Talk:Martyrdom in Chinese culture

Obvious issues

The two most prominent martyrs on the page, with full pages of their own and works of art in their honor, are martyrs revered by the Communists for dying for Communism... yet almost nothing else on the page deals with the CCP's major martyrs (Shanghai &c.), with the history of their cultivation of their memory and spirit (barely touched on here and we still don't have an article on the Longhua Martyrs' Memorial), or with the current legislation criminalizing any defamation of their sacrifice.

Beyond which, the idea that self-sacrifice for one's beliefs began in China with the early 20th century is laughably misguided. There are multiple self-sacrificing officials who have been understood to be the reason for the Dragon Boat Festival (now again cultivated as a national holiday to preserve their legacy); there's a separate guy responsible for the Cold Food Festival; there's a litany of honorable scholars who were tortured, died, and/or had their families die to speak truth to power; and there's a good argument to be made that the concept of martyrdom (in the form of death or complete withdrawal from the world) when obliged by the situation has been basic to elite Chinese culture since at least the time of Confucius. The 'gentleman' (junzi) was obliged to cultivate his virtue to the exclusion of all other considerations, including risk to his life from lesser men.

And that's still only focusing on mainstream Chinese culture. The Muslims and Buddhists in the lands of what is now the PRC doubtless honored their faiths' martyrs long before the KMT tried to make political hay out it. Several of the minority groups may have had similar legacies: the Yue and Min long cherished the memory of Goujian's revenge against a northern rival even if his state eventually got eaten by Chu. — LlywelynII 12:20, 27 July 2019 (UTC)