
Rare early photographs of Peking - yitchelle
http://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-34697724
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coldpie
Thomas Child died in 1898[1]. If current US copyright law, as expressed in the
TPP, had existed when these photos were taken, then the copyright on these
photos would have expired in 1968, seventy years after their creator's death
and about a hundred years after they were taken. If they were taken as works
for hire, then they would have expired around the year 2000, more than one
hundred years after their creator's death and one-century-and-two-decades
after they were taken.

[1]
[http://hpc.vcea.net/Database/Photographers?ID=39](http://hpc.vcea.net/Database/Photographers?ID=39)

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Sapph
On a related note:

The majority of Beijingers used to live in courtyards flanked by houses by
four sides:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siheyuan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siheyuan)

Growing up in one, you get to know all of your neighbors really well since you
see each other every day. My mom who grew up in a one, still knows all of her
childhood friends and they have regular reunions.

Wish they were more communal spaces like this today where you're bound to
regularly run into and interact with your neighbors.

~~~
analyst74
While making life-long friends growing up is great, there are many problems
and inconveniences caused by sharing your living space with other people.

Hence nowadays when people have a choice, most choose to live in their own
apartment as opposed to share with others.

~~~
tdaltonc
Certainly that is part of it, but I think a bigger part of it is that finding
a group of people you'd like to live with a space that enables communal living
is really hard. Therefore developers build for the plug-and-play self
contained dwelling.

Stated another way, the prevalence of independent living is more a consequence
of high "coincidence of wants" costs and not of preferences.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coincidence_of_wants](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coincidence_of_wants)

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mikeash
Interesting set of photos. I think the Great Wall was most striking to me, as
I was there recently and had no idea the vast forests around it were so new.

I find it a bit grating that they describe the Marble Boat as "suffered damage
from the Second Opium War." OK, BBC, I get that you're not going to go all
"DESTROYED BY WESTERN IMPERIALISTS AS PUNISHMENT FOR REJECTING ADDICTIVE
DRUGS," but at least say _who_ damaged it (the British and French, naturally).

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k2enemy
Very neat photos. The Azure Cloud Temple in the Fragrant Hills park is one of
my favorite places on earth. The park is very busy in general, but the entire
path leading up to the Cloud Temple and the temple itself are typically empty,
peaceful, and serene.

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officialjunk
rant: it never was Peking. "Peking" is a phonetic spelling performed by
westerners listening to non-mandarin speakers, who weren't from Beijing. If
they had listened to a mandarin speaker, which most Chinese are, even at that
time, we wouldn't have that horribly mis-spelled name.

~~~
mikeash
While I wouldn't call it misspelled (any Romanization is going to be flawed),
I do find it strange that the article says it's "now known as Beijing." The
name didn't change, only the spelling changed. It really should say "now
spelled as Beijing" or something like that.

~~~
bradleyjg
Its name in English changed. Peking was its old name in English and now it is
Beijing. The old name wasn't wrong and the new name isn't right. The concept
of wrongness or rightness doesn't even make sense in this context.

It isn't controversial that the city that the Italians call _Roma_ has an
English name of Rome, or that the city the Germans call _München_ has an
English name of Munich, but somehow if the English name for 北京 doesn't sound
as close as possible to what the locals call it in their own language, that's
awful cultural imperialism.

~~~
analyst74
The defensive attitude comes from the fact the name Peking was given by
imperialists invading China. Thus the name Peking reminds some people of the
sad part of history, triggering negative emotions toward it.

~~~
abritinthebay
That's... not even close to true. Peking is a romanization of how the _actual
Chinese name_ was pronounced _by actual Chinese people_ in the port towns that
British travelers first encountered.

The fact that there are about 200 different dialects which change the
pronunciation doesn't make Peking wrong, or "imperialistic" in _any way_. In
fact it is just as correct as Bejing (which is also "wrong" it's just the
currently accepted form of romanization that's closer to local dialect
sounds).

