China: Influenced by and Influencing the West

"Western Knowledge Flowing into the East"

Since the 16th century, with the opening of sea routes and development of sea trade, the distance between the East and the West drew closer and closer. Europeans could come into direct contact with the mysterious Orient, discovery complexity and the richness of Chinese civilization, and the Maritime Silk Road was the link of communication between the two worlds.

European merchants and missionaries unceasingly arrived to promote and market their lifestyles, religion and sense of values, while the mainstream mentality of the Chinese empire responded mostly with defense, restriction and objection. The delineation between Chinese and foreign things and the notion that "our heavenly kingdom is perfect in every way" severely hindered the rational observation and awareness of the world outside of China.

From the Ming to early Qing, foreign missionaries, while carrying out missionary work, also introduced Western science and technology to the Chinese and ultimately advanced the development of science and technology for the Ming-Qing China.

Map-making

Well-known missionary Matteo Ricci was a literati, and at the same time, affluent in astronomy, calendric systems, geography, mathematics and engineering, among other knowledge and fields of study. After coming to China, he continually presented Western sciences to Chinese governmental officials and scholars, especially the knowledge of astronomy and geography. In Zhaoqing City, Matteo Ricci re-illustrated the map of the Western world, accompanied by Chinese annotations (this is the famous Complete Map of the Earth's Mountains and Seas). In 1601, after entering Beijing, Matteo Ricci made special efforts to illustrate the Complete Map of the Myriad Countries of the World, in which he divided the earth into "five continents" and "five zones" [terms still used today unlike the Western concepts of the seven continents and the seven seas]. The five continents were Asia, Europa, Libia (Africa), Americhe and Magellanica (Antarctica); the five zones were the north frigid zone, north temperate zone, tropical zone, south temperate zone and south frigid zone. And to suit the traditional concept and custom of China [that yellow represents the emperor and since yellow is central, the emperor must be in central position], Matteo Ricci placed China at the center of the map, making Emperor Wanli quite pleased. [Typically when a country makes a map, their country is centrally located.]

Source - Jesuit missionaries, like Fr. Matteo Ricci, and Adam Schaal von Bell (above) recognized that the coherence between the teachings of Christianity and those of Confucius, made Chinese civilization receptive to Western Science.

Matteo Ricci introduced to the Chinese that the earth was round, as well as concepts of the north and south poles, the equator, longitudes and latitudes, to name a few. The new knowledge completely overthrew "the heaven is round and the earth is square" theory, and widened the horizon of many Chinese.

After Matteo Ricci, there was Didace de Pantoja (1571-1618) who was ordered by Emperor Wanli to translate the European map (a work which remained unfinished). In 1623, Giulio Aleni (1582-1649) completed the An Extra Record of Geography, a book illustrating the customs and geography of the countries in five continents, a rather complete account of world geography. In the early Qing Dynasty, missionaries including Luigi Buglio (1606-1677) and Ferdinand Verbiest together compiled the Important Accounts of the Western World, specially devoting attention on Western countries, their people and routes, a book which complemented Matteo Ricci and Giulio Aleni's works.

Source - Beijing observatory, designed and built by Fr. Ferdinand Verbiest.

The Italian Jesuit missionary Martino Martini (1607-1661) on the basis of field surveys, combined academic achievements from Chinese and foreign scholars, published the New World Map and the Map of the Chinese Empire in Augsburg in 1654. The following year he published Novus Atlas Sinensis (New Atlas of China) in Amsterdam (it's contents were detailed and precise), and Martini was considered the "father of geographical studies on China" in the West.

In 1707, Emperor Kangx ordered missionaries Joachim Bouvet (1656-1730), Jean-Baptiste Regis (1663-1738) and Pierre Jartoux (1668-1720) along with Chinese scholars He Guodong, Ming Antu and others to organize a cartography team, which then traveled to every province of China. Using longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates, they drew a detailed map of China: Complete Map of the Empire of Kangxi, a cartographic work considered very advanced.

Calendars

In 1601, Matteo Ricci had recommended the Western calendar to Emperor Wanli in Beijing, and Matteo along with scholar Li Zhizao and others finished many works, including Illustrated Explanation of the Sphere and Astrolabe, by using the Western calendar, knowledge in mathematics and in geography.

Following Ricci, other Jesuit missionaries like Didace de Pantoja, Sabbathin de Ursis (1575-1620), Nicolas Longobardi (1559-1654) Jean Terrenz (1576-1630), Johann Adam Schall von Bell arriving in China were affluent in astronomical calendars. They served the Chinese government by translating western teachings, participated in the revision of the calendar, made astronomical equipment, and contributed to the reforms of the calendric systems of the Ming and Qing dynasties, which ultimately abolished the old system of Datong Calendar and implemented the new Shixian Calendar.

Other Developments

During the Ming and Qing dynasties, missionaries introduced other Western disciplines to China, some of which included physics, agronomy, biology, medicine, architecture, music, fine arts, linguistics, philosophy, and more. There were also hands-on executions in the areas of horology, firearms, gardening, to name a few.

