FOCUS
CHINA
China
The label “Made in China”
is not necessarily synonymous with first-class goods
today. Indeed, it is generally
associated with cheap
merchandise or very poor
mass-produced copies. And
yet, for a very long time,
the Middle Kingdom was
viewed as a stronghold of
culture and inventiveness.
DAGMAR SCHÄFER
heads
an independent junior
research group at the MAX
PLANCK INSTITUTE
THE
HISTORY
OF
FOR
SCIENCE
in Berlin and is carrying out
in the German satirical magazine
TITANIC) in his latest book on China,
“Allein unter 1,3 Milliarden” (“Alone
among 1.3 billion”).
Schmidt mentions several other
things that originated in China, without which contemporary everyday
life would be very different. “The
West clearly stole other Chinese inventions, such as noodles, foldable
umbrellas, kites, the compass, paper
money and toilet paper, to name but
a few. Nothing was ever paid for
them, as copyright had not been invented when they were filched by
the West.”
The innovation culture and copying in China are two topics that have
long fascinated sinologist Dagmar
Schäfer, who heads an independent
junior research group at the Max
Planck Institute for the History of
Science in Berlin. Schäfer began her
examination of this highly contrary
characteristic of Chinese culture in
the context of a seminar she gave
while completing her German postdoctoral lecturing qualification. “The
students were asked to explore the
following questions: ‘Is Chinese society simply not innovative, or what
does the widespread copying and
SINOPICTURES
Ancient
hinese craftsmen, architects,
scholars, generals and doctors
invented many things that often remained unknown in the West for
several centuries: for example, the
wheelbarrow, gun powder, paper,
printing, and much more. “However,
if the Chinese copy Gucci handbags,
Ritter Sport chocolate bars or Rolex
watches today, instead of being glad
that China is not suing them billions
for the reproduction of steel, the entire world moans about intellectual
theft,” writes Christian Schmidt (an
author familiar to readers of the
“Bliefe von dlüben” column on China
P HOTO :
Innovation
Made in
C
minimal development of the country’s own patents say about the innovation culture of the People’s Republic, for example in the phase of
economic modernization? And what
was the situation in Imperial China?”
SIX HUNDRED YEARS
OF PAPER CHAOS
This also raised the questions as to
which innovations arose when, and
how and when they were acknowledged, protected and disseminated
in a given culture. Schäfer also recognized the importance of the role
played by the textualization of
technical knowledge – a topic that
would lead the researcher to the
history of the Middle Kingdom and
become part of her current research
project.
The project leader describes the
wide-ranging material available to
her as follows: “In addition to the
private writings of Chinese scholars
of the period – that is, their essays
and monographs – we mainly use
archive material, imperial documents, family genealogies and local
histories, as well as objects from museums and other collections.” Some
of the texts are published official
standard works, while others are
purely private in nature; some of the
objects are nondescript and mundane, and many others originate
from the collections of official institutions, such as the Palace Museum,
the First Historical Archive and National Library in Beijing, and the
Chinese Academy of Sciences. Some
of the material also comes from Taiwan, as documents taken by supporters of Chiang Kai-shek on their
flight from Communist China are
®
stored there.
research on, among other
topics, the innovation culture and copying in China.
Porcelain is practically synonymous with the
technological achievements of old China. The manufacturing process was developed in the 7th century.
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FOCUS
CHINA
team, about the highly differentiated
treatment of technical expertise that
served a wide variety of purposes.
Particularly the archives of the Imperial Palace hold many surprises for
the researchers. They had been closed
to foreigners since time immemorial,
but access is gradually being granted
now, albeit to a very limited extent, as
Dagmar Schäfer discovered during a
visit to the Palace Museum. “I saw
many, many doors, of which one at
most was opened.” Clearly, the Palace
Museum is not quite ready to divulge
all of its secrets just yet. The First Historical Archive provides somewhat
more substantial servings of historical
fare, and is currently involved in the
digitization of parts of its inventory.
“Many of these things have never
been seen by anyone,” says Schäfer.
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ranging from the Song dynasty to
the middle of the Qing dynasty, a
period of around 800 years from the
10th to the 18th century. The Song
and Ming dynasties, in particular,
are viewed as times of economic
boom and prosperity, cultural blossoming and particular inventiveness,
although initially the latter was
mainly reflected in the literature.
