Good evening, and welcome to Human Currents, my name is Frankie Sceptre. On Human Currents, we examine the cultural and scientific legacy of the human species, seeking to highlight its accomplishments, with an eye towards its future. It is therefore with great pleasure, that I introduce our guest this evening, Dr. Michael Chen, a historian from the University of Taiwan, to talk about the immense contributions of Chinese Culture. Good evening Dr. Chen.

Chen: Good evening.
If you could please introduce to our viewers some of the contributions of Chinese culture to our world, and elaborate on some of these key achievements.
Chinese civilization has contributed immensely to the heritage of the world. These contributions have come from a diverse number of affairs of human concern, such as art, religion, politics, and science. In so far as Chinese culture has been so historically rich, it is of course an immense task to reduce decisive Chinese contributions to a list. However, this difficult labor may be simplified, first of all, if we consider Ancient Chinese contributions, and furthermore, contributions that have had a clear impact on world history, shaping not only Chinese civilization, but through cross-cultural contacts in history, the world at large.

Historians and academics, such as Yinke Deng, have contributed to the scientific literature on this topic, by making similarly informed lists of Ancient Chinese achievements, also considered in terms of the key category of world historical impact. Many have identified four major inventions, that of compass, gunpowder, paper, and printing. (Deng, 2010) The aforementioned Deng classifies these four inventions alongside categories such as other major inventions and “miscellaneous smart inventions.” His taxonomy is therefore designed according to capturing the major accomplishments of Chinese culture, across a large number of fields. When considering the question from this perspective, however, it is perhaps best to sub-divide Chinese contributions in terms of various fairly stable categories: for example, cultural contributions and technological contributions.

Certainly, these categories can be said to overlap at the same time: for example, the Chinese development of paper can be considered both a cultural and technological contribution. The development of paper was the result of technological creativity and advancements; at the same time, it clearly played an enormous role in the preservation of world culture and heritage, as now written documents could be preserved, thus creating a decisive shift from an exclusively oral culture to written culture. This is clearly one of the key inventions: as Deng writes, “paper emerged in the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-25 AD)…made of hemp and remie fibers.” (p. 20-21). Paper is decisive because of its technological and cultural significance.

Could you speak in more detail about some related inventions?
Certainly, for example, printing is closely related to paper: it now allows for a facility of the production of written documents, moving away from re-production by hand, i.e., manual copying. This was the invention of the Chinese polymath Bi, whose work anticipated that of “typeset printing in the twentieth century.” (Deng, 2010, p. 25) Printing is in other words still performed in a similar manner to the grand methods of the Ancient Chinese, showing clear cross-temporal impact of the particular Chinese approach to printing.

What about some other key contributions?
Gunpowder in this regard, although perhaps for more unfortunate reasons, is also a clearly relevant contemporary phenomenon. Gunpowder changed the “art of war”, and the result of the product of alchemists (Deng, p. 18) revolutionizes the way in which combat is performed.

From this chemical perspective, obviously iron and steel smelting provides a foundation for the industrial and post-industrial age. As Deng writes, “the use of iron was an important driving force in human history” (p. 29): smelting techniques facilitated iron production and therefore further expanded the possibilities of man and the materials he works with.

Industrially speaking, another key invention is the “discovery and mining of coal” (Deng, p. 29), which once again reconfigures man’s relation to nature in radical new ways: the human begins to understand the potential of the earth in terms of the harnessing of energy with this discovery.

What about some contributions that are less explicitly technological?
Certainly: not all Chinese inventions are of purely technological bent. Consider for example the development of Chinese traditional medicine: in this case, what we have is an attempt to heal the human body through a unique perspective that looks at illnesses of the body in terms of the whole. This is not only a medicinal practice: it is also a philosophy of the human body, not looking at the human as parts, for example, with a wounded stomach, but as an integral organism. The popularity of Chinese medicine in the West in our age in this regard could be attributed to the general philosophy of Chinese traditional medicine.

Anesthetic must also be mentioned as a more practical invention in this regard as a compliment to the overall concept of Chinese traditional medicine: with this possibility, difficult operations are now able to be performed and thus radically changing the human lifespan. Traditional Chinese medicine shows its practical side to go with its conceptual side with this invention.

The human being as a whole organism greater than the sum of its parts is arguably also found in the key invention of the star catalogue and the star atlas: this meticulous recording of the position of stars demonstrates the awareness that Ancient Chinese culture had for man’s place in the universe. This is a philosophical as well as practical invention, for example, one that facilitates navigation and exploration.

If you were forced to name just four inventions of the utmost importance, what would they be? As I mentioned earlier, the academic literature tends to suggest that “four of the their inventions – paper-making, printing, gunpowder and the magnetic compass – have influenced human affairs throughout the world.” (Ross, 1982, p. 34) I must defer to my colleagues on this point: this appraisal seems correct, and therefore I second this main argument, since it is robust. They represent cross-sections of technological and philosophical import, having clear impact on the human civilization to this day, in radical ways. Here, we see how cultural and technological achievements can overlap: it is arguably when an invention has both a cultural and technological significance that its legacy becomes all the more clear. This is precisely the case with paper-making, printing, gunpowder and the compass.

On a personal note, which invention can you not live without?
From a personal viewpoint, it is precisely one of these four that is closest to me: paper. Without this invention, so beautiful in its simplicity and so profound in its importance, it would be difficult for me to communicate my thoughts to you. Yes, on a somewhat humorous note, I still prefer the old-fashioned method of committing my thoughts to paper, before they are placed on the now ubiquitous computer screen.
Thank you for your time Dr. Chen.
Thank you for having me Mr. Sceptre. Best regards.