The Marmot’s Hole

4 Comments

1. leguwan
   Posted September 21, 2007 at 5:26 pm | Permalink

   Great stuff Robert!

   I think my favorite is the 1898 article about the natives being inveterate smokers… Nothing has changed since!!

2. sanshinseon
   Posted September 22, 2007 at 1:22 am | Permalink

   Kewl articles alright… they give us some perspective on what has changed and what hasn’t…

3. Netizen Kim
   Posted September 22, 2007 at 6:05 am | Permalink

   America as seen by an Oriental diplomat by Wu Tingfang:

   http://www.worldwideschool.org.....a/toc.html

4. Sonagi
   Posted September 22, 2007 at 7:33 am | Permalink

   I haven’t read Wu’s book, but I own copies of these classics written to explain China and Chinese people to the West:

   My Country, My People
   http://www.amazon.com/My-Count.....9971642050

   The Spirit of the Chinese People
   http://www.chinasprout.com/shop/BHT005

   The second book is a bit chauvinistic, as the description suggests. Ku discussed his perceived strengths and weaknesses of Americans, French, British, and other nationalities, and then proceeded to demonstrate how the Chinese possess all the positive qualities of the aforementioned nationalities, albeit he did acknowledge the Chinese had a few weaknesses. As I recall, Ku described Chinese women as far more delicate than moustachioed Western he-women. My, how Chinese women have changed.