I’m interested in reading about Korean history, but I’m not too sure where to start. Any suggestions?
I guess I'll continue on the theme from the last Floating Feature and talk about another odd-duck in the world of Mauser Rifles. In this case, that would be the M1903 Siamese (Thai) Mauser.
In the late 19th century, as the Kingdom of Siam sought to modernize its military, they adopted the Mauser Model 1871, a bolt-action design adopted by Germany to replace the Dreyse Needle Gun which was showing its age in the Franco-Prussian War, and the inaugural Mauser design as well. Purchased from Germany, as Siam lacked the domestic facilities for production, it gave them a modern rifle to reequip their army with, but that was quite brief, as designs went through a revolution over the next several decades, and by the turn of the century the black-powder, single-shot design was positively ancient.
Although contracts for a variety of weapons, especially Mannlicher Model 1888/90s, would help bolster their stores, for the new 'main' rifle, they were sticking with the tried and true basis of the Mauser design, this time mostly basing it on the much more modern G98 bolt and its five-round staggered box magazine, it again would bring the Siamese military up to a similar standard as any potential rival, but this time there was a twist. While the G71s had been nothing more than German rifles stamped with the additional Siamese "Charkra" marking, the Siamese Model 1903 was a unique design (by the fine folks at C&Rsenal). It was equipped with a bolt-cover, an uncommon design feature intended to keep the action clean and influenced by Japanese Arisakas, as well as the magazine slightly slanted compared to the normal G98, but most unusually was the choice of ammunition, an 8x50mmR (rimmed). It was a round unique to the Siamese, hence being commonly refereed to as 8x50mm Siamese.
Although Siam had sought to arrange for the license and machinery to produce their new Mausers domestically, which would give them an important degree of self-sufficiency, this proved untenable as there was a lack of skilled personnel to handle production, resulting in the machinery being forwarded along to Japan where production commenced at the Koishikowa arsenal with both Japanese and Thai personnel, with the parts then sent back to Siam for final assembly. In the 1920s, the shorter Model 1923 would be adopted, both new manufacture and converted Model 1903s, which used a still unique 8x52mmR round, changed from the round-nose of the 8x50mmR to a pointed spitzer, which of course were not interchangeable.
Although once not that uncommon to find on the surplus market after Thailand moved away from bolt action designs in the post-war period, the ammunition always remained a barrier, and surplus advertisements ballyhooed the rifles specifically on the basis of being something cheap and convertible to other rounds like .45-70. For the collector today the ammo is non-existent. Handloads are possible, and examples exist on the market that are modified to use a more common load, either done by surplus purchasers for a variety of cartridges, or the Thais themselves who rechambered some of their stock for .30-06 in the post-war period. As such, unmodified rifles in good condition can be something of a rarity.
(Hopefully this is alright, mods please let me know if it's not.)
I'd like to share a bit of history involving cannabis in a few ancient Asian cultures.
Some of the earliest known records of cannabis use exist in East Asia due to the early advanced civilizations that inhabited the areas, along with the cultural importance placed upon herbal remedies. Despite cannabis’ birthplace being the Hindu Kush mountain region of modern-day Pakistan and Afghanistan, it appears the first people to cultivate the plant brought it through modern-day Kashmir into India as it was used extensively by the Indus Valley Civilization. Either through self-discovered cultivation or trade with the people of western Tibet, or perhaps a combination of both, cannabis was introduced to the people of China and further spread to many East Asian cultures.
The oldest known use of cannabis comes from a Japanese tomb on the Oki Islands dating back to 8000 BCE, where cannabis residue was found alongside the dead, seemingly due to its cultural importance or perhaps as part of some burial ritual. Cannabis use in pre-Neolithic Japanese culture for its use in fibers, food and possibly a psychoactive spiritual aid were rather prevalent. For thousands of years afterwards, it was utilized heavily in mainland China as well, even earning its place on Yangshao culture pottery dating to around 4500 BCE. Korean culture also utilized the plant for fabric, and has been traced back to at least 3000 BCE. According to legend, Chinese Emperor Shennong, “The Red Emperor,” referred to cannabis as a staple crop of Asian culture around 2727 BCE, and gave specific instructions to medicine men on how to grind cannabis roots down to a paste for pain relief. Cannabis would be similarly written about in what is considered the first known pharmacopeia, Shennong Bencao Jing, or “The Classic of Herbal Medicine,” providing similar instructions for its medicinal use.
The influence of this herb in ancient China is still seen to this day in the Chinese character for cannabis, 麻 or má. The symbol shows two cannabis plants hanging from a rack under a shelter, and can be traced back to 1000 BCE in ancient Taiwan. Cannabis made its way into Chinese myths and legends as well, and was described in a circa 850 BCE tale as a tribute for the Chinese emperor of the Chu Dynasty, offered by a group of Amazon-like female warriors from Indochina. The “luminous sunset-clouds brocade” was fashioned from hemp, and was described as “shining and radiant, infecting men with its sweet smelling aroma. With this, and the intermingling of the five colors in it, it was more ravishingly beautiful than the brocades of our central states.” An ancient Chinese burial site was discovered in 1972 as well, dated to circa 249 BCE during the Chu dynasty, and showcased all of the dead buried in hemp cloth. This honorary tradition would be later detailed in the Book of Rites circa 221 BCE during the Han dynasty, and is still observed to this day.
In ancient India, cannabis was called ganja, or गञ्जा in Sanskrit. Cannabis indica was used extensively throughout Indian history for both industrial and spiritual uses, gaining a special connection to the Hindu deity Shiva. Lord Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction and the savior of the universe, is said to have created cannabis from his own body to purify the elixir of life, resulting in the epithet angaja, or the “body-born,” which would later become the Hindi and Sanskrit word for cannabis, ganja. Circa 1000 BCE, cannabis is among the 5 sacred plants of India named in the Atharvaveda, the Science of Charms, listed as “Sacred Grass.” It was used throughout the region by both the Indo-Aryan Vedic civilization and the Dravidian peoples for both medicinal and ritualistic purposes, including the enhancement of meditation by Sadhus, a holy person in Hinduism. Another ancient herb referenced in Indian antiquity around 1000 BCE is known as bhanga, and though disputed among scholars, it’s possible this was meant to be bhang, an edible preparation of cannabis that first appeared around the same time. Disputed as well, it’s suggested that the ancient drug known as soma mentioned in the Vedas was also cannabis. Cannabis was discovered in archaeological Ayurvedic mixtures in India dating to around 400 BCE as well, primarily used in the treatment of headaches, and utilized by a wide variety of groups in the then splintered India.
