William Han @W_T_Han Twitter profile

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William Han

2 years

My book, "From the Wall to the Water," is now officially published! If you enjoy history, travel, or history-oriented travelogues, then pls consider buying and reading (and reviewing?) this account of my trip from China to Europe via the Silk Road.

From the Wall to the Water: A Journey Through Asia

www.amazon.com

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Last Seen Profiles

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@ariannadurrell

William Han

@W_T_Han

3 months

Another reason Chinese is a cool language: the verb for "to make war upon" is different if the war goes northward as opposed to any other direction

Feiyan Xie

@FeiyanXie

3 months

古代打仗有东征、西征、南征，为啥向北却叫北伐？

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William Han

@W_T_Han

4 years

15 years. H1-B hell. Indentured servitude. I'm familiar.

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William Han

@W_T_Han

3 months

@xxlchinesewoman Yeah 東夷西戎南蠻北狄 😂

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William Han

@W_T_Han

3 months

@alicepoon1 Just read whole thing about it. 征 originally meant Zhou king putting down upstart lord. Etymology 彳正, to step in proper path. 伐 meant fighting an equal. Etymology 人戈, man holding weapon, hence 伐木. In Chinese history, northward wars were against invading conquerors, harder

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William Han

@W_T_Han

1 year

As a non-white non-Brit, let me say the appeal of TRIH transcends national circumstances. Genuine erudition where they know the subject deeply, fair-minded curiosity where they don't, and true insight more than occasionally: these are aspirations beyond podcasts

Tom Holland

@holland_tom

1 year

Under normal circumstances, were I described as “a totemic dork” in a national newspaper, I would draw a discrete veil over it, but @joshglancy has written a profile of @TheRestHistory so affectionate, generous, & gently amused that I cannot forbear linking to it…

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William Han

@W_T_Han

1 month

Now seems as good a time as any to remind ourselves that Kamala Harris is the rare Western politician with an actual Chinese name (as opposed to a mere transliteration) : He Jinli 賀錦麗, which, if translated semantically, means "Congrats! Silk Beauty!"

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William Han

@W_T_Han

6 months

Ancient Chinese is fun. It has different verbs for "to die," depending on your social status: 崩 a monarch dies 薨 a lord dies 卒 a mandarin dies 死 (what we now think of the standard verb "to die") a commoner dies

Edward W.

@edwardW2

6 months

ancient chinese is fun; it has concise one-syllable words that encapsulate whole sentences in English 黥; to tattoo someone to mark him as a criminal 劓 to cut off the nose 刖 to cut off the foot 笞 to be beaten on the buttocks 斀 to cut off the genitals

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William Han

@W_T_Han

2 months

There's a fundamental disrespect in the Western psyche toward Asian things, this instinct to make them into caricature, fortune cookies, meaningless bromide, to make up obv BS as though to say: "look how unimportant you are that I can spread lies about you and no one cares"

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William Han

@W_T_Han

29 days

Li Bai, Du Fu, Wang Wei

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William Han

@W_T_Han

4 months

This story has always seemed to me the Chinese Promethean myth, where instead of fire, it is written language that makes even the gods afraid of mankind

樹下一無賴

@MadSealCutter

4 months

As the Huainanzi notes: 蒼頡作書，而天雨粟，鬼夜哭 "When Cang Jie invented writing, the sky rained millet and ghosts cried at night".

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William Han

@W_T_Han

3 months

@EKripperino @xxlchinesewoman 東夷: eastern Yi 西戎: western Rong 南蠻: southern Man 北狄: northern Di

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William Han

@W_T_Han

1 year

Taiwan’s Academia Sinica has its own museum of history and archaeology, which has a collection of rubbings from important ancient steles. This one is from 220 A.D. and records the moment when Emperor Xiandi of Han abdicated in favor of Cao Pi, formally ending Han Dynasty

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William Han

@W_T_Han

23 days

There's a Taiwanese celebrity named Wang Yangming, exactly like the Ming philosopher. Every time I hear his name on TV I'm like ???

