Looking at history

["S. L . Lee" <sllee@asiawind.com>]

Dear Dylan,

We have conducted a rather lengthy discussion recently. Hopefully that would
not mislead other friends that historyu is all we are interested here.  I
think you are a very diligent scholar. From what you told me that you have
lived in England for a long time since chilhood and you learned everything
about Hakka there.  You certainly have achieved a lot.

I am keeping this very short to comment on your point about confirming
everything by written record and not by archaeological findings. I think you
need to consider both. For one, written records, especially history can be
very distorted. Secondly, many facts are only available in archaeological
findings because the written records are either perished or not readable any
more.
A good example is the total destruction of Xixia by Yuan dynasty. Chinese
historians were usually employed to write and organize the history of the
previous dynasty. And historians' position were quite secured and supposedly
unbiased. However, Yuan is an exception in the hate of Xixia, which had
quite significant culture. Today, little is known about Xixia because Yuan
had destroyed it almost completely.
Another example. The Three Kingdom history under the hands of Chen Shou and
Luo Guanzhong can be very different. Chen Shou was the true historian, while
Luo Guanzhong was a novelist. The problem is Luo Guanzhong's interpretation
has been mostly accepted by common people. It is not doing any justice to
the true history. If we really study it hard, Cao Cao was really a brilliant
leader, and Liu Bei was a mediocre leader. Zhangfei was really a great
strategist and scholar, not a brainless general.

So, I think to really learn about history, one has to look at all available
information (historical records written with different views by Chinese and
non-Chinese  authors, archaeological findings) and make some judgement, and
continue to make correction to compensate bias and voids. I better stop
here.

SL Lee