“From the 10th century on, Chinese
scholars produced comprehensive
assemblages on the origins and beginnings of objects and things,” explains Schäfer. “Technical and civilizational innovations are given a
history and tradition and are culturally legitimated in these catalogues.”
Martina Siebert, a member of the
independent junior research group,
is working on establishing the exact
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attribute, and anything that was old
was usually seen as better,” explains
Dagmar Schäfer. This also influenced
the reaction to discoveries. “Claiming things as having originated in
tradition validated their worth.”
tion and support of the Emperor. In
his treatise, he stipulates the obligation of the state to engage in the
study of the skies.”
The treatise on military strategy
published in 1561 by Qi Jiguang
(1528 to 1587), a successful General
of the Ming dynasty, is another example of how the textualization of
technical knowledge is not necessarily followed by its practical application. In addition to his focus
on traditional martial arts, Qi Jiguang also devotes his attention in
this work to western weapons and
provides a detailed description of
the design of a harquebus (a matchlock gun) with an accurate illustration of the attachment screw and
nut that locked the gun’s serpentine,
or matchlock device. His officers
may well have adopted his strategic
instructions, but the information
about the weapon design with its
NOT EVERY MANUAL
WAS INTENDED AS SUCH
The researchers repeatedly found
documents of a technical nature dating from as far back as the 10th century, and ranging in topic from highly specialized descriptions of ink
manufacture and the extraction of
sugar to the weaving of silk fabrics.
They also repeatedly encountered
documents in which technical descriptions were integrated into instructions for running private households and the state, in social treatises,
cosmological studies and political
discussions. This was not a whimsical deviation from the main topic,
OF
S CIENCE
but a component of the text clearly
planned by the author. “The practical
applicability of the content was either not intended at the outset or retreated into secondary importance
over time while the context gained
in significance,” says Schäfer.
By way of example, the researcher refers to a 1094 document by Su
Song, the engineer of an astronomical clock powered by a water wheel
for Kaifeng, the capital city of the
Song dynasty. While he provides a
detailed description of the enormous mechanical clock developed
by him with text and diagrams, “he
was not primarily concerned with
conveying technical details. Su
Song was canvassing for the atten-
H ISTORY
They do exist, after all: Researchers long believed that
architectural drawings were not produced in old China, as none were
found among the construction manuals in the archive. The first drawings
have now been found – they were stored with the geographical maps.
subject of these texts. Her project attempts to establish how technical innovations are received in general,
and when technical things and practices were valued as important insights and recorded in the written
culture of China. This leads to other
questions, such as how existing lore
and also obsolete knowledge are
viewed in the course of the appropriation of the new. The ways in
which old and new things are assessed depend on many factors – including societal, cultural and historical circumstances. For example, in
the past, inventions were not necessarily celebrated as valuable innovations. “As was the case in Europe,
‘new’ was not necessarily a positive
FOR THE
The researchers are imposing order
on this deluge of archive material
and printed texts with the help of a
database. Once the general inventory
has been completed, it will be time
to get to the heart of the matter:
What do the historical documents
reveal about the forms and functions
of knowledge management in old
China? What role is assigned to technology and its transformation, progress and preservation? The project is
still under way. But without giving
too much away, Dagmar Schäfer can
already reveal that “technology was
embedded in wide-ranging cultural
traditions in old China.”
The researchers in Berlin are particularly interested in documents
P HOTO : MPI
So the Berlin researchers can
hardly complain about a lack of material for their project. “The archives
contain material from 600 years of
record keeping,” says Schäfer. Literally miles of shelves crammed with
correspondence, delivery notes,
household registers and printed
technical documents ranging from
texts about architecture, bridge
building and silk manufacture in
general to specific regulations for
joinery and manuals for the construction of houses and palaces. The
historian is enthused by the variety
of the texts alone, which in itself
says a lot about everyday life in
China in the past, and, more significantly for Dagmar Schäfer and her
bolt and screw gathered dust and
lay unused in the archive.
TRADES AND CRAFTS –
THE MAIN FOCUS
Up to the 18th century, this technology was used mainly in western
weapons. “Although Qi Jiguang’s
documentation made the technical
information available and disseminated it, the information did not become dissociated from its context –
in other words, the attachment
screw was not used for other purposes, nor did it inspire other innovations,” explains Dagmar Schäfer.