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William Han

@W_T_Han

2 months

Wordplay on "mei nu" 美女, beautiful woman. But bit of mistranslation: 沒 "mei" doesn't mean "nowhere" but generally "not have," "lacking." So more accurately "girls with nothing"

depths of wikipedia!

@depthsofwiki

2 months

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William Han

@W_T_Han

5 months

I know it’s meant to be a joke, but honest to God, when I was a kid and our history teacher asked us to turn to the page with this portrait on it, the whole class turned to stare at me

Xianyang City Bureaucrat

@XianyangCB

5 months

I’m not about to dox myself but my mutuals can confirm I look something like this

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William Han

@W_T_Han

5 months

Reminder that the premise of the original Chinese novel is that the Cultural Revolution was awful enough to make you lose all hope in humanity #3BodyProblem

Yuan Yi Zhu

@yuanyi_z

5 months

I don't know if I expected to see such an agonisingly realistic recreation of a Cultural Revolution struggle session, on Netflix of all places.

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William Han

@W_T_Han

3 months

Magical spells seen on the way to Beomeosa Temple 梵魚寺 (“Sanskrit Fish”) in Busan. Daoist in form but Buddhist.

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William Han

@W_T_Han

9 years

My first Vox article: http://t.co/qG6jPtzjao

I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American. I've failed.

Vox is a general interest news site for the 21st century. Its mission: to help everyone understand our complicated world, so that we can all help shape it. In text, video and audio, our reporters...

www.vox.com

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William Han

@W_T_Han

3 months

TIL in PRC, they refer to my late-prof Jonathan Spence as one of the 漢學三傑 (3 Capable Individuals of Sinology), alongside Philip Kuhn and Frederic Wakeman

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William Han

@W_T_Han

5 months

Hypothesis: for an ENG-speaking American to gain fluency in CH as 2nd language requires a degree of cultural embrace that few Americans today are capable. And if they embraced CH culture to that degree, they'd never get security clearance, so they'd never get to make policy

Dylan Levi King

@dylanleviking

5 months

Thinking about Chinese studies in the Second Cold War, the problem of not understanding, and so on, I wondered how many students were studying Russian at the height of the Cold War. Few students gained fluency, few went to study in the Soviet Union... But what did that mean?

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William Han

@W_T_Han

2 months

Not OP's intent, but an example of ancient Chinese ethical debate in action: if you know your father committed a crime, do you turn him in? Confucianism says no, family relationship being crucial. Legalism and Mohism say yes: why is your dad more important than anyone else?

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William Han

@W_T_Han

4 months

Exhibit on seals at the Palace Museum

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William Han

@W_T_Han

11 days

Meet two great modern Chinese Confucian scholars: Liang Shuming, direct descendant of Kublai Khan, and Aixinjueluo Yuyun, direct descendant of Nurhaci

Daily Roman Updates

@UpdatingOnRome

12 days

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William Han

@W_T_Han

6 months

Saw it in the wild not long ago

eric ゑリｯ久

@shinobu_books

6 months

One Kanji that says “You should favor studying [the works of] Confucius and Mencius” このんで　まなぶ　こうもうを　　好　　　��　　　孔　孟を Confucius and Mencius

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William Han

@W_T_Han

1 year

Another rubbing from Academia Sinica museum: 621 A.D., Li Shimin, future Emperor Taizong of Tang, returns from a victorious battle. In heavy overnight rain, he and his troops see a massive manifestation of Guanyin in the sky, so they decide to erect a temple on the site

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William Han

@W_T_Han

1 month

In today's news from Taiwan, the government will henceforth refuse to say "Hokkien" but call it "Taiwanese Taiwanese." No seriously, with the redundancy, the first "Taiwanese" being adjectival 台灣台語

