Victor

(My discussion with Vivian continued.)

"My dear, although Chinese may be a people distinctly good at distorting what happened, ironically, the history of our country is largely not written by the victors." I said.

"Why?" My wife asked.

"That's quite simple." I explained, "If you consider our classical Twenty-Four Histories (二十四史), they were all written after an empire collapsed - usually by people who had very little to do with the previous dynasty. For example, the Book of Jin (晉書) was compiled by Fang Xuanling (房玄齡) of the Tang Empire, and  History of Ming (明史) by Zhang Tingyu (張廷玉) of Qing. Yes, these people were hired by the conquerer and there might be some conflict of interest, and, since they were describing happenings long ago, they might not get all the facts complete and correct. Nonetheless, by and large their accounts were fair and impartial. The unfortunate exception is, however, the history of modern China. The conflict of interest here is a dominating factor, and I’m afraid, even if we want to have  an objective story, our country has lost the persons who have the guts and the spine to do so – maybe forever!”