User Comments - WillBuckingham
WillBuckingham
Posted on: Cabbie Culture and Driving in China
March 28, 2011 at 4:34 PMWonderful! Thanks for this - I was struggling a bit!
Posted on: Inside the Baozi Business
February 7, 2011 at 11:22 AMI was 包ing 饺子 myself last weekend over here in the UK for a CNY party - as well as fashioning some rabbit cookies - http://yfrog.com/hs4whwj. Somewhat more competent at the latter than the former...
Posted on: Marco Polo in China
January 24, 2011 at 8:37 AMI've had a bit of a look into this, and there was an interesting conference on this stuff back in 2008. Here's the link: http://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/scholarship.php?searchterm=019_han_studies.inc&issue=019#excerpts
The conference proceedings, apparently, are going to be published as a book some time. But - given that the wheels of the academic world move with glacial slowness - I won't be holding my breath.
Posted on: Marco Polo in China
January 23, 2011 at 4:24 PMGood questions, xiaophil. What I'm saying is that I very much suspect that the idea of Han identity or ethnicity may be in part a historical and political creation (I'm thinking along the lines of Benedict Anderson's 'Imagined Communities' - which is well worth reading). The idea that there are - as facts of nature - well-defined ethnic groups is one that I'm not convinced by, and I suspect it is not supported by population genetics and so forth. So it is in part a question of the boundary being problematic, as you suggest.
The term xiaoshu minzu, and the notion of Han ethnicity (an important part of the contemporary Chinese "national story"), may be not just descriptive of things that already exist, but also prescriptive - the description of how the world *ought* to be. As a result the use of these terms may in part bring into being the things they describe, if that makes sense. I don't know enough about history in Chinese before the notion of 民族 was used to know how people back then talked about cultural difference. But I'd be intrigued to find out.
Posted on: Marco Polo in China
January 23, 2011 at 11:23 AMIt's great to have a new cultural show, and one that has such a flexible format. I love the idea of a regular rag-bag of fascinating stuff, changing from episode to episode.
I've got a question about 少数民族 (shǎoshù mínzú - minority groups). I always worry about this term. I wonder how much the idea of a Han majority with a shared history/culture/language, and a bunch of minority groups constellated around them is a largely political invention - rather than a fact of nature, as it is taken to be in China.
There must be some interesting stuff written on this. A bit of research suggests that 民族 (mínzú) was first used in this way in the late 19th century, amongst intellectual anti-Manchu elites and that 少数民族 (shǎoshù mínzú) was first used in the 1920s. I'm not sure if this is correct; but if it is, then reading the idea of 少数民族 back in Chinese history may be distorting. I remember seeing a CCTV history show about the 5th century BC, where they talked about the Han centre and the 少数民族. That can't be right... When looking at history, this formulation might obscure as much as it reveals.
Posted on: Marco Polo in China
January 23, 2011 at 10:57 AMThere's a book by Jonathan Spence - "The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci", which explores the mnemonic methods that Ricci used in learning Chinese, and which gives some nice background.
Posted on: Blind Massage
November 27, 2010 at 9:17 AMThere were quite a few soccer/football lessons around the time of the World Cup. Type in "football" into the search box. As for gods, there's a nice lesson on inviting the god of wealth (http://chinesepod.com/lessons/an-invitation-to-the-god-of-wealth) and one on Buddhism and Daoism (http://chinesepod.com/lessons/buddhism-and-taoism). The only funeral/death one that came up on a cursory search was a lesson called Death by Ninja... Probably not quite what you are looking for.
A lesson on all together - religion, football and death (with a couple of ninjas thrown in) - would, of course, be a very good idea.
Posted on: Considering an iPad
November 14, 2010 at 1:20 PMI've only seen one iPad in action; and it was pretty enough. But it does seem limited. The cpod app for iPod touch is a bit quirky, it's true; but it's hugely useful all the same.
Posted on: Introducing New Voices
November 14, 2010 at 11:55 AMWelome Di Lu and Jason! I look forward to the coming lessons.
Posted on: How Did You Learn Chinese?
April 11, 2011 at 7:17 PMThe point about reading what you are interested in is a good one. I bought 哈利波特 (Harry Potter) in Chinese because I thought it would be simpler than reading an adult novel; but the thing is, I can't be bothered to read the thing in English - boy wizards are just not my thing -so how much less in Chinese? But I'm managing to pick my way through bits and pieces of philosophy with a bit more ease, because this is the kind of thing I like to read in English.
Having random CPod dialogues on a loop (just the dialogues, I guess) is a good idea @xiao_liang. I may give it a go. But I also need to do more hanging out with native speakers here in the UK.