Are questions allowed here?
Is there any movement or desire among historians today to do away with the term "Asia"? The more I think about it, the more I have no idea (or rather, I don't want to have an idea of) what "Asia" refers to, especially "Asian culture" and yes, "Asian History." Are we talking about Israel? Are we talking about Sri Lanka? Are we talking about Japan? Or Siberia? The ridiculous thing is, to understand what someone means by "Asia" or "Asian," you have to know who and where the speaker is from and their intended audience. The simple example is that in the US, "Asian" often refers to East Asian, while in the UK, "Asian" often refers to South Asian. In a world where communication is more and more global (perhaps breaking the 20-year rule here) different parts of the globe, obviously, had different experiences with Asian immigration (for that is the probable reason why the US and the UK use "Asian" those ways colloquially), "Asia" seems like such a useless, out-dated term.
"History of Asia." Ok, what the heck is the "History of Asia"!? The OP image seems to say Mongolia. But if we're talking about the Levant (and the Levant is Asia, right?), that history has a lot more in common with the Mediterranean and thus with Europe and North Africa than anything that is, umm... "Asian"?
Firstly, I’d like to thank /u/UrAccountabilibuddy for suggesting that I do a writeup on this topic for the Floating Feature.
The story of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, or perhaps more specifically its founder, Hong Xiuquan, is intimately tied up with China’s traditional system of education. As the third male child in his family, Hong had the luxury of being raised with the hopes of entering the Confucian examinations, with his elder brothers expected to provide the agricultural labour necessary to support the household while he did so. At a young age was noted as an eager learner, and his early mastery of the Confucian canon led to his entering the local exams, the first of the four tiers, at the age of just 16 years old in 1828, and he apparently passed with flying colours, attempting but (not altogether unexpectedly) failing the college exams at Canton the next year. While continuing his own preparations, Hong made a living as a schoolteacher in his home village, teaching basic literacy and preparing other budding scholars for the rigours of the examination system. His second college exam failure in 1836 brought him in contact with Protestant proselytisers and a missionary pamphlet, the Good Words for Exhorting the Age, while his third failure the next year led to his becoming severely ill and hallucinating being brought up to heaven and being exhorted by an old, divine-looking figure to cleanse heaven and earth of demons, guided by an ‘elder brother’. On returning from his final failure in 1843, a cousin of his encouraged him to read the old pamphlet, which caused him to connect the old man in the vision to God and the ‘elder brother' to Jesus. By extension, Hong came to realise that he was in fact the second son of God, given a divine mission to rid China of evil, and his first major act of personal rebellion would be against the education system, as he destroyed the Confucian tablets that lined his schoolhouse, denouncing the corruptive influence of the old philosophers.
Yet the exploration of education under the Taiping has generally been rather limited. I could find only one article on the topic (at least, through my university library’s search system) – a 3-page piece published in the journal of an undergraduate-only college in Sichuan on the topic of women’s education in the Heavenly Kingdom. Jen Yu-Wen’s English-language history of the movement fails to even include the kingdom’s educational system in the index. What makes this particularly odd is that the source material is hardly obscure. It just seems that nobody’s decided to write about it. As such, I don’t really have anything to bounce off of, so this will have to be a descriptive piece more than anything else.
To begin with, how did Taiping education work? Broadly speaking, the Taiping did not alter the absolute fundamentals. Some education would be done in a domestic context, mainly by parents; there was a reasonable degree of formal education through schools; a form of examination system was retained, by which the products of the system could be assessed; and you could even to some extent argue that government proclamations and sermons delivered through state-mandated church services constituted a sort of ‘societal education’, beyond mere propaganda, by which the philosophical and theological precepts underpinning the new regime could be made known.
First, the theory. Here there is no more obvious source to point to than the Land System of the Heavenly Dynasty, the kingdom’s (somewhat misleadingly named) manifesto for social, economic and political reform, written some time in 1853 and issued no later than HMS Rattler’s arrival at Nanjing in 1854. Among other things, it specifies the equal distribution of land ownership and the communal pooling of money, food, clothing and tools. When laying out the responsibilities of the various civil-military officials (the Land System stipulates that civil functions would be carried out by military officers), it notes this among the duties of the sergeant (responsible for 26 households including his own) and corporal (responsible for 5 households including his own):
In every circle of twenty-five families, all young boys must go to church every day, where the sergeant is to teach them to read the Old Testament and the New Testament, as well as the book of proclamations of the true ordained Sovereign. Every Sabbath the corporals must lead the men and women to the church, where the males and females are to sit in separate rows. There they will listen to sermons, sing praises, and offer sacrifices to our Heavenly Father, the Supreme Lord and Great God.
The theoretical Taiping system is particularly distinct for a number of reasons, but for now I’d like to point out two in particular. The first is that all young boys, not just those whose parents can provide the money for an education, would be schooled, no doubt thanks to the nominal eradication of wealth disparity. The second is that the authors of the Land System seem to have envisioned church services as part of the same spectrum of activity that included children’s education – hence my suggestion of seeing the religious gathering as a sort of educational form as well.
However, theory did not necessarily line up with practice. It is unlikely that regular civil-military officials were carrying out educational duties during the ongoing war against the Qing, and the Western sources I am aware of which mention educational practices do not corroborate it. Moreover, it is possible – though not necessarily certain – that children’s education ceased to be carried out in a church context, even if its content was most certainly Biblical. To quote a report by the Reverend Griffith John, a Welsh Congregationalist missionary who twice visited Nanjing in 1861,
They have day schools both in the city and suburbs. I visited one which had fourteen boys. The text books are those of the Tien Wang [Heavenly King, i.e. Hong Xiuquan].
Perhaps I should note here that this is the only source I am aware of, Western or Taiping, that specifically mentions schools. As such, its failure to mention either the role of a regular civil-military officer or the use of religious buildings for this education isn’t necessarily a definitive disproof of the Land System’s ideal framework, but it should give us pause about accepting it outright.
