336 History

Do you enjoy learning about history? For some people, history is made up of too many names and dates, but today’s guest, Jonathan Dugdale, is a researcher and historian at the University of Birmingham who has a talent for bringing history to life!

He discusses with ShaoLan one of his areas of historical expertise, the Liao dynasty, and shares a fascinating insight into how the system of Liao government over 1000 years ago can be said to be influencing the way that China rules Hong Kong today! ShaoLan teaches the Chinese word for “history,” “historian” and some other educational subjects as well as other words related to Jonathan’s research, including the word for Buddhism, Buddhist and even Buddhist Pagodas!

To say “history” in Chinese, you say 歷史/历史. The first character 歷/历 shows the planting of the grain and “going through,” so when you “go through” the planting of grain, you pass through the season, so this word actually means “calendar.” The second character 史 means “to write a story with your hand.” Together then, the calendar that is written as a story, is “history,” 歷史/历史.