There is a historical drama to begin soon in Korea. I wish I was in Korea to watch this and that my Korean was good enough to enjoy it: “The 40 episodes cover the period from the morning of president Park Chung-hee’s assassination to the handover of power from Chun Doo-hwan to Roh Tae-woo.” But [...]
It has been hard to keep up with all the renewed excitement generated by the anti-Japan protests in China. It has reopened discussion on all the classic issues in Sino-Japanese relations since the early 1980s. In a series of blog entries (one on apologies to Korea, one on apologies to China, and one on revisionist [...]
One of the interesting catch phrases during the Sino-Japanese war of 1937-1945 is Quxian jiuguo (曲线救国) or “Saving the nation through twisted means” (In his book The Shanghai Badlands Frederic Wakeman translates it as “Saving the nation in a devious way”, 126). This was the phenomenon of Nationalist military agents or soldiers entering into the [...]
I was just skimming through the excellent Nazi Rule and Dutch Collaboration: The Netherlands under German Occupation, 1940-45 by Gerhard Hirschfeld and found an interesting discussion about German policy towards the native fascist movements after the occupation of the Netherlands. (266-8) Apparently, the Germans concluded that the Quisling coup d’etat just before Norway’s capitulation actually [...]
For friends and family who may be curious, the awesome satellite feature of Google Maps can now bring you a map of my daily life here. Except for Korean, most of my classes are in Robinson hall and Divinity 2. Except for groceries and to hunt for food in the Square (slightly to the SW [...]
One of the interesting aspects of pre-modern Korean history is the existence of a huge number of slaves, perhaps averaging 30% or perhaps 40% of the population for the Chosŏn dynasty. As I read about this for my class and we had our discussion of it today, I found that there seems to be considerable [...]
Via Open Access News, the Columbia University Senate has passed a resolution supporting the Open Access movement. Doesn’t look like it has teeth to it but seems to move Columbia closer to MIT’s position and hopefully they will consider adopting something similar to MIT’s Creative Commons License (See the full resolution below). Inside Higher Ed [...]
Perhaps this is just common sense but I feel it worth mentioning that I am really beginning to feel the benefits of my blogging notes and thoughts on things I read and hear. I have made similar comments before but I’m now quite positive that writing on this blog is helping me remember ideas and [...]
When I arrived at Harvard this fall, there was one PhD student in particular that I very much looked forward to meeting. I had found mention in various places of a student at Harvard who was studying Sino-Japanese wartime relations named Qian Jinbao who had previously worked at the Nanjing historical archives that many a [...]
I have added a “linklog” to this webpage. Except for those who are reading this blog through their RSS readers, you will notice a list of “Recent Links” with comments on them located at the right, above the blogroll. This is a place I can slap up recent blog articles or web pages I have [...]