Template:Did you know nominations/Shu Xiuwen


 * The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as |this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by 97198 (talk) 10:31, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Shu Xiuwen

 * ... that Shu Xiuwen (pictured) escaped and became a dancing girl when her father tried to sell her to repay debts, but later supported her parents after she became a movie star? Source: Lee 2016 p. 461 p. 462
 * Reviewed: House of the Huangcheng Chancellor

Created by Zanhe (talk). Self-nominated at 21:45, 24 November 2017 (UTC).


 * On it. — Llywelyn II   06:45, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Long enough (5.9k elig. chars.); new enough; neutral and within policy, generally speaking [trad. form of chars. added]; well-cited, though some cites lack tags [fixed] and bits of editorializing come through (source explicit that g'father was prominent scholar and job was as an underage escort; source doesn't support that family was "deeply" in debt; &c.); QPQ done; image allegedly out of copyright.

Hook has some issues, though. Obviously "move" intends "movie" (easy enough to fix [edit: yep. already fixed by the time I posted this reply]) and this isn't a, but the euphemism in the source's "escort dancing-girl" is the "dancing-girl" part of the job description, not the "escort" part. Mention of her escorting makes a stronger hook and sharpens the comparison between her options with/without leaving home. That said, it'd certainly be a highly negative aspect of her bio for some people and, living or not, if the focus of the hook is really on the tension between her fleeing her parents and later still caring for them, there's no need to go into it just as an aside.

Also, fwiw and up to the nominator, it seems to bury better hooks. It's fairly standard and unsurprising that a traditionally raised Chinese girl cared for her unsupportive parents once she attained moderate wealth. It's another thing entirely that a former escort became an actress, then one of the founding generation of PRC political leaders, then demoted and abused (apparently to the point of death, although the current article is vague on specifics and the 2nd page of the source is being blocked by Google Books on my end) for apparently no reason as part of the Cultural Revolution. Another fairly interesting line would be discussing how she got into leftist theater, apparently only for income and prestige, but became an actual leftist following KMT suppression of her troupe and friends. That said, selling your kids... Yeah, also hookish. Might even add the opium habit and the year to point out how recently this was going on. — Llywelyn II   16:06, 25 November 2017 (UTC)


 * ALT1 ... that Shu Xiuwen (pictured) became an escort dancing girl when her father tried to sell her to repay debts, but later supported him after she became a movie star?
 * ALT2 ... that Shu Xiuwen (pictured), one of the "Four Great Actresses" of China, died after she was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution?


 * Frankly, it's not clear to me what your concern with the original hook is (is it because I omitted the "escort" part?) Anyway, I'm proposing two more hooks for consideration. (BTW, the source doesn't go into details about how she was persecuted. The original quote is "The political persecution she suffered during the Cultural Revolution cut her life short.") -Zanhe (talk) 02:32, 2 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Symbol confirmed.svg G2G with ALT1, which is sourced as above. Yeah, sorry for not being more clear. The escort bit definitely needed to be included if that's what the hook was going to talk about, but I was asking—as an aside—if there was anything else we could use that was less negative, even though this is not a and there's no rule against it. Given these two options, though, (a)the 1st will probably draw more readers (b)especially since the second hook has an extra link in it that will syphon off the readers curious what an actress-killing "Cultural Revolution" would be. It's your choice, but you can get more readers to the page you've been working on by making them at least have to click through to find the other bits they're interested by. With pics or a well-written lead, plenty will stay and read anyway. —  Llywelyn II   10:02, 3 December 2017 (UTC)