If you don't know your history

Last week at the Forbidden City I photographed this sign.  It described a particular gate being burnt down by fires caused by lightning strikes.  As far as historical information goes, that isn't really that noteworthy.  Wooden structures all over the world have been struck by lightning and burned. 

In the the past year we've visited quite a few Beijing area Catholic Churches, and those that are old enough and have English language signs on them frequently say that the church burned in 1900, and was rebuilt in some other early 20th century year.  No cause for the fires are given, no lightning strikes or anything else.  Anyone not familiar with Chinese history would think that it was an amazing coincidence so many Christian churches burned in 1900.

Twice this year we've visited the walled town of Jimingyi.  The first time I asked our tour guide about the loss of the temple murals.  I thought I put it delicately when I asked if it happened in 1968.  He said indeed it had, that around that time, many of the murals were destroyed. On our second visit, I asked a different guide what happened to the murals, not mentioning any date.  He told me that students had written on walls.  He used the Chinese adverb to describe past events, 以前 (yiqian) that without other signifiers in the sentence can mean any moment before now, like yesterday, twenty years ago, or some vaguely defined ancient time. And he said students.  I turned to Randy and murmured to him in English that it seemed this guide had a different version of the story that we had heard previously and suspected on our own anyway.  I could have sworn the guide meant that naughty children had scribbled on the walls.  Randy then reminded me that the Red Guard were also referred to as "students." Either of us could have heard what the guard meant us to hear.

What is left out, what is described in euphemism, what is told in great detail---history is just another challenge.