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Showing posts from September, 2021

The Amur River - Between Russia and China

  There was a time when the reach of China penetrated deep into Siberia with its peoples owing allegiance to its distant Emperor. Then rapidly in the seventeenth century, the Russians arrived. At first, the ensuing conflict went primarily in the direction of China but Russia's growing power and the Qing dynasty's slow unraveling tipped the balance in the direction of Russia, finally settling on a boundary that for hundreds of miles is marked by the Amur River.  Yet it remains unsettled.  Though on the surfaces of global diplomacy all is well between China and Russia, the communities adjacent to the river tell a different, more uneasy story. Colin Thubron at eighty, having been an accomplished traveler in and chronicler of both countries decades before, travels in his latest book, 'The Amur River: Between Russia and China' down its length, acutely observing and beautifully describing, amongst much else, these anxieties, these differences. The first most obvious is how th

The Taoism of Jade Mountain Monastery

  Fleeing the Revolution, Peter Goullart found himself a White Russian emigre working as a clerk in a company in Shanghai in the 1920s and 30s. Later he would move to the southwest corner of the country and found cooperatives for the Nationalist government - a period of his life beautifully evoked in his 'Forgotten Kingdom'  https://ncolloff.blogspot.com/2019/03/a-forgotten-kingdom.html  a book that thankfully remains in print. This, his 'The Monastery of Jade Mountain', addresses his discovery of Taoism whilst working in Shanghai and, sadly, has passed out of print. Sadly because it is a wonderful account of both Taoist beliefs and institutions - from the loftiest philosophy shared in a mountain top monastery to selling fortunes in an urban temple - and of his steady, deepening appreciation of the virtues of Taoist thought and practice.  Goullart had a striking gift for sympathy and time and again this and genuine sincerity to understand open doors that might otherwise