Some might say that the only good thing about Christmas is that one can bask in Bach. Whatever your reasons for exploring this blog, I can’t help regarding his music as an essential basis of our cu…

Some might say that the only good thing about Christmas is that one can bask in Bach. Whatever your reasons for exploring this blog, I can’t help regarding his music as an essential basis of our cu…

Like Bach’s Air, or the Adagietto from Mahler 5, Jesu, joy of man’s desiring is another of those pieces to which we may have become somewhat inured by media recyclings—but here it’s mag…

My book Plucking the winds (2004), a detailed historical ethnography of Gaoluo village on the plain south of Beijing, includes many black-and-white photos and an audio CD. But the village’s r…

This is just a short excerpt for the about page.

After all these sacrifices (see note here), it transpires that what the plucky Brits really care about is not so much creating a fairer society, but playing golf and visiting garden centres. FFS. I…

As the Masters tournament breaks off again at Ally Pally, it’s that time of year when I make another futile attempt to Rend Asunder the Bonds of Daoist ritual, the Iron curtain, and Bach by e…

*UPDATED with links to posts on the Zhihua temple and related topics!* Early in 1986, only a couple of days after my first arrival in Beijing, hearing the former monks of the Zhihua temple 智化寺 on a…

Here are some of the main posts in which I learn from the work of distinguished scholars on the troubled 20th-century history of Ukraine: Famine: Ukraine and China—Robert Conquest, Timothy Snyder, …

In my post on Lives under the GDR I mentioned Maxim Leo, Red love (2009; English translation by Shaun Whiteside, 2013) (reviewed e.g. here), but it richly deserves a separate post—coinciding with t…

There’s been some fine media coverage to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Wall. So apart from my numerous posts under the Maoism tag, here’s a roundup of some of…

Surely you can’t be serious —Airplane Here I’d like to explore two main themes: the demotion of “classical music”, and the flawed concept of “serious music”. Following on from the…

On the state system’s distorted official packaging of local ritual traditions,and its misguided yet largely futile attempts to promote them. In Yanggao, as across a wide band of northwest Chi…

The connection of the Yanggao Daoists with the temple Daoism of Hengshan may be spurious, but household Daoists in Hunyuan county-town at the foot of the mountain have their own traditions. Our vis…

Through the 1990s, one of the most fruitful sites for our fieldwork project on the Hebei plain south of Beijing was the area around Xiongxian county, just south of Bazhou, and east of the regional …

Exclusive: Leading professor at Sheffield Hallam was told to cease research on supply chains and forced labour in China after demands from authorities

A fanfare in advance of the anniversary of Atatürk’s death on 10th November Just back home after an ecstatic week in Istanbul—first time I’ve needed my passport since visiting Li Manshan in 2…

This is how I opened my series on the qin zither scene in Beijing under Maoism: I’m still seeking in vain to atone for my reservations about the dominance of the elite qin zither in Chinese music s…

*UPDATED with links to posts on the Zhihua temple and related topics!* Early in 1986, only a couple of days after my first arrival in Beijing, hearing the former monks of the Zhihua temple 智化寺 on a…

A major theme of this site is the rich variety of regional folk expressive cultures, in China and around the world. Quite by chance, the compelling drama of Euro 24 has provided me with a wacky per…

Apart from the mainly-Chinese playlist in the sidebar (commentary here), below are some links to an eclectic selection of All-time Great Songs* on this blog. Besides the songs, the posts are worth …

Mahler is such an important figure on this blog (and indeed in “Western civilisation”!) * that I thought I should offer a roundup of posts—my The art of conducting links to many of thes…

A recent talk at the Orient-Institut in Istanbul, when Ara Dinkjian (son of the great Onnik) and Vahé Tachjian introduced early recordings of Armenian classics, led me to the impressive website Hou…

In our modern world, the flight booking reference consists of a seemingly random combo of six letters and numbers, so on booking my recent flights for Istanbul I was impressed to find the last thre…

After my dabblings with Songs of Asia Minor, Road to rebetika, and Folk traditions of Greece, I’m browsing the new volume The SOAS rebetiko reader: a selection of papers associated with the H…

My post on the folk–conservatoire gulf reminds me of the brief sojourn of the great household Daoist Li Qing in the grimy coal city of Datong as a state-employed musician. Indeed throughout China, …

I’m most gratified that my film Seated at the altar, on the 1995 New Year’s rituals in Gaoluo village, was awarded two prizes at the Chinese Musics Ethnographic Film Festival (CMEFF) In…

An international conference in honour of Craig Clunas will be held on 16–17 September at Lincoln College, Oxford, bringing together leading scholars in the field of Ming studies and art history. Fr…

Towards a dynamic approach to material artefacts in diachronic social context Further to my previous post giving background on material support for amateur ritual associations on the Hebei plain, I…

People have often said Trump is too stupid to lead an effective fascist takeover of the United States. Not so fast.

A companion to Indian and world fiddles. Image: Paul Childs/Reuters. Source. This summer, after yet another victory, Novak Djokovic paid homage to his daughter’s early steps learning the viol…

Mahler is such an important figure on this blog (and indeed in “Western civilisation”!) * that I thought I should offer a roundup of posts—my The art of conducting links to many of thes…

By way of reminding you of my series on the great Gustav Mahler, some brief comments on the three symphonies of his performed at this year’s Proms, while I consult Norman Lebrecht’s han…

If you’re thinking of dabbling with Japanese, then as a more practical guide than the sketch “How to learn Japanese in three easy lessons” (freezing cold, constipated, and absent-minded—available o…

Ida Rubenstein leading the original 1928 production of Boléro. Source. Ravel’s Boléro and Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring have become concert “classics”, but they are challe…