Monthly Archives: January 2009
Emigration for Education
From Lipstick Jihad: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America and American in Iran, by Azadeh Moaveni (Public Affairs, 2005), pp. 166-167: I reached for the bowl of apricots on the table, picked out a plump one, and passed … Continue reading
What the PLA Learned in Korea
From A History of the Modern Chinese Army, by Xiaobing Li (U. Press of Kentucky, 2007), pp. 105-106, 110-112 (footnote references omitted): From the conclusion of the fifth campaign until the end of the war, the [Chinese People's Volunteer Force] … Continue reading
Flogging the Vote in Tehran, 2001
From Lipstick Jihad: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America and American in Iran, by Azadeh Moaveni (Public Affairs, 2005), pp. 126-129: Since the middle of the summer of 2001, Tehran had witnessed a baffling revival in the practice … Continue reading
Navigating America by Area Code
The Fortune Cookie Chronicles blogger Jennifer 8. Lee notes the key role of telephone area codes in helping Chinese immigrants who can barely read English find their way to smaller cities served by the Chinatown bus services. That is because … Continue reading
A Millennium of Reconfiguring Chinese Armies
From A History of the Modern Chinese Army, by Xiaobing Li (U. Press of Kentucky, 2007), pp. 18-20 (footnote references omitted): To secure China’s central position in Asia, Han emperors maintained a large army of more than one million men. … Continue reading
Attitudes toward Religion in China
From Under the Heel of the Dragon: Islam, Racism, Crime, and the Uighur in China, by Blaine Kaltman (Ohio U. Press, 2007), p. 127: The single most important tie that binds the Uighur to one another and forms the foundation … Continue reading
An Elite Birthday Party in Tehran
From Lipstick Jihad: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America and American in Iran, by Azadeh Moaveni (Public Affairs, 2005), pp. 81-83: Other than the steady stream of cars that silently pulled up to the Kermanis’ front door, there … Continue reading
Slave Diasporas Within Africa
From “Horrid Journeying: Narratives of Enslavement and the Global African Diaspora,” by Pier M. Larson in Journal of World History 19: 438-440, 463-464 (Project MUSE edition, footnote references removed): According to published estimates, roughly the same number of sub-Saharan Africans—some … Continue reading
A Uighur Dance Hall in Urumqi
From Under the Heel of the Dragon: Islam, Racism, Crime, and the Uighur in China, by Blaine Kaltman (Ohio U. Press, 2007), pp. 56-57: In Urumqi, Han bands often learn Uighur songs and perform at Uighur bars. Most of these … Continue reading
Filed under Central Asia, China, music
Japan’s Women vs. Children Left Behind in China
From Memory Maps: The State and Manchuria in Postwar Japan, Mariko Asanoi Tamanoi (U. Hawai‘i Press, 2009), pp. 91-92 (Japanese kanji added): Today the Japanese state and media woman call [women abandoned in Manchuria at war's end] chūgoku zanryū fujin … Continue reading
Filed under China, Japan, language, migration, nationalism
