Download Hist 270 - China in the World Second Essay

Hist 270 - China in the World
Second Essay Assignment
The assignment for second essay in the fall term is to write a short essay explicating a primary
document—which is what we have been doing in your tutorials this fall. Start by reading “How
to Read a Text,” which is posted on the course website. You are a shitorian encountering a
primary text, and this is you roadmap. You don’t have to answer all the questions listed there;
just use the ones you find helpful to analyze what the text says and why it says it at the time it
was written. Avoid generalizations: locate the meaning of your text in the period when its author
created it, and think about why he did so. Bear the theme of the course in mind: understanding
the history of China in relation to the history of the world.
The following primary documents, listed in chronological order, are posted on the course website.
If you don’t see anything here that grabs you, you are welcome to find a text of your own. One
place to start is Patricia Ebrey’s Chinese Civilisation: A Sourcebook, though it is short on
materials that situate China globally.
1. Sima Qian on the Xiongnu: In the first comprehensive history of China written early in the
first century BC, Sima Qian records what he knows about the Xiongnu.
2. Han Yu’s “Memorial Discussing the Buddha’s Bone”: In one of the most famous texts
from the Tang dynasty, the great eminent Han Yu worries about the foreign origins of a Buddha
relic the emperor would like to honour.
3. Rebellions as reported in the Official History of the Liao Dynasty (Liao shi): These entries
from the section on rebellions during the Liao reveal much about the instability of succession, as
well as other issues. Don’t analyze the entire document: choose a part that interests you and
focus on that. This comes from the partial translation of this dynastic history by Feng Chia-sheng
and Karl Wittfogel, History of Chinese Society, Liao, 907-1125 (1949),
4. Social organization of the Khitans as reported in the Official History of the Liao Dynasty:
These entries have been taken from a different section of the same translation. Again, be
selective in what you choose to comment on. You might think about what seems distinctive in
Khitan social organization compared with Chinese practices.
5. Tangut texts regarding China: These fragments from the 11th and 12th centuries capture
aspects of the Tangut (Jin dynasty) view of China.
6. Poems of longing by poets of the Southern Song: This set of poems, taked from Patricia
Ebrey’s sourcebook, illustrates the emotions that people of the Song felt over losing the north to
the Jurchen Jin dynasty.
7. Changchun visits Chinggis Khan: In 1219, the Daoist leader Changchun received a request
from Chinggis [Genghis] Khan to visit him at his camp near Hindu Kush. This is an excerpt of
his record of this journey.
8. Record of a Nestorian Christian monk from China who visited Europe: Rabban Bar
Sauma (or Sawma) traveled to Europe in 1287. This fragment of his record tells of meeting the
Pope as well as the kings of France and England. You might refer to Morris Rossabi’s study of
Bar Sauma, Voyager from Xanadu.
9. Epitaph of a Mongol general: This is the epitaph of Menggu, a Mongol general, honouring
his service to the Yuan dynasty.
10. An Armenian Account of Yuan China: This description of China appears in the first
chapter of Het’um Patmich’ T'at’arac’ [Het’um’s history of the Tartars], written early in the 14th
century by the Armenian geographer, Het’um.
11. A Chinese Scholar visits Yunnan and observes local customs: In the Yuan dynasty, Li
Jing compiled a ethnographic survey of indigenous peoples in Yunnan; three of his entries are
included in this translation.
12. A Korean official shipwrecked in China: In 1488, a Korean official named Ch’oe Pu was
blown off course while at sea and shipwrecked on the coast of China. He kept a diary of his
experiences, which John Meskill has translated as A Record of Drifting Across the Sea. This
excerpt describes his first days ashore.
13. Matteo Ricci describes printing in China: Ricci provides the first detailed description in
any European language of how Chinese printed books, noting their differences with Europe. This
text is short, so you may wish to consult other works on the history of printing in China, such a
Joseph McDermott, A Social History of the Chinese Book, or Tsuen-Hsuin Tsien’s contribution
to volume 5 of Joseph Needham’s Science and Civilisation in China.