The Context

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Chinese Students in the US: an unaccomplished mission Oct 24, 2020

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The UK replaced the US as the favorite intended destination of Chinese students in 2019, and the gap was even wider in 2020 due to the tension between China and the US. About 150 years ago, the US was the first country in the world to receive the first government-funded students from China. Their average age was 12. They were sent by the imperial Qing government under an initiative promoted by the first Chinese graduate from the United States, Rong Hong, who was known as Yung Wing in the US. Some of these children became Chinese diplomats, engineers and military officers. One of them, Liang Cheng, became the Qing court’s ambassador to the United States. He was knighted as Sir Chentung Liang Cheng by Great Britain. He initiated and facilitated a project in which some of the reparations paid by the Qing to Western powers for losses over the Boxer Rebellion were used to fund the study of Chinese students in the US and other Western countries.

Chinese Students in Japan: Revolutionaries Oct 08, 2020

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Today Japan is the host country of the second largest group of Chinese students abroad, second to the US. Japan hosted the largest number of Chinese students abroad between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But Japan used to a student of China. How did it become a teacher of China? Some of the Chinese students, either funded by the imperial Qing government or by themselves, became the major force of overthrowing the Qing and China's imperial system. Why?

Astronomy in Ancient China: Science & Humanity Sep 26, 2020

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The Beidou Satellite Navigation System, the spacecraft Crew Dragon --- while grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic on Earth, humans have made several landmark steps in space in 2020. Many world firsts records of astronomy and sophisticated calendar making systems over thousands of years of history, along with love between a goddess and a human and the fight of the Monkey King against the order in the heaven --- science and humanity are always two sides of the same coin not only in astronomy in China for thousands of years, but also in any science for human today.

Gold, Silver, Wealth and War Sep 15, 2020

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Prices of gold and silver skyrocketed in the first half of the year amid uncertainties of the global economic prospect. China has a long history of using gold. But China has never been on gold standard. Instead, silver dominated the country as a national currency for hundreds of years partly due to silver influx from European colonies in the Americas. Silver also brought wars between China and the world powers.

Wuhan: Rediscovery, Restart Sep 06, 2020

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In the first decade of the 20th century, today’s Hankou District of Wuhan became the second-largest port in China, only following Shanghai and exceeding old big ports like Guangzhou and Tianjin in terms of trade volume. Kokichi Mizuno, the Japanese general consulate in Wuhan, described the city as the “Chicago of China” in his book about Hankou published in 1908. An official of China's last dynasty Qing initiated Wuhan's industrialization process which has also underwritten the fall of Qing.

Floods Made China’s Early Civilizations Aug 28, 2020

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Chinese civilization began in the middle and downstream of the Yellow River and the Yangtze River. Unlike the Nile flooding which brought prosperity, it is troubles related to water, including flooding and conflicts on water supply, that underlies the geographic, political and cultural structure of the earliest Chinese civilizations.

A Pandemic, A European Missionary and Two Chinese Dynasties Aug 22, 2020

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Covid-19 is not the first pandemic that has impacted human society. In the mid 14th century, the black plague in Europe affected the continent’s evolution of politics and religion. In the 17th century, a pandemic outbreak in China impacted the rise and fall of its final two dynasties, the Ming and Qing. And during the process, European missionaries had a tremendous influence.

Imperial Exams and Testing Times Aug 05, 2020

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Every year, millions of students take China’s national college entrance exam for a coveted slot at a top university. Despite the severe competition and its bouts with controversy, many still see the exam as the only avenue to social mobility – a view that finds roots 1,300 years ago in ancient China.

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