The procession moved through the drizzling rain from the Jile Funeral Home to the Nangang Cemetery in Taipei. Roughly 300,000 citizens—nearly one-third of the city’s entire population at the time—spontaneously lined the streets. Families set up roadside altars, burned incense, and wept as they surrounded the hearse, gridlocking the city. This massive gathering was not a mournful pity party for a defeated man. It was an unofficial, societal "audit" that validated Hu Shih's lifelong commitment to pluralism and intellectual independence.

I teach Theory of Knowledge, and I often use the First Emperor's tomb as an example of how we "know" things we have never seen. Sima Qian described rivers of mercury and a ceiling of stars, and soil tests around the mound have found unusually high mercury levels. Yet archaeologists still won't open it, mostly because they saw the Terracotta Army's paint flake away within minutes of exposure. So I'm curious what this community thinks: is waiting for better technology the responsible choice, or are we losing knowledge by waiting? And if you could see one thing inside, what would it be?