We do know for sure, however, what some of those ‘text books’ mentioned by Griffith John were. The most obvious would be the Bible, as laid out in the Land System, but most children obviously would not begin there. Rather, most began by learning from more basic didactic texts, which would in total teach around 2000 of the most commonly-used characters in classical Chinese. In a traditional education, these would have been the Trimetrical Classic, which consists of 86 12-character lines arranged in groups of 3, and conveys basic precepts of Confucian philosophy (particularly as interpreted by Mencius); the Hundred Family Surnames, which actually consists of 504; and the Thousand Character Classic, which contains 250 lines forming 125 rhyming couplets, each line being 4 characters long and with none repeated. We are not aware of a Taiping version of the Hundred Family Surnames, but the Taiping Trimetrical Classic does survive, as does a variation on the Thousand Character Classic, though I will mainly discuss the former here. To continue the quote from Rev. Griffith John,
I observed the Trimetrical Classic which begins with the important declaration, In the beginning God created Heaven, earth, man, and all things. This contrasts well with the first sentence in the Old Chinese one––‘Man at his birth, his nature is perfectly good.’ This little book contains a brief account of the Creation of the World, the fall, deluge, the history of the Children of Israel, the Incarnation and Crucifiction [sic] of Christ, and many other important particulars. In most of these books, unfortunately, these truths are mixed up with a great deal of error.
The text does in fact survive in full, but it would be excessive to relate at length, and John’s description is largely accurate up to a point anyway if you strip away a bit of the cynicism – what he neglects to mention are the bits relating specifically to the spiritual journey and divine mission of Hong Xiuquan. What is notable, though, is that this text was produced very early on indeed. All surviving copies date to 1853 (as does the first English translation of it by Rev. Walter Medhurst), but Taiping book catalogues suggest it was published in or before 1852, which is even before they settled on a permanent capital at Nanjing. Another text, the Ode to Youth, which in the Taiping catalogues is said to postdate the Trimetrical Classic, has editions in 1851, 1852 and 1853, and takes a somewhat different form, expounding specific precepts of Taiping theology and societal principles in the form of 34 stanzas, each of four lines of five characters each. These range from proper reverence for God, Jesus and one’s parents; the Way (dao) of various societal positions and relationships, such as ministers, husbands and wives, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters and so forth. The texts conveying basic literacy thus also served as avenues for conveying the doctrines of the Taiping theocracy. But that is not to say it was necessarily inherently different from what the Qing or indeed any prior dynasty had. After all, did not the traditional Trimetrical Classic expound Confucian-Mencian doctrines?
(This was in response to a question posted about the definition of “Asia,” which was then either deleted or moved.) I teach Japanese history and am chair of the department of Asian studies at UNC Chapel Hill. We consider Asia to include East, South, and Southeast Asia. We do not include West or Central Asia. (Our department also encompasses Middle Eastern studies, but that is very not part of Asia in the contemporary conception of global regions.).
All of these boundaries are of course artificial but we have to draw some sort of lines to make the curriculum, the hiring of faculty, and the management of resources coherent.
A great book on the topic of the constructedness of modern geography is The Myth of Continents, by geographer Martin W. Lewis and historian Kären Wigen.
Last semester, I finished up my thesis and another paper focusing on the imagery of women in the 1920-30s Republic of China (mainly using the manhua in the Shidai Manhua and Shanghai Manhua - two popular avant-garde comics at the time, along with various Yuefenpai) and in the Early People's Republic (using propaganda produced by these very same artists who never fled to Taiwan). I figured if anyone is interested, then I'll share some cool things I noticed or discovered!
So firstly, there's a lot of mixing of artistic styles between the West and East that start really entering Chinese practice around the late Qing and post-1911, especially once the New Culture Movement kicks off. As Francois Julien describes in his book, "The Impossible Nude," the Chinese never really got into the Western style of depicting individuals without an environment. We know from Western studies that the Greeks and Romans, and by extension later on, medieval and more modern Western painters really REALLY loved painting individuals, sometimes with little-to-no background. But because Chinese religion and philosophies create emphasis on the idea of "Qi," this cosmological life-breathing force in which all things, animate and inanimate, are made of, Chinese painters never considered humans and nature to be apart from one another. Its very complex, and it was a hard concept for me, a Westerner, to fully comprehend at first.
When Western influenced painting entered China in a massive wave of diffusion, the Chinese began educating themselves in these new ways. A lot of Western-style painting schools began popping up, such as the Western Painting Club (Bai'e Xihua hui), or the more famous Hangzhou Arts Academy. The establishment of the Soviet Union in 1922, and then the trickling of Socialist-Realism art into China, also heavily influenced Chinese artists. Lu Xun was heavily inspired by this Soviet art, according to Julia Andrews in her book "Painters and Politics in the People's Republic of China."
Painting took on a whole new meaning for the Chinese, and the revolutionary transformation of Chinese art in beginning in the 1920s cannot be better summed up than by the imagery of women and the exploding popularity of yuefenpai (calendar-advertisement posters) in urban China. Yuefenpai was, in the words of Ellen Laing, "Beautiful Chinese women enthusiastically selling Western products," mainly tobacco and medicines. They were always depicted along with a calendar, evoking the old New Year (xinnianhua) calendars that were popular throughout China. Many of these companies and products were owned by Western nations, and it was attacked by left-wing feminists quite early, such as Ding Ling, as a symbol of imperialism and sexism in China.
By far the largest theme among comics and other drawn media in the Republic of China, women were depicted individually (many times nude, seemingly randomly), among each other, or with their husbands or "lovers." The largest theme of the time was the femme fatale, and the comics took to quickly showing a mixture of admiration and nervous disdain towards the new, modern woman. Naturally, women were mostly portrayed as having evil intentions, manipulating single men into sleeping with them for their own benefit, or cheating on their husbands while they dutifully go off to work. Women in these manhua were used in many other esoteric ways, such as Chinese women being compared with African women. The artists using these comparisons to attempt to prove China's superiority over already colonized areas of the world at a time when China faced such threatening imperialism at home.
In 1949, Mao proclaimed the People's Republic and immediately called upon these same artists to begin producing massive amounts of propaganda for the new CCP government. Women took a central issue; one of Mao's most important goals was to make women "equal" in Chinese society, which culminated in the 1950 Marriage Law, which most importantly allowed women to divorce their husbands legally. But Mao had bigger goals for women too, and this was to be achieved beginning with the Great Leap Forward.
