History,
why I am so poor at it.

James Koo
May 30, 1999

When S.S. asked me to write something to the Lighters, I immediately thought of the subject of history. Thirty years ago, I was working at Bell Labs. We had a rule for lunch conversation. Whoever brings up a subject, cannot be the expert on that subject, and preferably no expert were at the table. This will allow all to participate, and allow those who wish to talk, show their ignorance or stupidity (even if you can talk with a silver tongue, silence is gold).

History was one of my worst subjects in school (the other was reciting classic Chinese). I am definitely not an expert, and am not aware any Lighters are experts on this subject. I simply cannot remember the names, and the dates (one time I even forgot my wife   name). During 50 in schools in mainland China, they gave oral tests to few students before each class a la Soviet Union. One time my history teacher was annoyed at the  ludicrous answer I gave, and asked if I was purposefully trying to make everybody laugh, as I was a pretty good student in most other subjects. I answered " No, the problem is that you always ask me about things before I was born. How am I supposed to know? " The class roared and I was in deep trouble with her (two paragraphs later, I have not written a word about history. May Chen would have completed descriptions of her traveling 15,000 miles through 6 countries).

After living in three parts of China with different political systems (mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan), I find history is a “diverse " topic. That is, there can be different versions of history for the same event. We are often told "Those who do not know history, are condemned to repeat it." Then I am puzzled by the impact of different versions of history.

I learned in schools in China about loss of Korea, and Taiwan to Japan; loss of Hong Kong to Britain, loss of Indo China to the French, Vlodavstok and east of "Hut-Loon Gong " (black dragon river) to Russia. But there is only a very brief mentioning of Mongolia became independent in 1945, and no mention of Tibet being an independent country ever. In Hong Kong, while there is no mention of Mongolia, I was surprised to learn that Tibet was an independent nation until communist China invaded and conquered it, the same version adopted by American today. In Taiwan, school history books do not talk about Mongolia, but most people vaguely "Understand " communist China let Mongolia become independent under pressure from Soviet Union, and Taiwan government does not recognize Mongolia. There is no mentioning of Tibet as an independent nation; it is always a part of China.

According to my understanding, Mongolia's independence was part of conditions Soviet sent troops to Manchuria at end of WWII, and the treaty was signed by the Chiang Kai Shik government. However, it is too embarrassing to put that into the history text book by Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan strait (Soviet Union was a friend of mainland China then). Taiwan government de-recognized Mongolia after moving to Taiwan. However, I can find nothing about Tibet history.

Now I have a better excuse for being poor in history, as there are different, contradicting versions, even for an event that happened after I was born: how am I going to remember which versions to tell whom? If you find my discussion here naive, and full of errors, please refer to the first paragraph "Silence is gold?above. Can any Lighters shed some light on this subject?