Any other Chinese history majors here?

I bought a copy of The Three Kingdoms. Does that count?

Having studied Chinese History and been the only person in any of my classes that could speak a significant amount of Chinese I wondered if anyone else was on the same page. Adding translated primary documents to a report adds an extra Ummph that profs really like. In the past many western historians or so called "experts" on China didn't even speak any Chinese. I think this is a trend that is not going to continue. In my opinion you can;t be an "expert" on a country if you don't have the ability to read primary documents for yourself. I think the other position is true as well. If you don't know any Chinese history than it will be difficult for you to really advance well in the langauge and especially to get to that higher level. Whats the sense of learning a language if you don't have anything interesting to say.

Tianfeng, Your knowledge and interest in the Chinese language and culture put me to shame.

I studied Chinese politics and am at a pretty advanced level of Mandarin. If you wanna chat, hit me up.

I could read all the books on Chinese history and language in the world on but I will never know what it like to be Chinese or to grow up as a Chinese person. Which is why no matter the level of education, every time I sit down to talk to someone when traveling in China I always seem to learn something new and interesting from them. It is interesting how much people will talk to you about their lives and their personal history when you can speak to them in their own language. Thats my real motivation to learn Chinese; the people.

My name is Cedric. I'm new to the site, but saw your post and thought I'd reply. I would say I'm a history enthusiast. I was an Asian Studies Major at Cal in 1998, and recently received my M.A. in 中国近现代史 from Tsinghua University in Beijing. Thesis was on shifting Chinese perceptions of America in 1919. 五四前后时期. Let me know if you're interested and we can chat.

it is too hard to study chinese history, but very interesting...

I took a few Chinese history courses as an undergrad. I'm interested in all histories, mostly from the standpoint sifting through all the crap, the lies, B.S., half-truths, slant, and glorification of "heroes." I'm currently reading Jung Chang's [“Wild Swans”] “Mao: The Unknown Story”, written with her husband Jon Hallliday. While Jung certainly has an axe to grind, owing to the way her family suffered during Mao's many revolutions, her book really takes the shine off any of Mao's supposed accomplishments. She paints Mao as not much more than a (verging on) psychopathic power hungry opportunist who didn't really give a whit about socialism or peasants he championed. Jung certainly turns on their heads histories by Mao sympathizers, books such as Edgar Snow’s "Red Star Over China" or William Hinton’s "Fanshen".

"In the past many western historians or so called "experts" on China didn't even speak any Chinese." Have you read any Edmund Backhouse, Tian Feng? The merely ignorant are commonplace. The really dangerous historians are the ones who know the language and still take you for a ride. Or the people who cite them out of faith that secondary sources don't lie. It's stunning that it took western Sinology 70 years to explose fictionalized imperial pornography as a fraud. As far as I can tell, the "Cixi killed Guangxu" meme started with this guy too. I used to think it was an open and shut case: now I just figure no-one really knows. One of these days someone will make a great film about Backhouse.