Chinese artists took most of their examples from Soviet Realism in order to produce the new propaganda that Mao demanded (You can check out Dr. Stefan Landsberger's huge collection for free at https://chineseposters.net/ ). Women were portrayed as together with men, working alongside men in urban and rural environments, contributing to the greatness of the People's Republic. But underneath the surface, the pictures have a darker subtle theme.
While women certainly were portrayed among men, outside the house, and in urban environments, they always took a side-place aside men. Women were often portrayed as passive, or disruptive during the job while men were the ones doing the work. Additionally, while men handled the cargo or built the houses, women were often doing the small work, handling little bags of fruit, or taking care of children. Most interestingly however, was the overwhelming amount of art depicting women in the farm fields, but very rarely in a factory. This connotation of associating women with rural farm work, while men dominated the urban manufacturing, was influenced greatly by the sexist attitudes of the artists. Mao had already stated that his plans of modernizing China focused on the urban centers out producing the United Kingdom within 15 years, while the rural farms would be there to help the urban centers reach this goal. This tactic of associating women with the "helping" arm of the modernization plan clearly indicated how the artists still viewed women as second class.
By the 1960s, there were many local CCP cadre members calling out the artists for the fraud portrayal of women in propaganda, exacerbated by the continuously failing programs of the GLF. When the Cultural Revolution came around, Jiang Qing and Mao demanded that women be portrayed more communisty, more intelligent, and more independent, and a theme of female independence does become more prevalent during this tumultuous time. Women were encouraged to participate in the destruction of the Four Olds - and traditional Confucian views of female dependence upon their husbands was certainly something that needed destroyed.
To wrap things up, post-Mao China has seen a gradual shift of gender roles in society. By the 1980s, Women were again portrayed beautifully like their yuefenpai predecessors, using cosmetic products now available through trade with the West guided under Deng Xiaoping. Women are increasingly reverting to their role of enthusiastically selling material goods or services, rather than selling communist theory.
I tried making this as brief and coherent as possible for a reasonable Reddit post. But of course if anyone has any interests, questions, or whatnot, please reply!
Posting some excerpts from a recent paper I wrote on Dalit Religious movements since my area of research is actually pretty niche and I kind of doubt this particular question will ever be asked, so this seems like a good place to put it.
History of Caste
Most people who have looked at India or Indian history are familiar with the concept of caste, though the reality is quite different from the picture painted by most external and introductory sources. While most of society recognizes caste as belonging to the 4 varnas with the so-called “untouchables” occupying an unofficial 5th caste, the reality is much more complex. When speaking of the Indian caste system, it is perhaps more correct to talk about caste systems. Hereditary caste is actually divided into thousands of jatis all tied to a specific societal role or function^1 These are slotted into the varna system with varying degrees of effectiveness.
The varna system of ritual purity has its roots in the Indo-Aryan tribes that invaded India in the 2nd millennia BCE. Likely, there were initially only three but śudras were added upon the setlement and move from pastoral to agricultural, and the assimilation of local peoples. However, the emphasis on ritual purity did not seem nearly as rigid in the early form of the caste system as there seemed to be some fluidity especially towards the bottom. Likely, the caste system was a religious ideal held primarily by brahmins and those who were concerned with maintaining power through ideas of ritual purity. Since, outside of the Pāli Suttas^2, nearly all works we have preserved from India before the medieval period were composed by the upper two classes (and honestly even then we still have very few works until the flourishing of Dalit literature during the late 19th century) it is difficult to assess what was intended as material for brahmins and what was practical.
Regardless of the original intent or the precolonial history of caste in India, the 17th and 18th centuries brought an end to the domination of the Islamic sultanates and saw India fracturing into smaller independent states before finally becoming a British colony. The post-Mughal period and the British colonial period codified and regulated the caste system based off of the Manusmṛti and formalized it, extending and solidifying the ranked hierarchy that existed within India.^3 This formalization quickly took effect and trapped those in low caste positions within them and made their conditions far less bearable, as the British expected the identities of the people within a jati to be precisely defined by it, stripping away other forms of self identification and making the system stronger than it was. They of course did not do this alone, their policy of “divide and rule” as well as asubconscious reflection of their own deeply entrenched system of social class led them to encourage caste chauvinism amongst the elites and the army in North India and led to the people adopting the ideas of caste as a social reality or even as a Dharmic responsibility.^4
The outcome of this was a deeply oppressed lower class in the form of the śudras and what the British deemed “untouchables.” By the 19th century, India became deeply divided on what to do, the Hindus of India were at a crossroads between reformation and conservatism, the golden age thinkers and the revolutionaries. Even within the colonial administration there was disagreement on whether the ideals of the enlightenment should be enforced; should they abolish the caste system legally and move towards a more stratified hierarchy and risk upsetting conservatives on the colonial and native side, or should they continue to govern in accordance to their understanding of the population of India?^5 Ultimately, they took a middle ground, outlawing (or rather, taking a stance on) sautee, widow burning, and other practices, but keeping the caste system and other laws derived from the Manusmṛti as is.
With the late 19th century came the Indian Independence Movement and the radical reshaping of society from a ranked hierarchy to a stratified hierarchy. From this radical shift from a colonial administration to a (at least on paper) representative government came a new hope for the oppressed people of India. The “untouchables” adopted the name “dalit” (Sanskrit for broken) and formed political parties in support of the independence movement, hoping for freedom in the new society. However, discrimination persisted and many turned to religion as a means of supplementing their vision for a new society.^6
Conversions to Sikkhism and Christianity
Conversion is and has been a means of escape from the caste system, especially since the medieval period, when Turkish and and Persian leaders took North India during a prolonged period of unrest. The conversions here appear to have been mainly Economic and not directly related to Caste when converting to Islam. Sources of Dalit conversion are limited.
The 15th century was a dramatic time in North India. After three centuries of rule from the Dehli based Turkish Dynasties and increasing political fragmentation, the social order had undergone a dramatic reform with the traditional kingship and hierarchy replaced with a new one, and with each successive dynasty a new order and set of policies was added, some more tolerant than others.^8
With this dramatic shift in policies came a new set of religious ideas in the form of Sunni Islam and the various Sufi sects. The Bhakti Sants fused Sufi and Hindu (especially Vendantan) philosophy and became a religious force in India signifying a move away from the traditional forms of religion. One of the most significant religious reformers of this period was Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism.
