"Before, I believed whatever the books said, but I discovered that was wrong. The books didn't say anyone died, but 32 people died in my village. The books blamed the famine on natural disasters and our debt to the Soviet Union, but I found no natural disaster." -Shu Qiao
Recording The Untold Stories Of China's Great Famine
By this point it is probably safe to assume that I love random articles on online news sites. This particular article deals with an aspect of public history where the "official" version of history clashes with reality; the topic of course deals with China's Great Famine that occurred as a result of Chairman Mao's disastrous economic plan, the Great Leap Forward.
Shu's experience demonstrates so many facets of what we aspire to do-- record history and fact-check it. I really feel this is a strong example of how something as simple as investigating and cross-referencing oral histories can be so powerful, and even how it can be so dangerous. In class, we have frequently discussed how important it is to try to recognize different perspectives about how history is presented (frustrations included); this article really made me appreciate that we are able to have those discussions. I applaud Shu Qiao's bravery and dedication to documenting history. Hopefully his project is met with success. I was actually surprised that people were willing to talk to Shu and share their experiences with him. The fact that many members of the community feared that Shu was insulting the Communist Party was not so surprising.
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