China Influencing Europe and America

Since the 16th century, Europeans who visited China were mostly missionaries, and they introduced a great deal of Chinese culture to the West. The missionaries studied Chinese literature and were pioneering figures in Western Sinology, and profoundly influencing modern cultural development in Europe. The Jesuits periodically reported in writing to the Church about developments in China, and these writings were the most crucial materials for informing Europe about Chinese thinking and culture.

Chinese literary works translated by missionaries included The Doctrine of the Mean, The Great Learning, and The Analects of Confucius by Prosper Intercetta (1599-1666), Confucius Sinarum Philosophus by Philippe Couplet (1624-1692), The Four Books, Book of Filial Piety, and Learnings for Children by Franciscus Noel (1651-1729), Idea Generalis Doctrinae libri Ye Kin by Joachim Bouvet, The Book of History by Antoine Gaubil (1689-1759), and more.

In the 18th century, translated by Jesuit missionaries, as many as 15 volumes of Chinese works on history, science, arts, and customs appeared in Europe. And disseminators of Chinese culture beyond missionaries were the journal logs of navigators along with adventurers and merchants to China.

Evidence of Chinese influence beyond China

18th century French ideologist Denis Diderot (1713-1784), Baron d'Holbach (1723-1789) and leaders of the French Enlightenment movement Montesquieu (1689-1775) and Voltaire (1694-1778) appreciated traditional Chinese culture and were keen to absorb its soul. Voltaire especially was an advocator of Chinese philosophy, ethics, and politics, and in his eyes, Confucius was greater than Jesus. Voltaire dreamed of finding a "rational religion" in which Confucius served as its model.

Traditional Chinese thinking with "emphasis on agriculture" profoundly impacted "physiocratic" theories of French economists Francois Quesnay (1694-1774) and Anne Robert Jacques Turgot (1727-1781). German philosopher Leibniz (1646-1716) was fascinated by the Yi Jing (The Book of Changes) and diagram of the 64 hexagrams, which influenced his Monodology and Natural Law. The great Russian author Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) performed systematic studies on Chinese thinking and culture late in his life, particularly praising Lao Zi, whom he referred to as his "most adored philosopher".

 

 The eight trigrams and the 64 hexagrams

 

In the 1760s British classical economist Adam Smith (1723-1790) learned of Chinese physiocracy and policies through Francois Quesnay, and this knowledge became a principle ideology behind his classical masterpiece on political economy, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Wealth of Nations).

In the 17th and 18th centuries large quantities of Chinese silk, porcelain and tea in fad proportions were shipped to Europe, along with household items like fans, sedan chairs, wallpapers, and garments, Eastern cultural additions which brought a poetic and fresh feeling to the West. 

 

Pair of large imari vases

From the 1770s to the 1780s, the pinnacle of "Chinese fashion" manifested in consumer fashion as well as in art style. The art style was a rebellion and negation against the Baroque art style that dominated Europe before the 18th century. This new style called "Rococo", originating from the French word "rocaille," which means having the characteristics of fineness, lightness, flamboyance, intricacy and dynamism. This style primarily influences landscape architecture that advocated Chinese fresco with floral patterns, home furniture with Chinese flower and bird paintings, Chinese prints, etc. Rococo art was popular in Europe for about a century until neoclassicism in the 1760s emerged and gradually became the mainstream art of Europe.

 

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Text Source:

 

This fascinating selection was taken from Li Qingxin's 2006 book "Maritime Silk Road", translated by William W. Wang, and published by China Intercontinental Press, pp. 183-189. An absolute read for the historian!

8 Modern Advancements the Moors Brought to Europeans

The YouTube clip "When Black Men Ruled the World: THE MOORS" (3:05 minutes) sheds light on a little known fact -- on historically, who really was intellectually superior and developed.

“Moors were commonly viewed as being mostly black or very swarthy, and hence the word is often used for negro,” The Oxford English Dictionary

The Moors established an Empire spanning parts of northern Africa to southern Europe, ruling in Europe for nearly 800 years (711-1492 AD), which is longer than Europeans have been out of the Dark Ages,

In fact, the Moorish advances in mathematics, astronomy, art and agriculture brought Europe out of the Dark Ages and into the Renaissance. 

1 - UNIVERSAL EDUCATION — While Christian Europe had a 99% illiteracy rate, 2 universities and 0 libraries, the Moors had 17 universities in 7 cities along with over 70 libraries. The Moors introduced their education system to Europe, bringing it out of 1,000 years of intellectual gloom.

2 - FASHION AND HYGIENE — The Moor Ziryab pioneered the concept of changing clothes based on seasons. He also created deodorant, daily bathing, and invented toothpaste. He made popular the concepts of shaving, haircuts, and hair washing among men.

3 - CUISINE — Ziryab introduced the concept of the three-course meal, which included the soup, main course and desert. The Moors introduced a number of crops that remain prominent in Spain today.

4 - URBAN UTILITIES — Moorish cities had street lights, hospitals, and running water. Paved and lighted streets did not appear in London or Paris for hundreds of years later. Moors built an aqueduct that brought water from the mountains to the city.

5 - MEDICINE — The “father of modern surgery” was the Moor Al Zahrawi, who developed innovative and precise surgical instruments, as well as the premier textbook of Western medical training.

