Blurring the lines of history on a Friday evening; Fact vs. Fictional Fabrications
It is the weekend again and I can almost hear every single millimetre of my body, inside and out, resounding a collective 'Ahh...', which would, granted, be seven kinds of undeniably-freaky but I wouldn't blame them;) I feel as if I've been running around ragged finishing up all the assignments that are due, as the weeks start drawing towards the end of the run soon-ish (3 weeks closer to catching that plane home=D). But for the moment, I can just take a step back and just...breathe...and relax while catching up on fun (sort of)!=D
Mr. BR blogged about something really interesting today. He talked about how the original Bruneian rulers may have been Chinese. How Ong Sum Ping may have been the second Sultan, Sultan Ahmad, and how Sultan Abdul Majid Hassan died in China, a fact which seems to cue that lighbulb over my head to turn on anyhow;) There was even a mention about Brunei and a Bruneian King naming a mountain "Darussalam" in Chinese records some 1000 years before Sultan Muhammad (I'm presuming Sultan Muhammad Shah)! Fascinating stuff. Of course, we can never know what really happened way back when, or (dare my skeptical side say it?) if the truth may have truly been left to someone's imagination, so to speak.
I have a feeling my skepticism may have been a little amped by some anecdotes a friend was regaling earlier. There was a prank issue of the uni student mag and one alumnus was saying that in the lead up (or was it after?) to their graduation, they decided to pull a massive trick. They decided that NZ would spot some UFOs one fine day. Being spread out across the country in various campuses, they planned the whole operation so meticulously; from fabricated pictures to calls to the police from various parts of the country reporting a UFO sighting at their calculated times of when a flying object of that kind may theoretically traverse that part of the country. It was soooo well-planned that the news made the front page! And 20 years later, a conspirator comes out with the actual truth: they were faking it!
Another tale along the same lines was about this Peter Jackson documentary about NZ and how a Kiwi, and not the Wright Brothers, invented the airplane. And the docu also recorded the discovery of a lost city in the Fiordlands somewhere. This friend goes tramping there and she says that people who tramp there would know that there couldn't possibly be such a lost city of wonderful proportions there. But it made the documentary. And 10 years later, guess what, the documentary was professed to be a fake.
Remember the whole drama with the discovery of DNA? (Sorry, it's Friday afternoon, names are failing me at the moment and I'm too lazy to do my research=p) It was actually that lady who died because of too much radiological exposure who really made headway, but those 2 dudes published first and got the Nobel! If she wasn't acknowledged, us future generations would never have even known of her very existence!
So I guess my point is: how much of what we know is what truly is? Especially, as I've demonstrated, what we have come to know and learn and teach as facts may have been a lie, a mistake or a misunderstanding? Or even, as particularly applicable to inventions, medicine and royal lineage and the like, may not have been etched into history until the next one comes along with the same invention or title and has it in records? It seems that whoever speaks up his claim and whoever has the pen makes history. And most importantly, whoever believes and perceives this to be fact marks said history as the future's truth.
It would be amazing to know what really went on between the lines, behind closed doors, underneath the underneath of the pieces of history that we have come to know as facts=) Oh, to have been an immortal (slightly-more-attractive-being-than-a-) fly on the wall!
Mr. BR blogged about something really interesting today. He talked about how the original Bruneian rulers may have been Chinese. How Ong Sum Ping may have been the second Sultan, Sultan Ahmad, and how Sultan Abdul Majid Hassan died in China, a fact which seems to cue that lighbulb over my head to turn on anyhow;) There was even a mention about Brunei and a Bruneian King naming a mountain "Darussalam" in Chinese records some 1000 years before Sultan Muhammad (I'm presuming Sultan Muhammad Shah)! Fascinating stuff. Of course, we can never know what really happened way back when, or (dare my skeptical side say it?) if the truth may have truly been left to someone's imagination, so to speak.
I have a feeling my skepticism may have been a little amped by some anecdotes a friend was regaling earlier. There was a prank issue of the uni student mag and one alumnus was saying that in the lead up (or was it after?) to their graduation, they decided to pull a massive trick. They decided that NZ would spot some UFOs one fine day. Being spread out across the country in various campuses, they planned the whole operation so meticulously; from fabricated pictures to calls to the police from various parts of the country reporting a UFO sighting at their calculated times of when a flying object of that kind may theoretically traverse that part of the country. It was soooo well-planned that the news made the front page! And 20 years later, a conspirator comes out with the actual truth: they were faking it!
Another tale along the same lines was about this Peter Jackson documentary about NZ and how a Kiwi, and not the Wright Brothers, invented the airplane. And the docu also recorded the discovery of a lost city in the Fiordlands somewhere. This friend goes tramping there and she says that people who tramp there would know that there couldn't possibly be such a lost city of wonderful proportions there. But it made the documentary. And 10 years later, guess what, the documentary was professed to be a fake.
Remember the whole drama with the discovery of DNA? (Sorry, it's Friday afternoon, names are failing me at the moment and I'm too lazy to do my research=p) It was actually that lady who died because of too much radiological exposure who really made headway, but those 2 dudes published first and got the Nobel! If she wasn't acknowledged, us future generations would never have even known of her very existence!
So I guess my point is: how much of what we know is what truly is? Especially, as I've demonstrated, what we have come to know and learn and teach as facts may have been a lie, a mistake or a misunderstanding? Or even, as particularly applicable to inventions, medicine and royal lineage and the like, may not have been etched into history until the next one comes along with the same invention or title and has it in records? It seems that whoever speaks up his claim and whoever has the pen makes history. And most importantly, whoever believes and perceives this to be fact marks said history as the future's truth.
It would be amazing to know what really went on between the lines, behind closed doors, underneath the underneath of the pieces of history that we have come to know as facts=) Oh, to have been an immortal (slightly-more-attractive-being-than-a-) fly on the wall!
And some more frivolous reading;)
1. Chapter 10 of Beautiful Fighter by ronsmyhero is up!=D
2. The eagerly awaited Chapter 325 of the Naruto manga is up!! Can't wait to find out the workings of that brilliant mind of Shika's!;D
Some frivolous reading on my to-read list...
1. Lover Eternal and sequel Eternal Flower, which I think may be SakuSasus, by Kiasidari Ixari.
2. A KakaSaku Sins and Tragedies by Kjata.
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