A year ago on Round and Square (21 July 2012)—Fieldnotes From History: Provincial Elections (q)
Two years ago on Round and Square (21 July 2011)—Longevity Mountain: Introduction
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| [a] Seasonal RF |
Click below for other items in this essay:
IV
Northern and Central Asia (b)
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| [b] Respite RF |
Today’s central and
northern Asia has a complex dynamic that has been shaped by the changing
power—and financial—configurations of the former Soviet Union, today’s Russia,
and a growing power from the People’s Republic of China. The first things to
contemplate are the vast spaces between urban centers and trading networks.
Unlike the major urban centers in Japan, Korea, and China—where large cities
dot the most common thoroughfares along the Tokkaido, or Eastern Sea Route, the
coastal line in China from Tianjin to Fuzhou, or even the links from the
southern tip of the Korean peninsula to the mid-north—travel respites of any
size are far more scarce in central and northern Asia.
The reasons for this are
as distinct as the differences in the geographical areas. To begin, it is often
difficult to place the precise “settlement date” of a Mongolian city, and for
practical reasons that few people in the southerly provinces of China would
understand. The cities—they moved. Ulan Bator is just one example of a mobile
city that created a semi-nomadic patterning of stasis and change that makes it
impossible to place an “origin,” as one can do for Kaifeng or Rome. It
literally and figuratively moved up and down the river, and has been, as city
boosters might say “a city on the move."
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| [c] Moving RF |
The underpinnings of this
idea can tell us a great deal about life beyond the “settled” regions of China.
To begin, the presence of constant agriculture (even in conditions in the north
and northwest that were not particularly well-suited to it) marks a great break
in the growth of civilization and empire. The early Chinese historian Sima Qian
wrote that little children in the far north and northwest grew up riding sheep,
sitting up in their already formidable stirrups, and shooting rodents on the
prairie, even at a tender age.
The contrast with the children of cultivated China—and, of course, this phrase
has several connotations—are dramatic. Although Mongols, Manchus, and many
groups that were prominent in earlier Asian history (such as the Xiongnu),
could wreak havoc on the Chinese plains, they were not “built” for a lasting
presence unless they found ways to accommodate the presence of a vastly larger
and far more urban agricultural and commercial population.
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| [d] Vast RF |
In the north, even today,
the distance between even small cities is often vast. Today, the Jeep,
long-distance trucks, as well as several train routes, figure in long journeys.
Even the centers themselves are quite intriguing when we contemplate the
history of these transportation nodes. Many began as Buddhist monastic sites,
and grew only slowly into communities with a presence beyond the Buddhist
orders. Even in their early incarnations as small cities, they partook of what
the French ethnographer Marcel Mauss described as a dynamic of travel and
respite.
The centers provided places of rest and regeneration in the cold months, before
pastoralists would take their herds to farther-flung destinations in the
spring, summer, and autumn. This patterning of movement and reconnection is so
much a part of central and northern Asian life that it must be considered as
one of the great dynamics in its history.
The contrast with settled
areas of China and Korea (and Japan, although no conqueror penetrated its
shores until the twentieth century) is enormous. Settled agricultural life,
with its concomitant market centers and precise agricultural calendar, created
a dynamic that led to great domination in all cases, except when northern (or
central) groups organized into large conquering forces. The latter happened
several times in the past thousand years of Chinese history (and that narrative
takes up, arguably, more than half of that time). This is hardly insignificant,
and these entries will help to show the ethnic persistence of some of these
group
*** ***
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| [e] Trucks RF |
The challenge for
understanding central and northern China today lies in balancing the dynamic
histories of these areas with a rapidly changing economic, political, and
social climate. The central, northern, and northeastern areas of Asia have
figured prominently in the larger East Asian historical narrative, but only for
several centuries at a time. Today’s areas are in the vice-lock of an aging
(former) Soviet Union and a growing and increasingly aggressive People’s
Republic of China. This can be seen in several examples that would ordinarily
be overlooked by analysts. Which “way” do the railroads run? Well, mostly they
still run to Moscow, or at least its environs. On the other hand, which way do
the trucks drive? To Beijing (or its environs)—and even on bumpy, problematic,
and uneven roads. The earlier pull of the former Soviet Union still affects
mining cities all over northern Asia. The same pressure plays into all of the
politics and economics of the central Asian countries, which have always been
an amalgamation of complex ethnic, religious, and economic entities.
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| [f] Force RF |
There is nothing
analytically “simple” about understanding this region. For example, Buddhism is
a powerful force that is not tied—at least not in a direct sense—to environment
or the modes of production. As in China, and the rest of Asia, it has a
powerful place in the history of the region, and affects everything from the
written languages of the various central and northern regions to their
traditions. One anthropologist recently told me of an encounter she had with a
stunned Mongol, who was surprised by her deft use of language and context. “You
must be a reincarnated Mongolian,” she was told. From there, I have learned of
a tremendous wave of fictional kinship ties that can be extended very far into
personal family networks…or kept evasively distant, depending on the situation.Finally, linguists have
noted many of these dynamics for the past two millennia. Even the Ballad of
Mulan is widely known to be of Turkic descent.
The entire history of East Asia has much more to do with the cultural dynamics
of central and northern Asia than many current textbooks show. And, indeed,
even the ethnic histories of eastern Asia show a complex mixing of ethnicity,
region, and circumstance than we ordinarily see in overviews of the region
*** ***
We turn now to a
consideration of East Asia, and China’s pivotal historical role within it.
Click below for other items in this essay:
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| [g] Powerful RF |
Notes
[1] Sima Qian, Historical Records [史記] (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1982),
juan 110.
[2] Marcel Mauss, Seasonal
Variations of the Eskimo: A Study in Social Morphology [Translated by
Ian Cunnison] (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979), 76-77.
Ian Cunnison] (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979), 76-77.
[3] Chen Sanping, Multicultural China in the Early Middle Ages (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), 39-41.
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