Internet history sourcebook site

Cruise around this site and assess whether it is useful.

Consider where it's coming from, the perspectives it might offer you, or an audience you think it's aiming at (which you may not be part of).

9 Spice trade

Reading, mapwork, then ...

Extracts from Giles Milton's White Gold, Nathaniel's Nutmeg.
The world's oldest clove tree
Vic Reeves' Barbary Pirates

8 Printing

Reading and mapwork, then printing!

Visit Milton Keynes Museum print shop.
Visit Frogmore Paper Mill; contains print area, bookbinding area, paper making demonstrations.
Images of printing presses at the International Printing Museum.
On our list of places to go.

7 Henry the Navigator

Readings and mapwork. Using a Portolan chart.

6 Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta

Readings and mapwork, then

Extracts from The Travels of Marco Polo
The Naxos Audio Guide, Great Explorers

5 Dark ages of mapmaking

Readings and mapwork
Medieval views of the world; T-O maps
Arabic mapmaking
The Crusades

4 Ptolemy

Readings, mapwork, making an astrolabe
Watching Ptolemy

3 Lines on the globe

Readings and mapwork, then learning about latitude

2 Strabo and Eratosthenes

Readings, mapwork, and using a protractor

1 Early maps

Readings, mapworks, making edible clay tablets

Visit British Museum/Fitzwilliam Museum

Making Polynesian maps

China's change through revolution

This week we'll read the concluding extracts of Wild Swans from Chapters 23 to the Epilogue, tracing the author's thoughts about how she and China have been shaped by the history of events, by the influence of Mao, the power of the Communist Party, and the Cultural Revolution.

The author was not alone in questioning the state of China after the Cultural Revolution. Watch the documentary on Youtube from 1:07 to 1:11.

To conclude, let's also watch this documentary from 1:22 to the end. Note the scene at the waxworks; it's a good example of how the leaders of a country take opportunities to tell a history. Contrast this with the personal perspective you've read in Wild Swans.

Has the reading of the book helped you develop your ideas about China's history while you've stayed in Hong Kong?

'Thought reform through labour'

By 1969, China had dismantled its education system. Family life and social interaction was subject to intervention and management by the state.

For children growing up in these conditions, denied play, denied a range of experience, and denied safe refuge at home, finding a balanced way of behaving became increasingly difficult. Many turned to gangs, or behaviours such as fighting and stealing.

This created an urban problem. Central government presumably feared this would develop into a civil unrest, or perhaps a challenge to themselves. What do you think? Was the power structure in Peking ultimately afraid of the population?

One solution was simply to send young teenagers out of the cities, and to rural locations. They were instructed 'to learn from the peasants'. For many youngsters this experience was probably bitter. We'll read about this in Chapter 22 of Wild Swans.

Think about other histories you know of: what have been the techniques used by governments to deal with a population?

In Chapters 20 and 21 of Wild Swans, we see the extent of the persecution against the author's parents. She writes of this experience in 1968,

'That night, as I lay in bed listening to the gunshots and the Rebels' loudspeakers blaring out bloodcurdling diatribes, I reached a turning point. I had always been told, and had believed, that I was living in a paradise on earth, socialist China, whereas the capitalist world was hell. Now I asked myself: If this is paradise, what then is hell?'

China has much changed and is different today. In the 1980s, Deng Xiaoping's reforms, and the introduction of Communism with Chinese characteristics has resulted in the development of international trade, economic liberalisation, and Mao now officially being 70% correct.

If you consider historical time in hundreds, or thousands of years, rather than in single years or decades, then could you say that Mao and the Cultural Revolution has played a minor part? But maybe he has changed China for hundreds of years to come? Will his impact now endure through the control of the Communist Party? Or will the economic interests of the east and the west become bigger than their political differences, and so make them look more alike in the future? What do you think? Can you imagine historical time spread over hundreds of years?

