Pace the earnest search for “living fossils” in China, dating folk music is highly speculative. How one envies the wonders of modern science:

Visiting a museum, a woman admires the skeleton of a dinosaur. Curious, she asks the attendant:

“Excuse me, how old is this dinosaur?”

“It’s 65 million years, four months and thirteen days old, madam.”

“Wow! Carbon dating is amazing—how can you be so precise?”

“Well, when I first started working here, they told me it was 65 million years old—and that was four months and thirteen days ago.”