118 replies to this topic

[sg_han]

but they not interested ma....anyway i dun care they can come but i will go there to their place and see=)

[Mok]

but they not interested ma....anyway i dun care they can come but i will go there to their place and see=)

You never know. Look at WangEnLai/Wong Jai/Baozizhong, that Japanese-Han living in California who has become a token Singaporean. I think we should give ourselves more credit.

[sg_han]

but seriously i think i would really wanan go and know more about other overseas chines ein future esp those in SEA S America Pacific Island and Africa...strangely those recent immigrants to US/AUST/Europe doesnt interest me lol

[FireEater]

Hi,

Many centuries ago, or so it seems, well, actually back in 1972/73, while dipping briefly into the Public School system in some one horse town down in Wiltshire, UK, I made friends with a young man of Chinese extraction. As the days wore on we became ever better friends, and as I understand now, more than three decades later, this man must have been a diplomatic genius. For ever since I have looked on Chinese civilisation and culture, as an exciting source of potentially rich rewards. The notion of a 'yellow peril' and the like, have never meant zilch to me, but it is only quite recently I have come to examine this source with anything like the energy I believe it warrants.

My working hypothesis being, that silk, tea and food etc are only the tip of a fascinating iceberg (and I don't mean this in anything like a thermodynamic sense ).


Tataa!

[HuangYingJieh]

I have always been fascinated with Chinese history but was always discouraged by the language barrier. Although I am 100% chinese, i was born with the abc disease. As a young'un though my grandparents told me a lot of stories of their youth and what it was like living during the war. Being really close to my grandparents I always wanted to know more about them and their lives. I guess thats where it really started.

[Adam Sisemore]

Honestly I wasn't really into it until last August, I had read SGYY at some point, but it never seemed to click that it might have had some roots in history...I'm slow.
I guess what really pushed me into it was joining sausage (Scholars of Shen Zhou for those not well versed in it's popular nick name )...drove me to learn things and now I call myself an expert....mostly 'cause nobody I know in real life has a clue about it.

[Thaibebop]

I don't have a single moment when I knew I wanted to learn about China. As a child, from the earliest parts of my memory, I found things (art, pictures, shows, books what have you) that people told me were from Asia (they didn't know anymore than that) and nobody could tell me more about where or what or who. I didn't want Asia to be this mist in my mind so I started taking in whatever I could that had anything to do with Asia. It didn't matter if it was high art at the museum or cheesy kung fu movies on sunday morning.

I remember going to the library and checking out books on anything Asian, I tried to get ones with pictures because I wanted to see as well, those were hard to find, anyway I would check out these books that I couldn't read ( most of the time I could understand the captions ) and I would pour over the them for hours dreaming and wondering about Asia. When I got older, and more fluent in the English langauge I began reading in earnest.

I am attracted to China for it seems to be to Asia what Greece is to Europe. I hope to learn as much as I can about ever country in Asian though.

[Kimchee]

Since I was small, I've always been drawn towards China and Chinese culture... whether it was stories of my Grandfather travelling up and down the Yangtze, and never wanting to come home... (and wondering if I possibly have relatives there now)... or as a child, having rather vivid reoccuring dreams that I was Chinese... as a kid, watching and loving "Kung Fu Theater" on television every Saturday morning with my Dad... or the fact that I was born in the South Pacific and given an Asian name... who knows? I always feel as if I'm searching for something from China, but haven't discovered what just yet. Anyway, I had hoped to find some answers here on this forum... and one day... I hope to travel there. (Okinawa and Taiwan were the only places I've been to... but never had the money to go all the way to mainland China.)

Gee, my reasoning sounds so tenuous and ethereal compared to what others here are saying... but, the up shot is that I have been learning so much ever since coming to this forum, and for that I'm thankful.

Kimchee

[Mok]

Gee, my reasoning sounds so tenuous and ethereal compared to what others here are saying... but, the up shot is that I have been learning so much ever since coming to this forum, and for that I'm thankful.

Kimchee

Nah, it's as good as I've ever heard!

Far better than those who come with nationalistic agendas and whatnot.

Hope you never stop learning...it's a great journey!

Cheers,

Mok

[Sephodwyrm]

Hmm...I thought I would have posted on this topic...
But turned out that I didn't.

What got me into Chinese History and Culture?
Simply because it was more accessible when I got started.
Its more of an environmental consequence than a personal inclination.

