Journey to China 
Journey to China
All right - I asked, you answered, and luckily the cats didn't keep me so preoccupied that I didn't actually listen. Thus, I present to you, the exactly-as-you-asked-for-it China Pages.
To see all the wonder and glory that is China (or at least as much wonder and glory as I was able to absorb in one week), you have merely to choose from one of the options below.
(But, because I am evil and teacher-y, you have to read the history of China first. Mwahahaha. Suffer, fools.)
You can't even so much as say "China" without somehow hearing floaty, tinkly music in the background, or thinking of a strangely colored kung-fu movie. But apart from Amy Tan novels and Jackie Chan movies, China is really a foreign entity. Really, how much do you know about China, apart from the upcoming 2008 Olympics and Steven Spielburg movies?
(If you answered, "Why, quite a lot, Sharon!", then you may sit at the back of the room and keep quiet.)
Five Thousand Years of Chinese History
in about one-tenth the number of words
China claims to have the oldest continuous civilization, dating back some five or six thousand years - archaeological digs near the present-day city of Xi'an have shown evidence of an agricultural society living there some six thousand years ago. The China that existed then is virtually unrecongizable next to today's China (although really, if you were transplanted to your hometown of five thousand years ago, would you recongize it?). China is really a series of Dynasties, some of which lasted centuries; others only lasted a few years. But each influenced the country in some way to create the China that exists today.
The first actual established Dynasty was the Xia Dynasty, which lasted from 2200-1700 BC. It was supplanted by the Shang Dynasty, which introduced the elaborate system of writing which still exists in China today. This Dynasty hung around until 1100BC, when the last sovereign was beheaded by the Zhou forces. The Zhou Dynasty was one rife with trouble, and this in turn lead a man named Kong Fuzi to a series of ruminations and philosophies - but you would know him better as Confucius. A descendant from a minor noble family who didn't exactly do well at court, Confucius set off on a personal journey to find a leader who might put the world back on a righteous path. He failed in this mission, but the body of work he left behind him provided a canon for later Chinese scholars.
In 221BC, the Qin Dynasty came to power. The Qin Dynasty gave China its name - which makes a lot more sense when you realize that it's pronounced "Chin". The funny thing about this Dynasty is that despite its short tenure (it lasted only fifteen years), it had an enormous influence on Chinese culture. Qin Shihuangdi, also known as the First Emperor of Qin, created a cohesive country with laws and punishments, a standardized currency and writing script, and an infrastructure of roads and canals. He was seriously indebted to the army, and waged campaigns throughout his rule. But what he is most remembered for - particularly in the Western World - are his two great legacies: The Great Wall and the Terracotta Soldiers.
From there, it was a rapid succession of Dynasties as China increased in population and land mass, gaining territories such as Manchuria and Tibet, and influencing other areas such as Korea and Vietnam. Mostly it was controlled by the Emperor, but every so often a powerful and intelligent Empress would take the reins for a little bit. Such was the case in the latter half of the 19th century with Empress Dowager Cixi, who controlled the country for forty years until her death in 1908, leaving as successor to the throne a two-year-old boy named Puyi. Three years later, the dynastic cycle fell and the Republic of China was created.
The early days of the Republic were difficult. Picture, if you will, a very large house, with a whole lot of teenagers living in it, and at the center of which is an all-powerful Mom. You may not see Mom at all times, but you know she's there. Well, suddenly, Mom has gone. And the teenagers go beserk. That's sort of what China was like between 1916 and 1927: Beijing, the former capital, lost total control of the provinces, which were instead ruled by whoever happened to pass by.
In 1921, the Chinese Communist Party was formed, and became enough of a problem to those in power that in 1927, authorities ordered a massacre of over five thousand communists and trade union representatives in Shanghai. This didn't deter the communists, though; they just kept on staging uprisings, and by 1930 they had formed into an army of 40,000 strong. The Communist army was doing fairly well in their self-started civil war, until 1933 when they changed their strategy. A fairly stupid decision, really, since the new theory called for actual battles, and the communists started losing territory and men. Eventually they were cornered in Jiangxi, and in October 1934 began what is known as the Long March from Jiangxi to Shaanxi in the north over 8000km of inhospitable terrain. The journey took a year and about 70,000 people died on the march (of an original 90,000).
But the march had its plus side: many of china's eventual leaders met on that march, and the foundation was laid for support for the community party, as the Army would distribute land and goods amongst the peasants they met. Moreover, the march established a man named Mao Zedong as a strategic leader.
A sort of low-level war continued throughout the 1930s, on through the Second World War, and in 1945, civil war officially broke out. In 1949, Mao Zedong officially proclaimed the foundation of the People's Republic of China, thus ending essentially two decades of fighting, and again forming a cohesive government for the Chinese people.
Not that it was a great government, mind. The PRC began life bankrupt, with an economy in chaos and no air force or navy to speak of. Roads and railways were in poor condition, when they existed at all, and both agriculturally and industrally, the country was in shambles. But despite these difficulties, China bounced back to production. The adrenaline caused by the communist victory spurred the 1950s into a minor rennaissance of sorts: the economy was turned around, women were given recongition, and a land reform incentive was introduced.
Of course, everything wasn't peaches - or even roses. Mao attempted in the late 1950s to implement a "Hundred Flowers" - that is, he would let intellectuals criticize anything they wanted, without hinderance. Naturally, criticism poured in on topics ranging from the availability of foreign language press to corruption within the system. Six months after it began, the Hundred Flowers plan was squashed, and 30,000 scholars were sent for thought reform. The latter years of the 20th century continued in this flip-floppy sort of way, with intellectuals and scholars occassionally speaking up, and the government quite effectively squashing them back down.
Which brings us to present day China, and our trip there:
For those of you lazy bums who elected to skip the history and scroll down here, you'll want to start reading again.)
We started in Urumqi (pronounced "Oo-room-chee"), then went on to Beijing and Xi'an before returning to Urumqi for our flight home. A bit opposite of what most Americans do - but we weren't starting in the States. Here, you have options. Option One gives you a series of thumbnails to choose from and a nice big screen to see them in. Option Two are nice, long, single pages with lots of pictures at full size. They might take a bit longer to load, but once they're up, they're up.
Option One Option Two
Urumqi Urumqi
Beijing Beijing
Xi'an Xi'an