Nanak did not believe in caste or religious difference, believing in a equal society with regards to his revelation. One sabad (a Sikh religious song) goes “Worthless is caste and worthless an exalted name; For all mankind there is but single refuge.”^9 However Nanak’s rejection of caste was not based in a humanistic objection or a decision to elevate the status of low caste individuals but rather in a rejection of the social division within Hinduism categorically in order to facilitate his vision.^10 Whatever Nanak’s goals were, the elimination of caste and the promise of social mobility proved an attractive proposition to Dalits suffocated under the 19th century colonial formalization of caste.
During the 19th century there was a large number of Dalits who converted to Sikhism due to the promise of social mobility. Upon entering the Sikh community they kept their previous professions but were now held to Sikh ideas of social mobility.^11 However, caste still existed in Sikhism in a different form, and the Dalits of India remained untouchable. The dominant caste of the Jatts held power in the Sikh community and refused to share the sacred meal with the low caste converts.^12 Still, many Sikh Dalits did indeed achieve some degree of social mobility, getting jobs within artisan fields and factories upon moving from rural caste Hindu communities to the urban Sikh dominated areas.^13
Christianity seemed an alternative to many Dalits. It lacked the caste system of Hinduism and had a prestige associated with colonial rule.^14 The Dalit Christian conversions began during the colonial period but increased in certain communities. To illustrate the difference in conditions that characterizes the Dalit encounter with Christianity, especially Catholicism, Matthew Schmalz interviewed a Dalit convert called Premnath who said this:
“Premnath remembers vividly the generosity of foreign priests who, in his Bhojpuri gloss on a corporal work of mercy, were always ready to “take the shirts off their backs.” Premnath recalls the Latin mass, the white cassocks of the priests, and the habits of the nuns. Not only did the priests and nuns look different in their foreign clothes; so too did the newly converted Catholics, who took to wearing the pants and shirts that were distributed by the mission from its largesse. Some Catholic converts even experimented with using forks and knives—something that even the Bhumihar landowners did not do, for all their wealth and power. In Premnath’s retrospective characterization, when villagers came to the mission, they realized they were in a kind of “different world” (dusri duniya): the buildings were made of brick; there was indoor plumbing, electricity provided by a generator, and a full granary. For Premnath, Catholicism was foreign and thus pointed to a completely different register of value and power.”^15
Premnath’s experience was not unique. The conversion provided new socio-economic opportunities for Dalits and conferred a sense of self-respect. Catholicism created a new sense of self among the Dalit community. As Hindu Dalits, their ideas of personhood and self were shaped by the conditions they lived in, the fact that they were Dalits and were born into such a life whereas when Christian, they were able to redefine themselves beyond the social realities of being low-caste.
Continued below
This is exciting because I get to post some family history!
Growing up, my grandfather had tons of stories. They mostly focused on his time as a boy in the Philippines, his war experience in the resistance against the Japanese, and some family history of our supposedly illustrious ancestors. I loved listening to them, and took every one as 100% true. As anyone with a storytelling grandfather can tell you, this is not necessarily this case.
Anyway, one of those stories was that his grandmother served tea as the Spanish surrendered control of his home island of Negros on their dining room table. As I got older, I figured that this fell under the "Pops' embellished stories" category. It just seemed a bit too far-fetched to think that a monumental occasion like that happened in the house of an ancestor of mine.
Fast forward a while, and I'm reading about the history of Negros. For those who aren't familiar, it's the 4th largest island in the Philippine archipelago, located in the middle section of the Philippines. This is an area known as the Visayas, a group of medium-size islands sandwiched between the big islands of Luzon in the north (home of Manila and Quezon City, the capital) and Mindanao in the south.
Negros is named for its native inhabitants, the dark-skinned "negritos." While the Philippines was Christianized by the Spanish during the colonial period, the remnants of the native religions were prevalent in Negros. These were largely based around shamanic practices, and various holy men amassed followers based on their supposed powers and visions. While these shamans mainly concerned themselves with religion (and some on growing their wealth/power), they became increasingly political and hostile to the Spanish and non-native peoples in general. By the end of the 19th century, Negros had seen more than a few revolts led by these religious leaders, although with very little result beyond the further suppression of native religion.
During the Spanish colonial period, Negros developed a hugely profitable sugar industry, and the richest people on the island were the owners of the large sugar plantations or haciendas. These tended to be families with Spanish or (in my family's case) Basque heritage, although there was plenty of mixing with the Filipino population. Anecdotally, many members of my family have done DNA testing and none have come up with appreciable Spanish/Basque blood, despite the supposed link.
Regardless of DNA, most of the sugar barons had a vested interest in the status quo, to a point. When a major insurrection against Spanish rule started off in Luzon in 1896, they did not join, and many actually helped raise militias for the possible future defense of the island.
Their views changed, however, in large part thanks to their tensions with the local clergy. The Catholic church in the Philippines was extremely powerful, and was effectively an arm of Spanish colonial rule.* As you can imagine, this led to friction between the clergy and the increasingly powerful sugar hacenderos. With the revolt on Luzon raging, some of the local clergy sent a letter to Spanish authorities denouncing certain members of the elite as harboring revolutionary sympathies. They were arrested, and only released after paying hefty fines.
At the same time, a religious leader named "Papa Isio" led a revolt in Negros seeking the expulsion of every non-native. The Guardia Civil conducted anti-insurrectionist operations that killed seemingly indiscriminately, on a bare suspicion of being involved with the revolution. Reports came through of torture and other atrocities.
Whether the clergy's original accusations were true to begin with, they became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Some of the wealthy men in Negros did in fact harbor revolutionary ideas. One, Aniceto Lacson, had met many of the leaders of the Luzon revolt while in school in Manila. Another, Juan Araneta, was one of the men arrested and imprisoned, and supposedly began planning a revolt while still in prison. These two became the leaders of what was to become the Negros Revolution.
(continued below)
*This, by the way, leads to another famous family story told by my grandfather, namely that our family was excommunicated at the turn of the 20th century, supposedly for helping found some kind of breakaway church. Again, I was unsure about whether to believe it. As it turns out, there was a movement called the Philippine Independent Church that broke away from the Catholic church due to abuses during the colonial period. Everyone involved was excommunicated on orders of Pope Leo XIII. I don't have any family documents proving one way or another that it involved my ancestors, but I assume that this is where the story comes from and that it's at least somewhat true.
