I love reading memoirs of lives in China in days long gone. Here are two gems. One is by an American lady who went to…
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Category: Uncategorized
The Tibet Question
What’s the origin of the conflict between the 14th Dalai Lama and China? What is the history of the relationships between Tibet and the Mongols…
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When The Red Gates Opened – Part 1
Unless you are Arundhati Roy, whose memoir on her relationship with her difficult but distinguished mom, ‘Mother Mary Comes to Me’ (published 2025), was reviewed…
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The Hungry Ghost Festival – Part 1
In Peking, 1939: Lu Hsing Yuan (HY Lowe) described how the Ghost Festival was celebrated in Peking in one of his installments in the English…
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Behind the Fall of the Gang of Four
Who prevented the Gang of Four from seizing power? When Mao died in 1976, it would appear to many that his wife Jiang Qing and…
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Jiangnan
South of the Yangtze evokes a mythical place in Chinese culture. The Chinese call the area Jiangnan ( literally, south of the Yangtze) river. It…
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From Mao to Modernity
On 2 Sep 1945, Japan formally surrendered. China designated 3 Sep 1945 as “Victory Day” to commemorate its victory over Japan. This year, on 3…
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Tibet in Its Own Words
The Tibetan History Reader is an anthology of essays on Tibet. It complements Sources of Tibetan Tradition, which is a collection of 180 mainly Tibetan…
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Two Characters, One Identity Lost
Why is a Chinese name wrongly transliterated in Hanyu Pinyin? A Chinese name is in three characters: surname and two characters for the given name.…
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The Dalai Lama
The current 14th Dalai Lama reached the age of 90 this 6 July 2025. He is also known as Kundun. In the Tibetan language, “Kundun”…
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