閩南語認證考試將正式更名「台灣台語」　網轟：乞丐趕廟公│TVBS新聞網

上路逾十年的「閩南語語言能力認證考試」，教育部預告將要更名為「台灣台語語言能力認證考試」。教育部表示，因應行政院國家語言發展報告函示，現推動國家語言一致性，未來書面用語規範應優先使用台灣原住民族語、台灣客語、台灣台語等，因此配合將閩南語修正為台灣台語。

news.tvbs.com.tw

Iskandar Ding

@iskdin

1 month

People who try to be smart and ask 'but which Chinese, Mandarin or Cantonese', when someone from China says they speak Chinese, please stop. Cantonese is but one of the many Chinese languages. Unless you're from Guangdong, or Canton, in colonial romanisation, you don't speak

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William Han

@W_T_Han

4 months

Just some Ming Dynasty calligraphy at the Palace Museum

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William Han

@W_T_Han

1 year

A Song Dynasty print of the Diamond Sutra in the form of a pagoda

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William Han

@W_T_Han

3 months

Can you imagine Americans coming up with a list of “3 Maestros of American Studies” consisting of 3 foreigners? The truth is the Chinese absolutely love it when foreigners embrace their culture

William Han

@W_T_Han

3 months

TIL in PRC, they refer to my late-prof Jonathan Spence as one of the 漢學三傑 (3 Capable Individuals of Sinology), alongside Philip Kuhn and Frederic Wakeman

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William Han

@W_T_Han

1 year

One thing I like about this early 14th century duck painting by Chen Lin is how Emperor Qianlong stamped his seal smack in the middle where the artist meant to leave blank (留白). The seal reads 古希天子, Emperor Rare Since Ancient Times @MadSealCutter

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William Han

@W_T_Han

10 days

Everyday seal script

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William Han

@W_T_Han

8 months

五花馬，千金裘，呼兒將出換美酒! The 3-hr animated film for children where half the dialogues are Tang poetry

Sarracenian 捕蝇草怪人

@CSarracenian

8 months

"Alright, let's see what this historical poetry movie is like- OH Jesus Christ"

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William Han

@W_T_Han

5 months

False. Old CH name for India was 天竺, which if literally translated means "heaven thick" but is obv meant to be phonetic. It happens to sound like 天主, Lord of Heaven, today used in connection with Catholicism. It's also not "omitted." We all learn it growing up.

Hrithik

@Indicaa02

5 months

The East Asian revisionist history has completely omitted the ancient name for India in their language! The Chinese used to call India "Tianzhu" which means "Heavenly Master" or "Lord of the Heavens" Koreans, Cheonchuk & the Japanese- Tenjiku (Heaven)! Note uttariyas & dhotis!

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William Han

@W_T_Han

2 months

Mao claimed it was his favorite book and to have read it 17 times. Very indicative that there’s never been an English translation

T. Greer

@Scholars_Stage

2 months

The Zizhi Tongjian might be the most important historical work in Chinese history, a chronicle that covers 403 BC to 959 AD. It serves as the main primary source for centuries of Chinese history and as the most historically influential secondary source for the rest.

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William Han

@W_T_Han

6 months

The fantastically interesting story of the Kushans, known to the Chinese as Guishuang or Yuezhi. I spent an afternoon a few years ago admiring Kushan art in the archaeological museum in Termez on the Uzbek-Afghan border

William Dalrymple

@DalrympleWill

6 months

New from @EmpirePodUK : How the Kushans, and their profitable trade with Rome, gave the Buddha an entirely new image

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William Han

@W_T_Han

7 years

Serious Q: Why do we say "taxpayers" to mean citizens/voters when immigrants pay billions in taxes each year? CC @joseiswriting

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William Han

@W_T_Han

5 months

Reminds me of the Stone Drums of Qin, discovered in 627 A.D. and rhapsodized by Tang/Song poets, with inscriptions dating from an undetermined past

Incunabula

@incunabula

5 months

This is the Rongorongo script of Easter Island. Rongorongo lacks an accepted decipherment but is generally presumed to encode an earlier stage of Rapa Nui, the contemporary Polynesian language of the island. It is possible that it represents an independent invention of writing.