People seem to like posts that I've written about Japan attacking Pearl Harbor, and it strategy for the war, so I'll reproduce a couple here.
Part I
tl;dr: The Japanese plan was always to force a decisive battle that would destroy the American fleet, and force them to sue for peace. Various attempts to have that battle culminated in the destruction of Japanese carrier airpower in 1942, and after that the immense weight of the American industrial machine made Japanese victory impossible.
Adapted from an earlier answer:
First off, there's no possible way that Japan could have invaded the mainland US or even Hawaii. The planned Midway invasion would probably realistically have been beyond the reach of the Japanese fleet train to sustain anything but a shoestring garrison, and in any case Midway was meant to draw the American fleet out to force it into a decisive battle, only secondarily to occupy territory.
That last point gets to the meat of your question. Japan was quite aware that a long war against the U.S. was not winnable. Their war aims were to secure the resources of Southeast Asia (in particular oil, but also rubber and other industrial supplies). They couldn't do that with a U.S. presence in the Philippines. So their overall war plan, which saw successive revisions throughout the decades before 1941, was to quickly defeat colonial powers in Southeast Asia, and to build a defensive perimeter that the U.S. fleet would be attrited by before a final annihilating battle, after which the U.S. would sue for peace. The idea was that the American fleet, steaming west, would have to face Japanese air power and submarine attacks before making it to the vicinity of the Philippines or the home islands, where it would be decisively beaten.
To that end, the Japanese fleet's composition emphasized quality over quantity; they trained very elite naval aviators, for example, but very few of them. They also emphasized night fighting, the use of torpedoes, and an offensive spirit that was reckless and dashing, all to overcome numerical weakness that was inevitable given the two countries' industrial bases. At the start of the war, the Japanese arguably had the finest air fleet in the world, absolutely had the largest battleships, and had unparalleled torpedo technology.
In the immediate run-up to WWII, the Japanese naval leadership conceived the plan of striking the Pacific fleet in Pearl Harbor at the same time as planned strikes on US, Dutch and British possessions in the Philippines and elsewhere. The Pearl Harbor attack was inspired partly by the British raid on Taranto, and was designed to cripple the U.S. fleet in harbor to win the Japanese extra time to build that defensive perimeter. To say that the political leadership underestimated America's resolve for a long war is an understatement.
###What happened after Pearl Harbor?
(aka stuff not in the answer above)
Once the Pearl Harbor attack was a success, Japan followed up on that with operations between December 1941 and February 1942 that included an invasion of the Philippines, an invasion of the Malay Peninsula that resulted in the fall of Singapore (the so-called "Gibraltar of the East," thought to be impregnable) and invasions of Borneo, Celebes and Ceram to capture oil fields and strategic spots. By mid-February they had broken the so-called "Malay Barrier" of Allied resistance, being only opposed by a scratch fleet of Australian, British, Dutch and American ships with no air support to speak of (the "ABDA" command was plagued with problems, including the Dutch admiral in charge not speaking English), and had raided Darwin with carrier planes. The ABDA Command was totally broken by March, after which the Japanese fast carrier fleet sortied into the Indian Ocean and raided Colombo, Trincomalee and Batticaloa. The raids destroyed aircraft on the ground, and in the fighting the British also lost 7 warships (including the carrier HMS Hermes), 23 merchant ships and around 40 aircraft, all for the loss of about 20 planes on the Japanese side. The British fleet retreated to the west side of India in hopes of protecting trade routes to the Persian Gulf and Red Sea/Suez Canal.
The problem for Japan after winning that string of victories is that they had pushed their defensive perimeter out from Japan, and garnered significant access to oil and other resources, but they still hadn't destroyed the American fleet, and weren't quite sure of the best way to do so.
I'm into the study of Westminster model parliamentary government in India, Ceylon (as was), Burma (as was), Malaysia, Pakistan, Bangladesh during the decolonisation era.
My idea of 'fun topics' includes: transmission and development of the Westminster model in these countries, the timing and structuring of constitutional design processes, transitions to independence, breakdown vs resilience of institutions.
Happy to discuss any of these or related subjects.
I can't enter a thread about the history of Asia and not write about the Vietnam War, right?
The Kit Carson Scouts was a name given to a group of defectors from the People's Army of Vietnam (also known as the NVA) and the armed wing of the FNL (The People's Liberation Armed Forces of South Vietnam, more commonly known in the West as the Viet Cong) who chose to undergo training to serve alongside American and later Australian, New Zealand, Thai, South Korean and South Vietnamese forces in the field.
Let's first talk about the name. The American Kit Carson (1809-1868) was a man of many trades, among them being a trapper and a scout, who famously guided one of the Frémont expeditions in the American West and served as a scout for the American army in many of its conflicts with Native Americans. At the time, he would have been quite a familiar, not to say mythical, name in the category of "Frontier Scouts". The name for the Kit Carson Scouts were thus chosen due to these legendary qualities. It is also worth pointing out that the United States had fielded indigenous scouts for most of its existence, but most prolifically in a military context during the many wars it waged against Native Americans. To me, the choice of name and the traditions tied to it are very interesting due to its application of the "frontier myth". It is well known that American soldiers and leaders during the time expressed themselves and understood the Vietnam War with the use of metaphors drawn from the frontier myth. The Kit Carson Scout took on the mythical shape of the "civilized Indian" that had seen the light and took a step away from communism.
It is worth noting that there were alternative names given to the Kit Carson Scouts. The 9th Infantry Division called them Tiger Scouts, Troops from Australia and New Zealand called them Bushman Scouts, South Vietnamese soldiers would have known them as Luc Luong 66 (Force 66), and some American soldiers even called them Kansas City Stars (From the acronym KCS).
The Scouts have their origins in the Chieu Hoi (Open Arms) program that was run by US forces was meant to offer soldiers with the PAVN/PLAF a chance to defect without repercussion or consequences. It was from these individuals that the Kit Carson Scouts were drawn from. However, there were more individuals who returned to a normal life than chose to take up arms against their former comrades.
The Scouts themselves were first established by the United States Marine Corps in the fall of 1966 with six scouts. In October 1966, Marine Command officially established the program under the aforementioned name. Two years later, the number of scouts had risen to 1,500 and by 1970, it was up to 2,400. The program would remain around that number before decreasing in the 1970s due to the American withdrawal and the hand-over of the program to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. Needless to say, we're not talking of big numbers here in comparison with the American Armed Forces that had more than 500 000 soldiers at their peak during the Vietnam War.
