26 replies to this topic

[General_Zhaoyun]

Over the past few months, I've found my main interest leaning further and further from Chinese history and toward Chinese culture. Chinese clothing, music, poetry and martial arts are now much more appealing to me than the countries' political history. I'm far less active in historical (particularly military history) discussions than I previously was.

Anyone else experienced something similar?

That means you're in the same boat as I am. I started off with chinese history, b'cos I'm curious to know more about chinese culture. But as I read further, I began to be interested in all areas of chinese culture.

I consider my specialisation is in general chinese culture. However, areas that I'm still not particularly knowledgeable are Fengshui, Chinese food, chinese clothing, chinese calendar system, chinese architecture, chinese painting, chinese martial arts etc. I only know bits and pieces there and need to study more about them. Nevertheless, I do research in these areas whenever I can.

I'm particularly stronger in Confucianism, Chinese philosophy, Chinese religion, mythology, chinese language, literature and will be glad to help you.

I'm currently teaching myself the chinese chess of Xiangqi and also planning to learn Wei-qi.

[thirdgumi]

It happened to me too, before I came to China to study Chinese history I was only interested in the field of military history and pre-Qin history since it's barbaric and has lots of wars and conflits, now I'm more interested on culture. Maybe that's the common syndrom when one is becoming more professional into Chinese history.

[fcharton]

hehe, other way around here...

I used to think I like chinese culture, but over the years, I've noticed it was more curiosity than genuine interest... Basically, I think I'm pretty indifferent to it, now, and if you want to make me unhappy, just tell me I love China, or I am a fan of China...

On the other hand, I began learning the language as a way to know the culture better, and sort of outlasted my interest in culture. I ended up being more interested in the language than the culture, and then, after I discovered CHF, in history and ancient texts.

To each his own, I suppose...

Francois

Edited by fcharton, 23 February 2007 - 05:00 PM.

[rooster]

Over the past few months, I've found my main interest leaning further and further from Chinese history and toward Chinese culture. Chinese clothing, music, poetry and martial arts are now much more appealing to me than the countries' political history. I'm far less active in historical (particularly military history) discussions than I previously was.

Anyone else experienced something similar?

Yes, I am a bit like that now.

After spending a "long" time on the general history of China and somehow "stuck" (and therefore unable to contribute more to CHF), I find myself wndering off to the cultural side - tea, music and mythology. Had tried to get into herbal medicine, but found my command of the language too weak.

Just not sure if I will stay put in one area or continue to wander everywhere I can. Next may be food, as I like to cook and eat!

Edited by rooster, 25 February 2007 - 10:25 AM.

[Yun]

My assessment is that students of history may tend to eventually hit a 'plateau' where they have learned all they can from books written by historians, and face the choice whether to take up the challenge of reading the ancient sources themselves, or to move on to new interests. In the case of ancient Chinese history, the challenge is particularly daunting because the ancient sources are difficult to find and understand. The research and language skills that have to be developed require a level of commitment that may only feel worth it if one intends to 'go professional'. So I have lots of respect for those members who make the effort to learn and read Classical Chinese, purely as a hobby. And I sympathize with those who wish there were some easier way to go deeper in their study of Chinese history. The unfortunate fact is that until a lot more of the sources are translated into English, there is no easier way. That is why you may find yourself moving into areas of interest where the sources of information are more accessible and tangible (e.g. Chinese tea, Chinese food, Chinese mythology, Chinese martial arts, Chinese art, Chinese music).

My experience in studying history is a little similar to Thirdgumi's. I was originally only interested in military history; then I read more into the political history in order to understand the context of the wars. Then I realized that one cannot really understand the context of the politics without knowing about the culture, society, religion, philosophy, ideology, etc. of the period. In fact, if you are going to 'reconstruct' events of the past in your imagination, then these aspects of knowledge are essential. So I started reading about all these areas.

But my learning about culture has not caused me to lose my interest in history; instead, I use it to complement my study of history. I actually have little interest in 'Chinese culture' as practiced today, but I am constantly fascinated by the 'Chinese culture' of ancient times. Scholars who study cultures and societies of the present are called sociologists and anthropologists; scholars who study cultures and societies of the past are called cultural historians or social historians. The interests of Conan, GZ, and rooster seem to be moving into the field of sociology or anthropology, but I myself prefer cultural history and social history. Even when I learn something about Chinese culture in the present day, I usually try to relate it to the ancient past and see if it can add to my understanding of history.

