The current explanation spoiler about the Korean vs Chinese pronunciations is very hard to understand: "Although confusingly, the Koreans also call themselves "Han", with an altogether different etymology that just happened to end up the same way. The difference is evident when writing the two words in hanja. In Mandarin, the Chinese Han is pronounced more like hahn, as in "hand" (albeit not 'haey/hay-end', as with some US accents), while the Korean Han is pronounced more like haen, as in "hand."" Is there some way that this can be improved, maybe by not using the word "hand" as a pronunciation reference for both? I would do it but I don't know anything about either language.
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The section on the Qing dynasty seriously needs to be trimmed. I get that it's the most recent dynsty and thus has the most historical documentation and influence on current China but as it is now it's almost big enough to be it's own page.
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Given that China is an unusually large country with an unusually long history that is practically a whole civilization by itself (without an equal in the world in combining these characteristics), I propose that this page should be broken up into about 4-5 sub pages: something like Ancient China (through Han), Classical China (through Tang), Medieval China (through Yuan), Early Modern China (through Opium War), and Late Imperial China (through Xinhai Revolution).
Going into more, not less, detail has my vote as well. Nobody would seriously suggest trying to characterise the past 3000 years of European history in a single article, and that's a less populous region (albeit far better-known to us English-speakers).
I'd be tempted to draw it by documentation. Every year before the Ming relies almost entirely on archaeology and sometimes just a literal handful of documents. The Ming have enough to deserve their own page, certainly if one covered them them together with the Yuan and Song. And there is just so bloody much Qing stuff that you could probably have three different articles on it - socio-economic history, foreign wars, and civil wars (Taiping, Xinhai). Or 1644-1839 and 1839-1911 would work equally well.
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. — Mark Twain
Remember though that we aren't aiming at duplicating the Wikipedia article, here.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Of course.
I'm just glad we'll finally have more than one page covering the history and stories of.... what, 20+ billion people?
Pretty cool stuff. Exciting times, yo.
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. — Mark Twain
Been busy last few days. Sorry about not replying earlier.
I think it should be possible to organize imperial Chinese history "tropically," focusing on recurring socio-cultural themes assiciated with different eras, both contemporary depiction and retrospective, rather than reproduce historical details. Mai742's point about organizing the pages based on documentary sources sounds compatible with my thinking, but there is much planning and organizing ahead.
There are larger stories at work than the family names of the people in-charge, yes.
Depends on what kind of page it is, surely - useful notes or other.
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. — Mark Twain
MisterDrBob
Couldn't this be moved to Useful Notes so it can be called Imperial China too?
Well, I actually joined this site because somebody singled out a fanfic of mine as part of the 10% that's worth dying for.
Can we please split this article? The current version is some sort of a reading nightmare. It's over 3000 years of history crammed into a single article, with nothing being detailed to be comprehensive, while in the same time being too long to be digestable as a whole. Not to mention often resorting to Hollywood History with the annoying attitude of "nah, no time to explain, let's just keep jumping to conclusions of details we didn't list or explain".
It is telling things are worse than awful when the "next" period in Chinese history, covering 40 years, gets an article (and two sub-articles) almost as long as one covering times from Neolite to early modern period.
I already talked with another troper about this and I'm trying to assemble buddies from uni times, but I guess things like this need some sort of administration approval first.
Edited by Betoniarz