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William Han

@W_T_Han

5 months

At the former home of the great Chinese historian Qian Mu, the Song Dynasty Neo-Confucian philosopher Zhu Xi takes pride of place

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William Han

@W_T_Han

4 months

The more I learn about Chinese history and culture, the more it's impressed upon me how little I know 吾生也有涯，而知也無涯

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William Han

@W_T_Han

5 months

In 499 A.D., the monk Huishen claimed to return from the land of Fusang (where the tree grew but called the same name) "over 20,000 li east of China." 18th century French Sinologist Joseph de Guignes then argued that this "Fusang" was in fact Mexico.

XingWu🐉ChineseFolklore

@x1ngwu

5 months

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐮𝐬𝐚𝐧𝐠 𝐓𝐫𝐞𝐞 In Chinese #mythology , the Fusang Tree is the tree of life, allegedly growing far to the east of China. It is composed of two large mulberry trees supporting each other. It is the sacred tree where the sun rests, 1/2

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William Han

@W_T_Han

3 months

@heliocystis The typical term for a northward campaign is 伐 fa, but in any other direction it’s 征 zheng. Reason below. Not universally true but usually.

William Han

@W_T_Han

3 months

@alicepoon1 Just read whole thing about it. 征 originally meant Zhou king putting down upstart lord. Etymology 彳正, to step in proper path. 伐 meant fighting an equal. Etymology 人戈, man holding weapon, hence 伐木. In Chinese history, northward wars were against invading conquerors, harder

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William Han

@W_T_Han

3 months

@EKripperino @xxlchinesewoman Indeed it is! And specifically at one point Zhuge Liang had to fight the King of Nanman, Meng Huo, and had to beat him 7 times to win his loyalty

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William Han

@W_T_Han

6 months

Confucian-traditional Wujiang Academy in Kinmen, where many local students once studied, doubles as a shrine to Song philosopher Zhu Xi. His so-called Neo-Confucianism or Lixue, the philosophy of reason, dominated subsequent Chinese thought. With calligraphy by historian Qian Mu

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William Han

@W_T_Han

1 month

Got sent this

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William Han

@W_T_Han

3 months

View from Busan’s Taejongdae 太宗台 Park. 17th century scholar Gu Yanwu first advanced the theory that Daoism’s cult of immortals first arose in coastal Shandong across the sea from Korea bc of ephemeral sights of islands and mirages in the sea

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William Han

@W_T_Han

3 months

World map at Busan Museum, dated according to Kangxi’s reign and credited to Jesuit missionary Ferdinand Verbiest 南懷仁

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William Han

@W_T_Han

5 months

Are the Wu Zetian characters in the running?

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@myetcetera

5 months

Which traditional Chinese character do you like the most and why?

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William Han

@W_T_Han

5 months

If it makes sense to write "soooooo tiiiiiired..."

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@myetcetera

5 months

Chinese iconicity

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William Han

@W_T_Han

2 months

Seen recently

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William Han

@W_T_Han

4 months

Erin and I had a convo in January. I mentioned some basic facts about Chinese history. She stared at me with incomprehension then announced, “I’m just not interested in Chinese culture.”

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William Han

@W_T_Han

4 months

The Daoist text Liezi, which might be written as early as 5th century B.C. or as late as the Jin Dynasty, contains a story about a robot/AI...

Dumpling 🥟

@dumplings_r_yum

4 months

China had sci-fi dating from 265-316 CE?!?! Whaaat!!

