Tang Dynasty info needed!

PSA: telophase is looking for info on the An Lu Shan rebellion and the fall of the High Tang, probably with an emphasis on how the political events of the time affected daily life, clothing details, military details and etc.

I am now so sad that a) I do not have university library, b) I am not in my beloved EAS library from college, and c) people do not know about Yang Guifei. I shouldn't feel such, given that I also didn't know much about it before majoring in EAS, but it just reminds me how little of my history is common knowledge in the States and worldwide. And I'm not talking about details; I'm talking about one of the most famous stories in Chinese history (am I exaggerating? I think it's pretty famous, right?) that has been retold for centuries and reinvoked time and time again (and that is a lot of time, given that it took place in 755 CE).

Also... it's the Tang Dynasty! I am too starry-eyed about it because of the enthusiasm of one of my Chinese lit. professors (who, btw, was AWESOME), but I have the same passion for it that people do for the Renaissance. It was just this amazing period and there were many cultures (at least for the time) mixing in Chang'an (modern-day Xi'an and the capital prior to the An Lu Shan rebellion) and there was the poetry and the flourishing of art and... wah. I really need to find a good book or five on Tang Dynasty and finally get around to reading the one I have on female Tang poets.

It's not just Chinese history -- there are references to Yang Guifei and the fall of the High Tang scattered throughout Japanese literature, though I am much less knowledgeable about Korean influences, particularly since Japan took a ton of influences from the Tang Dynasty (Kyoto is basically Chang'an reproduced, the kimono is based off Tang clothing, etc.).

It's not telophase or her commenters' faults at all and I do not mean this as a way to passive-aggressively call them out -- this is just a symptom of a larger problem that is everywhere, and if you couldn't tell from my completely dorktastic spamming of Telophase, I am very excited someone is asking about it!

And again, it's not really a surprise, given how I know how history and literature is edited down in the Western world (am not exonerating the non-Western world, btw, but given the global dominance of Western culture, non-Western ones have to have a better baseline knowledge of Western history) and given how stupid I am about Black, Latino, and Native history and culture and literature just in the US alone, and that doesn't even begin to encompass how ignorant I am about African history, South American history, non-Chinese-or-Japanese Asian history, and all of the above cultures and literature and...

I wish I could download knowledge into my brain.

Gender, race and lindy hop

I was at a swing convention this weekend; mostly it was for West Coast Swing (WCS), though there was a fair-sized lindy hop crowd there as well, along with a few Balboa people.

I've been meaning to post on race and gender and lindy for a while but have been too lazy and too tired; also, I would like just one area of my life to not have to deal with this all the time! Ha, wishful thinking, I know.

( Terms and definitions )

Anyway. From what I've seen, the SF Bay Area lindy community is a fairly white community, with a good deal of Asians in the mix. The Asians are usually East Asians, with a few Southeast and South Asians. The little I've seen of the SF Bay Area ballroom community has a fairly similar racial mix, only with fewer Asians. The ballroom community also tends to skew a little older than the lindy community (40-60 vs. 20-40, in my best guess). Both communities seem to be very straight, though I've seen posters for Queer Ballroom up. I'm not sure how much of this is specific to the Bay Area and how much isn't, but from the demographics of the swing convention, which was international and had people traveling, I'm guessing it's not too far from the norm.

And of course, all this is from someone who's only been dancing for about a year or so, so grain of salt, etc. etc.

( Gender )

( Race )

Heroes 2x03 Kindred, first five minutes

( Spoilers for first five minutes )