by fulltimestudent 23 Replies latest social current
Beautiful ladies are valued everywhere, and travel far, and did in earlier times.
In the book 'The 7 daughters of Eve' , they ranged all over the world already, even the far away Faroes.
Perhaps not everywoman received such lasting treatment and caucasian features are considered beautiful in the orient, just as we like handsome orientals too.
Interestingly, related to the beautiful saughters, the most genetically diverse modern man, the composite Adam so to speak was tracked down in the same general area , the central euro, mostly Asian plateau. (remebered from a PBS program)
Dis-Member:
There is nothing wrong with pasting text when it's not your own. People do it all the time. It's called 'quoting'.
So..
That was not the focus of my comment. Read again my statement:
Its rather regrettable that you chose to cut and paste, without any analysis, this sloppy example of western journalism at its most biased.
We may have been all like that as JWs - but there is no longer a need to mindlessly regurgitate without thought or analysis.
In your first cut and paste, the author, to quote myself:
... chooses to jump between past and present and to use terminology that is quite anachronistic.
I will give you some examples of his very poor writing:
The Chinese government has put an official travel ban on a mummy as well as some other artifacts that were scheduled to be shown as part of the ‘Secrets of the Silk Road’ exhibition in museums in the United States.
This writer fails to mention that the mummies (they are not really 'mummies' of course) had already been on display in California for about one year. I have not sought to read the agreement under which the mummies and other items were loaned out. But if all the sh*t writing as to "fears" of the Chinese Government were true, do you really think they would've loaned the mummies in the first place?
The writer is correct in stating:
This isn’t just a problem with having to alter the government-approved version of contact between East and West. It has to do with a separatist movement by the current inhabitants of the oil rich China’s Tarim Basin, in Xinjiang province. The Uighurs who have had violent clashes with what they view as intrusion from the Han Chinese in recent years.
It is thought that perhaps The Beauty of Xiaohe mummy will give the muslim Uighurs fuel for their fight with the ruling Han Chinese. And so, for now, the mummy has been pulled from exhibitions in the United States by the Chinese.
And, very likely the Chinese Government may have decided to force the return of the mummies when, instead of being the focus of academic inquiry into the origin of the people of Central Asia, they became the centre of political agitiation by separatists. A movement which the US Government seems to have encouraged. ***
Why should the Chinese government have continued to display the mummies?
*** As they have done recently in Libya and Syria. And, further back with the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan,all of which have blown up in the faces of US officials and in the end resulted in the death of tens of thousands of innocent people, as the USA sought political advantage via mischief-making.
--------------------
Moving on to other statements by the original author:
That’s the problem. Her very existence, and that of others that have been found in China’s Tarim Basin, in Xinjiang province suggest that the area was settle by Europeans rather than Asians initially. That flies in the face of the accepted history of China.
The writer reveals his deep ignorance of the topic, in his selection of anachronistic terminology. Many scholars doubt the usefullness of the terms "European" and "Asian." They do have some meaning geographically, but who do you associate with the term "European?" Do you mean blonde, blue-eyed Scandinavians, or do you mean dark eyed, black haired mediterrraneans?
And what the hell does this person mean when he/she writes?
That flies in the face of the accepted history of China.
And, in any case, what the hell is a "Chinese?" Even today, that is difficult question. The "sh*t" writers will say they are the "han" - but the people referred to as "han" have a complex origin, with perhaps six different ethnic types merging into the present Chinese population. That writer sees "Chinese" as an ethnic term, but some scholars see China as a "civilisational" state, which grew by various ethnic peoples adopting Chinese civilisation and gradually merging into one state and one people.
Do you know that there is an ethnic link between modern Chinese people and Europeans? I digress to provide an example of the difficulties in discussing ethnic origins
To the north of (modern) China, there once existed a people called the Xiongnu. Under some leaders they were strong enough to challenge the proto states that became China. There were continual wars between the the agricultural states of the south and the horse-riding Xiongnu. In time the Xiongnu split into two groups, one of which we call in English, the southern Xiongnu. This group asked to be allowed to settle in China and were accepted. The other group stayed in the wild (free?) existence. Dont think that by 'wild' I mean barbaric, they just had a different concept of life.
But they did move, to the Romans they were known as the Huns, and you can read in Roman history of what the Huns did to the Roman Empire. Incidentally, after sacking Rome, they were eventually converted to Christianity, the Arian brand, and were likely the last in the Roman world to accept the trinity.
Later descendents took over proto-France and Germany - so we can say that politically at any rate there is a link between the ethnic mix of the Han and western Europe.
If that sounds far-fetched try reading this book:
http://ebooks.cambridge.org/ebook.jsf?bid=CBO9780511920493
The Huns, Rome and the Birth of Europe
By Hyun Jin Kim
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print Publication Year:2013
Online Publication Date:May 2013
Online ISBN:9780511920493
Hardback ISBN:9781107009066
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511920493
Subjects: Ancient history , European history 450-1000
But what is the history of China origins?
I'll take up that theme in another post (I have a class to attend in 3 hours- and must get ready) and examine the author's claim:
According to the Chinese government, the Chinese first made contact with the west around 200BC when the then emperor Wu Di tried to establish an alliance with the West against the Huns who were then based in Mongolia. The mummy suggest that Westerners were in China long before then.
PS: I've had the pleasure of hearing Dr Hyun Jin Kim speak on a number of occasions. I've also heard Victor Mair speak in a seminar on Central Asian origins. Mair claims to be the first westerner to see the mummies.
Interesting
That's the wonderful thing about so called history. Like the Bible it can be made to prove anything one likes. I try not to be too rigid any more with either. None of us were there.
Thanks Fulltime for showing us those pictures. Very, very interesting. I don't have time to read all the cut and paste right now, but the pictures are worth a thousand words.
I have been sharing these pictures, thanks again.
As an indication of how complex the area is ethnically, even now in the contemporary world, here's a map that tries to show the ethnic compoisition of the area to the west of modern China.
Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Central_Asia_Ethnic.jpg
Attempting to tag these people to their past is a lifetime' study.
So how about the past?
Did at some point in the unknowable past, representatives of the first humans, creep past this area. We just don't know. Perhaps they did in the inexorable march of humans over the face of the earth. But its possible that early humans kept close to sea shores, and perhaps some who went around the coastline and finished up in what is now called N.E. Russia (some of whom at least, crossed into N.W. America and formed the first populations of the Americas) started to migrate to the west across the great steppes of Russia. These may be the people who history as come to know (as previously posted) as the Steppe people, whom the Romans called the Huns, and the Chinese called the Xiongnu.
In my quite humble opinion, they are likely the most influential people in the world. Arguably, from them came the proto states that later became Japan, Korea, the Qin (the first Chinese empire - but not the first Chinese state) the Mongols, the Northern dynasties of China, and even influencing Tibet. And, as previously posted eastern Europe AND western Europe, and Russia.
If this process interests you, you can get some ideas of the process from Christopher Beckwith's, Empires of the Silk Road, Princeton University Press.
Thank you for sharing. Very interesting.
LL
