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.”