It’s time China got over the Opium War – UnHerd

Take three mid-19th century Asian conflicts: one killed 20 million people, one killed well over 100,000 and a third killed 20,000. Which one, despite being barely noticed by the Chinese government at the time, is the most discussed today and has become emblematic of an historic clash between …

Source: It’s time China got over the Opium War – UnHerd

In Han Dynasty China, Bisexuality Was the Norm | JSTOR Daily

In the last years BCE, Emperor Ai was enjoying a daytime nap. He was in his palace, in Chang’an (now Xi’an, China), hundreds of miles inland, wearing a traditional long-sleeved robe. Laying on one of his sleeves was a young man in his 20s, Dong Xian, also asleep. So tender was the emperor’s love for this man that, when he had to get up, instead of waking his lover, he cut off the sleeve…

Source: In Han Dynasty China, Bisexuality Was the Norm | JSTOR Daily

The Hidden History of Shanghai’s Jewish Quarter – Atlas Obscura

The Fiedler family poses in front of their home on Tongshan Road. UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM, COURTESY OF ERIC GOLDSTAUB

It’s common knowledge that as Hitler’s bid to rid the world of Jews escalated, so did the world’s refusal to let them in. What’s not well known is that when those borders, ports, doors, windows, and boundaries began shutting Jews out, in part by refusing to issue them visas, Shanghai, though already swollen with people and poverty, was the only place on Earth willing to accept them with or without…

via The Hidden History of Shanghai’s Jewish Quarter – Atlas Obscura

The Last Empress Dowager | toritto

It is the year 1861 in the Western calendar while in China the Xianfeng Emperor lay dying.   He was the ninth Emperor of the Manchu Qing Dynasty and he was but thirty years old.  Each Emperor, upon…

Source: The Last Empress Dowager | toritto

Eric Liddell, the Record Breaking Olympian Who Kept Hope Alive in a Japanese Prison Camp

The Scotsman Eric Liddell is best remembered for his sporting accomplishments from the 1981 film that dramatized them, Chariots of Fire. However, his recor…

Source: Eric Liddell, the Record Breaking Olympian Who Kept Hope Alive in a Japanese Prison Camp

Intermission (5) – POW in Japan

Can you imagine what it must be like to be marched out to face a firing squad, say goodbye to your closest friend who is standing next to you and then have the squad shoulder their rifles and march…

Source: Intermission (5) – POW in Japan

East Asian skeletons found in a Londinium cemetery | The Heritage Trust

An artist’s impression of Londinium, centre of the Roman Empire in Britain, circa 200ce

An artist’s impression of Londinium, centre of the Roman Empire in Britain, circa 200ce   Across the river to the south of Londinium was a small suburb that would later become Southwark. It…

Source: East Asian skeletons found in a Londinium cemetery | The Heritage Trust

The Chinese Female Pirate Who Commanded 80,000 Outlaws | Atlas Obscura

A painting of the city of Canton c. 1800, where Ching Shih lived before she became a pirate. (Photo: Unknown Chinese artist/Public Domain)

At the dawn of the 19th century, a former prostitute from a floating brothel in the city of Canton was wed to Cheng I, a fearsome pirate who operated in the South China Sea in the Qing dynasty.

Though the name under which we now know her, Ching Shih, simply means “Cheng’s widow,” the legacy she left behind far exceeded that…

Source: The Chinese Female Pirate Who Commanded 80,000 Outlaws | Atlas Obscura

Intermission (3) – Current News on The Hump

At 7:40 a.m. Jan. 25, 1944, five B-24 Liberator heavy bombers from the 308th Bombardment Group, 425th Squadron, took off from their base at Kunming, China, on a routine supply run to India. Their r…

Source: Intermission (3) – Current News on The Hump

On this day: the bombing of the Kashmir Princess | In Times Gone By…

The Kashmir Princess, an aircraft operated by Air India, was bombed and sank into the South China Sea on the 11th of April, 1955. Of the nineteen people on board, sixteen died. Zhou Enlai in 1946 I…

Source: On this day: the bombing of the Kashmir Princess | In Times Gone By…

The Good German of Nanking | toritto

So you’re a middle-aged German business man, working for Siemens A.G. in Nanking, China in 1938.  You’re a member in good standing of the Nazi Party (though you haven’t lived in Germany for almost 30 years) and you begin to see war crimes and atrocities with your own eyes.

