花崗齋雜記

Jottings from the Granite Studio provides commentary, analysis, and opinion on China and Chinese history. It is written by Jeremiah Jenne, a PhD Candidate at a large public research university in Northern California. Currently, Jeremiah is in Beijing teaching history, doing archival research, and working on his dissertation.

Happy Holidays from the Granite Studio

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Wishing you and yours the happiest of holidays. We’ll be spending Christmas here in Beijing before taking YJ’s parents down to Sanya for a few days of sun and fun at the beach. See you in 2012.

Five people you meet on the Beijing metro…

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I’ve been riding the subway more. I don’t know why. I’ve never before been particularly masochistic nor do I generally enjoy close physical contact with strangers. But it seems an economical way to get around the city now that every available road surface is jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive. Having spent quite a few commuting hours below ground now, I’ve started to distinguish a taxonomy of my fellow passengers, including several species which I find it best to avoid.

Five Books about Qing History

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Five great reads about the Qing Dynasty.

“To Tear out the Heart and Rip out their Eyes”: A story of kidnapping, sorcery, and mass violence

A 'souvenir fan' in circulation after the Tianjin riots, depicting the burning of the cathedral

You can build concessions, sell opium, and burn a few palaces and people might be pissed off about it, but there are few quicker ways to get a man to take action and do battle than to mess with his kids.

In case you missed it…Yajun writing in The Guardian about the Foshan Hit-and-run Case

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Yajun writing in The Guardian last week: “As many Chinese web users have written, it’s possible that there is a kind of sickness in Chinese society that has infected us to our core, and which has been growing for a long time.”