From antiquity to the present day! I therefore immediately opened Professor Thomas O. Höllmann's latest book at the last chapter and read the headings for the sub-chapters: "Cross-border dialogue", "Oil and opium", "The new Silk Road", "Infection and information", "The new isolation", "Peace rhetoric", "Music of the future". It was only after reading this chapter, which I enjoyed thanks to the differentiated approach of this serious scientist, who occasionally writes mischievously and with witty subtlety, which makes reading a pleasure, that I started reading from the beginning and read the topics "the spread of religions", "tribute and trade", "transfer and transformation".
In 450 pages you learn a lot, from Marco Polo to the predatory sympathiser of Nazi ideology Sven Hedin, or from Langdon Warner, the American who served as the model for the film character "Indiana Jones". I also learnt that you have to behave correctly in the toilet, where the latrine gods reign, in order to appease them, and that the lion dance was originally danced by barbarians, but today, like so many other things, has been appropriated by the Chinese. And then: tea, paper, writing, opium, the European colonies, silk, elephants, Pekingese dogs, ginseng - we find everything in Höllmann's book. Religions in China: the Nestorians, the Jews and their long tradition in this country, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Mohammedans and their colony in Guangzhou as early as 851, 200 years after the emergence of Islam, and of course Buddhism, which turned many things in China upside down that had previously been the case. A Christian church in Xian in 781! I was surprised. But it makes sense to me that Jesus shouldn't have been called Yeshu because it sounds like an uncultured rat. That doesn't win you many followers in China and, in the case of Mary's immaculate conception, it would probably have been better not to translate the "Holy Spirit" as "cool wind".
About droughts, cold snaps, floods, insect plagues:
"So the wealthy landowners, who generated a surplus, become richer and richer, while the destitute farmers become poorer and poorer. They lack clothing and food and every poor harvest forces them to sell their wives and children."
– Zhenglun, c. 150, ch.1
About pilgrimages:
"18th day of the 4th month: The monastery was extremely poor, the monks behaved rudely and vulgarly. - Day 19: The monks were simple-minded and became nervous when they noticed our visit. -
Day 20: Our host had the character of a bandit who deceived people - Day 21: When the two monks saw that we had come as guests, they drove us out several times, shouting vile insults at us. But after we managed to enter the monastery, they changed their minds and prepared noodles for us with their own hands."
– Ennin, Japanese monk, 840
About people from the Far East:
"They give us gold, silver and silk. Their words have always been sweet, their fabrics always soft. It is said that by deceiving us with their sweet words and soft fabrics, they attract distant peoples. And then, it is said, they plan the disaster of such a people as soon as it settles in their neighbourhood. They thus prevent truly wise and upright men from bringing progress."
– Ancient Turkish stele inscription (731)
The term "Silk Road" first gained widespread attention on the occasion of a lecture given by Ferdinand Freiherr von Richthofen on 2 June 1877, but it was created in the book "Erdkunde" by Carl Ritter in 1838.
China und die Seidenstrasse - Kultur und Geschichte von der frühen Kaiserzeit bis zur Gegenwart imperial period to the present day (Verlag C.H.Beck) - 454 pages of pure reading pleasure! And if all goes well, Prof Höllmann will be coming to Switzerland in 2023 for for a reading in Switzerland in 2023!
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