[Richard Lim]

I personally don't see a sharp divide between Chinese history and Chinese culture(s). History is not just the study of political and military event any more and hasn't been in fact for a long time. Much of the thrust of modern historical studies has been towards cultural history etc.

A more meaningful divide on CHF as I see it may be the one between those with more broadly-defined historical interests (including cultural ones) that extend to, well, before the 19th century and those who are mostly interested in issues in modern or even contemporary history/cultures and only "go back" to an earlier time if that's relevant to a given issue at hand (such as when questions of ethnicities are discussed etc.).

I am glad that CHF is a broad church that has room for so many interesting conversations to take place.

Edited by Richard Lim, 25 February 2007 - 12:34 PM.

[snowybeagle]

I think it may not be a shift of interest as much as having gained so much knowledge in one particular focus area of Chinese history, one needs to develop the complementary framework to have a proper model in one's mind so that all the knowledge we acquire might be stored and processed in a meaningful way.

In the study of history, all aspects : social, military, economic, political, religious etc., are inter-related.

As all of us learn more, our mind-maps develop from 2D (like plain facts - know what/when) to 3D (e.g., know why) to 4D (see a rational process of interaction between actions of individuals and macro events).

[fcharton]

My assessment is that students of history may tend to eventually hit a 'plateau' where they have learned all they can from books written by historians, and face the choice whether to take up the challenge of reading the ancient sources themselves, or to move on to new interests. In the case of ancient Chinese history, the challenge is particularly daunting because the ancient sources are difficult to find and understand. The research and language skills that have to be developed require a level of commitment that may only feel worth it if one intends to 'go professional'. So I have lots of respect for those members who make the effort to learn and read Classical Chinese, purely as a hobby. And I sympathize with those who wish there were some easier way to go deeper in their study of Chinese history. The unfortunate fact is that until a lot more of the sources are translated into English, there is no easier way. That is why you may find yourself moving into areas of interest where the sources of information are more accessible and tangible (e.g. Chinese tea, Chinese food, Chinese mythology, Chinese martial arts, Chinese art, Chinese music).

Although I do agree that at some point, being able to read the originals do help, I think that it is not an absolute necessity. Besides, whereas being able to read ancient sources easily is a very time consuming work, having a minimal level which allows one to "make do" with texts of an era (esp. the most recent ones) is not such a formidable challenge.

To me, it is more about specialisation. When one begins to learn about something (Chinese history, or any subject in fact), the first steps are made easy by the number of introductory books or compilations written on it. These are usually meant for newcomers, ie they are self sufficient, and one doesn't need any background or preliminary knowledge to read them. But then, there comes a time when you need to turn towards the more academic, or difficult, stuff, which supposes more knowledge/culture from the reader, and are much harder to read. At this point, the learning curve takes a steep bend, which tests one's commitment to the subject. Some will move into it, others will just turn to other, related, subjects, at the same introductory level, and ended up with a larger, but generalist, knowledge. In the case of China (and for westerners like Conan or me), this is all the more tempting as the subject at hand (China) is very large, so you can go in such a fashion from one subject to the other for a long period of time. All in all, I think it is a matter of personal character, some of us like to "reach", others like to "delve".

One thing I'd like to add is that forums like CHF are most helpful for those who intend to specialise, especially non professionals, because one can use the experience of others to get started on this path.

But my learning about culture has not caused me to lose my interest in history; instead, I use it to complement my study of history. I actually have little interest in 'Chinese culture' as practiced today, but I am constantly fascinated by the 'Chinese culture' of ancient times.

Hehe, I could have written this.... Why am I not surprised?

Francois

[Yun]

But then, there comes a time when you need to turn towards the more academic, or difficult, stuff, which supposes more knowledge/culture from the reader, and are much harder to read. At this point, the learning curve takes a steep bend, which tests one's commitment to the subject.