Chapter 19 of Wild Swans. The author's father is highly principled; he is still very loyal to the ideas which originally fashioned the Communist Party. He writes a letter to Chairman Mao.

Do you think this will change events at this point in China?

Although we tend to think society won't ever change, circumstances can develop very rapidly. A fluid situation can throw up people who seize opportunities, take advantage of change, and manage events in their favour. They shape what happens next, for good or bad.

Can you think of people you've studied in history who you would say shaped events?

We'll pause this week in our reading to give the visitor a chance not to be (metaphorically) beaten about the head by the Chinese Communist Party.

(Find out instead about Falun Gong. They're usually outside the Star Ferry terminal, TST.)

Note! I see the Shen Yun Performing Arts Group is in London, April 2012.

Shen Yun is supported by Falun Gong. Falun Gong is banned in China, but is active outside China, and has links to the US and Taiwan, which we know as old Kuomintang territory.

The role of Shen Yun is as the 'cultural wing' for Falun Gong; they act as cultural ambassadors for a pre-Communist China. They present the ideas of the imperial regime through art. (Is it possible to see the Communist Party as a 'blip' in Chinese history?)

Can you begin to see why political control of the arts becomes so important?!

Watch this video about Shen Yun from their website on Classical Chinese dance. It is 18 mins long. You will come away with an understanding how politics and the arts are linked.

Nothing is simple in history, is it? There are always more stories to be told, depending on which angle you stand to look.

In the period we are now reading about in Wild Swans, the writer's parents come under attack.

Yet they have been Communist Party supporters who have worked diligently to change China. How could it happen, that they now come under attack? What events took place to allow it?

We'll watch the Youtube documentary from 59:00 to 1:05. Listen for these events:

• A change in local powers; the old hierarchy gives way to the hard-line Revolutionary Committees.
• The rise of Mao's wife.
• The fall of Liu Shaoqi, the potentially alternative leader to Mao who had previously criticised the Great Leap Forward.

How does an idea spread?

This week, as we continue to read what happens to the family in Wild Swans, we'll watch the Youtube documentary from just before 55:00 to 59:00.

How do ideas become taken up quickly in society, and then spread to large numbers of people? How does society 'agree' to a common set of ideas? Once an idea is taken up by large numbers of people, how do those ideas become reproduced for children in the next generation? If people wanted ideas to change direction or take on new meanings, how could they impose that?

There are no final answers to these types of questions, but look around you at the society and the groups of people we know, and let's see if we can come up with some responses.

National politics affects the family

Watch a few minutes from the documentary footage on Youtube, from 44:00 to 48:00.

Who should exert control over what happens inside the family home? Anyone? No-one? You? Parents? The state? The laws of a country?

Remember how mama's hair turned grey with Mr Balls and Mr Badman? I had visions of sanctioned council troops given freedom to rifle through my knicker drawer. But still not quite so horrendous as the trials for the family in our reading this week from Wild Swans, Chapters 17 & 18.

Politics at a national level affects what happens round the kitchen table. Ladies, it is your responsibility as a member of the family and the wider society to engage with this decision-making process.

No pressure. Now should Michael Gove stay or go and what do you want for breakfast?

The Cultural Revolution touched us all

We'll read about the Cultural Revolution and the Red Guards in Wild Swans Chapters 15 and 16. Undoubtedly this is the period in China's history that most people know about in the West.

Read what Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education in the UK, wrote after visiting China in 2010:

'It's become fashionable over the Christmas holidays to refer to the Coalition as a Maoist enterprise. Not so much because the Government is inhabiting the wilder shores of the Left but because of the relentless pace of modernisation being pursued across government.

While the Opposition has nothing to say on any policy, the Government has been responding to the economic and social crises we face with big and comprehensive programmes.

And nowhere has that been more needed than in education, where I am happy to confess I’d like us to implement a cultural revolution just like the one they’ve had in China.' (28.12.10)

Your thoughts, ideas, and observations needed.

