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> an ethnically integrated China is, in fact, a modern invention linked to the rise of nationalism at the end of the nineteenth century. This idea is a very se
by justicezyx 5y ago
> an ethnically integrated China is, in fact, a modern invention linked to the rise of nationalism at the end of the nineteenth century.
This idea is a very sensible one in the context of China being forced to open up to the world. It's like a man, living in wild, has assume he was alone, and have no idea he was actually a male. Until one day he run into a similar creature that is a female.
The undernote of this is that Chinese society is extremely complex. Easily orders of magnitude more complex. Comparing to the US continental, the geographical diversity and the cultural heritage shows such a vast range of changes that one should feel US is probably culturally only equivalent to a typical province in China! They eat differently, speak different in accent and words of expression, have different customs in almost every aspects of the life (child birth, birthdag, marriage, funerals etc etc)...
China is indeed a humongous collective of diverse human communities that defies any singular or universal interpretation.
- SeanLuke 5y agoThe US is not an appropriate comparison in terms of geographical diversity. The US + Canada is unusually homogenous because of its unique and very modern history. Instead, compare China to Europe, which is far more rich and complex. Heck, there may be more dialects and recognized languages in Italy alone than in the large majority of China.
- justicezyx 5y agoIs there English writings on Italian dialects? Sounds like a really interesting topic. Given Italy's linkage to anticent Roma (and Greek maybe not sure), language dialects probably have a lot to do with the history and culture. Must be full of quriks and surprises!
- frenchy 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Italy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Italy
- hker 5y ago> > an ethnically integrated China is, in fact, a modern invention linked to the rise of nationalism at the end of the nineteenth century. > This idea is a very sensible one in the context of China being forced to open up to the world. The narrative of “China being forced to open up to the world” is also a social construct, and in this case a political construct. For examples, Mao Zedong supported the Hunan self-government movement even as late as the 1920’s [1][2], quite some time after the end of the Qing dynasty in 1911. This clearly ran against the convention that China should be politically integrated as it is today. [1]: https://blog.dwnews.com/post-896926.html https://blog.dwnews.com/post-896926.html "毛泽东：我想建湖南共和国 全国分为27国" [2]: https://www.jstor.org/stable/652585 https://www.jstor.org/stable/652585 "Mao Tse-tung and the Hunan Self-Government Movement, 1920: An Introduction and Five Translations"
- justicezyx 5y agoMao was writing those after almost 80 years of forced opening up in Opium war. I don't think your facts supports your claim.
- hker 5y agoMao’s 1920 proposal to split China showed that an ethnically integrated China, or a politically integrated China, was not a very sensible one in the context of China at that time. Mao disproved your claim. And that was my point: viewing certain historical events from a certain perspective is a social and political construct (the nationalism is a modern invention). The facts (Mao’s proposal) are supporting this view point: there could be alternative social constructs (for example, a split China). Mao’s 1920 proposal disagreed with your social construct (that an integrated China was a sensible thing at that time, due to being forced to open to the world).
- justicezyx 5y agoAppreciate your efforts of laying our additional contexts. You led the discussion into a debate of conception or definition of words... I seem no fruitful results from this.