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wrote: Wed, 2009-10-14 08:36
[yikeshu wrote: Fri, 2009-10-09 08:59 Since the prime minister Wen jiabao will go to visit high school, it is enough to indicate the attention the authorities have paid to the education.Maybe even Mr Wen didn't realize that his pointing out will be an evidence to prove the urgent degree to correct the overbearing fault in textbooks. That's quite innocent.The author stated a lot of theories how the authorities can fix the artificial history casually, but only supported with a few trivial errors. ]
Also, if you look at the map of China, Shaanxi and Gansu are in northern China geographically, but north-west China relative to the population centres which are along the East Coast.
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Devils Advocate_1 wrote: Wed, 2009-10-14 09:02
[Kim77 wrote: Tue, 2009-10-13 22:00 Everybody on this board needs to chill out. Seriously.
As a Korean myself, I have long taken the position that only losers who failed in present times use history as a means of forcibly boosting up their pride.
What good is history, really? What good did glorious history do for Mongolia? Iraq? Furthermore, the supposedly great ancestors of many nations that nationalists are usually so proud of, would, in fact, not recognize them as their descendants. To the proud builders of the British empire in the 19th century, present-day Brits would appear as no more than idolatrous, hardly-Christian unbelievers who condone sodomy and socialism. They would be ashamed to have such descendants. There really is no real, tangible link that connects us (denizens of today's world) to them (our ancestors, great and small), unless you were to forcibly imagine such a link.
Unfortunately, this is what most people in the world do today, including the Koreans and the Chinese.
My fellow Koreans need to chill out with the Manchuria thing. It's a long gone past. Koreans are apt to criticize Israel for claiming back land that was lost from them 2,000 years ago, but why do we not apply the same standards on ourselves?
The Chinese need to tone down their arrogance. To be honest with you, many Chinese person that I've met were so fiercely proud of their country that it was quite overbearing.]
Bravo!!! The BEST comment I have seen here.
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KunChen wrote: Wed, 2009-10-14 09:38
The history is writen by victors. Any government will remedy some details to adapt to the age change and reinforce their govern. But they can not write history wrongly. History need discuss indeed, because it has been past. Just one or two writers' view may be not exact, so students should ask questions and find mistakes. The biggest problem is not the textbook, it is Chinese educational system and educational value.
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King De Bie wrote: Wed, 2009-10-14 09:45
What parts of the history are being bended is interesting to know. But to know that the Chinese students are not taught to challenge received wisdom is more important. For the Western people who may/ will have a Chinese husband, wife, employer, employee, friends, son-in-law, business partners, customer, supppliers or competitors etc, it is significant to know. For little things that the Chinese do not have the guts to question, what do they do for "bigger" issue?
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Polyglot wrote: Wed, 2009-10-14 10:52
Many responses to this article seem to focus on whether history books contain mistakes and some even argue that biased history is taught in every country.
However, an important distinction that should be brought forward here is that students (at least where I am from) are taught always to question every fact. I was schooled in a system that stimulates debate and criticism of existing theories by presenting valid arguments. I wonder if China offers its students a similar environment.
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billstewood wrote: Wed, 2009-10-14 11:01
different people have different arguments about the histories which were too old to know them well.it is a objective problem of the history.chinese text may be one of the editions of the histroy.it is science not politics.of course,it is not the government's fault.
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Nellie Wallace wrote: Wed, 2009-10-14 11:10
Tom Pee
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DonaNobisPacem wrote: Wed, 2009-10-14 12:18
"tocharian wrote:
George Orwell (Eric Blair) would be turning in his grave!"
I am grateful that you mentioned Orwell. Growing up in the "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics" indoctrination until my high school years, I was shocked while reading "1984" by how vivid and incisive Orwell was. The real shocker, however, was when I found out Britain was annexed not by the Soviets but the Americans.
We need more Orwells today.
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Rocinante5 wrote: Wed, 2009-10-14 12:48
"A textbook described the provinces of Shaanxi and Gansu as in north China, whereas they are officially in north-western China. Why, asked one widely circulated commentary, did it take the prime minister to point out such an error?"
Who cares whether Shansi is in north or north-western China? How does he spell "potatoes"?
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Jack Kessler wrote: Wed, 2009-10-14 12:50
The Economist has never been able to distinguish between the conventional opinions of the British chattering classes and the truth. For example when was the last time the politely anti-semitic Economist told the truth about the Middle East? The liars and propagandists at the Economist are incensed because they Chinese are telling a different set of lies than they are?
