Chinese

You may notice I use slightly more Chinese in my blog recently.

I must say that's purely incidental. Nonetheless, on one occasion last month, I was surprised with the power of Chinese in history.

It goes like this: When writing the blog on Kamikaze recently (see http://ccszeto.blogspot.com/2011/03/wind.html), I had to cross-check some information about the history of Kublai Khan (忽必烈) and his plan of invasion of Japan. (Yes, I often double check the historical information before I put it down here. As Martin Routh said: You will find it very good practice always to verify your references, sir.) In the Wikipedia website, I found an interesting piece of document.

It was a letter from Kublai Khan to the Japanese Emperor, suggesting the latter to surrender.

The point is: The letter - from the Mongolian Emperor to the Japanese one, and as a formal diplomatic document - was written in Chinese, because it was the lingua franca in Asia at that time.

Yes, you see, neither the Mongols nor Jurchens (女真) ruined our culture; it was something from within.

I shouldn't say any more.