I am very much in agreement, though I do think that in studying the history of a foreign country, language skills may play a big part here. Let us take the hypothetical example of a young Canadian who is fascinated by the military history of the Tang dynasty. He knows English and French, but not Chinese. There are probably no more than 10 relevant and sufficiently informative or accurate books written in English and French by historians.

What can our Tang enthusiast move on to after having read these 10 books?

1. Specialized academic journals like Tang Studies, Journal of Asian History, or War and Society, which either require a subscription, or must be found in good university libraries. These occasionally have an article or two about Tang warfare.

2. A large number of Chinese-language and/or Japanese-language works about Tang history, which mainly rely on such ancient sources as the Jiu Tangshu, Xin Tangshu, Tongdian, and Li Jing Bingfa. These can usually only be purchased in China, Taiwan, and Japan or found in the East Asian Library of a university with a strong program in Asian history.

3. The ancient sources themselves, which are in Classical Chinese and can (again) usually only be purchased in China and Taiwan or found in the East Asian Library of a university with a strong program in Asian history.

Obviously, our Canadian will be able to learn a lot more from categories 2 and 3. But these are the ones that would require him to travel and/or acquire a new language to a rather high level of proficiency. This is where, as Francois mentioned, the learning curve suddenly gets really steep, and many people would be tempted to stop and move on to another interest.

I am considerably more fortunate than our hypothetical Canadian: I grew up in Singapore where I was taught the Chinese script from a young age, and where a trip to China to buy the 24 Dynastic Histories and other history books is quite easily arranged (at least, ever since the Cold War ended). But even in my case, fellow Singaporeans are always very surprised to hear that I can read Classical Chinese. I cannot really imagine how much harder it would be for a person who has to start learning basic Chinese at the age of 20-something.

[Richard Lim]

Just to add that, in the case of the study of Tang history (esp. but not just) at a serious professional level, knowledge of academic Japanese is also a necessity as opposed to a lluxury. Simply knowing classical Chinese, modern Chinese and modern European languages is still not quite enough!

[fcharton]

I am considerably more fortunate than our hypothetical Canadian: I grew up in Singapore where I was taught the Chinese script from a young age, and where a trip to China to buy the 24 Dynastic Histories and other history books is quite easily arranged (at least, ever since the Cold War ended). But even in my case, fellow Singaporeans are always very surprised to hear that I can read Classical Chinese. I cannot really imagine how much harder it would be for a person who has to start learning basic Chinese at the age of 20-something.

Two comments, just for the sake of discussion, because I mostly agree.

1- Access to the documents is much easier nowadays, because most texts can be found online. Some sites have typed versions of many texts (here's one reference I often use, which does include the 24 histories http://www.yjsy.ecnu....cn/jszj/sb.htm), and scanned copies of the books (which avoid the proofreading errors congenial to online texts) can be found too (although their copyright status is a bit problematic)
2- Having gone through this process (my first contact with the chinese language was at age 21, 23 for classical), I can confirm the situation is a bit different for a westerner. For us, classical and modern chinese are two different (albeit related) languages. In western universities, classical chinese is taught very early in the curriculum (as soon as students know a handful of characters, in fact), and western learners of chinese tend to specialise relatively early in one or the other. For some (this was my case), classical chinese is often felt as "easier" because it is a dead language, ie no point learning to speak, pronounce or even write it. Also, as classical chinese mostly use one character for each word (whereas modern chinese generally uses two), acquiring some basic vocabulary is somehow easier. As a result, you can find quite a few westerners who feel more comfortable with classical texts than with modern ones (in the long run, this poses an additional problem, which is that reading modern articles in chinese becomes difficult for them). My impression is that, in Chinese speaking countries, classical chinese is taught as "advanced chinese", which sort of puts people off it. Also, whereas a native chinese speaker has a big advantage in the fact that he already knows the script, the superficial similarities between classical and modern chinese tend to be more misleading for a native...

Francois

[snowybeagle]

But then, there comes a time when you need to turn towards the more academic, or difficult, stuff, which supposes more knowledge/culture from the reader, and are much harder to read. At this point, the learning curve takes a steep bend, which tests one's commitment to the subject. Some will move into it, others will just turn to other, related, subjects, at the same introductory level, and ended up with a larger, but generalist, knowledge. In the case of China (and for westerners like Conan or me), this is all the more tempting as the subject at hand (China) is very large, so you can go in such a fashion from one subject to the other for a long period of time. All in all, I think it is a matter of personal character, some of us like to "reach", others like to "delve".

