Bonus Feature: hardcore journalism with a difference

One of the most mind-blowing websites I have discovered recently is a project made by professors at the University of Lyon, backed by one of its faculties, the Institute of Oriental Asia; a project called Chinese Torture/Supplice Chinois: Iconographic , Historical and Literary Approaches of an Exotic Representation.What makes this site unusual is the professionalism with which a subject so hard to digest such as torture has been presented.


The website is a portrait of what has often been associated with Chinese life at the beginning of the 20th century: cruelty on a mythical proportion and punishment applied by the authorities during the late imperial China, a period which may be
described as feudal even though it is so close to our times. Thus a very unusual window in history has been opened, where law making in the manner comparable only to the middle ages in Europe, has been recorded by journalists in a modern era with the help of modern equipment.



The resources on the subject are diverse and plentiful, but the main window inside this unusual topic is the large collection of pictures presented on the website, from watercolours, engravings and photographs of executions.
At first glance if you happen to stumble across the visual references, the website may appear as a shock site, though what makes this website stand apart from other websites is the amount of resources and research concerned with this gruesome subject. The team behind the project numbers 20 academics, which leads for the question to be asked; why would a team of academics research and record a morbid collection of essays and photographs depicting such brutality?


Over the years the internet has been flooded with shock sites which have been condemned for trying to capture an audience by presenting shocking material in a superficial manner. Many websites of similar type of material have been gathering images of riots, fights and other brutality, and example being comegetyousome.com which claimed as reason behind its existence, the need for society to become aware of such evil.


The reasoning behind the French website is a bit more confusing, since it is also a government funded project. Perhaps, the motive may be that while it is hard enough to reconcile oneself to so much evil in the world, it may be even harder to reconcile oneself to good people who have no understanding of evil.
This look at these abuses is only a drop in the bucket. Apologists argue that 'life was harder then, people were used to pain', but their arguments fall flat at the shrieks of unreasoning agony that echo throughout history.



Warning: I have not posted the URL for the website, only its title since it should be visited responsably; it contains material which is likely to produce depression and nightmares without a background into such material from the viewer.