More about the wizarding world and empire...

[David <dfrankiswork@netscape.net>]

No: HPFGUIDX 50975

Ebony <selah_1977 at y...>" <selah_1977 at y...> wrote:

> "I also think it's significant that the other nonwhite characters 
> that 
> we see being educated at Hogwarts represent nations that England 
> either conquered completely (Ireland, India, etc.) or had some 
sort 
> of favored nation status with (China--although Hong Kong was under 
> British control for a long time, yet? Don't know the history 
> completely there.) If there was no empire in the history of JKR's 
> wizarding world, then why are they being educated in Britain? 
> Because Hogwarts is the best school in the world? If so, then 
*why* 
> is Hogwarts the best, and not another place where magic likely has 
> been practiced far longer (China, Egypt, etc.) than in either 
Britain 
> or Europe?"
> 
> I'm still waiting here.  :-D  Where are the historians?  I'm a 
> literary scholar, and I know there are people far more versed in 
> British imperial history here.

Chiming in late to an interesting discussion here.

I believe in essence Ebony is right on this point.  The spelling of 
Cho's name does not reflect the Pinyin used by the PRC, but is IMO 
consistent with a Hong Kong, Malaysia or Singapore origin.

We don't know for sure the ethnic origin of her or the Patil twins, 
but I would think the presumption is that they reflect old imperial 
connections, as does Seamus.

My understanding of the (British) WW generally is that it is 
culturally almost identical to that of muggle Britain, despite the 
anachronistic trappings.  Hence empire does hang over it as much as 
over the rest of us. (**Sighs for the day when the UK can abandon 
the fantasy of its UN Security Council membership**).

Whether JKR's backstory for the WW includes wizarding participation 
in the imperial venture, I can't say, but note that the 'muggle-
born' argument cuts both ways: if a wizard was born to Muggle 
Britons in 19th century India, what cultural influences would he 
have brought to the indigenous British WW?

David