The Great Chinese Revolution

"The Great Chinese Revolution"

Workbook

Chapter 1-

This Chapter begins by describing what China is like and the unique characteristics it carries hidden within itself. China has modernized from within there own cultural tradition, but resists change. Two great institutions have held the Chinese state together, the ruling elite and the writing system. They have coexisted in mutual support for three thousand years. This says to me that China's slowness to modernize in material matters involving technology has been part of a larger scheme of stagnating. It seems like China is so set in tradition that it caused them to lag behind for a very long time. They involved themselves in farming which followed the family line from one to another.

Order was being set upon them and change was trying to be made. As for modernization, China has had farther to go and more changes to make than most countries because it has been itself for so long. I can understand why it happened, because without certain things and many obstacles, people are afraid to change. It is safer to be comfortable and stay with what you have known because the unknown is a scary thing. China is a huge place with a whole lot of people in it. The emperor left the principle record in China; he was also the most important person with the greatest influence. To make sense of the modern revolution we have to start with dynastic rulers and how they came to power and governed China. China may be behind a bit in some areas, but it is clear that they had strengths where others had weaknesses.

Chapter 2-

The Manchu Dynasty or Ch'ing Dynasty ruled China from 1644 to 1912 was an era of long development of relations between the farmers and the bureaucrats within the Great Wall and the large tribes of the Inner Asian steppe. The Chinese state was born with many problems and it developed great skill in dealing with it in any number of ways. The secret of the Manchus' rise and success in taking over China was the fact of their geographic position and ethnic composition on the fringe of the great Ming Empire. That sounds crazy to me but it obviously possible because it happened to China. Millions of people, politics, and warfare aren't something you should mix together and expect a peaceful outcome.

About 500 B.C. Confucius had sought the moral basis for maintaining the social order. But what happened after that? A unified empire changed many things. Boys in China had to prepare for examinations at age seven and in six years had to memorize many books. Their days were long and hard, full of preparation and discipline.

Chgapter3-

Many people wonder how China originated and some people have a few answers. First is the old tradition of "exceptionalism," which stresses the differences between China and the Western World. Second, is the opposite approach that assumes that Chinese society has features comparable to those of all other societies. I want to remember this: First, in the early nineteenth-century China tension grows between new growth and old institutions, between the increase of people and trade and the unresponsiveness of government and scholarship. Second, the impact of the ancient combination of domestic disorders and foreign troubles leads to a late nineteenth-century condominium between conservative dynastic government and foreign treaty-port privilege. Third, when the era of imperialism reaches its height in the 1890's, movements for reform and for revolution begin to compete and interact. The competition is between modernization of material and intellectual life and the more slowly developing social change of values and institutions. Fourth, a seesaw develops between these efforts. The three revolutionary conflicts of 1911-13, 1923-28, and 1946-49 see interaction between the forces of material change and cultural change, between technology and values. The contest has been still under way in the People's Republic (1949-85).

Chapter 4-

The idea of imperialism was a principle imperialist import into China. Note the imbalance it cre4ated in China's modern history. First, The aggressive European powers recorded their martial exploits, from the British Opium War (1839-42), through the Anglo-French invasion of 1856 to 1860, the Sino-French fighting over Vietnam in the 1880's, down to the Japanese victory of 1895 and the anti-Boxer invasion of 1900. Second, Modern Chinese historians began with Morse and progressed by getting at the Chinese equivalent of Blue Book History. Third, The in-balance of foreign over domestic was perpetuated. In the 1930's to 1960's when the governments put out volumes of documents on "Chinese modern history," foreign relations stole the show.

Chapter 5-

The downfall of the Ch'ing Government was the failure in the early nineteenth century to keep up with the growth of population and commerce by a commensurate growth of government structure and personnel. It says that all of this is what created the generation of rebellion. The population began to grow and expand which did a lot more damage than weakening the government.

This chapter begins to describe the way the Chinese kept women in their place. Women were fitted into the social and cosmic order by invoking the principles of Yang and Yin. There was a lot of inequality between the sexes, which came to lead to foot binding. It spread as a mark of gentility and upper-class status. It was so important to have small feet, that if you didn't achieve the "small foot" you wouldn't have a good marriage. The small foot was called a "golden lotus" or "golden lily." It seems to me to be a type of bondage or abuse. Yet, they saw it as necessary and pain is beauty, right? So by the Ming period the overwhelming majority of Han Chinese women all over the country had artificially small feet. It said in the book that foot binding was powered by a sexual fetish. The Chinese love manuals are very specific about the use of bound feet as erogenous areas. The movements against foot binding began in the 1890's. I can't believe the girls would deform themselves! I think it's really disgusting and it had to be horribly painful.

Chapter 6-

This chapter begins to talk about the European Trade and China's great revolution that began in the 1830's. It reversed itself, for 250 years the Europeans came by sea and bought China's handicraft products,