I share the same feeling with you, but I gradually grow out of it. Why? it happens all the time. Information will decay (and it's probably a Poisson process).
Let's start from events happened in the ancient past
1. 尚书，the Book of Documents
It has been largely lost. The "New Text" version is only a portion left. The "Recovered Old Text" version was made up by someone. It was said the there used to be 3240 articles and Confucius reduced it to 120 articles. Where did the rest go?
Also I think it's "lucky" that Qin reunified China. Qin uses Small Seal Scripts which is closer to the Large Seal Scripts that Zhou uses. The other states? Their font changed too much. Chinese would have been different had one of the other states won.
They were still intact by Song dynasty. People cherished them so much and even embedded gold to the strokes. What happened next? When the northern invaders came, they cut out the gold pieces and in the process destroyed the writings. Sigh....
However, the major difference that I perceive between the Cultural Revolution (CR) and most of your examples is that in the case of the CR, we're talking about millions of people deliberately destroying stuff out of a mix of spite, arrogance, and folly. Whereas, bar the presence of evidence to the contrary, I would assume some of the artifacts you mentioned were simply lost to entropy. The ancient Chinese lacked the technology/know-how/capability to preserve those things. Circumstances may have forced them to abandon some of those artifacts. They probably did their best, in carving those things in relatively durable material like bronze and marble.
The only comparable example among those that you listed would be the burning of books and burying of scholars. (I know the burying of scholars is disputed.) But even then, it was mostly an idea that probably only very few people believed was good. The other people who cooperated (by turning in hiding scholars and hidden scrolls to the authority) probably did it out of fear for punishment.
> we're talking about millions of people deliberately destroying stuff out of a mix of spite, arrogance, and folly.
> ......But even then, it was mostly an idea that probably only very few people believed was good.
Very good points.
I agree the Culture Revolution has caused great damage. I don't think it shifted the core of "Chinese culture". It was "rectified" quickly and today people understand how bad it was. OTOH, The New Culture Movement had probably caused more impact. I'm not saying the NCM is bad but its effects are significant and long lasting.
We can think that this loss is inevitable, but still find it sad.
There was a Greek playwright called Aristophanes who wrote comedies in about 400 BC. Eleven survive to the present day, but we know he wrote at least forty. The eleven we have are really funny! I feel a mixture of annoyance and sadness that i will never get to read or see the other twenty-nine.
Think of all the comedies you'll never read because even knowledge of their author's existence is lost to time. This is just how the universe works and the real marvel is that we can preserve anything at all over these time spans.
I have listened to it many many years ago. It's filled with propaganda and misinformation to incite disorder/riot and distrust of the government.
Another fun fact:
The intent of the legislation in 1948 was to protect the American public from propaganda actions by their own government and to have no competition with private American companies.
Say what you will about the quality of the news reporting itself, I'll respect that as a fair criticism, but it's not propaganda.
Unlike any other news agencies that I know of, VOA has an actual U.S. law in place that legally separates editorial control from any political influence or interference.
It's referred to as "the firewall" internally, and VOA's journalists receive yearly training on that. The 1948 legislation you've cited has been updated number of times, with the firewall codified in 1994.
The training isn't some random click here and sign this paper and we're covered thing. It's a well-developed, focused, small group training with comprehension discussions.
And to step sideways and combine the two, ever hear of the Language of the Birds?
> In mythology, medieval literature and occultism, the language of the birds is postulated as a mystical, perfect divine language, green language, Adamic language, Enochian, angelic language or a mythical or magical language used by birds to communicate with the initiated.
I read that article a while ago, and until a moment ago assumed this discussion was about it. "Atlas Obscura" and "Strange Maps" are similar enough that I got them mixed up.
Hardly anyone minds the typing feel of the current or recent generation ThinkPad keyboards. What many of us lament is the loss of the classic 7-row keyboard layout like the T420 had. But that ship sank years ago.
I've made my peace with the new layout, but I do miss the old one.
The wikipedia page is really bad. Just forget about it.
> "Ah," said Big Concealment, "you are too far gone! Up, up, stir yourself and be off!" Alok Ranjan was also involved as prime lead.
Where is this Alok Ranjan coming from??!!
Anyway, I don't know why Huawei used this name but I guess it refers to the beginning of the world from a primordial form, which an OS kind of is. Or maybe it refers to Daoist/Zhuangzi literatures on how the world should be governed, which also relates to an OS.
So someone ser up scripts to post CV sounding tidbits completely random wiki pages in an effort to do some jobhunting SEO? That’s hilarious! Also Rok Aljan Was involved as prime lead.
Exactly! This is an example of the many cognitive biases.
To people live outside of China, that event is all they know about Tiananmen. But to a Chinese person especially a local resident, it's a place of many memories - a big playground for kids, a hub for changing buses, the entrance to Forbidden City/Zhongshan (Sun Yat Sen) Park/National Museum, a pathway to a shopping quarter, and of course a place full of annoying tourists.
No one is trying to hide anything. It's simply a wonderful venue for olympic games. The view would have been amazing! You will never get an opportunity like that again.
There were two accents in common use in 18th century France: the 'bel usage' and the 'grand usage'.
The short explanation is that after the French revolution, Parisians adopted the 'grand usage'—a pronunciation which till then had been reserved for public speeches and church sermons—for everyday speech.
The 'bel usage' was the usual French 'code' reserved for every day use. It more closely resembles the French spoken in Quebec.
But the 'bel usage' wasn't just a plebeian accent for the unwashed masses, the King's court spoke in 'bel usage'.
But after the revolution, people wanted to change things up: hence the new pencil head pronunciation they use there, which everyone says is the 'correct' one. lol
In Québec, we retained the original 'bel usage' and never adopted the new accent from Paris. We are the keepers of the proper pronunciation of French, unless you want to give a sermon or make a political speech that is...
I don't see a problem with either accent, as long as you enunciate, you will be understood across the entire Francophonie. (Well to be honest, I do prefer my 'accent' from Québec, because I don't have to lug around a dictionary to make sure I pronounce very si-ng-le sy-la-ble cleanly and correctly.)
Notice the patterns on the handle
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/HouMuWuD...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_ritual_bronzes