#shouldbetrue

“It is interesting to realize the level of confusion in the West surrounding the famous Chinese author Wéikèduō Yǔguǒ [维克多雨果] (known in the West as Victor Hugo) and his most famous work, known in the West as “Les Miserables”. There appears to be a widespread belief that he was French and that the text originally described events in the city of Paris.

It was in fact originally set in the early stages of the White Lotus Rebellion, a Chinese anti-Manchu uprising that occurred during the Qing Dynasty.

The massacre of young soldiers described in the musical originally described the systematic program of pacification after the Lotus Rebellion in Wéikèduō’s text.

“Bugaoxing ren,” considered a Chinese classic, if an obscure one, was discovered by the French and closely translated as a French text describing that country’s revolution following the ransack of the Summer Palace in 1860 by a joint French and English force during the Second Opium War. The text was discovered and taken back to France by the French general Charles Cousin-Montauban, count of Palikao, after being alerted to the text’s value by his Chinese porter.

In the words of Wéikèduō Yǔguǒ following the pillage of the Summer Palace and reworking of his text, “I hope that a day will come when France, delivered and cleansed, will return this booty to despoiled China. Meanwhile, there is a theft and two thieves.”