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The old saying “history is written by the victors” which carries approximately the same notion as the Chinese saying “成則為王, 敗則為宼”. The history of the world is always viewed through nationalistic eyes. I received an 11^th grade (高二) education in China before I left in 1949. My knowledge of the history of China and the World were learned through the official version than existing. Thus, it was a shock when I first arrived in Hongkong  (6/49) and saw the British version of Chinese geography (Tibet, Mongolia. And Manchuria were not considered to be part of China by the British at that time). Subsequently for the next 50+ years in the US, I mostly absorbed US history through osmosis of daily living and reading. It was only during retirement in the last ten years that I had time to expand my knowledge of world history through reading and leisure travel. Here I list below a random collection of some of my “misunderstandings / misinformation” acquired while young and learning history through nationalistic filters.

1.    I was always taught Chinese dynastic history as 唐,宋,元,明,清 in succession. But in reality the three countries 元,明,清 always existed in parallel. It is only which group is more dominant at any time that mattered.

2.    The Song dynasty was very weak and occupied a rather small part of China compared to the Kim 金 and Yuan 元 countries co-existing and occupying much larger part of China at the same time. But this fact was never emphasized to students in high school history class.

3.    China is an old civilization. But there are other equally old and sophisticated civilizations in Egypt, Northern Europe, Central America, and elsewhere which were never taught or emphasized when I was in Chinese high school.

4.    By the same token, American history class in high school are rather deficient about Asian geography and history. I recall when my children were in junior high and took a class in world civilization which contained nothing about China (I complain to the teacher that the course should be titled western civilization instead). This was some 30 years ago. Nowadays, this cannot be true anymore, I hope.

But extrapolating from my own experience, one cannot but wonder how much “misinformation” the average American and Chinese public have about each other despite the fact that US and China are the two biggest economy of the world, and how many wars/conflicts in the world throughout the ages are results of such misunderstandings among different people and countries.

(Note added June 4, 2011 and June 19, 2011: Only last night I learned that in 1932 during the height of the Great Depression there was a month long big demonstration by thousands of US veterans of WWI who camped in Washington DC in front of the Congress demanding bonus payment promised by the government. The month long demonstration was crushed by US Army with tanks eventually. The promised payment was utlimately paid in 1936. This historical fact was never emphasized or taught in history classes as far as I know in my 60+ years here. Another example of history through nationalistic eyes. The only saving grace is that one can find such information freely on the Internet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army. There is no attempt to censor the information)

Another example is the Mexican-American war of the late 1840s in which the US was clearly the aggressor against a weaker nation because the US desire to obtain the vast tract of western land including California then under Merxican control. Again although de-emphasized in history teaching, such fact are not censored.