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China bust — 16 Comments

  1. I think I read about this, but it was framed as a Mainland China operation. Screw around with the facts.

  2. Here in Boise one of the main drags through town is called “Chinden.” It’s a portmanteau of “China” and “Garden” and is a nod to the Chinese railroad workers that provided the labor to build the Union Pacific mainline through southern Idaho.

  3. Then there’s “Paris, Texas,” a 1984 Wim Wenders film based on a Sam Shepherd script, which won the Palme d’Or. It has an intriguing cast: Harry Dean Stanton, Natassja Kinski and Dean Stockwell.

    I’ll have to watch it again. 1984 was 40 years ago!

  4. And then it struck me – because I know a thing or two about Maine – that this was in China, Maine

    There is a Mexico, Maine, which is next to Rumford, Maine. The owner of Sippican Cottage blog lives in Rumford. He has interesting stories on home renovation, which interests me because my father rehabbed every room in our house.

    China Texas isn’t too far from Moscow …Then there’s “Paris, Texas,”

    I have driven through China, TX. Which reminds me of a song that works in a lot of Texas towns, such as Palestine, Paris, etc. Bill Neely: Never Left the Lone Star State. I once heard Bill Neely sing this song live on the radio.

    Plus Moscow, Idaho. A real place, though not a film.

    I knew Moscow Idaho residents from both my childhood and in my recent life. Different people, different eras.

    Speaking of marijuana growing, my sister and I recently visited our cousin in rural Oklahoma. He drove us by greenhouses growing MJ, owned by Chinese IIRC.

  5. It looks like the closest China, ME gets to anything reminiscent of East Asia is that there are two small streets named Canton and Peking, respectively. Not even a Chinese take-out place, as far as I can tell.

    Curious how many towns throughout central Maine have the same name as some town in NY. There’s even a town called Maine. In Maine!

  6. Southern Illinois is (or used to be) called “Little Egypt”. A prominent town there is Cairo, which I think is pronounced “Kay-roe”.

  7. Don’t trust everything you read on the internet.

    https://sacredharpbremen.org › 163b-china
    163b China – Sacred Harp Bremen
    Mr. Washburn settled on the name China, because it was the name of one of his favorite hymns. This widely sung hymn was written by Timothy Swan of Northfield Massachusetts in 1790 and was published in Swan’s “New England Harmony” in 1801. (Wikipedia, article “China, Maine”)

    https://www.suffield-library.org › localhistory › swan.htm
    TIMOTHY SWAN (1758-1843) – suffield-library.org
    A hymn called “China” composed in 1790 and his most well known, was considered by the composer as his best. It was named for a town in Maine, and was first published in 1801 in New England Harmony.

    The first entry wins: according to Wikipedia “On June 25, 1818, the Town of China was incorporated by combining Harlem, Fairfax (Albion), and Winslow” which was long after Swan wrote his tune.

    At one time, before the War, he worked for an “importer of foreign goods” in the Colonies; maybe one source of goods was China (English imports predated The Old China Trade “spanning from shortly after the end of the American Revolutionary War in 1783 to the Treaty of Wanghia in 1844”), or perhaps he liked the name because it could be related to foreign missionary activities. The Protestant efforts began “with the English missionary Robert Morrison in 1807”, but he followed “the Jesuits who had been established in China for more than a century.”

    Here is a copy of the music, which makes it easier to follow the unfamiliar harmonies of the old tradition in the video.
    Enjoying shape-note singing is a learned taste.

    https://sacredharpbremen.org/163b-china/

  8. Moscow, Vermont exists too. Much more agreeable than its Russian counterpart, I’m sure.

  9. Paris Texas.
    West New York, NJ…
    And then there’s all the Biblical names.

    Here’s a question:
    When outposts and then towns and cities will be established on Alpha Centauri, will they be called, e.g., “New New York”? “New New England”? “New New Canaan”? “New New London”? “New New Bedford”? “New New Hamphire”? “New New Zealand”? “New New Guinea”?, well you get the idea…

  10. In Texas you can take State Highway 19 north from Palestine (Pal-es-TEEN, if you are a local and pass through Athens and Canton on your way to Paris.

  11. Moscow, Vermont exists too.

    I thought Bernie Sanders and his new wife honeymooned in the USSR, presumably including some time in Moscow, Russia. Maybe some reporter got confused and misinformed us?

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