Posted On: Saturday - August 3rd 2019 9:27AM MST
In Topics: China Geography
... or something. I'd like to have a big old globe, on which Burma was still Burma the first time*, Cambodia was still Cambodia the first time*, Sri Lanka is still Ceylon, and maybe even China is still Cathay. It would be mounted on a nice hardwood stand, and I could spin it like the guy on The Rocky Horror Picture Show, hopefully without being called an asshole**.
Instead, the WalMart- or Target-bought globe we have was made in China, like about 95% of the material in said stores, and it held up for a few years and served it's instructional purpose. I thought about something regarding this globe's depiction of China and its environs the other day.
(Note: This is not our globe, as ours has more terrain features.)
The globe depicted above has a basic political map. That's not to mean "political" in the expected (from this blog) sense - "political" is a word used in mapmaking for just boundaries, as opposed to more stuff like topography or special features. What I noticed is that Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang are all depicted in the same color as mainland China is. Now, I'll give them Hong Kong - a 99-year deal is a deal, right - though, from what I'm reading, the Hong Kongese won't!
I've written in posts before that Tibet and Xinjiang are what make the area of China look closely comparable to the continental US, but those places are relatively uninhabited mountainous and high-desert lands, respectively. Tibet is probably a cause lost to China for now, except in the minds of those latte-drinking Americans with those bumper stickers. Xinjiang, Moslem stronghold, well, who cares, honestly. Taiwan is the real stickler. Listen, you'll get no argument from me that the US has absolutely no business backing up Taiwan militarily. The Cold War has been over for 30 years, so it's not our business, and the US is broke so we won't be able to afford those electronic parts from China (maybe some old ones from Taiwan, ROC) to put our hardware where our government's big mouth is. It's just that these places are still NOT the same country at this point.
It's just a coincidence! We were running out of colors anyway.
I don't really argue with Big China's claims. It's just this insidious map-making practice that kind of irks me. Who actually created the map images that are put on these made-in-China globes? Did the Chinese doctor them up a little bit? Bad Q/A? That's not out of the question. What I see is reminds me of a related story Peak Stupidity reported on a year ago in Western airlines bow down to China Commies' petty whims. and a prequel post here . (Yep, it's a prequel.) This is not 1985 or even 2010. When China says "you American airline companies must make your seat-back-pocket magazines show Taiwan same color as China.", then guess what, the US Airlines say "
* These 2 countries tried their own, incredibly un-mellifluous names, and, well, they didn't take. OK, I'm not completely sure if Burma is back, after that experiment with the name Myanmar (named by Microsoft, perhaps?), but Cambodia is back in - Kampuchea is out.
** Sorry, without the reader having attended a "showing" (more like rice-throwing, water-pistol shooting, party) of this movie, this joke will mean nothing. No, don't watch the movie on netflix or DVD - it doesn't work that way!
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