Neil Armstrong: 1930 - 2012

pretzellogic

thanks bodawei. I guess I was trying to accomplish multiple things with this search:

1. see if I could recognize characters for "Armstrong" or "Neil" or "died", and I somewhat failed that test.

2. get a sense of what the average Chinese person would be fed if they read the news today about events of today. On that I somewhat passed for someone who recognizes about 700 characters (maybe "knows" 300-400" characters.)

3. get a sense of what the Chinese government thinks is important enough to print for the average Chinese person. My take is that on the top news online outlets, Neil Armstrong's death wasn't that important, though its making headlines in the US and the UK.

pretzellogic

yikes, Neil Armstrong's death was a headline on the Chinese only version as well. Back to the drawing board.

bodawei

尼尔·阿姆斯特朗已经逝世

尼尔·阿姆斯特朗已经去世

尼尔·阿姆斯特朗已经之死

尼尔·阿姆斯特朗已经死了

The first couple produced 468,000 hits and 454,000 hits on Baidu respectively. There are many other ways that his death may be expressed or mentioned, but this demonstrates that it is being discussed in the Chinese media.

bodawei

I guess we have to acknowledge that AT THE TIME the name Neil Armstrong was bigger in your own country than in China (there was a cold war) - so in the US it is buried in peoples' memories. In China I guess that there was less made of it (or of Neil Armstrong in particular given the preference for team work in China) at the time. People have learnt about it since, but it won't be buried in the memories of the masses as it was in the US.

pretzellogic

Well, back in 1969, the space race was going hot and heavy, and it would have been a big deal for the US to put men on the moon post-sputnik. But yeah, it's much more interesting to wonder what people take from this 43 years later, since so many people weren't around to know why this was a big deal.

RJ

It was wonderful history to witness. 24 men have landed on the moon. The following 12 actually walked the surface. Those with * are deceased.

*Neil Armstrong - Apollo 11 - July, 1969

Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin - Apollo 11 - July, 1969

*Charles "Pete" Conrad - Apollo 12 - November, 1969

Alan Bean - Apollo 12 - November, 1969

*Alan Shepard - Apollo 14 - February, 1971

Edgar Mitchel Apollo 14 - February, 1971

David Scott - Apollo 15 - July, 1971

*James Irwin - Apollo 15 - July, 1971

John Young - Apollo 16 - April, 1972 (also on Apollo 10, without landing)

Charles Duke - Apollo 16 - April, 1972

Eugene Cernan - Apollo 17 - December, 1972 (also on Apollo 10, without landing)

Harrison Schmitt - Apollo 17 - December, 1972

pretzellogic

And you know what? All these heroes, and my role model was Mike Collins, command module pilot, Apollo 11. He wrote a great book that had humor in it even an 11 year old could understand.

RJ

hmm, I never read it. And my post should read 24 went to the moon, only 12 landed, and walked, on the surface.(One guy had to stay in the moon orbiter of course). 6 missions involved landing, Apollo 10 orbited the moon and the lander came within 8 miles of the surface. Apollo 13 of course was the famous mission that went bad and barely made it home without landing on the moon. You know I would have given anything to trade places with Armstrong, not so much now. There's a lesson in there somewhere.

pretzellogic

Lots of lessons. one lesson I only learned about 10 years ago: Don't peak in high school.

RJ

oh and Buzz Aldrin was the only one that appeared on "dancing with the stars". His second peak I guess.