User talk:Yu Ninjie~enwiki/Archive 2004

Rafe de Crespigny and other sinology stuff.

Thanks for your work in those brillant articles. Great stuff. Mind if I ask you for their sources and references, for instance Battle of Jieqiao and your period or dynasty of interest in East Asian history? Ktsquare (talk) 22:21, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The primary source I used for Battle of Jieqiao is the biography of Yuan Shao in Sanguo zhi (pp. 193-194 of the Zhonghua shuju edition). There is also a parallel version of the battle in Hou Han shu but that version is abridged. Most of the other articles involving Three Kingdoms were also sourced from Sanguo zhi, with insights and perspectives from the work of Dr. Rafe de Crespigny amongst others. I'm also starting to study the early Qing dynasty - the rise of the Manchus; the Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong periods etc. I've found that the newly published Cambridge History of China (vol. 9, part 1) provides an excellent introduction to the period. Jie 17:46, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The Cambridge History of China series is an excellent overview of individual periods in the history of China. I am looking forward to reading your articles on the Qing Dynasty. Ktsquare (talk) 17:00, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Hello

Welcome Jie! I must say that your contributions are very high quality and well-written. I'm glad there's someone out there improving the Chinese history articles. A couple notes:

The Nationalist Party of China is spelt Kuomintang, not Kuomingtang
I just read your article on the Beiyang Army. Could you find a way to link that worthy page at History of the Republic of China since you're more familiar and knowlegeable than I am?

Cheers, Jia ng 07:18, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the note about KMT, Jiang. I'm a bit rusty with the pinyin and Wade-Giles. I've come a across a lot of articles where you've contributed. It seems like every article to do with China has you in its history! I'll certainly take up your advice about linking to History of the Republic of China. Jie 19:39, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

...i mean to have [Beiyang Army] linked at [History of the Republic of China]. I'm not sure how to incorporate a mention of the Beiyang Army there. --Jia ng 20:15, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I incorporated Beiyang Army into the 'Early republic' section and at the same time corrected an erroneous comment about Yuan Shikai.

From: "On January 1, 1912, Sun officially declared the Republic of China and was inaugurated in Nanjing as the first provisional president. But power in Beijing already had passed to the Commander-in-Chief of the imperial army and Qing prime minister, Yuan Shikai, the strongest regional military leader at the time."
to: "On January 1, 1912, Sun officially declared the Republic of China and was inaugurated in Nanjing as the first provisional president. But power in Beijing already had passed to Yuan Shikai, who had effective control of the Beiyang Army, the most powerful military force in China at the time." Jie 21:21, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Buddhism in China

I agree with you that early Chinese literary sources are not to be quoted as fact, however it *is* a fact that Bai Ma Si was established in Luoyang in 68CE. Your recent edit removed this fact from the article, in favour of the convoluted "Nevertheless, historians generally agree that by the middle of the 1st century, the religion had penetrated to areas north of the Huai River and established a presence in Luoyang". Perhaps you can edit this fact back in. --prat 04:33, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Hi Prat, I have restored the reference to Baima Temple by dividing the sentence into two, which was too long anyway: Nevertheless, historians generally agree that by the middle of the 1st century, the religion had penetrated to areas north of the Huai River and established a presence in Luoyang. In CE 68, for example, the White Horse Temple (白馬寺) was established close to the imperial capital. By the end of the second century, a prosperous commuity had been settled at Pengcheng (modern Xuzhou, Jiangsu). I haven't found any reference to the temple in the standard histories of the Han dynasty. Perhaps you can point me to where you got the info from. Jie 04:39, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I don't know why you haven't found any reference .. that certainly doesn't mean it's not real or not important. Perhaps the temple's importance was not recognised during the Han (or its importance was deliberately downplayed by Confucian historians). It is widely known in China as 'the first Chinese Buddhist temple'. I visited it a couple of months ago and it's definitely a real, significant place that dates back to that period! All of the historical literature, the local museums, archaeologists' reconstructed plans of the old city, etc. all point to its importance. prat 06:37, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Most people know about Emperor Ming's dream about the golden deity and about the mission he dispatched to find out more about Buddhism. The mission returned with two Indian monks, Jiashemoteng (迦攝摩騰) and Zhufalan (竺法蘭; transliterated in the original Buddhism in China article as Moton and Chufarlan). The White Horse Monastery was founded for these two monks.