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William Han

@W_T_Han

3 months

TIL when xiangqi (often called Chinese chess) is played in Korea, the king equivalents aren’t called general/marshal 將/帥 but are named the two sides of the historic conflict Chu/Han 楚/漢, while no Chu-Han border 楚河漢界 is marked

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William Han

@W_T_Han

3 months

Buddhist sutras from 6th to 14th centuries, on display at Yale’s Sterling Library

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William Han

@W_T_Han

1 year

Rubbing from the Yi Ying Stele, erected in 153 A.D., which records how the 19th generation descendant of Confucius asked the Han Dynasty government to hire a clerk to be responsible for rites conducted at the Temple of Confucius

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William Han

@W_T_Han

2 months

Western commentary has long made too much of the idea of the Mandate of Heaven. Gov failure to handle disasters, like Hurricane Katrina or Covid, is what reveals the loss of Mandate, i.e. gov dysfunction, not the disasters themselves. Far more rational than mythical

Ben Landau-Taylor

@benlandautaylor

2 months

I’ve often heard that when a dynasty loses the Mandate of Heaven, it's revealed by natural disasters like floods. It’s because the Chinese state was responsible for the canals and levees. If you fuck up the maintenance, you get *huge* megafloods. There's a direct connection.

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William Han

@W_T_Han

5 months

In this example, we see 峨 written in two different orientations in the same sentence! @make_boluo_

Egas Moniz-Bandeira ᠡᡤᠠᠰ ᠮᠣᠨᠢᠰ ᠪᠠᠨᡩ᠋ᠠᠶᠢᠷᠠ

@egasmb

1 year

Sinographs often have variants where components swap places - but the wildest ones gotta be those where you can rotate the components in all four directions: like 'goose' 鵝、䳗、鵞、䳘 and - hold your breath - 'pine tree' 松、枩、枀、⿰公木 😁

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William Han

@W_T_Han

2 years

Not this again. There's nothing very mystical or even unusual about the Chinese idea of the mandate of heaven: it's just like the divine right of kings in Europe. And the important thing was never natural disasters themselves but how well the gov responds, i.e. policy performance

Xianyang City Bureaucrat

@XianyangCB

2 years

If your pontifications on Zhou dynasty political philosophy don't have LinkedIn hashtags you're ngmi.

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William Han

@W_T_Han

2 months

@AngelicaOung We're so independent we must make ourselves into Western colonial subjects!

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William Han

@W_T_Han

2 years

@ChannelWritrGuy @foreignersinTW Precisely, like in the Wushe incident of 1930, when the Japanese gassed indigenous people and massacred hundreds of them. No brutality at all.

霧社事件 - 維基百科，自由的百科全書

zh.m.wikipedia.org

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William Han

@W_T_Han

3 months

Maybe the Western world can even spare a moment to remember the Republic of China officers who served on D-Day, like Tsou Chien/Zou Jian (鄒堅), eventually admiral and commander in chief of the navy in Taiwan

Jake Tapper

@jaketapper

3 months

This year will likely be the last major D-Day anniversary with living veterans in attendance. Organizers are going all-out

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William Han

@W_T_Han

12 days

The Chinese word for the two-part soul 魂魄 evolved from first “cloud” or air/breath and second from the white light of the waning moon

In Libro Veritas

@InlibroV

13 days

"Etymologically the term “soul” evolved from the Old English "sawol" ... meaning “coming from the sea,” or “belonging to the sea.”

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William Han

@W_T_Han

1 month

One thing they don't warn you about when you go to Yale: the blinding ambitions of many of your classmates

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William Han

@W_T_Han

1 year

Come for the disturbing discussion on Roman sexuality; stay for Tom and Dominic's respective and revealing votes on what really happened to Antinous

Tom Holland

@holland_tom

1 year

Death on the Nile today on @TheRestHistory , as the drowning of a beautiful young man leads us into the alien & unsettling world of Roman sexuality, & a new god is raised to the heavens. HADRIAN & ANTINOUS: antiquity's most fascinating love affair...

