There seems like nothing in the history field can rile up the masses like a good old fashioned textbook controversy. This time on Taiwan where recent editions of the standard high school history text for Taiwanese students has had some changes made, most notably the terms, “mainland” (dalu 大陆）and “our country” (我国 woguo) have been changed to “China,” implying that Taiwan is a separate entity. Other changes include the relabeling of the 1911 Wuchang Uprising from a 起义 (qiyi or “righteous uprising”) to a 起事 (qishi or a simple “revolt”). Needless to say Xinhua and the China Daily weighed in with their usual invective towards all things independent on the island.
From a larger perspective however, it is easy to see why textbooks matter. Few people read the revisions and new analyses that appear in monographs and journals year after year but many do remember what Mrs. Kelly in 5th grade social studies told them about George Washington (or Huang Laoshi told them about Lei Feng.) And yet very rarely do the arguments over textbooks deal with research or data but rather they instead feature pointed ideological confrontations over what history is supposed “to do” and “to say.” It might be nice if textbooks in general, everywhere, spent a little less time telling students what to think about history and a little more space was devoted to instructing students about how to think (critically, if you please) about history. Ah, to think critically about history–there is the true demon to ideologues from all corners.
3 responses so far ↓
1 zhwj // Jan 30, 2007 at 3:36 am
A sidebar in the version of the Xinhua article run by The Beijing News gives a few more examples, mostly substitutions of more moderate language along the lines of the Wuchang Uprising change:
(1) The honorific “father of the country” 国父 and the reverential blank space have been deleted from in front of Sun Yat-sen’s name.
(2) The Han “launched an offensive” (攻击) against the Xiongnu rather than “punishing” (征伐) or “suppressing” (讨伐) them with armed forces.
(3) In the phrase “秦始皇并灭六国，统一天下” (Qin Shihuang conquered the Six Kingdoms, unifying the land), 统一天下 has been deleted.
Sometimes I get the feeling that any changes Taiwan makes to anything must be objected to on principle.
2 花崗齋之愚公 // Jan 31, 2007 at 1:11 am
zhwj,
Thanks for the additional examples. I haven’t seen a copy of the new textbook yet. I have heard some reports of opposition to the new changes on Taiwan as well. The removal of the 国父 honorific from Sun Yat-sen must also upset some old-school KMT’ers, no?
3 無名 - wu ming // Jan 31, 2007 at 3:48 pm
i think that’s the general idea, j. it’s one area that the GMD and CCP agree on. in a sense, it’s the last step in the process of democratization, crafting a new historical narrative that reflects the electorate whose children are being taught.
i wonder if they’ve finally changed the ROC maps in textbooks to reflect that they only actually control taiwan, jinmen and mazu. the old maps were hilarious, and included all of mongolia as well as parts of burma, thailand and india. basically the old high qing map.
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