Demystifying China in the SCA
[More 100 Days of Arts and Sciences, featuring “Manuscripts as sources in the history of Chinese Medicine,” by Unschuld and Zheng, in Medieval Chinese Medicine.] Two medical manuscripts dating from the Han Dynasty were found in Zhangjiashan grave number 247, in Jiangling, Hubei province, i, n 1983. These are the Maishu (脈書, Book of the Mai …
My newest ILL book is Jessica Leo’s Sex in the Yellow Emperor’s Basic Questions (2011). I haven’t gotten past the foreword (written by Dennis Schilling of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich), but it gives what feels like a good overview of what I can expect from Leo’s book. Leo’s book looks at sexuality through the lens of …
Created in preparation for Wu daren’s elevation to the Order of the Pelican, in case people wanted to celebrate via garb (like you do). I promise better a better cited version shall come in the future.
A few weeks ago, I decided to undertake the A&S Century, or 100 Days of A&S, that has been sweeping through the SCA as of late. The challenge was first proposed by Baroness Ameline of Rowany, and is similar to the armored combatant century drill (100 days, 100 blows). Except instead of hitting people/getting hit, you …
Chen Rong’s (陳容, 1235-1262) painting Nine Dragons (九龍圖卷) is a beautiful piece of art, with incredibly, incredibly expressive dragons. In the accompaning poem, Chen says that he was able to paint the dragons because he was in an “intoxicated state of mind.” I believe it, because most of these guys can’t even.
While discussing relationship-based honourifics, I went looking to see how the word for older sister, 姐, might have been pronounced in Middle Chinese. I checked the Baxter-Sagart reconstruction document (revised 2014), but they didn’t include this particular character, and the only one with the same modern pronunciation of jie3 was 解, reconstructed as “keaX” (in Baxter’s …
Introduction China’s Tang Dynasty (618–907 AD) is considered a high point in Chinese history. Women’s clothing of this period went on to influence Japanese and Korean dress, as well as our modern concept of traditional Chinese clothing. The country was open to the outside world, tolerant and appreciative of different cultures (Mei 2011, p. 25). …