Francesca Bray in "Philosophy and Relgion From Han to Sui" gives an evaluation of the above story: "However, this is a legend that sprang up much later, although it is unlikely that the monks' names could have been wholly invented. These two monks are credited with the first translation of an Indian text, the Sutra in forty-two sections which is traditonally dated to A.D. 67, but which in reality seems to be no earlier than about A.D. 100 ... Today we possess only considerably revised visions of the text, in which the Daoist influence is noticeable."

The above view is also generally held amongst scholars of early Buddhism, including E. Zürcher (author of The Buddhist conquest of China). Hence the statement "Various translated Buddhist texts survived until today, one of which, the Sutra of Forty-two Sections (四十二章經) continues to be popular." is not completely accurate. The traditional founding date of the Baima Temple of 68 AD and its importance in the Eastern Han period can also be questioned. I know the present Baima Temple is very famous and I certainly don't doubt that it's real! My main problem is about its historical relevance in the context of early Buddhism in China.

I think a better choice if you want to include an early Buddhist temple would be Luoyang's Xuchang (許昌) Monastery, which is actually mentioned in the standard histories. The monastery has been linked to Liu Ying (I recently wrote an article about him), whose Buddhist practices were the earliest recorded in China. --Jie 12:33, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Great information on Liu Ying - that's some solid timeline material! I wonder where the date for the founding of the temple came from. It would imagine that it was written on a stone somewhere? Let me check out the information I brought back with me (mainly brochure literature but perhaps a book or two) and see if I can find a reference to how the date was calculated. --prat 22:12, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Hello Jie. Your contributions at Chinese Wikipedia in Simplified Chinese or Chinese Wikipedia in Traditional Chinese will be greatly welcomed and appreciated. Please take some time to spare any thought you may have. Thanx. Ktsquare (talk) 04:31, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hi Ktsquare. I'm afraid my Chinese isn't good enough to be able to write articles. --Jie 04:42, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Don't worry about posting articles in English. There will be plenty of wikipedians willing to translate. Ktsquare (talk) 04:47, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

History of Jiangxi

Jie, the page you created called History of Jiangxi doesn't have any info! Were you going to fix this? — Braaropolis | Talk 03:30, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I was just about to write some stuff about it yesterday but I had some uni work which I had to take care of. I'm going to be working on History of Jiangxi probably some time next week. The way I figure it, Chinese provinces are as large as entire countries in Europe and often have their own regional identities and separatist histories. So they should have their own history pages as well. --Jie 22:36, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Nice Cartography

Excellent map you've made: Image:Sanguo map.jpg. A little constructive feedback for your future works: Usually red is not used as a territory colour. It's too dark, so the labels are harder to see. And it's very flashy on some monitors (eye-stabbing). Pale pink or flesh colour would be better alternative. Hoping to see more of your cartographic masterpieces! --Menchi 03:42, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the encouragement Menchi. I'm coming up to final exams now so I might not have time to fix up the colour in the next few weeks. But I will do it soon. I might also make some more maps this summer. --Yuninjie 10:24, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

A bunch of articles on my watchlist have just been graced by your artistic maps. How prolific you are! It's very useful to have the modern nations' boundary vaguely visible (unintrusive) to orient ourselves. The subtle 3D background is very cool too. --Menchi 02:51, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with Menchi. Nice maps! Just one thing though: can you make the capital a different shape than the commandaries since they're difficult to tell apart? I'm looking at Image:Qin map.jpg. --Jia ng 09:44, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Maybe I'll make them square. --Yu Ninjie 20:00, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've decided to stay with larger circles for capitals instead of a different shape. The reason is that I don't want to differentiate capitals and regional cities too much. I don't think Chinese capitals were ever that important. Probably because China is such a large country, they never dominated like they did in Europe like a London or Paris. --Yu Ninjie 20:46, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps change the color? I really (well, almost) had to squint to tell them apart after looking at the key. --Jia ng 09:11, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

