Afterthoughts.
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It is understandable that the Brits hated this
blog and submitted all kind of excuses. However, those who debated did not have
adequate arguments on their shameful history. They argued that the Queen
attracted a lot of tourists and made billions of pounds for the Brits.
·
However, I have many supporting my argument. I
believe most Brits today do not know anything about the Opium Wars and their
damages to China.
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From Wikipedia, check out Opium Wars
Industrial Revolutions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution
Dowager Cixi: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empress_Dowager_Cixi
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The Queen is a sweet, old lady and I wish her
the best. However, we have to learn from history otherwise we will repeat
history. Same for Chinese to learn from history.
I did enjoy the opening celebration in the Olympics.
It was very entertaining with the rich culture of Britain. The Industrial
Revolution innovation developed the advanced weaponry / iron battleship that
were used to enforce the opium trade to China. It is a revolution to end all
revolutions.
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There are excuses to the Opium Wars and the United Army of Eight
Nations (or Alliance of Eight Nations). The Boxers were rebels to
the west and patriotic to most Chinese.
These are the same excuses of how WW2 was started from Japan on China.
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From Ying.
Just sad and no words can describe how outrageous the
barbarians from the west were.
With this kind of grand palace for pleasure including the
marble boat, I wonder how the regime could be strong to protect its citizens.
Let's hope that the history will not repeat since problems are over our head again!! Can we ever learn as human?? We always choose destruction to solve our problems. We do not have much left to destroy…
The Old Summer Palace which was built in the 18th and early 19th century was destroyed by British and French troops in 1860. It was almost 5 times the size of the Forbidden City, and 8 times the size of the Vatican City.
There were also a few buildings in Tibetan and Mongol styles, and European-style buildings reflecting the diversity of the Qing Empire. It had hundreds of halls, pavilions, temples, galleries, gardens, lakes, etc. Several famous landscapes of southern China had been reproduced in the Imperial Gardens, hundreds of invaluable Chinese art masterpieces and antiquities were stored in the halls, making the Imperial Gardens one of the largest museums in the world. Some unique copies of literary work and compilations were also stored inside the Imperial Gardens.
It took 3,500 British troops to set the entire place ablaze, taking three days to burn.
Charles George Gordon, a 27-year-old captain in the Royal Engineers wrote: “We went out, and, after pillaging it, burned the whole place, destroying in a vandal-like manner most valuable property which [could] not be replaced for four millions. We got upward of £48 apiece prize money…I have done well. The [local] people are very civil, but I think the grandees hate us, as they must after what we did the Palace. You can scarcely imagine the beauty and magnificence of the places we burnt. It made one’s heart sore to burn them; in fact, these places were so large, and we were so pressed for time, that we could not plunder them carefully. Quantities of gold ornaments were burnt, considered as brass. It was wretchedly demoralizing work for an army.”
Some contemporary Frenchmen, such as Victor Hugo, disapproved of the action; in his "Expédition de Chine", Hugo described the looting as, "'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. In his letter Hugo hoped that one day France would feel guilty and return what it had plundered from China.
Let's hope that the history will not repeat since problems are over our head again!! Can we ever learn as human?? We always choose destruction to solve our problems. We do not have much left to destroy…
The Old Summer Palace which was built in the 18th and early 19th century was destroyed by British and French troops in 1860. It was almost 5 times the size of the Forbidden City, and 8 times the size of the Vatican City.
There were also a few buildings in Tibetan and Mongol styles, and European-style buildings reflecting the diversity of the Qing Empire. It had hundreds of halls, pavilions, temples, galleries, gardens, lakes, etc. Several famous landscapes of southern China had been reproduced in the Imperial Gardens, hundreds of invaluable Chinese art masterpieces and antiquities were stored in the halls, making the Imperial Gardens one of the largest museums in the world. Some unique copies of literary work and compilations were also stored inside the Imperial Gardens.
It took 3,500 British troops to set the entire place ablaze, taking three days to burn.
Charles George Gordon, a 27-year-old captain in the Royal Engineers wrote: “We went out, and, after pillaging it, burned the whole place, destroying in a vandal-like manner most valuable property which [could] not be replaced for four millions. We got upward of £48 apiece prize money…I have done well. The [local] people are very civil, but I think the grandees hate us, as they must after what we did the Palace. You can scarcely imagine the beauty and magnificence of the places we burnt. It made one’s heart sore to burn them; in fact, these places were so large, and we were so pressed for time, that we could not plunder them carefully. Quantities of gold ornaments were burnt, considered as brass. It was wretchedly demoralizing work for an army.”
Some contemporary Frenchmen, such as Victor Hugo, disapproved of the action; in his "Expédition de Chine", Hugo described the looting as, "'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. In his letter Hugo hoped that one day France would feel guilty and return what it had plundered from China.
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From DeWang:
Good article. You should keep that around for distribution,
because as Samuel Huntington once wrote:
The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do.
History is bound to repeat if present day people do not know the past.
The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do.
History is bound to repeat if present day people do not know the past.
·
Click here
for the original article this article is based on.
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