Cover news reporter Yan Wenwen Tan Yuqing.
Recently, an "academic joke" has been frequently circulated in the circle of friends. A screenshot shows that Zhao Kui, a professor from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, previously posted on Weibo, reading the words "Shanghai County" on an old map horizontally and recognizing them as "Shangxian" and "Haicheng".
The controversy was sparked ** (according to the respondent's Weibo).
Zhao Kui is a professor of architecture and urban planning. Since some of his work is related to cultural relics, he did not correctly identify the map, which led many people to question his professionalism and consider his speech to be a "rollover".
On January 30, 2024, the cover news reporter interviewed Professor Zhao Kui on this topic. Zhao Kui said that when he saw the map in the Yenching Library of Harvard University, he was careless and had an "eye mistake". After discovering his mistake, he quickly edited the post.
Zhao Kui told the cover news reporter that this "Map of China's Modern Public Opinion" was seen at the Yenching Library at Harvard in the United States on November 22, 2023: "Because there is a river flowing through the middle of those two words, and then I suddenly made a mistake." ”
The controversy was sparked ** (according to the respondent's Weibo).
Soon after the Weibo post was posted, Zhao Kui realized that he had made a mistake and changed the content to "only visible to himself". "At that time, I posted it on Weibo for half an hour, and I found that I had read it wrong. This Weibo was closed until November 27, 2023, that is, 5 days later, before Zhao Kui sent it again, and added his own understanding: "I saw that the four characters 'Shanghai County' were cut off by the river, and suddenly it was composed of two place names, Shangxian and Haicheng. It seems that the 'Shanghai county' can really be decomposed into 'Shangxian' and 'Haicheng', which is also quite meaningful......”
From November 27 to December 7, 2023, Zhao Kui's Weibo was revised as many as 9 times, but all of them were fine-tuned on the original Weibo, and the Weibo was not deleted. Zhao Kui told reporters that the reason for the many revisions was that after I found that I had read it wrong, "I wrote the true meaning I wanted to extend it on it", and the repeated revisions were only considering the words.
Regarding this experience, Zhao Kui said that he will be more cautious when expressing his views on Weibo or social platforms in the future. "I definitely have to be more cautious, but the content posted on Weibo is originally something that I feel and post, and I think no matter how cautious I am, some small mistakes are always inevitable. I don't know how many Weibo I have, I should have posted thousands, you usually talk thousands of sentences, and it's hard to not have a wrong word. But I didn't mean to say the wrong thing, and I didn't want to spread rumors. I think that this incident also shows that my Weibo is still relatively influential. ”