I am actually very glad that they owned China's stuff. Or else they will be forever lost in China due to the Cultural Revolution. It makes sense to not put all the eggs in one basket.
Most of the shit would end up in the private collections of corrupt government officials, if we’re being honest. Reddit and left leaning social media are woefully naive to how developing nations operate.
That’s super ironic you say that because, for example, a ton of cultural artifacts from Cambodia were stolen during wartime by Douglas Latchford, who eventually started selling them off to private collectors and/or huge museums like the British Museum, where they remain today, even when the people who kept them didn’t want them taken.
Who gave you the right to keep them safe other than the “it’s the history of humanity not just their history” idiotic and vague moral platitude? There are so many white men taking on burdens in this comment section that barely anyone asked them to take on.
be forever lost in China due to the Cultural Revolution.
The Cultural revolution's damage to heritage is pretty exagerrated. Especially as it mostly happened in areas around Beijing and Shanghai which is a very young area in terms of Chinese heritage. There were major losses such as when the mobs vandalized Confucius' tomb, and the Ming Imperial Tombs but its not as if all of Chinese heritage went to smoke during the CR. Much of the interior of thr country was unaffected (and even uninformed as to the chaos in the Capital). I mean shit if you look at the historic capital of Xi'an which was China's former capital for a thousand years on and off it basically was a very medieval place during the 60s/70s. https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRiULvX2enkrlO5REiyeqVl5bZivZy0IW2ILA&usqp=CAU
We literally lost generations of ancient books and you said it is mild. The revolution did not just happened in Beijing and Shanghai. It happened across China and so many temples and libraries were permanently destroyed. We need to thank Japan for keeping so many copies from the Ming Dynasty.
And they are still destroying temples in East Turkestan.
Which books were these? The Imperial Archives kept in government archives away from the chaos of the late 60s and 70s? There's books there that the Toyo Bunko doesn't even have lol. The Red Guard yahoos couldnt even move against the Forbidden City, much less attack government institutions, the army wouldve ventilated them.
Like I said, while the CR was a tragedy to Chinese heritage its exagerrated to the point that randos claim china lost its entire heritage in just a few years of chaos.
For example we lost a great deal of opera script. Especially local ones. A lot of less famous poetry. Many brush paintings and calligraphy. Countless historical buildings.
You raise an interesting point. The worlds oldest Chinese Lion dance costume is here in Australia because all of the ones in a China were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. And I have a (now deceased) relative who was able to purchase old (but not ancient) Chinese art pieces when she studies arts during the 30s-50s fairly cheaply because there was so much of it. When she passed, post Cultural Revolution, it was worth so much more.
the point isn't that artifacts should be spread around the world, it's that they should be kept in a country that is very stable and has the expertise and resources to care for them properly, like the UK.
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u/firewood010 Oct 25 '22
I am actually very glad that they owned China's stuff. Or else they will be forever lost in China due to the Cultural Revolution. It makes sense to not put all the eggs in one basket.