What do you do – especially taking into consideration that the war crimes are being perpetrated by the military of a country on friendly terms with your own?

This was the situation of John Rabe, born in Hamburg in 1887 and living in China since 1908.

“Many Westerners were living in the Chinese capital city of the time, as Nanking was until December 1937, conducting trade or on missionary trips. As the Japanese army approached Nanking and initiated bombing raids on the city, all but 22 foreigners fled the city, with 15 American and European missionaries and businessmen forming part of the remaining group.  On November 22, 1937, as the Japanese Army advanced on Nanking, Rabe, along with other foreign nationals, organized the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone and created the…

Source: The Good German of Nanking | toritto

Rare photographs of Peking

Thomas Child was the most prolific early photographer of Peking and this is the first extensive exhibition of his photographs…

Source: Rare photographs of Peking

Ancient Chinese tomb dating back 2,500 years uncovered to shed light on obscure kingdom | Asia | News | The Independent

Chinese archaeologists have uncovered a 2,500-year-old- tomb thought to contain the skeletons of an ancient royal family. The tomb in Luoyang city, Henan province, is believed to originate from the relatively-unknown Luhun Kingdom, which only lasted 113 years between 638BC and 525BC, according People’s Daily Online.

Source: Ancient Chinese tomb dating back 2,500 years uncovered to shed light on obscure kingdom | Asia | News | The Independent

Timeless Mystery: How Could a Swiss Ring-Watch End up in a Sealed Ming Dynasty Tomb?

Originally posted on Epoch Times.

A file photo of a Ming Dynasty mausoleum (Axz66/iStock)

The universe is full of mysteries that challenge our current knowledge. In “Beyond Science” Epoch Times collects stories about these strange phenomena to stimulate the imagination and open up previously undreamed of possibilities. Are they true? You decide.

A mystery surrounds the curious excavation of a strange artifact and those who recovered it from the depths of an ancient tomb in China. When archaeologists reportedly recovered a modern-looking, mud-encrusted artifact from a 400-year-old sealed tomb in 2008, their astonishment was great. For some, this type of discovery could have only meant one thing—it was evidence of time travel. Was the discovery real? Was it a hoax? Could the find have been an intriguing artifact out-of-place and time?

Reports described the team as composed of archaeologists and journalists filming a documentary at a dig at a sealed tomb dating to the Ming Dynasty in Shangsi, southern China. As one of the coffins was being cleared of soil before being opened, a strange thing happened.

We picked up the object, and found it was a ring. After removing the covering soil and examining it further, we were shocked to see it was a watch.

“When we tried to remove the soil wrapped around the coffin, suddenly a piece of rock dropped off and hit the ground with metallic sound,” said Jiang Yanyu, a former curator of the Guangxi Autonomous Region Museum…

via Timeless Mystery: How Could a Swiss Ring-Watch End up in a Sealed Ming Dynasty Tomb?.

This Abandoned Village In China Is Being Beautifully Reclaimed By Nature.

Originally posted on Trendingly.

At the mouth of the Yangtze River lies Shengsi, an archipelago of almost 400 islands that attracts over 100,000 fishers every winter. One of the islands, Shengshan, was a thriving fishing village until it became more economical for the fishers to live and work on the mainland. The abandoned village now stands as a relic, its buildings and roads slowly being swallowed by nature…

via This Abandoned Village In China Is Being Beautifully Reclaimed By Nature..