Talk:Treasure of Khan

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[edit] Errors?

Ok, we get it. You don't like the author's characterization of certain aspects of Chinese society. But these sound more like liberties taken by the author for the sake of plot than errors. Remember, Cussler utilizes an alternative history throughout his novels. Atlantis likely doesn't exist, and Amelia Erhart didn't crash in Africa, but we don't need to add an errors section to other Cussler books. I propose cleaning up the section, leaving only the portion about Chinese surnames, or deleating it.

The current article mentions very little of the book, but heavily elaborates on the errors, giving the impression that the author has only limited knowledge of the book or is on a vedetta.71.235.66.254 00:13, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree that this article is heavily bias and needs some work. Once I finish reading the book, I'll probably come back and try to add some things to make it more NPoV. Rlloyd3 06:44, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I have always been a responsible contributor to Wikipedia and find it very strange that the three of you find what I wrote to be heavily biased. Yes it is "biased" not "bias" and VENDETTA not "vedetta". I have no vendetta against Clive Cussler, indeed I have been a fan of his books since I was fourteen after reading Inca Gold. What I have written is a result of my careful reading of Treasure of Khan and what I find to be very disturbing writing on Chinese culture. Why is nonsense to criticse for his inaccurate representation of Chinese names? So it is proper and right to start writing American names such as Dirk Pitt as "Pitt Dirk"? Chinese culture is an existing and vibrant phenomenon and names with double syllables like the alleged "Shinzhe" are rather fixed. I have never heard of any Chinese surname called Shinzhe or heard of President George Bush being referred to as President George in place of President Bush. And the point of alternative histories..well, again that doesn't bear much substance. Atlantis is a more or less fictional place and can be described with any degree of imagination, however, I do find it quite disturbing that an author can write such broad, fictitious generalisations about existing socio-political conditions in the same manner. Such errors should be properly raised. I find it rather disturbing that the three of you would consider my comments to be written with a "vendetta". The matters I wrote on Inner Mongolia can easily be supported by material on Inner Mongolia in Wikipedia.

I have read your additions to this article. I would say that seeing as it is a fictional book, which the author makes no claims of truth to this novel, I think it would be fair to consider toning the negative commentary down a bit or at least limiting it, since currently the article about this book is currently more Why it is bad than ... anything else. I am not trying to dispute what you have typed here, but the burden is on you to back up what you say.

I would propose something similar to this, at least tentatively:

Some critisize the book as deficient in several aspects, notably the authors knowledge of Chinese culture, in particular Chinese place their family names first and their personal names second. Throughout the novel Chinese characters are referred to through their personal names at innappropriate times, for instance "President Qian Fei" is referred to as President Fei and one minister is referred to as Shinzhe when no Chinese surname of the like exists[citation needed]. Another deficiency is how the novel tries to depict Mongols as always oppressed by the Chinese[citation needed], and that Mongol rule over China was preferable to that of the Chinese[citation needed]. Additionally, there is a statement at the end of the novel when the Mongolian leader says "the majority of Inner Mongolian people wish to leave China". The population of Inner Mongolia has only four million people of "pure" Mongol descent and also over 18 million Han Chinese inside the province. It is doubtful that any of the Chinese in Inner Mongolia would even consider seceding from China[citation needed], or for that matter, many Inner Mongolians long since assimilated into Chinese culture[citation needed]. Magu 06:47, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/3919/ that is a website for Chinese surnames cited even by the United States National Archives. I don't know how to add this as a citation to the article. So would someone please do that or enlighten me in this respect. If more proof is needed...that is possible.

It is rather likely that Clive and Dirk Cussler have no deep knowledge of Chinese and or Mongolian culture/ traditions / surname convention and practice. However, the title of the section is Controversies... I have to say that this section of this article is the only place where I have read about any controversy surrounding this text. This section is in my opinion not encyclopedic in scope. Rather it is a criticism of a piece of Fiction. I belive that unless it is proven that there is in fact a thriving controversy about this work (beyond the standard literary criticism which tends to enjoy beating up Cussler for his libertys taken in his FICTION) this section should be removed. Possibly it would be worth a couple of lines to mention that there are in fact inaccuracies in the text, but given that this is fiction, I doubt that it is required (fiction is not by definition true). Crocadillion 02:41, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I find it unlikely Cussler didn't know the details about the Sino-Mongolian relations, considering the extensive research he does on all his novel subjects. Also, it is a legitimate claim that Cussler's work is biased. Controversy suggests conflict over viewpoints, and since we obviously have such a conflict in this talk, then it qualifies as controversy. SakuraDaifuku 19:16, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

It seems unimportant whether they know much about cultural norms, but the section cites absolutely nothing, and looks a lot like "Original Research". This section should be removed unless someone would like to cite sources for the information. I'm not suggesting that Cussler is correct in his name conventions etc, I'm simply saying that the "Controversies" section cites nothing.

For example:

"Another point of contention and inaccuracy lies at the end of the novel when the Mongolian president says that the majority of Inner Mongolian people wish to leave China. That is inaccurate."

" According to whom? Can a source be given to support this? As is, this section does not meet any sort of encyclopedic standard... Crocadillion 05:27, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Shinzo Abe?

I'm going to throw this idea into the mix, I've seen Shinzo Abe's name spelled Shinze Abe on the net. Is this considered correct and or acceptable? Could Cussler have used his name and possibly character as inspiration for a fictional president of China? I believe in one of his "Oregon Files" books, he used the name or a very similar name to the actual president, and maybe it was determined this was not a good idea?

Either way, it's just a thought I'm throwing in here about the whole Chinese culture accuracy/critisization thing. Magu 04:06, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Confirmed, in Golden Buddha, the president of China is Hu Jintao, as in reality. Magu 04:06, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Shinzo Abe is a Japanese name. Shinzo translated into Chinese is Anpei. Chinese double surnames are extremely rare, nowhere near as prolific as Japanese ones are. The only Chinese surname that remotely resembles Shinzhe would be "Shentu".

All I'm saying is could Cussler not have taken his name and changed it a bit to create a fictional character? Either way, it is just a fictional character in a book. Magu 05:31, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Changes to "Controversies"

I made some changes to the wording of the controversies section. Basically this section is still not in good shape. Someone has attempted to "Cite" statements there by adding wiki-links to wikipedia pages are probably not "verifiable" references... so I would consider this section still needing major help, or DELETION.Crocadillion 23:53, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Some more changes. I havent read the book and only came here from the Inner Mongolia page in order to have a look before deleting the link there, but IMO the whole rambling about who settled when in Inner Mongolia seems rather over-the top in an article about a book that is apparently quite unrelated to reality. The only relevant statement might be the 18 million Han vs. 4 million Mongolians in Inner Mongolia, but then it's unclear (without reading the book) whether the president meant the whole population of Inner Mongolia or only Inner Mongolians. To qualify the oppression thing, there are some problems that Inner Mongolians have and Outer Mongolians don't, but on the other hand Outer Mongolia is economically weaker and generally not always welcoming to Inner Mongolians. In short, only very few if any Inner Mongolians consider their life in China inconvenient enough to seek emigration to Outer Mongolia. Yaan 12:51, 26 July 2007 (UTC)