1911, The Other Revolution

The 100 year anniversary of the end of the Ching dynasty is being celebrated big time in Taiwan. My parents went on a semi-government sponsored tour in March where they visited a lot of government sites and even met President Ma.

Granta Magazine

There were two historic anniversaries this year in China. The first was celebrated in pompous ceremonial and portentous speeches. The second, the overthrow of the imperial system in 1911, seems doomed to slip by, noted without fanfare in a few museum exhibitions. Anniversaries, of course, can be a two-edged sword: they invite historical reappraisal. In China, revisionism, other than the Party’s own, is not encouraged.