"To the world of today the men of medieval Christendom already seem remote and unfamiliar. Their names and deeds are recorded in our history-books, their monuments still adorn our cities, but our kinship with them is a thing unreal, which costs an effort of imagination. How much more must this apply to the great Islamic civilization, that stood over against medieval Europe, menacing its existence and yet linked to it by a hundred ties that even war and fear could not sever. Its monuments too abide, for those who may have the fortunate to visit them, but its men and manners are to most of us utterly unknown, or dimly conceived in the romantic image of the Arabian Nights. Even for the specialist it is difficult to reconstruct their lives and see them as they were. Histories and biographies there are in quantity, but the historians for all their picturesque details, seldom show the ability to select the essential and to give their figures that touch of the intimate which makes them live again for the reader. It is in this faculty that Ibn Battuta excels."
Thus begins the book, "Ibn Battuta, Travels in Asia and Africa 1325-1354" published by Routledge and Kegan Paul. Step
into the world of "
the first tourist" who made his mark as
the world's greatest traveler before the age of steam.
[more inside]
posted by infini
on Jan 12, 2013 -
21 comments
Historically, the
city states of the Malay Peninsula often paid tribute to regional kingdoms such as those
of China and
Siam. Closer relations with China were
established in the early 15th century during the
reign of Parameswara, founder of Melaka,
when Admiral Zheng He (Cheng Ho)
sailed through the Straits of Malacca. Impressed
by the tribute, the
Yongle Emperor of China
is said to have presented Princess Hang Li Po
* as a gift to Mansur Shah,
then Sultan of
Malacca (+/-1459 AD). Tradition
claims the courtiers and servants
who accompanied the princess
settled in Bukit Cina, intermarried
with the locals
and grew into a community known
as the Peranakan.
Colloquially known as Baba-Nyonya, the Peranakan or Straits Chinese, they retained
many of their
ethnic and religious customs, but
assimilated the
language and clothing of
the Malays. They
developed a unique
culture and
distinct foods.
Nyonya cuisine is
one of the most highly rated in the South East Asian
region, considered some of the
most difficult to master but
very easy to
love and
enjoy.
posted by infini
on Dec 24, 2012 -
25 comments
French photographer Benoit Cezard, who has lived in Wuhan, Hubei province for six years, suddenly rose to fame on the Internet, after he orchestrated a series of photos in which Caucasians pose as migrant workers in China.
Benoit Cezard is convinced that by 2050, China will overtake the United States as the world’s No.1 economy, and as the result, foreigners will come to China for manual and low-paid jobs, such as street vendors and sanitation workers, most of which are currently held by low-cost workers from rural China. text Via Ministry of Tofu
shares photos along with Chinese netizen's reactions to the series.
posted by infini
on Jul 13, 2012 -
17 comments
Chinese archeologists
have mapped the layout of
Shangdu (
better known as Xanadu),
after large scale
excavations that
included the use of
GIS in remote sensing and aerial archeology. The capital,
located in
Inner Mongolia, was built in 1256
under the command of
Kublai Khan, the first emperor of
Yuan Dynasty, who was
enthroned there four years later.
It became a summer resort after the
Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) moved its
capital to Ta-tu or
Dadu (
built by the
same architect,
located in present-day
Beijing) in 1276, and was destroyed during
a peasant war at the end of
the dynasty. The regional government has submitted an application for
World Cultural Heritage status
for the site to UNESCO,
currently under review.
Xanadu has
captured the imagination of the
West ever since Marco Polo first
extolled its beauties
in his Books of the Marvels of the World,
subsequently immortalized by Coleridge in
a poem fuelled
by opium fevered dreams.
Other recently discovered
Yuan Dynasty artifacts include
a priceless porcelain vase as well as
a sunken ship - part of an
invading Mongol armada - off the coast
of Japan.
posted by infini
on Dec 3, 2011 -
24 comments
With the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown on Thursday, China's ever-vigilant censors have stepped up the reach of the "Great Firewall," blocking Western sites like Twitter, Flickr, and (just one day after its launch) Microsoft's Bing.
via [more inside]
posted by infini
on Jun 3, 2009 -
54 comments
"
The model of economic development that we are currently pursuing is unsustainable. Our energy consumption per unit of GDP is seven times that of Japan, six times that of America, and even 2.8 times that of India. China’s labour productivity is less than 10 per cent of the world total, and yet our emissions are over 10 times higher than the global average." ~ Pan Yue - deputy director of China's State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA). Part of a new generation of outspoken Chinese senior officials, Pan has given rise to a tide of environmental debate, attracting enormous attention and controversy.
Read his articles here : -
China: economic powerhouse, environmentally unsustainable -
part one and
part two
posted by infini
on Jul 29, 2007 -
34 comments
