<p style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" align="center"><span style="font-size: 11pt;" lang="PT-BR">===========================================<br>
L O W L A N D S - L - 08 March 2009 - Volume 03<br>
===========================================</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"><br>
From: <span><span style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28);">Hellinckx Luc</span></span><span> </span><span><<a href="mailto:luc.hellinckx@gmail.com" target="_blank">luc.hellinckx@gmail.com</a>></span><br>
Subject: <span>LL-L "Music"</span><br>
<br>
Beste Paul,<br>
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Given that
you could walk or ride from the Atlantic to
the Pacific without<br>
getting your (or your horse's) feet wet, the continuity of various cultural<br>
and technological items perhaps isn't too surprising.<br>
<br>
OK, you'd possibly starve, freeze, die of thirst or heatstroke, or get<br>
killed by bandits. But you wouldn't have to get your feet wet.<br>
<br>
Paul<br>
<br>
Derby<br>
England<br>
<br>
(Without a plane or a boat, you can't get here without getting your feet<br>
wet)<br><br>
Mmm...I doubt your feet would get wet if you'd take the Channel Tunel. Whether
your horse would be allowed on the Eurostar remains to be seen however *s*.<br>
<br>
Kind greetings,<br>
<span style="color: rgb(136, 136, 136);"><br>
Luc Hellinckx</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">----------<br>
<br>
From: <span><span style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">Mike Morgan</span></span><span> </span><span><<a href="mailto:mwmosaka@gmail.com" target="_blank">mwmosaka@gmail.com</a>></span><br>
Subject: <span>LL-L "Music" 2009.03.08 (01) [E/German]</span><br>
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Paul wrote:</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Given that you could walk or ride from the Atlantic
to the Pacific without getting your (or your horse's) feet wet</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Hmmmm, I'm
trying to think ... IS there a route you can take which doesn't have to cross a
major river here or there? I'm not an EXPERT on geography, but can't think of
one. (Although I HAVE walked across a major river without getting my KNEES
wet ... and without benefit of bridges ... Central Gangetic Plain's dry season
changes that geography completely!)</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">U C > ||
mwm<br>
================ <br>
Dr Michael W Morgan <br>
Ishara Foundation || </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Mangal;" lang="HI">ईशारा</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;" lang="HI"> </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Mangal;" lang="HI">फॉउंडेशन</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;" lang="HI"> </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">|| </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: SimSun;" lang="ZH-CN">イシャラ基金</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"><br>
Mumbai/Bombay *|* </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Mangal;" lang="HI">मुंबई</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;" lang="HI"> *</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">|*
</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: SimSun;" lang="ZH-CN">ムンバイ</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">/</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: SimSun;" lang="ZH-CN">ボンベイ</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> (</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: SimSun;" lang="ZH-CN">インド</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">)<br>
<a href="http://www.ishara.org/" target="_blank">www.ishara.org</a><br>
+++++++++++++++<br>
Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiß nichts von seiner eigenen. (Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe)</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">----------<br>
<br>
From: <span><span style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28);">Paul Finlow-Bates</span></span><span> </span><span><<a href="mailto:wolf_thunder51@yahoo.co.uk" target="_blank">wolf_thunder51@yahoo.co.uk</a>></span><br>
Subject: <span>LL-L "Music" 2009.03.08 (01) [E/German]</span><br>
<br>
From: R. F. Hahn <<a href="http://uk.mc264.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=sassisch@yahoo.com" target="_blank">sassisch@yahoo.com</a>> <br>
Subject: Music<br>
<br>
Paul, the Silk Road existed even longer than most people used to think. Trading
tended to be in stages, but some people did make it all the way across Eurasia, and Marco Polo wasn't the first.<br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
Reinhard/Ron<br>
Seattle, USA</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Hi Ron,</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">I've read
references to Romans communicating with Chinese writers, using Persian as the
common language. I don't know how true that is, but it seems possible,
even probable. The letters probably took months, even years, but that was
common even to living memory times. We expect instant responses, but
that's part of our conditioning.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Paul<br>Derby</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">----------</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">From: R. F.
