The Context

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Eggshell Pottery: Turning Dust into Glory May 04, 2022

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Polished black pottery is the trademark pottery ware of the Longshan culture, which differs from the previous colored pottery of the Neolithic Yangshao culture from 5,000 to 3,000 BCE. It has also learnt its name – Black Pottery Culture – as an alternative to Longshan as an identifier.
The eggshell pottery items they produced are exquisite, dark and bright in appearance, with slender stems and handles. The pottery is highly polished and thin-walled, like an eggshell. The average thickness of an eggshell is 0.5 millimeters, the size of a syringe needle opening. The thinnest part of the black pottery cup is only 0.2 millimeters, which is more than half as thin as an eggshell or the opening.
It can be argued that pottery is the earliest use of chemistry and a milestone for human society. It is reasonable to speculate that the appearance of ceramics as a practical vessel was connected with another significant achievement of human civilization – the agricultural revolution.

Frozen in Time: Ancient Winter Games Mar 08, 2022

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From ancient hunters hitting the slopes to skating soldiers and alcohol-fueled sledding sessions, China’s north has hosted centuries of snow and ice sport.
Today, skating, skiing and ice sledding are not only popular in China’s cold north, but across the country. The modern Olympics has taken inspiration from depictions of the Qing Dynasty ice games for the design of the central garden of the Olympic and Paralympic villages in Beijing, bringing the ancient right up to date.

Cash or Crash: Inflation in Ancient China Jan 26, 2022

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Today we discuss how unfettered imperial seigniorage broke economies and even dynasties in ancient China
Inflation is a big concern for consumers and policymakers in major economies today. In the US, the consumer price index rose by 6.8 percent in 2021, the highest in nearly 40 years. In China, although the consumer price index, an indicator of inflation, only saw a mild increase of 0.9 percent in 2021, the producer price index rose by 8.1 percent. This rising cost of manufacturers may get passed on to end consumers in the future.
Many cases of severe inflation tax could be found throughout Chinese history.
why did ancient Chinese emperors keep using devaluation if it created more problems than it solved? In ancient China, copper was the main material for minting. China was rich in the metal, so there were no shortages to constrain government creation of inflation. By contrast, in many other countries, rare gold and silver were used for coins, which put natural limitations on the government’s minting activities.
So why did China choose to mint with copper, rather than gold or silver in the first place?

Coal and Petroleum: Vital Resources Long Ago Dec 23, 2021

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We are once again reminded of the great importance and value of coal, petroleum and electricity by the recent energy shortage. Just like the air, they seem invisible and therefore neglected, but they have been an indispensable part of our daily life since ancient times.
In the country with the world’s largest coal reserves, it is thought that people started using coal over 7,000 years ago in China. It was the use of coal that changed Chinese history. Besides smelting, it burns at the high temperatures needed to make porcelain, in the 6th century it started to fuel China’s path toward becoming "the country of porcelain."
Wedgwood, the manufacturer of fine china, luxury porcelain and accessories in the English city of Stoke on Trent, might not be what it is today without Josiah Wedgwood’s cooperation with James Watt by introducing the Watt steam engine to his family business, thus starting a new era of industrialization in the of porcelain business, and enabling Europe to break the Chinese monopoly in this area with the help of technology.
The earliest recorded case of vapor from petroleum burning on a lake surface was more than 3,000 years ago. In the Song dynasty (around 1,000 years ago), petroleum was used as the raw material for making attacking weapons, produced by specially founded workshops. China also invented probably the world’s earliest flame throwers to equip the army.
The use of petroleum was recorded in detail in two technological encyclopedia works a few hundred years ago. In May 2021, the two ancient Chinese scientists who wrote the works were among the eight Chinese names approved by the International Astronomical Union to have lunar geological features named after them around the area where China’s moon lander the Chang’e-5 touched down in 2020.

Trade in Ancient China: Foreign Moguls and Maligned Merchants Nov 25, 2021

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According to the General Administration of Customs of China, the private sector in China posted 28 percent of year-on-year growth of foreign-trade in the first 10 months of 2021, generating 48.3 percent of China’s total imports and exports. Its growth rate and share both outperformed those of foreign funded enterprises and State-owned enterprises. In 2019, China’s private companies contributed more to foreign trade than foreign-funded businesses for the first time. From 2000 to 2018, more than 49 percent of China’s foreign trade was made by foreign-funded businesses in China, according to China’s Ministry of Commerce.
In our previous podcast on November 10, we talked about how business people were discriminated against in ancient China. In contrast, foreign merchants were very active in ancient China. This was particularly true for foreign trade.

Roots of Chinese Identity: Shanxi Nov 17, 2021

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The torrential rainfall in early October in Shanxi Province put the spotlight on the less-developed region in China’s northwest.People rediscovered Shanxi. An important outcome was the realization that Shanxi is home to so many precious ancient buildings and many are not under national or provincial protection. Those with no or insufficient protection are at risk of collapse.

