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Lessons from China's history

Imperial Consort Zhen was the favourite of the Guangxu Emperor, but was “martyred” down a well in the Forbidden City, according to official records, when the imperial family fled amid the Boxer uprising in 1900. But it was rumoured that Dowager Empress Cixi had her killed. Photo: Getty Images

Reflections | The wells where a Chinese scholar and emperor’s consort met their ends

In 1900 a scholar jumped in a Beijing well out of shame. A palace consort died in a Forbidden City well too. Was she ‘martyred’ or killed?

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Reflections | How ‘dragon bones’ shed a whole new light on China’s ancient history

Reflections | Only Hong Kong sex symbol Amy Yip should be offended over bubble tea

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Reflections | When officials in drought-prone part of China committed huge fraud

In a case that shocked China 250 years ago, officials were punished for fraud involving donations in return for university places.

A culprit before a magistrate in 18th century China in an 1801 engraving for a British magazine. Photo: Getty Images

Reflections | Official corruption isn’t new, but first recorded case in China was unusual

Yangshe Fu, Chinese history’s first recorded corrupt official, was killed after accepting a nobleman’s daughter as a bribe in a court case.

Reflections | My name isn’t weird, it reflects diversity that’s dying out in China

Chinese names were once pronounced according to a person’s local dialect. Thanks to standardisation and the pinyin system, this is changing.

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Reflections | Why China avoided the wars of religion that consumed other places

Different faiths have coexisted more or less peacefully throughout Chinese history, with foreign religions accepted and later on Sinicised.

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Buddhist art in the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang, in Gansu province, China. Different religions and belief systems have co-existed more or less peacefully throughout Chinese history. Photo: Getty Images

Reflections | Paralympians need more appreciation. Ancient China offers a lesson

People with disabilities were celebrated for their achievements in China’s past. Paralympians today deserve to be better appreciated.

Reflections | Why Teochew mooncakes are reminders of a history of migration

Eating Teochew mooncakes at Mid-Autumn Festival is a reminder of the Teochew people’s history of migration from China to Hong Kong and Southeast Asia.

Reflections | How ancient Chinese mukbang went wrong for elderly military leader

Mukbang (streaming oneself overeating) is a popular online trend, although people have been gorging to impress for at least 2,000 years

Pan Xiaoting, a Chinese vlogger known for her mukbang videos, died in July, 2024. Photo: Pan Xiaoting

Reflections | Black Myth: Wukong video game the latest take on Journey to the West

The hit video game takes its premise from classic novel Journey to the West, which has had a profound influence on Chinese popular culture.

The story of the Monkey King, Sun Wukong, from Journey to the West, dates back 500 years. Illustration: Shutterstock

Reflections | May-December couples in Chinese history, Mr and Mrs Ho aren’t the first

From Mr and Mrs Ho, the Murdochs and Macrons to historical Chinese figures including Sun Yat-sen, artists and poets, large age gaps in relationships are not uncommon.

Reflections | After Olympics gender rows, how Chinese called people straddling sexes

The disputes over two boxers’ gender at the 2024 Olympics bring to mind a Chinese term that was once used to describe people with both female and male sexual characteristics.

Reflections | When thousands of foreigners were murdered in ancient China slaughter

The slaughter of ‘Semu’ people in China after the 14th-century Ispah rebellion highlights the ‘us versus them’ mentality evident in recent UK riots linked to the Southport killings of three girls.

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A protester holds a sign during a counter-demonstration against an anti-immigration protest in Oxford, England on August 7, 2024. Photo: AFP

Reflections | ‘Putrid beef’ smell: when an ancient Chinese voyager tried durian

Fifteenth-century Chinese voyager Ma Huan did not like the smell but loved the taste of the durian he ate in Sumatra. Today, the fruit is loved across Southeast Asia, Malaysia’s cultivars especially.

Malaysia is renowned for its durian, a unique and strongly flavored fruit known as the “King of Fruits.” Durian is native to Southeast Asia and is highly prized for its rich, creamy, and sometimes pungent taste. PHOTO: Getty Images

Reflections | He said he was Jesus’ brother. His Taiping Rebellion doomed Qing dynasty

New religious movements are common. Followers of a Malaysian ‘Teacher’ worship a ‘Creator’. China’s Qing dynasty never got over its brutal military suppression of such a movement, the Taiping Rebellion.

