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I totally understand that situation because I have been through similar education in Taiwan about twenty years ago as well. Thankfully the history education he

I totally understand that situation because I have been through similar education in Taiwan about twenty years ago as well. Thankfully the history education here is saner now. Back to the 5K-year claim. It seems just rhetoric, but it actually enlarges unnecessary national pride, and then rhetoric becomes an unchallengeable truth. The "truth" then sounds so true that foreigners starts to believe it without hesitation. Once I had a chat with an American friend, about Chinese character system and its ability to maintain information through the past five thousand years. I was astonished that nowadays some foreigners might still view East Asia as the mysterious Far East.

est 8y ago
The truth is China has at least 4000 years of history https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/08/04/legends-say-china-began-in-a-great-flood-scientists-just-found-evidence-that-the-flood-was-real/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2... > In a new paper published Thursday in the journal Science, Wu and his colleagues describe geological evidence for a catastrophic flood on the Yellow River in about 1900 B.C. — right around the time the “Great Flood” was said to have taken place.
- jcranmer 8y ago
  Archaeology is easy to do badly. It is usually the case that the same evidence fits multiple interpretations. The proper way to do it is to treat archaeology as a process of winnowing out theories as they are found to be inconsistent with evidence. The wrong way to do it is to pick a theory you want to be true and to show how to fit the evidence into that theory (especially because the temptation is strong to discard evidence that is inconvenient for the theory, hoping no one will notice).
  - est 8y ago
    https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5805/ https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5805/ There are tons of cases of non-myth non-bullshit sites in China, and yes, unrecorded in traditional history.
- wavefunction 8y ago
  I imagine the Yellow River has suffered numerous catastrophic floods in its history, and some must certainly 'line up' with various other historical and ahistorical events.

est 8y ago

The truth is China has at least 4000 years of history https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/08/04/legends-say-china-began-in-a-great-flood-scientists-just-found-evidence-that-the-flood-was-real/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2... > In a new paper published Thursday in the journal Science, Wu and his colleagues describe geological evidence for a catastrophic flood on the Yellow River in about 1900 B.C. — right around the time the “Great Flood” was said to have taken place.

jcranmer 8y ago
Archaeology is easy to do badly. It is usually the case that the same evidence fits multiple interpretations. The proper way to do it is to treat archaeology as a process of winnowing out theories as they are found to be inconsistent with evidence. The wrong way to do it is to pick a theory you want to be true and to show how to fit the evidence into that theory (especially because the temptation is strong to discard evidence that is inconvenient for the theory, hoping no one will notice).
- est 8y ago
  https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5805/ https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5805/ There are tons of cases of non-myth non-bullshit sites in China, and yes, unrecorded in traditional history.
wavefunction 8y ago
I imagine the Yellow River has suffered numerous catastrophic floods in its history, and some must certainly 'line up' with various other historical and ahistorical events.