The historical value of Shanxi is not only embedded in the ancient buildings on its land. It takes another intangible rediscovery to understand the unique role that Shanxi played in defining Chinese culture for 5,000 years. It is among the birthplaces of Chinese culture, and a land where different cultures mingled.
According to some ancient Chinese books, the three legendary leaders of the major tribal alliances, Yao, Shun and Yu the Great, were all based in today’s Shanxi.
Thanks to its special geographic position, Shanxi is the land where the cultures of northern ethnic groups and the zhongyuan mingled through contacts and conflicts in history.
In 325 BCE, 15-year-old King Wuling ascended the Zhao throne. His kingdom was struggling under attacks from other powers and northern ethnic nomads. Fourteen years later, King Wuling learned from the northern ethnic nomads how to build a powerful army. He ordered his people to wear similar clothes to the northern ethnic groups with short sleeves, long pants and leather boots. These clothes were much better on battlefields than the wide robes with long sleeves that zhongyuan people wore. Zhao dignitaries resisted the policy, especially the king’s uncle, who resented absorbing lessons from their enemies. The king visited his uncle and persuaded him. The change was successful, and the Zhao got stronger.
More than 800 years later, an ethnic leader issued the opposite order. In the late fifth century, Tuoba Hong（, known as Emperor Xiaowen of the Xianbei ethnic regime of the Northern Wei (386-534) ordered everyone in his kingdom to wear Han clothes.

Business People: From a Lost Kingdom Nov 10, 2021

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Since the end of 2020, some Chinese companies have been involved in a series of high-profile cases involving breaches of regulations. The public attitude toward these tech giants has also changed in the past two years.
All this contrasts with the image of business people for more than four decades since China adopted its reform and opening-up policy in the late 1970s. Going into business was a very popular choice for a majority of the people. In the 1990s, many civil servants quit to go into business.
This was probably the most glorious period for Chinese business people. For thousands of years in ancient China, a businessman, no matter how rich, faced discrimination.

Old Takes on Giving: Charity in Ancient China Nov 02, 2021

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A world where the widowed, disabled and anyone in need are all cared for was an ideal envisioned by Confucian scholars during the Warring States period from the fifth to third century BCE. Their writings make up the earliest recorded ideas about charity in China’s history. Government-sponsored charity mainly included disaster relief. This falls far short of modern Western charity, a virtue that has roots in Christian ethics.
Buddhist temples provided alms to the poor. This marked the beginning of non-governmental charity in China, including poverty and disaster relief, health care and other programs. Individuals played a greater role in charity through donations to temples as Buddhism promoted the idea of karmic behavior.
After Buddhist charities declined, big family clans took up the cause. During the boom of Neo-Confucianism in the 11th century, ancestral worship was encouraged. This created a social network based on family clans. Fan Zhongyan, a prestigious scholar and politician, launched one of China’s first clan-based charities to support poor clan members. The Northern Song government encouraged such organizations, and institutionalized charities previously run by Buddhist temples. They provided government housing to the poor, disabled, elderly, and orphans. The government and clans worked side-by-side yet independently of one another.
This was another step toward modern charity. However, there were still no public organizations to link government and clan-based charity efforts. Also, clan charity institutions were not open to people outside the clans. The rise of a new social group filled the vacuum.

Hidden Dreams of Hermit Scholars: Behind a Crazy Life Oct 24, 2021

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Our previous podcast discussed some of the ancient hermits that feature in the Palace Museum’s Figure Paintings Across the Ages exhibition. They gave up political pursuits right from the start and never wavered. But unlike them, most hermit scholars depicted in the exhibition were deeply involved in politics in some way.
For Jiang Ziya and the four old men, they lived in seclusion just to wait for the right time to realize their political ambitions. In Jiang Ziya’s case, the lifestyle was even used as a “bait” to “hook” the king. In other cases, living in seclusion was the only choice for scholars whose political dreams were shattered.
Why did scholars since the times of the Seven Sages choose to live in seclusion, usually after they lost hope of developing a political career? An important reason was that for about 1,700 years the identity as a scholar had to be officially endorsed, and it was the most important way for a man to realize the dream of either building a better life for his family or serving the country, or both. The identity became a privilege and honor for ancient Chinese scholars.

The Hidden History of Hermit-Scholars Oct 17, 2021

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At the Palace Museum exhibition, a total of 76 paintings include portraits of the most famous hermit-scholars in China’s history. It is the second in a series of four ancient portrait exhibitions by the Palace Museum. Unlike this group of hermits, the other three exhibitions feature figures who either actively sought to make their name in the world, or tried to enjoy life.
While paintings of religious figures were similarly used In the West to educate people, there is no such genre of art that focuses on hermit-scholars known for their integrity, talent and sometimes peculiar lifestyle.

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