[Thaibebop]

Since I was small, I've always been drawn towards China and Chinese culture... whether it was stories of my Grandfather travelling up and down the Yangtze, and never wanting to come home... (and wondering if I possibly have relatives there now)... or as a child, having rather vivid reoccuring dreams that I was Chinese... as a kid, watching and loving "Kung Fu Theater" on television every Saturday morning with my Dad... or the fact that I was born in the South Pacific and given an Asian name... who knows? I always feel as if I'm searching for something from China, but haven't discovered what just yet. Anyway, I had hoped to find some answers here on this forum... and one day... I hope to travel there. (Okinawa and Taiwan were the only places I've been to... but never had the money to go all the way to mainland China.)

Gee, my reasoning sounds so tenuous and ethereal compared to what others here are saying... but, the up shot is that I have been learning so much ever since coming to this forum, and for that I'm thankful.

Kimchee

Yes, Kung Fu Theater on USA Network right? It came on after all the Saturday cartoon, never missed a week!

[Peter S]

I think that shorter is better.

I am interested in Ancient Chinese History. I am a university grad, but not in history.

I am trying to find some gems in this massive material in this website.

I propose to the Administrator to carve out a separate section for our Ancient Chinese History buffs.

[fcharton]

I propose to the Administrator to carve out a separate section for our Ancient Chinese History buffs.

If by ancient you mean pre Han, then the Prehistory to Qin forum is what you are looking for...
http://www.chinahist...php?showforum=5

Francois, pre-Han posterboy...

[Tang Scholar]

Rodrigo Escobar-Holguin, from Cali, Colombia

As far as I can think of it, what I first learned from the Chinese was... Well, figure it out. In 1950 I was five, the Korean war was on, and we were in South America, within the sphere of the United States. In the Colombian newspapers, the Chinese were the enemy.
Not for long: my next remembrance was of being sent to buy food to the only Chinese restaurant in town. Not Chinese food, though: my father was not as sophisticated as that, and I still don't know if that place offered it. We used to buy the normal Colombian food.
The next contact was in high school, in the course of world literature. We learnt a couple of poems of Li Bai and Du Fu. And that was all for formal school.
Very scarce contact indeed. In fact, our contact with Japan was larger because of the inmigration of the 1930s into the region of Cali.
Through life, however, there came occasional contacts with the Chinese culture.
In 1971 I got a scholarship to go to Britain, and there I found, first, lovely Chinese papercuts, and then, two Chinese students at the department of Urban design in Edinburgh. Both were architects. One was a Taiwanese young man, very serious, dedicated person. The other was a girl, also Taiwanese, but who had studied in Seattle and had got an American accent.
The girl taught me to eat with chopsticks.
I remember asking her why there were so many seals on Chinese paintings.
She told me that these were a testimony of the ancient owners of the paintings. That sometimes the functionaries who acquired them wrote comments and sealed the paintings with their personal seals.
I asked her how it was that a mere bureaucrat could defile a work of art with his seal.
She told me: No, these were not common bureaucrats. They had to pass very strict exams in order to become part of the official machinery. They would not defile the work: they would add to its value because they also were artists. They would know where to put their seals.
That's how I came to learn about Imperial Examinations.
I found and bought beautiful translations of the Tao Te Ching and the Chuang Tzu Inner Chapters, with photographs and Chinese calligraphy. I fell in love with the Tao. The books from Penguin were a cruel feast: I had not enough money to buy everything I wanted. Any way I bought a good deal of books on poetry and history. Some of them I devoured. Others went sleeping.
Recently, I read in Spanish the tale of Genji, the Japanese classic of the XI century. I was astonished at the many references to the Song of the Eternal Sorrow and other poems by Bai Juyi. I sought for him and his poems on the Internet. I gathered three or four translations into English, got the Chines text, passed it through the babelfish machine translator and (after laughing many times at the result) decided to work out a translation in Spanish of the Song of Eternal Sorrow. When I finished it, I started with The Song of the Lute. And afterwards I kept on translating. I remembered that I had bought a book by Arthur Waley on Chinese poetry. Many of the poems there were by Bai Juyi.
I had also the chance to try a little brush writing here - with the Japanese. I practiced there with a Chinese text.
Last year, two girls from Peking University came to Cali for a few months in order to learn Spanish and teach Putonghua. I took the course and showed my work to them. We started a very serious revision. I was very pleased of this opportunity.
I did not learn much of the language, but got a taste of it. We also studied a little Li Qingzhao and a couple of poems of Shuting.
But they went back to China. Then, looking for information on China and her poets, I found the Chinese History Forum.

[Pattie]

Research for my current novel........I got sucked in. ^__~