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15 years after winning the First Opium War, the British were growing antsy. They wanted even more favorable trade conditions, including the definitive legalization of the opium trade, as well as the regulation of the coolie trade. (Coolies were Chinese indentured servants—in effect, legal slaves—shipped off by the British to outlying spots of the British Empire and to Latin America.) The British also believed that the Chinese were not keeping up with the [Read more…]
In the early afternoon, I left the Forbidden City through the northern Gate of Divine Prowess knowing that it would be incredibly hard to top that experience. Nonetheless, I still had a whole lot of Beijing to [Read more…]
Before I left the hotel for my first day out in Beijing, I had a banana from the fruit bowl that had greeted me in my room when I arrived the night before. On the frozen tundra that was Tiananmen Square, I was dying for something hot. Surprisingly, there were no food vendors on the square. So I did without. In the Forbidden City, I got what turned out to be a very popular treat at Beijing attractions–a (bunless) hot dog on a stick. It was a little funny to see the locals chowing down on these. Later in the afternoon, I went to a Chinese fast food restaurant and happily got an order of “Golden Nuggets”. I’m certainly not going to go to McDonald’s in China. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to enjoy some nuggets! I washed them down with a Mirinda. I looked this up to find that it’s an orange soda originally from Spain but now produced by Pepsi.
The Taiping Rebellion? What the hell is that? In school I learned about the Opium Wars and the Boxer Rebellion. But I’m quite certain I’d never heard of the Taiping Rebellion. Would you believe it was the bloodiest conflict of the 19th century and the bloodiest civil war in history at likely well over 20 million dead? Battle deaths were actually less than half a million. The remainder died from famine and plague directly related to the war. (Plus there was the matter of thousands of civilians executed by the victors for suspicion of loyalty to the rebels.) [Read more…]
I had arrived in Beijing from Shanghai the night before. But in the morning, I felt like I had arrived in Siberia. Because I had arrived at my hotel at nighttime, I didn’t get to see the view out the window until [Read more…]