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William Han

@W_T_Han

3 months

Some Chinese art in the Yale Art Gallery: a Guanyin/Bodhisattva figure from 1168 and Tang Dynasty tricolor camels

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William Han

@W_T_Han

3 months

Now that I pay a lot more attention to this issue, I see some of the pieces are clearly stamped with Qing imperial seals, so they were part of the collection in the Forbidden City that should’ve been locked down in the 1920s. Provenance, Met? @artcrimeprof @MadSealCutter

William Han

@W_T_Han

3 months

Trouble with visiting the Met after spending a lot of time at Taipei’s Palace Museum is now the Chinese art looks like nothing much. Nonetheless, there’s this tolerably interesting series of illustrations of Book of Odes 詩經 with calligraphy allegedly by Emperor Gaozong of Song

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William Han

@W_T_Han

3 months

@alicepoon1 But ofc not universally true. 杜甫 wrote poem 北征

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William Han

@W_T_Han

27 days

ROC-TW wins gold at Olympics. This is not the national anthem but the "anthem to the flag." The lyrics present an ROC view: 山川壯麗 "beautiful mountains and rivers" refers to China as a whole; 炎黃世胄 "scions of the Red and Yellow Emperors" refers to myth of origin of China

李老师不是你老师

@whyyoutouzhele

28 days

现场台湾观众合唱《青天白日满地红》

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William Han

@W_T_Han

6 months

@MadSealCutter Well the English for that is petrichor. I can’t think of a single word for it in Chinese, but 久旱逢甘露 is a thing

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William Han

@W_T_Han

4 years

@travisclau @chowleen @zugenia Roughly 待挽狂瀾迄未休 Not yet given up on arresting the waves 伊誰擊楫誓中流 Who swears an oath midstream 匡時雋秀胸懷廣 Heroic hearts to rectify the times 報國菁英品學優 Brilliant minds to serve the nation 1/2

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William Han

@W_T_Han

3 years

@AsianWifeTakes Let's all endearingly call white women "little hamburgers."

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William Han

@W_T_Han

1 year

Calligraphy and poetry by the early Ming scholar official Shen Can. Notice how he switches from semi-regular script into cursive into another form a cursive. And of course the huge seal of Qianlong…

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William Han

@W_T_Han

2 months

One possible location for Yaochi is Lake Karakol (Kala Kule) in the Karakoram Mountains on the road from China to Pakistan. I stayed in a yurt there one night some years ago. Altitude sickness

XingWu🐉ChineseFolklore

@x1ngwu

2 months

In Chinese mythology, Yaochi(瑤池, aka Jade Pool) is a celestial paradise inhabited by the Queen Mother of the West, located on Mount Kunlun. The Queen Mother periodically hosts the Peach Orchard Gathering at Yaochi, where all the immortals gather to celebrate her birthday. 1/2

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William Han

@W_T_Han

3 months

Trouble with visiting the Met after spending a lot of time at Taipei’s Palace Museum is now the Chinese art looks like nothing much. Nonetheless, there’s this tolerably interesting series of illustrations of Book of Odes 詩經 with calligraphy allegedly by Emperor Gaozong of Song

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William Han

@W_T_Han

3 months

With many of you noting how the nomads did a number on the Chinese: the prototypical “northern expedition” in Chinese history was the campaign against the Xiongnu led by Generals Wei Qing and Huo Qubing - and they won

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William Han

@W_T_Han

1 year

A letter by the Song Dynasty artist Mi Fu. He switched to wild cursive 狂草 for the second two lines. I wonder if the recipient could read them.

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William Han

@W_T_Han

18 days

I learn that Byzantine historian Theophylact Simocatta c.630AD mentioned an emperor of China whom he called "Taisson." Henry Yule identified this w Taizong of Tang, then in power. But any Chinese knows that's impossible, bc Taizong wasn't called Taizong until his death in 649

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William Han

@W_T_Han

5 months

While we're here, let's not forget Noah's comically flawed (if equally confident) opinions on Taiwan. His logic, citing an already deeply biased FT report, would imply Puerto Rico is not part of the US bc it's not a state. Blind leading the blind.