That (the highlighted part) sounds just like me ... I've waded into many parts of Chinese history but have only made some medium level penetration in a handful of areas.

One of the things I have not done is to learn classical Chinese, though I manage to grasp some basics through exposure.
I do keep some links to historical texts whenever possible though.

I suppose I could say that I come to the part when additional learning would come at a steeper curve - which do require more focus and commitment.

At this time, I just have to say that my wife and 2 kids come first and they need all the attention I could give them.
Going into the forum at home is only possible when they're asleep, and if I'm not crashed out myself.
Apparently, my 2 kids don't know they're supposed to be sleeping like babies.

[Rong Qin Wang]

Zunjing de China History Forum members,

I am sorry, but I certainly don’t share the same feeling(s) as other members in CHF, who have changed their interest(s). Before discovering CHF, my main focus in Chinese History is political and military history with little interest in social and cultural history. This works the same with other East Asian countries for me as I love to read and study political and military history of Japan, Vietnam, and Korea, while not paying much attention to the social and cultural history of these countries either. After being a member of CHF for a little over a year, I found myself even more fascinated and glued to the political and military history of China , and further neglecting social and cultural history.

I don’t know why, but the social interactions and different cultures do not seem to be remotely interesting to me. I mean I certainly hope civilians can live a great life; however, studying about those things would just bore me to death! I don’t know why either, but I can just reread sources regarding politics and military over and over again without getting tired of them. I surmise Chinese History offers a lot of the information I am looking for since most ancient historians were court sponsored ones, meaning they were more inclined to record significant events in politics and military.

Yun, I really cannot agree with you. We live in an era of information; hence, it would be almost impossible to hit a “plateau” where one had learned all one can from books written by historians in any languages. I know there are more sources written in Chinese, but I really don’t think one can finish reading all the books regarding Chinese History in English either. I think it has more to do with the fact of having enough knowledge on one area already, and would like to move onto something new.

I must admit one thing I have definitely learned from CHF would be the necessity of being well-versed in classical Chinese. I used to think it was possible for me to study Chinese politics and military in much greater details in English. Boy, I could not have been more wrong. English is an ABSOLUTELY USELESS language when one wants to obtain greater knowledge in Chinese History! Hence, I have always regretted not being able to learn classical Chinese at a tender age. Arrggh! It is so unfair that I have to face such a disadvantage! Well, studying Chinese History in Vietnamese is actually not a bad idea since the translations are so much closer and there are an abundant amount of sources. Since the sources were translated from Chinese, I am not so sure if any original meanings were lost in the process not because of the content not being able to be translated, but more on the part of the translators themselves. I read Chinese History books in Vietnamese and then discuss what I have read in English with CHF members. Is not that ironic?

I honestly thought I did not have to learn Chinese since there would be enough sources in English. However, I have certainly learned my lesson and will study classical Chinese day and night from now on to make up for the lost time. Since my purpose of being literate in Chinese is solely to go much deeper into Chinese History, I am trying to learn classical Chinese rather than modern Chinese. Yes, I already know it would take years before I can master classical Chinese!

Yun is right when stating that the context of politics and military can rely heavily on the culture, society, religion, philosophy, ideology, etc. of the period. That is why I am only familiar with cultural and social aspects as they pertain to politics and military.

I honestly think it would be much easier to study social and cultural history of China in English since cultures reflect the social interactions of different people. Hence, there would be more translated sources. Common people can relate more to the cultural aspects. Therefore, I am not surprised at all to find social and cultural history more popular than political and military history most of the time.

I am currently trying to learn classical Chinese and sincerely hope that one day I can view political and military history of China in 4D just like Snowybeagle stated.

By the way, I am hitting the age of 20 pretty soon. With this in mind, can I please request a “Zi” from CHF members who know me well?

Xie Xie,

[General_Zhaoyun]

By the way, I am hitting the age of 20 pretty soon. With this in mind, can I please request a "Zi" from CHF members who know me well?

Xie Xie,

You surely can request a "Zi" (style name). You can choose on something that best reflects your moral character.