The spread of Chinese characters and Chinese classic works during the Tang Dynasty presented diversified discourses of acceptance and development in different periods and regions. This was due to the differences in co...The spread of Chinese characters and Chinese classic works during the Tang Dynasty presented diversified discourses of acceptance and development in different periods and regions. This was due to the differences in commercial, economic, political, religious, and cultural environments proportional to the real environment's demand for Chinese characters and Chinese classical works. Chinese characters were introduced to Gaochang, Qiuci, Khotan, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam as early as the Han Dynasty, with different development paths in these regions. It is easy to form a long lasting culture spread by Chinese language and characters, as long as official languages are consistent with national or religious languages of the regions. It is difficult to form a long lasting culture spread by official languages and characters if the official languages and characters are inconsistent with either languages of daily life or religious languages. Once there is replacement of official languages and characters, or a change in religious belief, it would cause incompatibility between official languages and daily life languages, Chinese-character culture is bound to decline and gradually fade way. But if there are Han people, they will retain the use of Chinese characters.展开更多
The human body, such as hair, serves as a prism through which historical and cultural contexts are effectively refracted. Despite its historical and cultural significance, the role of hair, however, remains curiously ...The human body, such as hair, serves as a prism through which historical and cultural contexts are effectively refracted. Despite its historical and cultural significance, the role of hair, however, remains curiously a marginalized subject among the renewed interests on the body in the academic fields. In this paper, the author attempts to politicize the queue from 3 perspectives： maintaining a certain prescribed hairstyle is a top-down gesture to construct national conformity; the boundary between Manchu and Han is invoked and reinvented through the battles surrounding the queue politic in late Qing and early Republic; the widespread debate between keeping the queue and cutting the queue at the turn of the 20th century epitomizes the haunting rhetoric of traditionalism and modernism pursuit of modernity in China.展开更多
文摘The spread of Chinese characters and Chinese classic works during the Tang Dynasty presented diversified discourses of acceptance and development in different periods and regions. This was due to the differences in commercial, economic, political, religious, and cultural environments proportional to the real environment's demand for Chinese characters and Chinese classical works. Chinese characters were introduced to Gaochang, Qiuci, Khotan, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam as early as the Han Dynasty, with different development paths in these regions. It is easy to form a long lasting culture spread by Chinese language and characters, as long as official languages are consistent with national or religious languages of the regions. It is difficult to form a long lasting culture spread by official languages and characters if the official languages and characters are inconsistent with either languages of daily life or religious languages. Once there is replacement of official languages and characters, or a change in religious belief, it would cause incompatibility between official languages and daily life languages, Chinese-character culture is bound to decline and gradually fade way. But if there are Han people, they will retain the use of Chinese characters.
文摘The human body, such as hair, serves as a prism through which historical and cultural contexts are effectively refracted. Despite its historical and cultural significance, the role of hair, however, remains curiously a marginalized subject among the renewed interests on the body in the academic fields. In this paper, the author attempts to politicize the queue from 3 perspectives： maintaining a certain prescribed hairstyle is a top-down gesture to construct national conformity; the boundary between Manchu and Han is invoked and reinvented through the battles surrounding the queue politic in late Qing and early Republic; the widespread debate between keeping the queue and cutting the queue at the turn of the 20th century epitomizes the haunting rhetoric of traditionalism and modernism pursuit of modernity in China.