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Magrathean wrote: Wed, 2009-10-14 13:04
I'm an American student in the middle of spending a year in Beijing studying Chinese， and I find myself more and more ambivalent about this sort of reporting. I came here expecting to encounter more a stifled atmosphere, and indeed not being able to freely access the internet was a shock to my dearly kept American ideals (although ironically, I suppose I should be happy that I can state my views on this messageboard).
Western media takes a consistently negative tone in reporting most China-related news. But singling out China as the sole evildoer for its control of the media ignores the fragility of truth in every other country on the planet. The American presidential election becomes a yearlong expose of image manipulation. In 2005, a new Japanese history textbook was adopted that makes no mention of the Nanjing Massacre.
This is not to excuse the failure of the Chinese government to give their citizens civil liberties that would in America be considered indispensable. But exclusive reporting on this topic belittles a thriving country and ignores the very impressive achievements made by the communist party in the last thirty years. When I went to interview Inner Mongolian herdsmen this summer, each and everyone one of them not only stated that they supported the government， but stated the many subsidies they had been provided with, such as electricity, and even monthly stipends to stop herding sheep until the grassland recovers from ecological damage.
Chinese intellectual freedom might be the biggest unresolved issue in Modern China. But the biggest country in the world deserves more than to be pegged on that one issue.
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junglee09 wrote: Wed, 2009-10-14 13:16
I agree with various postings, presumably by Chinese writers, that all nations have textbooks, news and other sources of information that have mistakes. In all nations, these mistakes sometimes reflect bias, narrow-mindedness or a simple typing error. But I also believe that the distortions of history perpetrated by the Chinese government is much more alarming than what is being done in the U.S., Europe, South Korea or other democratic countries. And that, too, I think is the underlying point of this article.
Some of the Chinese postings accuse Koreans, Americans or British people for not recognizing their past historical mistakes, such as the Opium War or the Iraq War. But such postings are incorrect. Yes, of course, there are many people in each of these countries that are not aware of or do not think about historical mistakes made by their countries. Yes, of course, there are books in each of these countries that are insensitive or biased. But in each of these countries, there are also many people, books, movies and novels that are critical of such mistakes. There are many writers and books in England that condemn the English colonial past. There are many newspapers and writers in the US that are critical of the Iraq War, President Bush, and the Afghanistan War. There are many books and movies in South Korea that are, for example, very critical of what certain presidents (for example, Chun Doo Hwan) did in Korean history.
This freedom of expression, however, does not exist in China. There are no widely published books or magazines that say North Korea is a cruel regime and that China should let it unite with South Korea. There are no widely published books or authors who sharply criticize what Mao did during the Great Leap Forward or the Cultural Revolution. There is no loud public criticism allowed of Chinese policies toward ethnic minorities in China. The government regulates all media. It allows very quiet comments on these issues and maybe is more generous in allowing criticism directed at, for example, economic policy. But it allows no major criticism of any major policy of the Communist Party, past or present.
This is why many people in South Korea, Europe and the US are worried about China. Undeniably China is a nation with a rich, wonderful culture whose military and economic power are expanding rapidly. But the Chinese people appear to only have access to what the government wants them to know. Someday, if the Chinese government teaches them that North Korea is really Chinese territory, then the world worries that the Chinese people will believe it, because all other views would be surpressed and this false concept would appear in every TV channel and school textbook. (In fact, as the comments and other articles show, many South Koreans already fear this is slowly happening.)
I believe this explains in large part why many of the nations of the world tend to trust, despite all of their mistakes and flaws, democratic countries, such as South Korea, India and, yes, the US. It is because they approach history from every angle and allow a diversity of viewpoints and a more honest, although imperfect exchange. This is lacking in Chinese society, and this, combined with China's growing military power, is worrisome to the international community.
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realwindfly wrote: Wed, 2009-10-14 13:19
It becomes very funny when you read through the article.
The article did not tell too much about communist's manuplating history but rather some cultural stories.
Using the same way, I can claim any country in this planet doing so...
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King De Bie wrote: Wed, 2009-10-14 17:02
I am quite surprised to see the negative comments about this article. I do think training the students not to question is one of the weakness of this education system. How come thinking in a box becomes positive? And there is no need to point out other countries also have mistakes in order to "defend". If we use the same token, we may also say that what single out Obama for certain behaviour or so. But we do not do that, don't we? It makes no sense. I suppose many Chinese (at least from PRC) dream about China being the No. 1 country in the world. Then I think the Chinese people should be prepared to be micro-analysed e.g. like the Americans. No body would defend the weakness of the Americans by saying to the level of the other countries also have the same weakness or by pointing to the strength of the Americans.
