May 4th (五四) is a day famous for protests. In the United States, we’ve already mentioned the Haymarket Square Massacre. More recently, four university students participating in an anti-war protest were killed when National Guard troops fired into a crowd at Kent State University. The protesters had been unwilling to comply with the government’s order […]
In our last book club meeting we discussed Silence by Shusaku Endo. It was about the Japanese persecution of Christians in the 17th century, told from the perspective of a Portuguese missionary and authored by a Japanese Catholic. Most of our group didn’t like it. It was too heavy on theology.
One of […]
Back in the 80’s, a group of people gathered in a public square to speak truth to power. They had come to protest government mistreatment and corruption. They were vilified in the press as troublemakers and insurrectionists. However, protest organizers made it clear that they had only peaceful intentions. The leaders talked about the need […]
In James Hilton’s novel Lost Horizon, a group of westerners stumble upon the city of Shangri-La, an ideal society – at least moderately so. Hilton’s magical Shangri-La is thought to be inspired by both the myth of Shambhala and the contemporary work of a National Geographic field reporter in western China in the 1920’s and […]
Category: Histories