Not all inventors came from the upper echelons of society like the
scholar Su Song and General Qi Ji-
guang. In many cases, they were
craftsmen from ordinary backgrounds – simple men who were
consummate masters of their trades
and crafts, but unable to read or
write. Like their fathers and forefathers, they passed on their knowledge orally. “This was common
practice in trades and crafts at the
time,” says Schäfer. Therefore, they
have the – not always voluntary –
services of scholars and senior officials of the imperial court to thank
for the fact that their knowledge
was recorded in documentary form.
In view of its importance for the development of the economy, the emperors of the Song dynasty and, to
an even greater extent, those of the
Ming dynasty declared manual
trades and crafts a matter of priority, and made their mandarins personally responsible for the flourishing of certain trades.
Beginning in the 14th century, the
Chinese state became more directly
involved in the production of goods
in which China specialized. Thus, for
example, state factories with dozens
of looms manned by specially trained
weavers were established in the textile sector. The founding emperor of
the Ming dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang
(1382 to 1398), clearly recognized the
importance of highly specialized
handicrafts for the economy and
prosperity of the empire, and obliged
high-ranking ministers to guarantee
the operational efficiency of such
state operations. As general managers of these imperial manufacturers,
the mandarins developed very efficient measures to ensure the ongoing
transfer of innovative technologies
from the private to the state sector.
A NEW SELF-IMAGE
FOR STATE OFFICIALS
The Max Planck researchers encountered comprehensive material on this
state-motivated knowledge transfer
in petitions to the throne and local
reports of the Ming and Qing periods.
The material basis of their research
was complemented by collections
such as MING JINGSHI WENBIAN, edited
by Chen Zilong (1608 to 1647), and
HUANGCHAO QING JINGSHI WENBIAN by
He Changlin and Wei Yuan. Schäfer
explains the significance of this collection for the history of science in
the following terms: “This enables us
to record the state’s influence on the
exchange of information by tradesmen chronologically as a factor that
historically shaped China’s innova®
tion culture.”
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CHINA
THE STRUGGLE FOR
SPECIALIST KNOWLEDGE
“This points to a growing fragmentation of the work process as opposed to the rise of technical profiling,” says Schäfer, who identifies
here the adoption of a strategy to secure power on the part of the mandarins. The modularization of practical work rendered the activities
carried out by the individual simpler
and made the worker replaceable.
However, an administrator who had
an overview of the situation was
necessary. In this way, the official
assumed control over the craftsman’s
skill. The officials formulated, in the
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fect that the habit of force stems from
the force of habit is not without basis. However, as the history of the reception of both of these works in old
China shows, this form of control of
knowledge and its application does
not function without limitation. Over
time, they were stripped of their practical applicative nature and became
icons endowed with a quasi-religious
status. Schäfer describes how the
pragmatists of the time approached
these bibles of trades and crafts thus:
“People pretended that they were observing the rules, but actually used
different approaches.”
Moreover, the example of the architectural manual YINGZAO FASHI
clearly demonstrates how creative
the officials had to be in the textualization of the practical craft-based
P HOTO :
knowledge. Because this expertise
was traditionally passed on orally in
old China, there was no corresponding written terminology for building
work. The authors thus had to consider the characters they would use
to create a specific written architectural language.
As Schäfer’s colleague Feng Jiren
revealed in his contribution in the
sinological journal T’OUNG PAO, the
author of YINGZAO FASHI frequently
made use of botanical terms. Schäfer
recounts her colleague’s discoveries
as follows: “For example, he often
used the word ‘ma’, which means
‘flower stem’, for a certain type of
column.” The author also made use
of the language of flowers in describing the decoratively designed
load-bearing elements of the cantile-
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tween tradesmen and bureaucrats for
the control of specialist technical
knowledge is also demonstrated by
two documents on architecture: LU
BAN JING, a 15th-century manual for
joiners (also known as “The Treatise
of Lu Ban”), and the state architecture manual YINGZAO FASHI (“Treatise
on Architectural Methods” or “State
Building Standards”). While the former contains information on rituals,
geomantics and ‘day selection’ (that
is, the identification of auspicious
and inauspicious days for the commencement of a building project) in
addition to technical instructions for
the tradesmen, the latter defines aesthetic and other standards for built
structures.