The cult of Mao begins

Chapter 14 of Wild Swans begins with the line, ''Chairman Mao,' as we always called him, began to impinge directly on my life in 1964'.

Check out Mao's Wiki profile.

Watch this documentary from 30:00 through to 35:00. This covers The Great Leap Forward ('it looks like madness but at the time it felt normal') and the famine beginning from 1958.

Stop, and move the bar to listen again from 38:00 to 44:20. This covers the period after the famine when Mao has made 'self-criticisms' about his policy and has distanced himself from the leadership, but is set to return with the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.

China 1958-1965

In Chapter 13 of Wild Swans, the author narrates some personal recollections of growing up at this time. You will hear insights into social practices. What stays in your mind, or seems to explain some of the culture around you in Hong Kong?

Famine 1958-1962

The Great Leap Forward took agricultural workers away from the normal patterns of planting and harvest, set people working on steel production, and developed the commune organisation.

The technological 'progress' took place alongside a policy of exaggerating crop yield, transplanting crops to demonstrate 'success' for Mao, and a culture of self-deception/self-protection within the local organisations. Soon, people began to starve.

There is a more information about this history here, on the History Learning Site. A video on Youtube tells the story with recollections of people who were children at this time.

1956-1958 the Anti-rightist campaign

These years are a key point in China's recent history; the impact of the Anti-rightist campaign conducted during this time continues to be felt today.

I'll read Chapter 11 of Wild Swans, let's read the voices of the time, find out about the Anti-rightist campaign, and find out a little about Ding Ling.

State nurseries

The four children in the family are sent to boarding nurseries while the author's mother is put under investigation. Chapter 10 of Wild Swans outlines how this works under the Mao campaign to discover the hidden 'counterrevolutionaries'.

There are many examples in history where a ruling power, government or state seeks to split apart families or separate mothers from children. Why might they do that?

'When a man gets to power, even his chickens and dogs rise to heaven'

In Chapter 9 of Wild Swans we read more how a Communist Party official must be seen to behave in power.

Can anyone in power ever be totally 'fair'? Should it even be expected? Is it desirable? How do you think you would you behave with your family, friends, neighbours and community if you rose to a position of power?

From Mao's position, it was useful to have a campaign to 'stamp out corruption' because it both gave him the 'moral high ground' and provided an opportunity to introduce stringent measures to scrutinise people close at hand. This allowed him to continue to centralise power.

Information about the 3-anti and 5-anti campaigns here.

Old traditions and new promises

In Chapter 8 of Wild Swans, we read how the author's mother is now in Yibin, miles away from Manchuria. Locate these places on the map. Listen how life in Yibin is described.

In this place and time, the new Communist reforms and old Chinese customs are at odds. Can you spot those moments where people are dealing with those differences?

Where do you think your sympathies would lie at this moment? With the old traditions or the new promises?

Endings and beginnings

Chapter 6 of Wild Swans gives us a good insight into transitional points in history.

In China 1949, families might have loyalties and histories embedded in both the Kuomintang and Communism. It could be dangerous to reveal too much loyalty or previous involvement to any side, and families might have to change allegiance quickly, depending on where people lived and who at that time was in power.

At these points in history - when there is rapid social and political change - people might feel the imperative to change their own beliefs - or say they had done so - as part of daily survival.

Can you think of other points in history where this might be true?

In Chapter 7 we read the circumstances of the author's family as Mao proclaims the founding of the People's Republic of China; 1 October 1949.

Communism

In Chapter 5 of Wild Swans, we learn how the author's mother is attracted by the Communist movement.

Read here. Let's talk about some of the ideas in Communism at this time that might have seemed attractive to a young woman in 1947. Your grannies would have been aged in their twenties.

In Chapter 6 there are indications that the Party is seeking to take over from the family as the source of guidance and support. What areas of life does the Party attempt to control?

