Talk:Amdo

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• Aerospace Maintenance Duty Officer (AMDO) Community, United States Navy

I was interested in setting up a page for this community to include relevant history and current topics, but wasn't sure how to start a Disambiguation page. I don't have a lot of time currently, but I plan to get back to this project this season (Spring). Please leave any advice here or on my talk page. Thank you. Dymaxion (talk) 01:05, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Contents 1 "First inhabited by the Qiang" 2 "Xining prefecture was established in the Song dynasty" 3 Xihai Prefecture 4 The difficulty of asserting the accurate history of Amdo 5 Need for more referenced history

[edit] "First inhabited by the Qiang"

Look, it's a basic historical fact, and the article currently cites two sources, one of which is a Xinhua article about the history of Qinghai and the other is an academic work.

I don't see what's so controversial about this. If you can bring up a contrary viewpoint, find it and cite it. Otherwise, stop vandalising this article. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 08:32, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Err, no. If there are no reliable sources, then it can't go in. Both of these sources are published in China. Since only things that conform with PRC policy are allowed in China, it's meaningless. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 09:15, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Let me get this straight. You are saying that nothing ever published in China can ever be used on Wikipedia?

That's the most racist thing I've heard today. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:17, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Tell you what: I'm going to dig up English sources on the Qiang being the original inhabitants of Amdo. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 23:22, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Nice, but please remember that this is not he Chinese Wikipedia. You can't write an article about the history of Amdo based largely on Chinese sources at expect it to abide by WP:NPOV. If you're going to use Chinese sources, either use Tibetan sources as well (and state both views), or attribute them properly. Khoikhoi 23:53, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

There is no distinct Tibetan view on this subject as far as I am aware. If you allege that there is, then you should come up with the sources. You can't go around deleting content alleging that it does not represent your preferred view when there are no sources backing up that view.

And if you don't understand the inter-relationship between Tibetan and Qiang (under some classifications, one is the subset of another) then you should read up on it. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 00:42, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

This is from the Qiang article: "In ancient China, Qiang was usually used as a generic term for the non-Han peoples in the northwest." In this case, the 'Qiang' who lived in Amdo were probably Tibetans, and using Chinese terminology is obscuring rather than illuminating the discussion. It's certainly not the case that we can't use Chinese sources, but it's equally untrue that this and other articles have to be conformed to the "56 official minorities" nonsense that is the source of the idea that the Qiang lived in Amdo before Tibetans did. Yunfeng (talk) 21:47, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

There are now also non-Chinese sources. I find it interesting that you are so sure that they were "probably" Tibetan, given that the immediately following Tuyuhun kingdom descended to modern-day Mongols. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 00:13, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

It is wrong to say that Amdo was first inhabited by Qiang, because "Amdo" is a Tibetan name for a very large region which was historically made up of Tibetan kingdoms, each with varied histories. Some kingdoms were ruled independently for hundreds of years by Tibetan kings, and some were taken over by invading Mongols and Manchu etc. Therefore it is difficult to assert a "general" history for a large and diverse region. It is possible that some parts of what is presently called Amdo were at some point inhabited by Qiang people. But you cannot make a sweeping statement that the entire region of Amdo was originally inhabited by Qiang people. --Lhamo2008 (talk) 01:20, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Xining prefecture was established in the Song dynasty"

Oh come on. It is a statement about a Chinese administrative unit. Wouldn't the Chinese know their own administrative units best?

Are you telling me that the Tibetans will have an "alternative view" on the establishment of Xining prefecture? What are they going to say? "There is no such thing as Xining prefecture, it is all a vast pro-Song conspiracy"? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 00:02, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree. One should have other sources, a real dispute outside wikipedia to have a sensible argument - otherwise we are verging on, if not engaging in original research. China and India recently enough fought a war. On the other hand, some precise chronology in scholarship on the ancient history of India comes from reference to Chinese sources and ancient Chinese and Indian travellers, because the Chinese were more into dates back then. Is recent enmity a reason for disallowing this scholarly practice? Sure, balance the Chinese POV with a Tibetan one. Conceivably, say, the Chinese might have claimed a larger area than they actually controlled, a common enough practice for anyone, so we should try to make plausible statements that are well-grounded. But first one has to find the Tibetan POV. If no one can find it, if there is no scholarly dispute, it's generally not up to us to presume that one exists unless the sources we have are clearly "POV-pushing" or clearly unreliable ones. Just try to write reasonably, amicably and neutrally using the sources that exist. I'd note that the success of PalaceGuard in finding other sources suggests that the statements and sources he has used are not unreliable. But again, words like vandalising, racist etc never help.John Z (talk) 01:38, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I think that it is sometimes better to provide no info instead of info taken from substandard sources. Given how often one reads that Hohhot was founded during the reign of the Wanli emperor, when in fact the Wanli emperor had little to do with this, I would prefer prefer some more academic source written by specialists (that is, not environmentalists). In fact, http://www.xining.gov.cn/English/English_1.html says that Xining has a history of 2100 years, and one of the sources given for "established in 1103" does not really say so, either [1]. But the history section is quite a mess anyway, and this does not seem the worst problem. Yaan (talk) 16:32, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Whatever "mess" it is in, it is a good deal better than the previous version ("Oh this history is too complicated, I'm not even going to try to summarise.") --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 00:21, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

The source you qusetioned says: "In the third year of Chongning (1103) of Emperor Huizong in Song Dynasty, Shanzhou Prefecture was changed to Xining Prefecture. The name of Xining first appeared in History."

Sure, Xining, the place, might have a history of 2100 years, but I don't think it is unreasonable for us to say, for example, that London was first founded when it was founded as a city in 47AD, and not when the first couple of huts appeared on that particular stretch of the Thames. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 00:25, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

The part about the Tanguts is definitely messed up. And the source I mentioned says the prefecture got a new name, not the prefecture was founded. We don't say Beijing was established in 1403 or 1949, do we? Yaan (talk) 18:12, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Xihai Prefecture

I added "In AD 4, Han Dynasty estalished Xihai Prefecture (西海郡) in the area around Qinghai Lake." -Hsihaijunmin (talk) 18:02, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The difficulty of asserting the accurate history of Amdo

It is difficult to assert a clear and accurate history for Amdo. There is an obvious bias in the Chinese accounts of the history and we cannot be sure as to the truth of their accounts.

It is also difficult to generalise and make statements about the whole of Amdo, when it is such a large region made up of numerous historical Kingdoms which each have their own lengthy histories.--Lhamo2008 (talk) 01:31, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Need for more referenced history

This article needs more work on the history section. It needs referenced reliable sources. However, these may be difficult to obtain, as pointed out in above discussion points. --Anythingpossible (talk) 08:45, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

You might contact User:PericlesofAthens about sources. He's done excellent work with sorting out sources for Tibetan history and specializes in some of the periods in the unreferenced section. He may be able to help also with filling in the five hundred year gap in the history section between 1200 and 1700. --Gimme danger (talk) 16:55, 7 June 2008 (UTC)