NICE NICE NICE NICE maps..!!! Where did you get the base map, btw, and what program did you use for the colouring? Right now I'm thinking about doing maps for 20th century China: warlords, Japanese invasion, civil war, etc, (It's still at the "thinking" stage, though) and the style and feel of your maps are just *perfect* for that. Do you have any plans along those lines? -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 23:03, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)

I used Photoshop for the entire operation. The topographic map I superimposed is from the University of British Columbia. Most of the data for extent of Han Chinese settlement I used is from the eight-volume Zhongguo lishi ditu ji (中国历史地图集). I'm planning to make maps for each period of Chinese history up to the Qing Dynasty. Starting from the Shang, that should make it at least 17 maps. Eventually I'll get around to doing maps of modern China as well, though I haven't really considered what ones to draw. The ones you suggested are great, maybe also "China During the Self-Strengthening Period" (showing major industrial projects), 1911 Revolution (showing main areas of initial unrest and subsequent spread of the revolution), Northern Expedition, Long March. Any ideas are welcome, especially for China since 1949 (I can't think of anything!). --Yu Ninjie 23:37, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Wow. *mouth open*

For things since 1949: the newly built railways perhaps? The currents of the Cultural Revolution would be good; also you might do one showing where all the initial special economic zones were, and which provinces have benefited a lot and which provinces haven't (you know, a green on Zhejiang, a red on Dongbei Sansheng)... -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 23:49, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)

I'm going to admit that I've spent the past half an hour staring at your maps. :D How did you do those little arrows in the Sanguo Strategy Map?

Also, am I correct in guessing that the "shadows" surrounding the seacoasts and the nation colours were done using a layer effect? -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 04:36, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, you're right. I used a shadow effect. The arrows I drew manually, i.e with a mouse. --Yu Ninjie 05:45, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Southern Song map

On the southern song map it should be Dali ruling Yunnan, not Nanzhao. -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 12:48, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

Right you are. I'll make the changes soon. --Yu Ninjie 12:50, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I uploaded a new Southern Song map with Nanzhao changed to Dali. But for some reason it hasn't overwritten the original one. Can anyone help me? --Yu Ninjie 20:40, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It has. Probably something to do with the server cache. -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 04:15, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)

Wokou map

On the Wokou map it should be Ryūkyū, not Ryūku; Dengzhou, not Tengzhou; Jinan, not Ji'nan. (I hope you aren't getting annoyed by all this...) -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 04:15, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks Ran. Always right on the ball! It's great that you can correct my many mistakes, although I have to disagree with you about Ji'nan. --Yu Ninjie 04:18, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've uploaded a revised version of the wokou map but my computer refuses to show it. Could you have a look for me if you can see the new one? --Yu Ninjie 04:28, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, the Wikipedia article is located at Jinan. Also take a look at our naming conventions.

If you uploaded the map, then it should be there. I just loaded the map, so I don't think I'll be able to load the new one either. -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 04:31, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)

But the use of an apostrophe for Ji'nan is standard in academic writing. "Jinan" could be either Jin'an (晉安) or Ji'nan (濟南). I've submitted a suggestion to have the convention on apostrophes amended at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese). --Yu Ninjie 04:49, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

To Ran: I've added an acknowledgment to you on the Wokou map. Thanks for your help. --Yu Ninjie 23:53, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Moving pages

Please please don't move pages without first discussing the move (or if you think something is obvious, leave a reason on the talk page immediately after you move). Otherwise, we just scratch our heads and revert you and put all that work to waste. --Jia ng 04:22, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Please visit "what links here" after moving to fix any double redirects. For example, the dbl redirects at State of Qi were never fixed (and we decided a year ago to use that particular convention so you should probably warn us before moving all of these articles). --Jia ng 04:25, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your advice Jiang, your points are duly noted. Could you give the link for the reasoning on deciding on the convention of "State of ..."? --Yu Ninjie 05:03, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

here - but i don't quite agree with what I posted a year ago so I don't object to your moves. --Jia ng 06:10, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Talk:Yu Ninjie

[Talk:Yu Ninjie] shouldn't be where it is since that's a talk page of the main article space. Do you mind if I merge it into the history of this page or should I move it to User talk:Jie or User talk:Yuninjie? --Jia ng 12:27, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I accidentally moved my existing page to Yu Ninjie instead of User:Yu Ninjie. I think you'd better get rid of the page altogether, thanks. --Yu Ninjie 18:59, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I can easily merge it into the page histories of User talk:Yu Ninjie and User:Yu Ninjie if you want to. --Jia ng 01:20, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ok thanks. --Yu Ninjie 10:33, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Migrations map

On the Migrations map Guangdong province is labeled as "Guangzhou". -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 05:42, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks Ran. I'm in Osaka at the moment so I haven't got the files with me. But I'll make the alteration soon. --Yu Ninjie 21:02, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Another praise

Hello, Jie. Very nice work on Sinology materials. Congrats.