War and conflict is often used as the rationale why control is needed over a citizen's life. Do you remember the author's father talking about discipline in the revolution? What's your opinion?

For an updated version on how China is run today, visit this BBC article.

Struggles between Communism and the Kuomintang

In Chapter 4, we are starting to read a lot more about the struggles between the Communists and the Kuomintang.

Let's find out as much as we can about these forces. We could visit the Sun Yat-Sen and History Museums again.

Search out what you can. There is some good information with plenty of links here, here and a video covering the period here; it's taken from CCTV, the Chinese television station.

Keep looking out for sources and share them.

A lecture on the Chinese civil war here. The graphics are not very clear but the narrative is straighforward.

The Soviets arrive

In Chapter 4 of Wild Swans, we are told that after the Japanese surrender in Manchukuo, the Soviet Red Army entered this north-eastern area.

Tell me about the events you would expect to happen immediately after any major conflict. What do you think might happen to the borders of a country? Or to the rulers of 'winning' sides? And the rulers of 'losing' sides? To the people who fought and survived the battle?

Incidentally, there is a resource here to locate conflicts through history. You could spend some time exploring this site.

Life under the Japanese

In Chapter 3 of Wild Swans we find out about the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.

We need to visit two museums again! One, the Coastal Defences Museum, and two, the History Museum. Make sure that you visit the galleries explaining the Japanese occupation.

When we are in England, let's visit the Imperial War Museum in London, and look at the history of Japan in the twentieth century.

Kitchen God

In Chapter 2 of Wild Swans we are told about the Kitchen God.

Here's some information on Zao Jun. Can you find out information about other Chinese deities?

Chinese Medicine

Let's visit the Chinese Medicine gallery again!

(I promise next time not to make you walk past the model of the rat dissection.)

What can you recall about the principles and practices of Chinese Medicine? This page might help remind you.

When we walk through Sheung Wan again, peer into the shops. Let's hope none of us falls ill.

The Manchu Doctor

In Chapter 2 of Wild Swans we find out a little about Manchu (or Qing) customs.

You can see some elements of Manchu lifestyle in this video: the kang, rich embroidery, ancestor table for worhip, the drum, and dance.

The resolution on this video is not high, so the visual quality is poor, but it might help. Can you find any other sources of information about lives that we can share?

Here is a map for the Manchu or Qing dynasty and shows the borders in 1910.

The book is explaining a family set against political events. Useful visuals and story here, charting the transition from the Imperial court to the revolution set in place by Sun Yat Sen.

Where is it?

See if you can find the locations mentioned in the book Wild Swans.

You can use a conventional map. Let's look for a good map book at the library.

This site provides a search box.

Try typing in the following:

Yixian, Shanghai, Jinzhou, Hebei.

Then follow the links to see if you can locate where these places are. Are they in the North, South, East, West of China? If you can find the locations, then you can find the routes mentioned in the book.

What should a female be like?

Although Wild Swans is set at a time of great political and social change, the book tells us stories about people, too. In particular, girls and women, their identities and relationships.

The book describes how girls and women are brought up; how each culture determines how they should behave; what their goals and ideals should be; what customs, duties, ideals they should have.

How are women described and presented in the opening pages of Wild Swans?

Scroll down this page, a text from Ban Zhou. Read the headings in her Lessons for Women. Read any of the lessons too if you wish. I am sure you will have plenty of opinions about this that you would like to share.

(For a more up to date insight, you could try this documentary; I haven't watched it all. But I'm reading Factory Girls, and am trying to get a better understanding of women in China.)

Speed tour

Follow this speed tour through the dynasties of China (Han/Tang/Song/Yuan/Ming) to arrive at the Qing (let's pronounce it as Ching).

For a reference timeline, look here.

The Qing was the final dynasty (1644-1911). The video and recap on the dynasties will help set the background to extracts of the book I'll read aloud; Wild Swans by Jung Chang.