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October 20, 2007
Up to Xinjiang, Down to the Cultural Revolution
I've been playing around with The New York Times Archive online, which is now accessible as far back as 1851, since it opened up a few weeks ago. My parents back in the U.S. get daily delivery of the paper, so I'm able to access PDFs of up to 100 archive articles every month free of charge. Fun reading when you've got nothing else to do.
Of course, I've got to give some credit to Davesgonechina over at Mutant Palm who has come up with a simple solution for showcasing very old news (here and here). Namely, that solution is to exhibit the news as it originally appeared and let readers draw their own conclusions.
So, first an article from October 12, 1964:
Ah, the early days of the Bingtuan. Of course, all of those unwanted teenagers — in Xinjiang and everywhere else in China — were soon to throw the country into a chaotic hell that most people still don't fully appreciate. It's no coincidence that the events described in the article below from January 28, 1967 took place in Shihezi, the capital of the Bingtuan:
Action. Reaction.
Isn't history great? That photo, by the way, was taken from the Bingtuan's online archive of photos celebrating their 50th anniversary. I can't seem to find it anymore. (Ooops. The archive is here.)
Just to whet the appetite of all you history buffs out there, I'm working on the quirky story of an English pickle magnate who would be king of Islamistan (the name he chose for Xinjiang) back in the 1930s. I'm waiting for one additional resource to be emailed to me before the story is ready, but I'll get there eventually.
posted October 20, 2007 at 08:50 AM unofficial Xinjiang time | HaoHao This!
Comments
Now I want to go to Shihezi. I've never been there but I'm making this (probably poorly informed) mental image of Shihezi looking kind of like Pyongyang. Big buildings, big huge road with disproportionately low traffic levels. Have you been?
Posted by: Vincent at October 20, 2007 10:50 AM
I haven't been there, but Lincoln's wife is from there and he's been a few times. What I hear is that it's basically a poor man's Korla. But I'm interested in going to the Bingtuan Museum they have up there.
Posted by: michael at October 20, 2007 10:56 AM
I found the website where I think that photo above came from. Coincidentally, it's the site belonging to the Bingtuan Museum.
You can view the translated site here. Just click on some of those endless links on the left-hand side and you'll see lots of Bingtuan photos from the 1950's and 1960's.
Posted by: michael at October 20, 2007 11:30 AM
I will probably be forever baffled that the Cultural Revolution didn't end in full scale civil war. But at least it makes an effective argument against Maoists.
Posted by: Tiako at October 20, 2007 08:26 PM
Cool to read. I'm tempted to show the articles to my wife since that's her hometown... but I don't know if she'll believe any of it.
And Vincent, Shihezi is a very nice small city... lots of trees to keep the sun from burning you in the summer. Also has some pretty fun bars.
Posted by: Matt at October 21, 2007 05:39 PM