Xianyang City Bureaucrat

@XianyangCB

5 months

A friend recently came back from China. He spoke in wondrous terms about how safe and clean it was, how easy it was to buy stuff and get it delivered. And he casually mentioned his friend rushing to dinner because she'd be boiled alive in a ceremonial bronze cauldron if she was

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William Han

@W_T_Han

1 year

A lovely episode

Tom Holland

@holland_tom

1 year

Today, after 330 episodes of @TheRestHistory , I finally get to do my all-time favourite historian: HERODOTUS. Featuring everything from mummies to the battle of Marathon, & drunk-dancing on tables to giant ants, it's THE BIRTH OF HISTORY!!!!

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William Han

@W_T_Han

2 months

Warring States era statesman of Wei, Li Kui 李悝 (455-395 B.C.), might've been the first to come up with a strategic grain reserve (平糴法). It prevented famines in Wei when harvests failed and stabilized prices in years of plenty. Amazing the idea still has to seem controversial

Isabella M. Weber

@IsabellaMWeber

2 months

A grain reserve would work similarly to the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It would counteract price spikes to protect consumers & establish a floor to shield farmers when grain prices collapse. Thanks for covering our paper @guardian !

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William Han

@W_T_Han

6 months

In "National Treasure: Book of Secrets" (2007), Nic Cage and company discover the Native American city of gold "Cipola," only the ancient "Native American" writings on the walls are... seal script Chinese

Egas Moniz-Bandeira ᠡᡤᠠᠰ ᠮᠣᠨᠢᠰ ᠪᠠᠨᡩ᠋ᠠᠶᠢᠷᠠ

@egasmb

6 months

Chinese characters as imagined by 19th century Europeans look like those generated by AI today

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William Han

@W_T_Han

3 months

Buddha in New York City

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William Han

@W_T_Han

21 days

TIL in over 2,000 yrs of Chinese imperial history, women were practically in power (usually as empress dowager) about a quarter of the time...

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William Han

@W_T_Han

7 months

So many Americans are what we in Chinese call 井底之蛙, “frogs at the bottom of a well” looking up at their little patch of sky, thinking that’s the whole world

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William Han

@W_T_Han

1 year

Stopped in former political prison in Jingmei, naturally gravitated toward library. Had Shawshank moment seeing titles (all translated): works by Descartes, Camus, Hemingway, D.H. Lawrence, Somerset Maugham, Hermann Hesse, Jung, Schopenhauer; a real education if you read them all

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William Han

@W_T_Han

1 month

@realsteelmuslim "Popular dish"? I've never seen or heard of this in Taiwan.

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William Han

@W_T_Han

4 months

Many thanks to Tom for the shout-out in this episode as well as mentioning my book, "From the Wall to the Water"! It's available at @EarnshawBooks

From the Wall to the Water: A Journey Through Asia

In 2015, footloose lawyer and screenplay writer William Han set out to travel the ancient Silk Road from China to Europe, following the footsteps of a Chinese explorer who tried to make contact with...

www.amazon.com

Tom Holland

@holland_tom

4 months

Today on @TheRestHistory , the extraordinary story of CHINA'S FIRST EMPEROR: ruler of seven kingdoms, builder of the Great Wall, burner of books, immolator of Confucian scholars, & seeker after immortality. A monstrous tyrant, or a model for modern China?

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William Han

@W_T_Han

4 months

Nope, none whatsoever. We’re used to laughing (often unfairly) at Qing Dynasty officials and their ignorance of the outside world, like Lin Zexu thinking they could beat UK by stopping rhubarb exports. Will we look back on US elites of this era the same way?

Glenn

@GlennLuk

4 months

“There is no tech scene in China and Russia … there are no software companies." It’s really shocking the level of reality distortion from the CEO of a leading U.S. defensetech company. Have noticed this type of attitude is fairly common in SV.

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William Han

@W_T_Han

5 months

In honor of the moon episode and Tom’s Nixon impression: the flag of the Republic of China that Apollo 11 flew to the moon and back along with some lunar rocks, which Nixon then gave to the ROC. Coincidentally came across these yesterday in Taipei

Tom Holland

@holland_tom

5 months

One small step for man, one giant leap for @TheRestHistory . Today we are joined by @tomhanks to explore the remarkable story of MAN ON THE MOON: the race to get there; the heroism of all those who took part in the Apollo missions; the possible future...