What would make someone not only defect but also to join the Kit Carson Scouts? What is interesting is that the Kit Carson Scouts were quite a mixed bunch. You had South Vietnamese, North Vietnamese, and even Cambodians amongst them. Family appeared to have been one of the most important factors in joining if you were a former PLAF. Whether it be a steady paycheck to support the family, to get revenge on the PAVN/PLAF for atrocities that they committed towards the family of the individual or simply to protect ones family - it was enough to join up and fight against your former comrades. Some joined because they felt out of place in their unit, or they felt like the conditions in the army were not for them. Many conscripts from the PAVN joined for these reasons, for example.
The most shocking and extreme example of a former PLAF joining the Kit Carson Scouts comes in the form of Phan Chot. In the early morning of March 16 1968, the 36-year old Phan Chot was hiding on the foot of a mountain near his village to avoid being caught by American forces. There from a distance, he witnessed the artillery bombardment of his village and American troops being landed with helicopters. At 5 PM, he noticed that the Americans had left and promptly made his way back to his village. He made his way straight to his home, seeing bodies of dead children on the way there. In his home, he found the dead body of his 17-year old daughter, shot through the stomach and in the hip. The name of his village was Thuan Yen of the Tu Cung hamlet, but on American maps it would have been marked as My Lai 4. A year or so later, Chot would find himself being forced to join the 48th PLAF Local Force Battalion. In his own words:
"After the Americans attacked the Thuan Yen village people would not remain in the hamlet. When the US came back on operation we were extremely afraid but after a few months, we saw that the Americans were good to the people, were very kind, and we thought that they had just made an example of Thuan Yen to let us know that we shouldn't follow the VC. I decided to Chieu Hoi because life with the VC was to [sic] difficult, it was difficult to make a living, and I continually lived in fear of being killed or having my family killed. My wife and 3 children now live in Son Tinh. I am Kit Carson Scout (number 253, Chu Lai). I work for the Americans."
It is astounding and perhaps completely impossible to understand why a man who had lost his daughter in the My Lai massacre would ever want to join the Americans, but we see the common patterns that exists with other defectors: Difficulties adjusting to life in the PAVN/PLAF and a desire to protect and support your family. Sometimes, turning to the Americans was the only possibility for stability.
What was the role of the Kit Carson Scout? They were meant to take on the same guise that the Frontier scouts had once had; they worked as interpreters and as guides. In the field, you needed someone who knew the area, who knew the enemy and could see through every trick in the book. Kit Carson Scouts often walked point, scouting for hidden booby traps, hidden weapon caches and signs of the enemy. In contact with South Vietnamese civilians and with prisoners, the Kit Carson Scouts acted as interpreters. The Kit Carson Scouts also worked as instructors for American soldiers in the art of guerilla warfare. For example, Kit Carson Scouts held demonstrations of how easily a PLAF sapper could infiltrate through the obstacles of a firebase and how you should fortify and protect a firebase. Some Kit Carson Scouts even worked alongside PSYOPS personnel and used their personal talents to attract an audience (and thus make them more recipient to American/South Vietnamese propaganda). My favorite example of this is Le Van Tung and Le Van Be who had a double act with singing (Tung played the guitar and sang) and magic (Be was a magician)!
What impact did the Kit Carson Scouts have? In the overall progress of the war, they had a relatively small impact. There simply wasn't enough Kit Carson Scouts to go around in the first place. With that said, many American soldiers expressed admiration for their skills and abilities in the field, as well as in engaging the enemy. Some even had their lives rescued by a Kit Carson Scout. I think the most important impact that the Kit Carson Scouts had was not military, but culturally. To many American soldiers, the Kit Carson Scouts were the only contact that they had with Vietnamese individuals at all. All soldiers left with lasting impressions, both negative and positive. In my own research, I've come across a lot of positive and neutral remembrances of the Kit Carson Scouts. Some express good things about them due to their skills and the fact that they were reliable and good friends to them. There was a language barrier to get through, but if it was overcome, the two soldiers could share a lot about their pasts (which in turn gave the American soldier a greater understanding about the culture and the raging conflict out of the opposite perspective, something that they had not been exposed to in basic training where the Vietnamese had often been dehumanized). The most touching things I've read in this subject is the notices written by soldiers who had lost "their" scout. Another interesting thing is that many soldiers learned their scouts name by heart, something which is prolific in the memoirs and recollections of Vietnam veterans. The neutral side were also admiring of the skills, but usually had little to no contact with the scouts themselves (mainly due to the language barrier). The people who saw them in a downright negative side express one thing in common: They didn't trust them. They were defectors and could not be trusted. This was the same attitude adopted by South Vietnamese soldiers who naturally saw little to trust in men who had once belonged to the enemy.
All in all, the Kit Carson Scouts is an interesting footnote in the Vietnam War. Academically, the study of the Kit Carson Scout adds additional nuance in understanding the critical choices made in wartime South Vietnam. It is due time that more research is done on these individuals (instead of just the program itself) and that is what I am personally working with at the present time. My upcoming scholarly article focusing on agency and motivation amongst the Kit Carson Scout, appropriately titled Phan Chot’s Choice: Agency and Motivation Amongst the Kit Carson Scouts During the Vietnam War, 1966–1973, will be published by War & Society journal in the spring of 2020.
This may be more suitable for /r/AskLiteraryStudies than /r/AskHistorians but I will have a go. My anecdote involves a Chinese novel (a work of historical fiction from around 1700) written by something of a historian of all things.
When I read the book some time ago, one of the scenes really stuck out to me and stuck with me (assuming I understood it correctly). As the narrative starts petering out and all of the good guys of the story must wrap up their tales, one of the main ones (a military strategist/commander) takes a boat up a river in Fujian with his deputy commander. They come upon a cave. When the character goes inside he finds none other than himself there, meditating. It turns out that he had been there the whole time projecting himself out for an entire lifetime leading up to that moment. About a decade into the endeavor his apprentice had gone out to join him (his deputy commander).
Aside from the rather surreal and "meta" element of this scene I happened to note that the author had the same family name as the character in question. What's more, I learned on Wikipedia that the author had done local history work in a region of Fujian! There are a few other interesting details about that character but I think those sorts of things are applicable to traditional Chinese novels anyway so I won't go into them.
