the random oracle

One piece of history that sits right next to Tsinghua University is the Old Summer Palace (圆明园).  This complex is now a national park, and walking through that’s basically all that it feels like.  What used to stand on this spot, however, was the largest palace complex in the world.  It’s easily several times larger than the Forbidden City, which was actually used mostly for formal functions; the emperor’s residence was the Old Summer Palace.

The palace took about 150 years to build, and were in fact continually expanded right up until their destruction.  Even though I’d read about it in books before, I had no idea how truly massive the palace was.  It takes about an hour to walk from one end to the other!

What happened to the palace itself?  During the Second Opium War, the British and French marched into Beijing and burned down the entire complex as “punishment” for the torture of some of their soldiers.  All this seems very abstract if you’re not familiar with the history, but basically the only similar situation I can think of in Western history is when Hitler ordered Paris to be demolished when it became clear that he was going to lose the war.  Of course, Paris survived due to one general with a conscience who decided not to flip the switch; but the Old Summer Palace had no such savior, and it burned for 3 days after the British and French set it ablaze.

There’s a famous letter by Victor Hugo (also in French)who chastised the French general responsible for the destruction.  The most famous line in the letter compared the act to “‘Two robbers breaking into a museum, devastating, looting and burning, leaving laughing hand-in-hand with their bags full of treasures; one of the robbers is called France and the other Britain.”

There’s a museum inside the ruins detailing the history of the palace and its destruction; not surprisingly, it’s only in Chinese with no translation in English.

For foreigners who want to better understand the national psyche of the Chinese people, I would recommend a visit to the Old Summer Palace.  Walk around, enjoy the beautiful views which have been restored, and imagine what it must have been like when the bushes and weeds were covered by splendid pavilions, halls, bridges, and walkways.  Then imagine the entire place burning for three days and three nights while British and French soldiers loot whatever is convenient to carry and throw the rest into the fire.

This image, I think, is at the crux of Chinese nationalism.  It is not just about being abused and humiliated by foreign powers.  There are better examples of that, such as the Rape of Nanjing or the bombing of Shanghai.  Rather, what really twists the dagger is that China was a land of splendor, wealth, art, and learning, yet it succumbed to such vicious attacks by countries whose main prerogative was to hook the Chinese on opium.  Clearly the Chinese government was at fault as well; complacency and arrogance played their role in their downfall.  But how can you expect the Chinese to look at this history and not feel a bit of anger and vengeance?  I mean, imagine if Colombia attacked America so that it could force a treaty on it legalizing cocaine.  Being completely ridiculous notwithstanding, that’s basically what Britain, France, and the other Western powers did to China in the 19th century.  And to add insult to injury, many of the looted relics are sitting today in the British Museum and the Louvre, and Britain and France have never even apologized for their actions.

I want to use this image to explore two things: one is the Olympic games, which are a huge huge HUGE deal here. This is because the Chinese people feel like they have finally moved beyond the history of humiliation and can now stand proudly before the world again.  This is not a trivial thing; Americans are not used to even second-guessing their own importance, but the Chinese are keenly aware that they are still second-class citizens in the world, and the Olympics represent one step towards becoming a first-class citizen.

Second, this image also helps explain why China (and Chinese people) are so easily offended by criticism from the West.  How can the West criticize China for things that it barely understands (the situation in Tibet and Taiwan, for example), when it hasn’t even apologized for the heinous acts that it perpetrated on China?

I’m not saying I agree with all these points, but I see their basis.  It would be nice if the West stopped lecturing and started learning a bit more about the history before dishing out censure.