Don't Know Much About History...

Ok get ready... this one is a rant. I am know to sometimes go off on rants--frustrated at the world around me and strongly feeling the need to share these feelings. If you look, I even have a "rants" section on this blog. So here we go, my first Chinese rant.

This last week was national holiday for China. This holiday celebrates the birth of The People's Republic of China in 1949. I guess you could kinda compare it to the 4th of July, but it is a lot younger, and they get a WHOLE WEEK OFF! So in celebration of this great nation, we didn't have classes this week. Our whole group took our first trip to a city about two hours from hear named 泉州 or Quanzhou (pronounced shwenzow). This was an amazing city with historical sites on almost every street corner. During the Song and Yuan dynastys, (960-1368) Quanzhou was the most known and most visited city in the world. Merchants and travelers from all across the know world came to this booming port city to make it one of the most cosmopolitan places in ancient times. At one point, 2 million foreigners were visiting Quanzhou every year. With the population today, that would be the equivalent of 33 million people visiting one city annually! These foreigners brought their customs, ideas, and religions. The United Nations has designated this city as a "museum of world religions" because of the amount and diversity of ancient places of worship. We visited the oldest mosque in China, a Buddhist temple built 1400 years ago, a Confucian shrine, and saw Christian and Hindu gravestones dating back to the 600's. So I have a question...a test of sorts. This city, this amazing historical place, this place that Marco Polo wrote about... have any of you ever heard about it before? (akward silence) (dog barking in the background) I would bet not. As a matter of fact, I would bet that most of you, like me, had not heard of a majority of this incredibly important historical facts. Well, why not Matthew?Hey, thanks for asking--this leads me to my topic for the day.

Since coming here to China, I have began to slowly uncover the disturbing biases in my own educational history. I would venture to say that most Westerners know almost nothing about Chinese or Asian history. We study the Mesopotamians, we study the Romans, we study the Greeks...but somewhere in the shuffle we leave out one of the GREATEST CIVILIZATIONS OF ALL TIME!? Sounds a little shady to me... Ok it's not like there was nothing worth studying, so we just left it out. The Chinese in the ancient Shang dynasty were more technologically advanced in 1500 B.C. than the American Indians were in 1600 A.D. Yeah. That's what I said. Chinese sailors sailed around the known world in ships far larger than Columbus' before he even thought about leaving. (On a side note, the Chinese were pretty much masters at sailing. Almost anything on a boat, they invented. It took 1100 years for the technology of the rudder to get from China to England.) The Han dynasty was contemporaneous to the Roman Empire and matched/probably exceeded it in wealth, power, and size. The Chinese invented pretty much everything but here is a short list:

Paper, Printing, Matches, Playing cards, Gunpowder, Beer, Chess, Umbrellas, Paper Money, Suspension Bridges, The Decimal System, The Compass, Parachute, Grenade, Crossbow, Flamethrow

We were talking about this in class and someone from our class was actually trying to defend the lack of attention Chinese history has gotten in Western classrooms. She said that we studied Rome and the West because they were more related to us and affected us more on a daily level. My teacher replied in a sarcastic tone that although Roman government was influential he wasn't sure how much Rome affected his daily life. And if you think about it, we couldn't have the Boston Tea party without Tea right?

You know what else bothers me? When Americans take this paternalistic tone when speaking of China like it is their responsibility to Westernize, modernize, or civilize one of the greatest civilizations on earth! I think Confucius would say we should be respectful when speaking to our elders! Like one of my Chinese friends said, "America is just a baby country." I think most Americans judge China by their last 50ish years of history. To most, China is nothing more than a backwards communist place. Hate to break it to you, but this is an extremely recent trend in the huge history of China--why don't we look at the whole picture! It is disconcerting to look back on my historical education and realize that it was greatly influenced by this kind of ethnocentric hogwash. Let's face it, we don't always have to be the best, and we haven't really been around that long. I guess it just frustrates me to be learning this all for this for the first time...and i thought I was at least semi-educated. Oh, well.


P.S. We did do something cool in Quanzhou that wasn't exactly historical...
Motorcycle-Taxi racing through the City! Yeah Mayne!

Oh yeah, if anyone has actually heard of Quanzhou or any of the facts I shared, I want you to comment and tell me.

Motorcycle Taxis-- a great invention



Park and I with the famous eunuch sailor--Jeng Hur (slightly cooler Asian Columbus style guy)