Some time after noting the aforementioned scene, I was reading Traditional Chinese Fiction and Fiction Commentary by David L. Rolston and of all things he listed the book in question among other titles as one of the "striking examples of characters linked with their authors."
While I was sad to see that I hadn't rediscovered a really cool detail about a book, a detail that may have been forgotten for hundreds of years, it was a very satisfying moment to see that I had come to the same conclusion that the experts had!
And one more, about British shipbuilding in South Asia:
Britain built many ships in its colonies, particularly in the Caribbean and the Americas but also in India. Most ships that were built overseas were sloops, brigs and other small ships (because most ships the Navy built were small), but some yards could build ships-of-the-line.
The British dockyards in Bombay were extensive. Jamsetjee Bomanjee was the master builder there from 1792-1821. In the portrait linked above, he is holding plans for the Minden, a 74-gun ship-of-the-line built there in 1810. His frigate Trincomalee, built there in 1817, is still afloat and is a museum ship. Minden and Trincomalee were both built of teak, as were other ships built in Bombay, at least partly due to wood shortages (oak in particular) in Britain. Teak is difficult to work, but once part of a ship is nearly indestructible under normal wear and tear (it could be damaged by gunfire/accident/etc. but weathers well).
A descendant of the Wadia family (the Bombay dockyard family) wrote a book about the yards, which I once found through ILL.
I would like to learn more about Tengrism and Mongol history as a whole. I accept with total gratitude book recommendations. :)
Another older post that's at least relevant to my flair area (though a different era):
The British navy is not usually talked about in the naval history of the Pacific War, but it did contribute -- the British Pacific Fleet, which was stood up on 22 November 1944, eventually consisted of six fleet and 15 smaller carriers, four battleships and eleven cruisers, as well as their escort and support vessels. The Royal Navy per se contributed all the capital ships, but Commonwealth nations (particularly Australia and New Zealand) contributed smaller ships and personnel.
The reason the BPF didn't exist before late in 1944 was that the British had essentially abandoned the Pacific after the sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse, the fall of Singapore and the Japanese raid on Ceylon in March 1942. British naval forces were concentrated on the war in Europe, and the remaining forces stationed at Trincomalee were primarily on a defensive posture to support shipping to and from India and to support efforts of the British and Commonwealth troops in the China-Burma-India theatre.
The reason the BPF was formed in late 1944 was partially due to the fact that the RN had forces come available as the Italian and German fleets had been neutralized in 1943 and 1944, and partly due to a political calculation that contributing to the victory against Japan would be important to Britain in the postwar. Particularly it was felt that British colonies captured by the Japanese should be retaken by British forces, and that Australia and New Zealand should be given help from the "mother country" to counteract the large and increasing American presence in those waters.
The American navy was not initially well-disposed to the proposal to form a British fleet for operations in the Pacific, with Roosevelt overruling his chief of naval operations Ernest King. (King was generally Anglophobic and resented the "Europe-first" strategy that had siphoned off forces from the Pacific, where he believed the Navy was critical; but he also had reasonable worries over the British ability to sustain a fleet so far from home, mastery of which had allowed for the American navy to successfully fight its way toward Japan from 1942-44.) In the event, the British did use the American fleet train for significant amounts of fuel, supplies and repair parts, though some things (particularly American aircraft that had been "Anglicized") still had to be brought from Britain.
The BPF was initially based on Sydney, but as the war front pushed northward it operated out of a forward operating base in Manus in the Admiralty Islands. The BPF was given the task of striking Japanese oil refineries, which it had proven adept at while still forming (in a joint Anglo-American raid on Surabaya in 1944) and successfully carried out attacks against refineries near Palembang in January 1945.
Operating as Task Force 57 during the invasion of Okinawa, the British fleet was given the task of suppressing kamikaze activity from the Sakashima islands and airfields in northern Sumatra; they accomplished this both by aerial and also naval attack (that is, directly shelling the airfields).
The British carriers were particularly well suited to this because of their armored flight decks -- although they were subject to heavy kamikaze attack, they were able to remain in operation through attacks that would have taken American carriers out of service for repairs (though in some cases the armored flight deck, being the strength deck for the ship, was so badly damaged that the carriers had to be written off after the war). British Seafire fighters (the navalized version of the Spitfire) were used to provide CAP for the Anglo-American fleet during the invasion of Iwo Jima, and provided excellent service.
The performance of the fleet and its aviators mean that in mid-1945, the BEF was accepted as a component force of the American fleet, rather than being shunted off to missions of its own. The BEF also participated in raids on the Japanese home islands at the close of the war, though Halsey limited these for political reasons, and had a larger role planned for Operation Downfall, the planned invasion of Japan, which was canceled after the Japanese surrender.
Most of this is drawn from David Hobbs' The British Pacific Fleet: The Royal Navy's Most Powerful Strike Force, but the USNI also has a useful web page on the history of the fleet.
I believe it was in Robert Kinder's Stalin's Nomads, which I just read recently, where he offhandedly mentions that in Pavlodar Oblast in Kazakhstan in 1930 there was a "Sacco and Vanzetti" collective farm.
For anyone not too familiar with collective farms, especially when there was a big push around 1930 for Soviet collectivization, the new farms tended to have all sorts of revolutionary names.
As someone from Boston who has been by the Sacco and Vanzetti plaque in Boston's North End many a time, I found it particularly interesting that they also got an honor way out on the Central Asian steppes.
It's also interesting that this was an approved name for a Soviet collective farm, but I guess they didn't mind anarchists as long as they were safely dead and from capitalist countries.
Welcome to the fourth installment of our Summer 2019 Floating Features and Flair Drive.
If you are interested in further reading, please consult our booklist! We have an excellent selection for East Asia, South/Southeast Asia, and Central Asia. The intention of these threads is for people to share their original writings.
As is the case with previous Floating Features, there is relaxed moderation here to allow more scope for speculation and general chat than there would be in a usual thread! But with that in mind, we of course expect that anyone who wishes to contribute will do so politely and in good faith.
Please be sure to mark your calendars for the full series, which you can find listed here. Next up on Sunday, August 11th is Military History. Don't forget to add it to your calendar!
If you have any questions about our Floating Features or the Flair Drive, please keep them as responses to this comment.
