Given the pace of technological change China has seen since the 1980s, I'm not too surprised if China is one of the last holdouts of sincere, uncomplicated techno-optimism. The extent to which that change is associated with the ruling party probably also discourages exploration of its downsides.
]]>Like James Bolivar di Griz? Like Miles Naismith Vorkosigan?
]]>That's too close to the "multiculturalism is a failed experiment" mantra of the Liberedpillerians for my tastes.
]]>Heh, yeah. That's a difficult point to swallow if you've looked around pretty much any societies in the real world. There's no magical border within which you can find a monoculture; cultures are fractal and what may look like total uniformity to an outsider is quite often seething chaos to those within.
As a personal example, my father's side of the family comes from Minnesota, where the ethnic distribution has truthfully been called "white as fuck." (Nobody's prejudiced against black people there. Minnesota has, I don't know, maybe twelve black people in the whole state; there's no point.) But there was an undercurrent of ethnic tension as the Norwegians suspiciously eyed the Swedes - and my great-grandparents were Danish! Yet from outside, it's like mayonnaise on white bread in the snow...
]]>It's worth noting that this novel became part of the mythology of later martial arts groups (The Romance of Three Kingdoms also inspired rituals (link).
This shouldn't be surprising, really. Modern pagans use the Arthurian mythos (particularly the holy grail) as a source of myths, and Thomas Mallory wrote Le Morte d'Arthur in 1485, about 150 years after The Water Margin is thought to have been written.
This rather pre-dates the whole western genre, since they were both written before Columbus even got to the Americas.
]]>Which was what I assumed your point to be--though I was thinking of them predating motion pictures. Basically paws4thot's comment was a "There's a movie of that?" kind of moment for me, or I thought it might be the other way 'round for him.
]]>Ok, I wasn't actively aware of the movie of the "legend of the 108 heroes", but I was aware of it being traditional Chinese folk tales, a Tv series, at least one novel and the basis of at least 5 computer games.
The "romance of the 3 kingdoms" I was also aware of being a whole series of computer games, and several films.
Either way, I knew that both pre-date St Brendan the Navigator's visit to North America.
]]>