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funnyabalone wrote: Wed, 2009-10-14 19:06
junglee09,
A lot of what you said is true about the media in China. Certain topics are off limits on published media. You did not bring up 6.4, I will do it for you, that as well as what happened in Lasha in 08 and in Urumqi this year.
But that does not mean that people cannot get their information or voice their criticism elsewhere, from the net to name one, and there are a lot of novels and books that talked about what happened, of course they cannot openly criticize, but telling what really happened certainly will do part of the job, in fact you will find it hard to find a Chinese who does not know what truly happened in the cultural revolution, or deny that millions are dead during great leap forward.
And don't get me started on criticism about policies against minorities, on the net as you see many posting here, the majority are very angry with the lax policy against minorities and discriminating policy against the Han majority by the communist, don't tell me they get their opinion from communist propaganda, communist certainly wish they swallow the deaths of those civilians who's been burned to death or decapitated "for the peaceful harmony of the country". Interestingly their voice is dismissed as "pro China", "communist supporter" once they don't fit certain people's propaganda needs.
And back to what you said about Korea, the fuse is blown by the first poster on this topic, who talks about lies against Korea. Well Koreans have free speech, that does not mean their speech is right isn't it? You probably don't know in the Chinese and Japanese circles Koreans are often being laughed at for their bravery of fabricating history. Look, you may say communist lies about Korea, but history text is not just written by communist, but by historians for thousands of years.
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funnyabalone wrote: Wed, 2009-10-14 21:24
Here is one of the Japanese response to panicbird and alike, it is really amusing 
http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/cm/main?d=20090908-00000025-scn-cn
A few laughs:
キリストも韓国人だから、ヨーロッパもアメリカも韓国領だろ？
"Jesus Christ is also Korean, does that mean they also claim Europe and America?"
長年女真族と陣取り合戦を繰り返してた側が言うことか？
それをいうなら冊封体制下にあった朝鮮半島は中国の自治州扱いが妥当だと思うが。
From the point that they are always beaten up by Manchurians? Korean (kings) who had to be crowned by the Chinese (and Manchurian) might as well claim to be a autonomous region of China.
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Devils Advocate_1 wrote: Thu, 2009-10-15 02:03
[Jack Kessler wrote: Wed, 2009-10-14 12:50 The Economist has never been able to distinguish between the conventional opinions of the British chattering classes and the truth. For example when was the last time the politely anti-semitic Economist told the truth about the Middle East? The liars and propagandists at the Economist are incensed because they Chinese are telling a different set of lies than they are?]
Another GREAT post!
The Anglo-Americans dress up their lies and hypocrisies in high morality and are, therefore, more insidious.
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Polyglot wrote: Thu, 2009-10-15 07:29
billstewood wrote: Wed, 2009-10-14 11:01 ".different people have different arguments about the histories which were too old to know them well.it is a objective problem of the history.chinese text may be one of the editions of the histroy.it is science not politics.of course,it is not the government's fault."
This may apply to the ancient Chinese-Korean border conflict mentioned earlier, but how about the Tiananmen Square / June 4th Incident? Surely plenty of people remember exactly what went on during that day, yet much of what happened exactly remains a mystery. The reason China's govt. still claims only 248 deaths has little to do with science or poor memory. It has everything to do with politics and in particular - here we go again - freedom of speech. It's not the government's fault? Please!
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freezing.point wrote: Fri, 2009-10-16 00:15
actually, from what I've read, most of the things in the history textbook are factually true, same as the United States. The interpretation is usually the problem, and in every country that is biased.
This is typical 吹毛求疵 - being so picky and exaggerating the tiny problems that would be laughed at in a serious academic setting.
about freedom of information in china: i dont know about you but actually there is huge criticism of corruption, crime, etc in the media. I'm actually angry at how the government is NOT censoring some people with ridiculous complaints (like how the government is responsible for them being in a car crash; its as ridiculous as the woman who called 911 when Mcdonalds ran out of chicken nuggets). of course there's nothing that says the Communist Party is directly responsible, because that's just not realistic; it'll be like the U.S. claiming that the war in iraq was not for oil but rather to stop a dictator from acquiring weapons of mass destruction - oh wait. |
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发表于 2009-10-18 23:47:06