Reflections | How, in China, chillis were the poor man’s salt before becoming prized

The world has got used to eating spicy food – witness Denmark’s recall of too-spicy instant noodles. To think that centuries ago chillis were unknown to most Chinese, used instead of salt by ethnic-minority cooks.

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Reflections | Grandma movie gets me thinking about mine, and the ones who ruled China

How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, a film portraying a young man’s relationship with his grandmother, gets Wee Kek Koon thinking of his own, and of China’s grandmother rulers.

Usha Seamkhum (left) and Putthipong Assaratanakul in a still from How to Make Millions before Grandma Dies.

Reflections | Mass slaughter long predates Israel-Gaza war; look at Chinese history

Israeli forces show a cruel disregard for the lives of Palestinian civilians in Gaza in their pursuit of Hamas fighters. Non-combatants are often slaughtered in war, as China’s history shows. Is it bloodlust?

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Reflections | Off with his beard, off with her head: old China’s skewed domestic abuse laws

China had laws against domestic violence in the second century BC, but the punishments for men and women abusers were far from equal, a state of affairs that continued into the 20th century.

Reflections | Amid plague of ads on social media, China’s first advertising recalled

Adverts are turning me off social media. They’ve been around a long time. A fake ad was recorded 2,700 years ago in China, and ads there 1,000 years ago were as sophisticated as some we see today.

Detail from a copper plate used for printing advertising handbills in China’s Northern Song dynasty (960–1127) of a sophistication with which consumers would not be unfamiliar today. Photo: Soho

Reflections | Singapore gets a new prime minister, who doesn’t have an emperor to placate

When Lawrence Wong becomes Singapore prime minister his government will wield the real power. In imperial China, absolute monarchs appointed prime ministers but hesitated to share power with them.

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Incoming Singapore prime minister Lawrence Wong. There is no doubt that power to rule the country is vested in him and his government, in contrast to imperial China where emperors and their prime ministers engaged in power struggles. Photo: Xinhua

Reflections | As Hong Kong chases Muslim Mideast money, memories of China’s oldest mosque

An hour by high-speed train from Hong Kong, in Guangzhou, is the Huaisheng Mosque, which probably dates from the 10th century, some three centuries after Muslims began settling in the city.

Reflections | 3 Body Problem recalls one of Chinese history’s worst traitors

(Spoiler alert) A character in Netflix’s 3 Body Problem brings to mind a Chinese military leader who has been vilified as a traitor for nearly 400 years for allowing Manchu troops to overrun China.

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Reflections | The pitfalls of travelling on passports issued by Malaysia and Singapore

Passports issued by Singapore and Malaysia don’t separate first and last names, confusing airline computers and online apps. Why the constant demands to state a surname when none is defined?

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People travelling on passports issued by Singapore are at a disadvantage compared to those from many other countries because the document does not explicitly differentiate between first and last names, yet airport systems do. Photo: Shutterstock Images

Reflections | Move over, soba. After oodles of udon on a trip to Japan, I’m a convert

Soba and soumen wheat noodles are my preferred Japanese varieties, but after eating udon on a visit to Kagawa in Shikoku, especially the local Sanuki udon, I was won over by their chewiness.

Sanuki udon. Columnist Wee Kek Koon was won over to the merits of the chewy white wheat noodle on a trip to Kagawa, Shikoku, Japan. Photo: Instagram/udonken.t

Reflections | How Beijing’s Marco Polo Bridge shaped modern Chinese history

The collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge showed how vulnerable modern bridges can be. China’s Marco Polo Bridge has stood the test of time, and has been the scene of historically important events.

Reflections | Standard Chinese script unified China, yet we can’t make a universal plug?

Why power plugs and sockets are not standardised worldwide is anyone’s guess. China’s First Emperor was all about standardisation – he introduced the universal Chinese writing system used to this day.

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Lessons from China's history
Wee Kek Koon draws parallels between current events and trends and episodes and attitudes in China’s past.
last updated:
9 September, 2024
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