Chinese Currents

First went to China in 1988.
Based in Beijing for 20 years.
Visited all provinces and regions.
Cycled to 上都 Xanadu.

Words & photos:

[Chinese Currents @ChineseCurrents]

Three days after the Soviet Union (and some Warsaw Pact allies) invaded Czechoslovakia, Premier Zhou Enlai spoke at the Romanian Embassy in Beijing to condemn the “violent crime against the Czechoslovak people"...

@ftchina @TheEconomist @jarmiles

Source: https://t.co/FKETqSsk99

[Chinese Currents @ChineseCurrents]

Thousands of photos not looked at... until now.
'Summer rain' was taken in the half-light of a torrential downpour in Beijing at 6.12pm on the 31st August, 2014.

[Chinese Currents @ChineseCurrents]

100 years ago today, Sun Weishi 孙维世 was born in Sichuan. She was the first woman to direct modern stage plays 话剧 in China. In the Cultural Revolution, she was imprisoned and tortured to death - another victim of Jiang Qing aka 'Madame Mao'.
Ref: Morath & Miller (1979) et al.

[Chinese Currents @ChineseCurrents]

648 years ago today, in the 6th year of the Ming dynasty, the Battle of Huairou was fought. The Ming general used a heavy 'Beijing snowstorm' to his advantage and routed the attacking 'Mongol' Yuan army. The Hongwu emperor 洪武帝 would reign for another 25 and the Ming 270 years.

[Chinese Currents @ChineseCurrents]

! @birdingbeijing tells me there is a Blue-fronted Redstart 蓝额红���鸲 at Shahe Res. for its 2nd day. This first for Beijing was found by two local birders, one of whom is a middle school student (5th birding year!). Take a bow, 'Oriental Stork'!
[My Yunnan-photo is for illus.]

[Chinese Currents @ChineseCurrents]

12 years ago today...
Lots of wild duck on Beijing's Wild Duck Lake - as well as 1,000 or so Common Crane, 1 Hooded Crane, 30 Mongolian Lark, and a rare Mute Swan. But the flock of 80 Pallas's Sandgrouse (毛腿沙鸡 = hairy-legged sand-chicken ;-) stole the show.
@BirdingBeijing

[Chinese Currents @ChineseCurrents]

9 years ago today, I saw a large flock of 太平鸟 [= 'tranquil' birds] in the Beijing Botanical Gardens. Happily, they were too busy eating berries to notice me, and I was able to see they were Japanese Waxwings 小 [small] and not Bohemian Waxwings 大 [big] 太平鸟.
@BirdingBeijing

[Chinese Currents @ChineseCurrents]

111 years ago today, a Manchurian Bush Warbler 远东树莺 was found in “Mengtsze” 蒙自. The first record for Yunnan.
(Ref: Bangs & Phillips, in the Bull., Mus. of Comp. Zoology at Harvard, 1914.)

More recently, here’s one I photographed in Beijing (15 Jan 2015).

@BirdingBeijing

[Chinese Currents @ChineseCurrents]

860 years ago today, >600 ships of the Jurchen-Jin invasion fleet were heading for 'Southern' Song territory, when they were confronted by 120 ships of the Song navy. The Battle of Tangdao 唐岛之战 was no contest... thanks to the Song's vastly superior technology & firepower.

[Chinese Currents @ChineseCurrents]

100 years ago today, Gu Yuezhen 顾月珍 was born in Shanghai. In 1949, she founded the 'Nuli' Shanghai Opera Troupe 努力沪剧团, and starred in 'red operas'. Despite this, she was persecuted and eventually killed during the Cultural Revolution*.
*Stock J.P.J., OUP, 2003, pp.167-68.

[Chinese Currents @ChineseCurrents]

@FlywaySpike That's certainly true. But I worry that the trend is not nearly as rosy as indicated by its 'Least Concern' status (link below).
It's hard for me to be objective, though, because I've seen many more in cages than in the wild. https://t.co/izkVOW9Hon
@BirdingBeijing @numenini

[Chinese Currents @ChineseCurrents]

107 years ago today: "Flocks upon flocks... of hundreds of these handsome birds [Mongolian Larks 蒙古百灵, Hebei coast, going west]." Source: La Touche. I saw a flock of 150 in Beijing in 2010, but many fewer in recent years. Sadly, it's still caught to be caged.
@BirdingBeijing

[Chinese Currents @ChineseCurrents]

3 yrs ago today, Terry @BirdingBeijing found eastern China's 2nd White-throated Redstart 白喉红尾鸲 ('1st' was possibly an escapee).
The story of the find and other birds we saw that day in the wonderful Ling mountains 灵山 is told by Terry @ https://t.co/KBhPhCcj9J
@AlstromPer

[Chinese Currents @ChineseCurrents]

Three years ago today, Terry @BirdingBeijing kindly
phoned me with news of a Wallcreeper 红翅旋壁雀
he'd found, while walking home (as you do).
An amazing find - given it was in 'lowland' urban Beijing (Shunyi district).
Here's my favourite photo of the hundreds I snapped.

[Chinese Currents @ChineseCurrents]

Remembering Uncle Freddie, a Gunner in the Royal Artillery who was killed in battle on 12 June 1942 in Libya, near Tobruk. @PoppyLegion
Thinking also of the American Volunteer Force - aka Flying Tigers. Their story is told in 'Wings over China' https://t.co/td4KTB0pP4

[Chinese Currents @ChineseCurrents]

3 years ago today, in Beidaihe 北戴河, I photographed a pair of Relict Gulls 遗鸥 yí'ōu, one of the world's most 'vulnerable'* gulls. The vast majority of them breed in Mongolia and migrate to the fringes of the also-vulnerable Bohai Bay.
*https://t.co/ZuWxbq6kSh
@BirdingBeijing

[Chinese Currents @ChineseCurrents]

377 years ago today, on 8 November 1644, a six-year-old boy became the first emperor of the Qing dynasty. The ceremony and 'Proclamation of the Ascension to the Throne of the Shunzhi 顺治 Emperor' [below] was the brainchild of Dorgon, the emperor's paternal uncle, and regent.

[Chinese Currents @ChineseCurrents]

@bokane @huobishi I wondered the same.
All I know about this (1934) banknote is from its British Museum page:
https://t.co/0Vv3ZvFJqN
...And here:
https://t.co/jVyL1wDWnV

[Chinese Currents @ChineseCurrents]

90 years ago today:
On 7 November 1931 - on the anniversary of the Russian 'October Revolution' (Julian calendar = 25 October 1917) - in Ruìjīn 瑞金, Jiangxi province, the CCP proclaimed the establishment of the Chinese Soviet Republic [whose 'Lenin banknote' appears below].

[Chinese Currents @ChineseCurrents]

Meanwhile, 500 or so miles away in Shanghai, the Lyceum theatre (later also a cinema) was hosting the Amateur Dramatic Club of Shanghai & also a young 'Peggy' Hookham [Ref: Paul French @chinarhyming] - later known as Margot Fonteyne, the Royal Ballet's most celebrated ballerina.