in particular. The cosmological sciences involved in the discussion are physical ones, largely consisting of elementary particles, Einstein's relativity theory, and astrophysics. They are all concerned about the human quest into basic order of the universe, as the word "cosmos" originally meant in Greek. Mao's personal influence dominated much of the discussion in terms of themes and