As I have been reading your materials and User:Hardouin's on Wikipedia, I keep wondering how you would be able to look for sources for the articles. For instance, your primary sources for Wokou is:

Zheng Ruohui, Zhouhai Tubian (籌海図編)
老松堂日本行録

I wonder how you know such materials, especially for an outsider (You are trying to get my bachelor degree in finance and law, as indicated on the user page). Do you talk to a professor or a worker in those fields or have access to search engines, catalogues or book etc? I met the same scenerio as I read the Mei Pass and Rafe de Cres. articles (so I moved the previous enquiry here).

Mei Pass and Rafe de Crespigny

Hello Jie, I wonder whether you translate the prose of Zhang Jiuling in Mei Pass yourself or borrow it from some other sources. As for the photos of the Pass and Rafe de Cres., I wonder how you acquire those? Thank you for your help. Ktsquare (talk) 06:05, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

:In answer to your questions:

That part of the poem was translated by Edward H. Schafer in The Vermillion Bird: T'ang images of the South.
The photo of Rafe de Crespigny was from the Australian National University website. A larger version of it was on Dr. de Crespigny's university page. http://eprints.anu.edu.au/archive/00002632/01/
The photo of Mei Pass was from the website of the Tourism Department of the People's Provincial Government of Jiangxi (中国江西省人民政府旅游局) http://www.travel-jx.com/

Hopefully we can clear up any issues. --Jie 08:46, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

IN A NUTSHELL, how did you know where to find these materials at the first place. For instance, how would u know Schafer's work and the primary sources of Wukou? I know I have just asked lots of question; I truly wish u won't mind. Ktsquare (talk) 05:27, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Even though I study finance/law, I've always felt my true calling was Chinese history. There'a a lot of good English reading material in most universities, like books and journals. I find that they're usually more balanced and better referenced than Chinese books. But Chinese books usually give more detail about individuals and place names. Then there are Chinese primary texts, which require some knowledge of classical Chinese. My classical Chinese is not so good so more research is somewhat limited. Hopefully one day I can take some formal training in that area. For that article on the Battle of Jieqiao, for example, I spent a bit of time understanding the original text in the Sanguo Zhi and Hou Han shu and comparing it with other battle narratives from the same period.

The circle of sinologists writing and researching in any particular area of Chinese history is usually quite small. A lot of writings from the 60s and 70s are still pretty relevant today. So it doesn't take too much reading to become familiar with academic opinion on any specific topic. --Yu Ninjie 15:34, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Addition to Excellent Ten Campaigns Page

Yu Ninjie, very good work there on Emperor Qianlong, you seem to have a very lot of knowledge of history in China. The Ten Campaigns page was excellent. I thought to let you know that I added a little bit on the campaign in Viet Nam, which we know as the effort to restore the Le Chieu Thong emperor. For me, history is mostly a fun hobby, read some books and watch some movies, so my knowledge is not perfect. If you like to look over and make any corrections for the little bit I wrote, that is good. NguyenHue

After I created the Ten Great Campaigns article, I didn't really make an effort to complete it. So it's great to have your additions Nguyen.--Yu Ninjie 22:54, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Article Licensing

Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 2000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:

Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
Multi-Licensing Guide
Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

OR

Option 2

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" with "{{MultiLicensePD}}". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk)

Map

您能帮助中文版绘制一副zh:唐朝的地图吗？--Shizhao 12:55, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'll be in China until early January. I'll start working on a Tang map after I return to Australia. --Yu Ninjie 01:39, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Collaboration of the Week

League of Nations is the new Collaboration of the Week. Please join in helping make it a feature article.