In both books, the researchers discovered ritualization as an additional
basic feature of the culture of technical knowledge in old China. Rituals
can also serve in the standardization
of processes, as they contain strict
regulations that must be observed.
They can be used to consolidate power relations – so the dictum to the ef-
OF
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finest Chinese officialese, specific
rules with which work processes
could be standardized and controlled.
The Emperor’s bureaucrats were also
happy to have the necessary specialist knowledge delivered to their
doorstep. “Craftsmen were repeatedly
brought to the court, even from remote regions, to surrender their
knowledge” – a standard practice, as
Schäfer reports.
However, the latter did not always
reveal the secrets behind their production techniques, which had often
been transmitted orally over generations. “The tradesmen fully understood how to preserve their secrets,”
says the Max Planck researcher, and
cites, by way of example, the oven
makers of Jindezhen. “There was a
technique for building an oven that
could be used to make high-quality
porcelain with very little firewood.”
This oven technology was in the possession of two families, and never
spread beyond them.
The twists and turns that could
arise in this subtle tug-of-war be-
FOR THE
Crafts like weaving saw a boom in old China. It was the job of the imperial officials to
obtain specialist knowledge from the master craftsmen and make it available to the state.
S CIENCE
Master builders in old China didn’t really need detailed drawings. All they needed
was the diameter of a certain beam to be able to work out the other dimensions.
P HOTO : MPI
Thus, the DAXUE YANYI BU (“Supplement to the Instructions on Great
Learning,” 1506), a political manual
for senior officials compiled by Qiu
Jun (1421 to 1495), demonstrated that
the perception and control of knowledge of trades and crafts became an
issue of considerable importance for
the academically educated elite. “Qiu
Jun’s discussion provides an excellent
example of the subtle and multi-layered process involved in the development of the intellectuals’ self-conception vis-à-vis the manual workers.”
Schäfer elaborates further on the interpretation adopted by the project,
explaining that the Ming Emperor
Zhu Yuanzhang challenged the selfconception of his officials through
the systematic integration of trade
and craft workshops into state-run
operations: “He ultimately forced
them to concern themselves with
skills and activities that did not reflect their status.”
The officials proved highly flexible
in their response, and opted to make
a virtue of necessity. “Officials like
Qiu Jun approached this challenge
with an intellectual aptitude and
dexterity that reinforced their ability
to preside over the state in a subtle
way.” The sudden increase that can
be observed in the popularity of lists
and columns of figures in the surveying of services in the documents
of this period are a clear indication
of this trend.
SINOPICTURES
FOCUS
vered roof structures that display, in
their graphical form, a striking similarity with the natural model and the
highly stylized architectural art.
A LACK OF YOUNG
RESEARCHERS
In contrast to the abundance of other
documentary material available to
them, the researchers’ lengthy quest
for proper architectural plans and
drawings in the archives proved futile. “It was thought that they simply
did not exist in old China,” says the
Berlin-based sinologist. That was the
situation until 2005, when an exhibition focused public attention on
the search for the building plans, and
they were finally found among the
geographical maps. “That was a real
light-bulb moment for us,” she says.
This approach to classification is also
indicative of a particular perspective
on things.
Dagmar Schäfer began to examine
such drawings, architectural models
and artifacts in greater detail around
a year ago as part of the second
phase of her research project. The
40-year-old has no doubt that many
other undiscovered treasures lie concealed in this material. However, despite the support her project has received from many sources, she lacks
the necessary manpower. Classical
Sinology has been in decline as a
field of study since the opening up
of China in the late 1980s. “German
universities have almost entirely
abandoned the historical dimension
of the subject, and the qualified
young academics are going into
business where they can earn good
money,” she reports regretfully.
Although research projects like
hers may not offer great financial rewards, the treasure hunts through
the old archives of the People’s Republic of China reveal a wide range
of perspectives that should be of interest not only to historians of science and classical sinologists.
Schäfer is firmly convinced that
“when we have recorded all of this,
our image of Chinese culture will
BIRGIT FENZEL
definitely change.”
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