Steve's hero Simon Winchester has a piece in the NYT fawning over Wulingyuan National Park and the way the CCP has managed it. Basically, they keep the numbers of tourists down by charging an arm and a leg. It is also interesting to note that a big part of the appeal for domestic tourists is not the Karst topography, but the association of the area with the revolutionary hero Marshal He Long.
I've been learning a lot about Chinese nationalism at the this NEH institute I am attending. All the presenters have agreed that Chinese nationalism is the biggest cultural force in China today. Interestingly, nationalism in the Western sense of the word is a new phenomenon there, growing out of the collapse of the Qing dynasty. Western nationalism requires you to think of your people as one nation competing among many, so that you can root for your nation in the competition. When the Middle Kingdom was simply the center of the universe, there really wasn't a need for nationalism in any recognizable sense.
Also interesting: Winchester is working on a book about Joseph Needham, the historian of Chinese science.
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2 comments:
something interesting is brewing as Japanese Nationalism is on the rise as well. You know the history of the two nations, so sparks are bound to fly.
Yeah, interesting article from the Man Winchester himself, even if it is slightly fawning. Hey, he's a geologist by training and recognizes great geology when he sees it. I'd like to know if that park has a museum like Stone Forest allegedly does.
Everyone who's been along the Yangtze should read Winchester's book "River at the Center of the World"
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