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William Han

@W_T_Han

3 months

It's dispiriting how much harder it is to memorize Tang & Song poems now than it was when I was a kid

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William Han

@W_T_Han

1 month

@dai_alan_dai Oh yes yes I'm aware. Folks at SF Chinatown gave her the name, right? Just making a little joke

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William Han

@W_T_Han

4 years

@travisclau @chowleen @zugenia 策士蘇秦榮拜相 To be a strategist like Su Qin and become minister 書生定遠蔚封侯 To be a scholar like Ban Chao and become a lord 韶光易逝君須記 Bright light fades fast, so don’t forget 晏處蹉跎悔白頭 If you dawdle, when evening comes, you’ll regret your white hair 2/2

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William Han

@W_T_Han

9 months

Tom and Dominic's discussion near the end of what other civilization might have colonized the area reminds of the improbable tale of the 5th century Chinese monk who claimed to have visited Mexico...

Tom Holland

@holland_tom

9 months

Our 8th & final episode on THE FALL OF THE AZTECS today. We explore the fate of Cortes; the death of the last Aztec emperor; the coming of Christianity to Mexico; the arguments that rage today over the Spanish conquest; & its seismic global significance

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William Han

@W_T_Han

2 years

@splee_hk @holland_tom And the real impropriety from the Chinese POV was not the sunrise-sunset business but the fact that the Japanese emperor called himself an emperor ("son of heaven"), making himself an equal. The Chinese called the man 倭王, which can translate as "king of the dwarves"

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William Han

@W_T_Han

15 days

禹跡圖 “Picture of the Traces of King Yu," actually 1136, now in the Xi'an museum of steles

禹跡圖 | 中研院歷史語言研究所歷史文物陳列館

「禹跡圖」是現存最早的帶有製圖網格的地圖，方格邊長約1.1公分，圖名下方注有「每方折地百里」，其內容包含：禹貢山川名，古今州郡名及古今山水地名，大致涵蓋中...

museum.sinica.edu.tw

Crémieux

@cremieuxrecueil

16 days

I know the Greeks were the first recorded with properly scale maps, but this scaled map where each cube is 100 Li (Chinese miles) is the earliest one that impresses me, and it was carved into stone in 1137.

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William Han

@W_T_Han

4 months

Unusual character spotted in the wild: 㫖, variant of 旨, decree

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William Han

@W_T_Han

1 year

A letter in the hand of Su Shi or Su Dongpo, Mr. Eastern Slope, the Song Dynasty (11th century) poet, calligrapher, statesman, epicure, and all around interesting guy. It may only be a humble letter, but in his calligraphy, it’s a national treasure. At the National Palace Museum

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William Han

@W_T_Han

1 year

Inspired by friends, return visit to the Palace Museum. Took insufficient note before, but this “ding” cauldron of Lord Mao, from Western Zhou Dynasty in 9th or 8th c. BC, was among 4 National Treasures of Late Qing. Its invaluable inscription runs to 500 characters @artcrimeprof

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William Han

@W_T_Han

4 years

@andmichaelgreen Hmm, stand-your-ground laws are state laws. But failure to identify oneself as an officer and to display evidence of proper legal authority before attempting arrest should render the arrest an unreasonable seizure under the 4th Amendment. US v. Mendenhall?

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William Han

@W_T_Han

1 year

Not gonna QT earlier posts that started the controversy. Thread. Also, we native speakers don't learn classical/modern CH. We just learn Chinese. We learn bits of wenyan starting at age 6, Tang poems & Confucian quotes. Wenyan also appears daily in "modern" usage. Can't divide

Lei Gong

@gonglei89

1 year

Some thoughts on today’s uproar over Classic Chinese. 1) Classical Chinese comprehension in China varies in same way comprehension for Shakespeare or older English text varies with English speakers. This doesn’t mean Classical Chinese sounds like gibberish to native speakers.

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