Hahn <<a href="http://uk.mc264.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=sassisch@yahoo.com" target="_blank">sassisch@yahoo.com</a>> <br>
Subject: Music</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Paul,<br>
<br>
I'm not so sure about Persian as a lingua franca, but it is true that Persians
(and throw in some Near Easterners and some Turkic people) were <i>the</i> link
trading in both the West and the East. Many of them, together with Syrians and
others, took Christianity (Nestorian and otherwise) to China at the latest
during the Tang Dynasty (</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: SimSun;" lang="ZH-CN">唐朝</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">, 618-907 CE), having at least one Christian church in the Tang capital
Chang'an (</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: SimSun;" lang="ZH-CN">長安</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">, today's
Xi'an</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: SimSun;" lang="ZH-CN"> 西安</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">). It was
located in a permanent foreign enclave that apparently was mostly Persian
speaking, but Syriac (a form of Aramaic) was also used. <br>
<br>
At or soon after the fall of the Tang, Near Eastern and Persian Jews
began to appear
in China, apparently both by
sea and via the Silk Road. And at the same
time large numbers of Muslims entered China. They converted many
Chinese
and intermingled with them (the Islamic, Chinese-speaking Hui/Dungan
now being China's largest minority) and since that time China's Muslims
have been in close contact with
the Near East, Persia and Central Asia. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">
Buddhist foreigners seem to have been particularly numerous at that time, and
these were Persians (mostly from what is now Afghanistan),
South Asians as well as the Tocharians of Xinjiang's Tarim Basin,
all of them speakers of Indo-European languages. There are rumors or vague
indications that Europeans, too, visited or lived in China during the Tang
dynasty, and references to apparently blond dancers can be found at the latest
in the Southern Song dynasty (</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: SimSun;" lang="ZH-CN">南宋</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">, 1127–1279). </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">The predominantly
Buddhist kingdom of Gandhara (<i>Gand</i></span><i><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">ḥ</span></i><i><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">āra, </span></i><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Mangal;" lang="HI">गन्धार</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">, </span><span dir="rtl" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;" lang="AR-SA">ګندهارا</span><span dir="ltr"></span><span dir="ltr"></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"><span dir="ltr"></span><span dir="ltr"></span>,
in what is now Afghanistan's
Kandahār <span dir="rtl" lang="AR-SA">کندهار</span><span dir="ltr"></span><span dir="ltr"></span><span lang="AR-SA"><span dir="ltr"></span><span dir="ltr"></span> </span>~ Qandahār <span dir="rtl" lang="AR-SA">قندهار</span><span dir="ltr"></span><span dir="ltr"></span><span lang="AR-SA"><span dir="ltr"></span><span dir="ltr"></span> </span>province) was a meeting
place of Eastern and Western trade, cultures, arts and thoughts. You will find Greek
and Chinese elements there, to mention but two. The kingdom lasted from the 6th
century BCE to the 11th century CE. (It is its Buddhist artifacts that the Taliban
are bent on destroying.)<br>
<br>
Indirect trade across Eurasia started much
earlier. While China
tried to pacify the "barbarians" by either fighting them (and keeping
them out) or by integrating (and hopefully absorbing) them, for a while they
were extremely dependent on some of the goodies the "barbarians" had
to offer. First and foremost among these were horses and equestrian skills of
various sorts, a commodity known as both Central Asian and Indo-European. Two
of the most important goods China
had to offer in return were silk and porcelain. <br>
<br>
There is hardly any Chinese musical instrument that can be successfully argued to
be Chinese inventions. The <i>guqin</i> (</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: SimSun;" lang="ZH-CN">古琴 </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guqin" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guqin</a>) zither
may have started in China before being adapted in Korea and Japan and elsewhere.
Most instruments are clearly of Persian and Central Asian origin, instruments that
eventually made their way to India,
the Middle East and Europe as well.<br>
<br>
Marco Polo supposedly discovered China during the Mongol or Yuan dynasty (</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: SimSun;" lang="ZH-CN">元朝</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;" lang="ZH-CN"> </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">1271-1368).<br>
<br>
The earliest known descriptions of the pre-Christian Slavic cultures along the
southern Baltic Sea coast are written in Arabic, and bunches of ancient Arabic
coins have been unearthed in that area.<br>
<br>
I'm trying to make a point here, but maybe I'm belaboring it by now.<br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
Reinhard/Ron<br>
Seattle, USA<br>
<br>
----------<br>
<br>
From:Hannelore Hinz <<a href="mailto:HanneHinz@t-online.de" target="_blank">HanneHinz@t-online.de</a>><br>Subject:
LL-L "Music" 2009.03.07 (04) [E]</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;" lang="DE">Liebe Lowlanders,</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;" lang="DE">hier noch ein Nachklang vom bemerkenswerten Treffen der
Dudelsackspieler im Freilichtmuseum Schwerin.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.absolut-mecklenburg.eu/root/portal/index.php?seite=496&to_print=1" target="_blank"><span lang="DE">http://www.absolut-mecklenburg.eu/root/portal/index.php?seite=496&to_print=1</span></a></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> <span lang="DE"></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.pipenunlyren.de/" target="_blank"><span lang="DE">http://www.pipenunlyren.de</span></a></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;" lang="DE"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.schwerin.de/freilichtmuseum" target="_blank"><span lang="DE">http://www.schwerin.de/freilichtmuseum</span></a></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;" lang="DE"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Beste
Grüße.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Hanne</span></p>
<p>
==============================END===================================
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