Comments on: Chinese Experts Ask Foreigners To Retrace The Long March, But, Um, Foreigners Already Have?

By: The Tao

The Tao — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 01:37:50 +0000

Shouldn’t be drawn into this either, but I’m confused by why you find the phrase “pseudo-foreigner” offensive. Sun Shuyun is a Chinese national, after all.

And if the Red Army’s record is such public knowledge, perhaps you’d like to enlighten us with a link. The Red Army website has the info splashed across its frontpage, yeah?

Or be smug about it, whatever.

By: Ed Jocelyn

Ed Jocelyn — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 16:49:51 +0000

Sigh. I shouldn’t be drawn on this, but… What might “The Tao” regard as HARD evidence, I wonder? Anyway, we didn’t need to measure it to know it wasn’t close to 12,500km, because the Red Army’s own records say so. Look it up, if you care to do some research of your own.
And by the way, “pseudo-foreigner”? Grow up and learn some manners.

By: /b/tards

/b/tards — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 16:29:46 +0000

The length seems arbitrary, in regard of what it signifies. I will allow a bit of discrepancy, but not as much as “double”. Certainly, recreating conditions are essential too.

By: Ander

Ander — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 12:42:44 +0000

Were GPS devices permitted?
Or were foreigners with such summarily rounded up, imprisoned and deported for contravening some “Ancient Chinese Secrets”?

By: Jonathan Alpart

Jonathan Alpart — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 11:52:36 +0000

Maybe I’m stupid, but wouldn’t there be a difference between an army being bombarded at every turn, and two scholars on a leisurely hike? Surely Jocelyn and McEwen didn’t recreate all the “conditions.”

By: Justin Mitchell

Justin Mitchell — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 09:14:15 +0000

I’d like to see the Smithsonian Institute invite some Chinese experts to retrace the Lewis and Clark expedition; though sadly very little of the original route remains, paved over and all as it is. Still, they had only one death, enountered terrible difficulties, made some wonderful discoveries, established friendly relations wit “ethnic minorities” — one of whom, Sacajawea, was memorialized on a silver dollar few use, alas and included an ethnic minority as one of its members (well, he was Clark’s slave, but..)

By: The Tao

The Tao — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 07:02:30 +0000

The CPC claims the route was circuitous, as they often doubled back to evade or fight. The authors had no HARD evidence, though one of them claimed that Mao “doubled” the actual distance, so that discrepancy deserves to at least be noted.

Don’t hold your breath on any official revision of the 12,500-km figure though, which is another of those “5,000 years” numbers.

By: Boooooooooya

Boooooooooya — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 06:34:23 +0000

“Granted, they had no evidence to base their revisionism”

Didn’t them walking it mean they did have evidence? Or did they not bother to measure?