The First Opium War
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- dannygrl18
- PC_Mann
- bossel
- mariaandrea
- jerrib
- mariaandrea
- Kimquat
- maximus001
This archived discussion is "read only".
» dannygrl18 - Do you think the firs opium war was a dispute over opium or was
Do you think the firs opium war was a dispute over opium or was it a cultural dispute between two very different civilizations?-- posted by dannygrl18
» bossel - Re: Maria Christensen: A mistake
In response to message posted by PC_Mann:No mistake.
The discussion regarding the title of this topic has already been dealt with. Look in the discussion section for it.
Anyway, the term oriental just means >of or characteristic of Eastern civilization<, esp when written with a capital letter it also means something like >a person of oriental (esp. East Asian) descent<.
-- posted by bossel
» mariaandrea - Discussion
bossel is quite right, this topic has been discussed before here: http://www.suite101.com/discussion.cfm/o...At the time when I was deciding whether or not to change the name of this topic I ran a poll to see what readers thought. Based on the results of the poll, the discussion, some email and a few persuasive arguments, I decided to keep the original title. Opinion was fairly evenly split in the poll, but the word "oriental" had a few more supporters, or at the least more people who thought it was the lesser of two evils. The very last deciding factor was my own laziness, which has not changed, as this site has been live for over two years and numerous sites all over the web have linked to it and individual articles, and the thought of the enormous amount of work involved in a name change frankly terrifies me. 
-- posted by mariaandrea
» mariaandrea - Re: Opium War
In response to message posted by jerrib:
So true Jerri, and talk about "history repeating itself." Some things never change.
-- posted by mariaandrea
» Kimquat - comments
This is a very good article on the opium wars in China. However, I take offense at the term you have used to label your articles. "Oriental History" is politically incorrect. I noticed on your other messages that at least one other person has noticed this too. Perhaps "Asian History"? Otherwise very very good article. You will be cited in my bibliography should it ever get off the ground...-- posted by Kimquat
» maximus001 - Implication and aftermath of Opium Wars
Reading your article has also bring about some understanding of not just drug problems and wars today.I must emphasize the shattering effect of opium wars on the Chinese nation more than 150 years ago.China once was a wealthy nation before the opium wars, and it went bankrupt twenty years(1860 and 1880) after each opium war.China lost tens of billion ounces of silver from illegal opium trade.
A nation had 400 million people,300 million children and 100 million adults.
A third of these adults became opium drug addicts, and this had serious effects on the economic output,as these people could not work.Life for the Chinese people could never been more hellish and poverty-stricken.It has been hellish for generations even now in some poorer parts of China.And for generations after opium wars, many Chinese forced to leave their homeland to find living elsewhere.Today there are more than 40 million ethnic Chinese live all over the world due to the aftermath of opium wars generations ago.
And China did not turn COMMUNIST out of the blue and it was not a coincidence or a fluke.
-- posted by maximus001
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