6 - HUMAN FLIGHT — The Moor Ibn Firnas made the first scientific attempt to fly. Although his flight worked, his landing was unsuccessful.

7 - ADVANCED AGRICULTURAL TECHNIQUES — The Moors introduced Spain to rice, hard wheat, cotton, and more. Along with this came knowledge of crop irrigation and cultivation, building underground grain silos that stored grain for up to 100 years.

8 - PAPER MAKING — Moors introduced paper making to Spain, allowing for accurate preservation and dispersal of knowledge.

Perspective: Earth, Planets, the Sun

Seeing earth in relation to some of our nearest planet-neighbors makes us feel rather large, proud of our somewhat superior size, proud of the space we occupy in space.

Until we put our prideful size up against some of the larger planets, and even the sun, and our pride diminishes quite rapidly for we realize that we are relatively nothing ... despite us in our arrogance, not quite literally but figuratively, acting like the universe revolves around us, our desires, our needs, our goals. In size comparison, our pride can sure deflate quite rapidly. Our arrogance only can take a minute breath in space ... there's just so much more out there!

And then we put our tiny little planet with its millions of people with greatly inflated prideful ethnocentric egos next to the brightest star in the sky, Antares which is more than 1000 light years away, and we gulp as we pale at the comparison and insignificance of ourselves.

Now, to go a step further into the vastness of space and realize our less than insignificance in the grand scheme of revolutions and the organized display of brilliance above ... We look through the Hubble telescope at the ultra deep field using an infrared view and we see "countless" numbers, a vastness that our tiny eye with the aid of our most powerful scope can only manage a flickering glimpse of. There in that eyepiece are entire galaxies billions of light years away ... and we know that this is only a shadow of the vastness of the universe! In relation, we are next to nothing!

Even when we focus a look at the darkest region in space, we realize that the size there cannot possibly compare to our grain-of-sand-in-space volume. We ... are ... infinitesimal.

And yet, Someone knows how many hairs are on each of our heads, and the workings of earth are so important to Him that not a single sparrow dies apart from His will. (Matthew 10:29-31)

That makes little tiny us feel pretty darn special, and yes, very important in God's eyes!

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Here is a 2:33 minute YouTube clip [Star Size Comparison HD] 

of the moon, planet, and keynote stars, all in relationship to amazing size.  

Noah's Ark in Hong Kong

An incredible tourist attraction is in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, I didn’t take these pictures but received them along with the following information via email. Sad, but one day I will make a point of visiting the incredible modern-day version of Noah’s Ark.

The Noah's Ark Theme Park, complete with fiberglass animals exiting two-by-two, sits in front of the Tsing Ma Bridge in Hong Kong. The Ark in Hong Kong measures 450ft long and 75ft wide and is built according to Biblical specifications.

The Ark also boasts less authentic Biblical touches such as double-glazed windows and a fine dining restaurant.

The billionaire brothers who built the Ark in Hong Kong claim it is the only full-scale version in the world, and the imaginative trio even attempted to give the giant boat an air of authenticity by placing 67 pairs of animals at the entrance, just like the pairs of creatures saved from the Great Flood by Noah in the Bible tale. The creationist-inspired vessel forms part of a theme park near Hong Kong, which was inspired by a young girl's scrawled drawing of the mammoth boat. Architects appear to have used some artistic license in parts of the Ark—for instance, including double-glazed windows, a fine dining restaurant and luxurious bedrooms.
 Also inside, real-life exotic animals live—including a nautilus, a toucan and reams of fish—giving the Ark credibility and some life-like authenticity.

The Noah's Ark Theme Park is now run by Christian organizations, who use it to promote peace and unity. Matthew Pine, manager of Noah's Ark Theme Park, said: “They had a vision to do something remarkable, something outstanding. They came up with many ideas. Some of them were really outrageous. But then they came across this girl's drawing, and knew it would be something do-able that captured imaginations. So they hired architects and engineers to create the replica Noah's Ark.” 

The Ark also includes a sophisticated-looking restaurant as one of its on-board attractions. Guests on board Noah's Ark can also stay on the Biblical vessel in one of its luxurious hotel-style rooms.

The Hong Kong-based Noah's Ark theme park was completed in 2009, 17 years after plans were made for the enormous structure, and it is popular among tourists. “The reason that particular moment of the Flood story was chosen from the Bible's story is," says Matthew Pine, "because this is the message
 we want to bring to Hong Kong, to China, to the world. 'In our lives we always face floods, we will face trials, we will face difficulties.
 Hopefully Noah's Ark will inspire people to pass
 through those troubles as Noah did in his day.'” 

A Fictionalized Monograph of an Aztec

The dust cover of Azteca by Gary Jennings reads:

"Once in a great while appears a book that combines the drama and immediacy of fiction with a deep knowledge and understanding of an exotic place and time — a book that excites and expands the imagination. In the last three decades, readers have been enthralled by Mika Waltari's splendid The Egyptian, Mary Renault's The King Must Die and James Clavell's Shogun. Now comes Azteca!" 

I've read Clavell's Shogun trilogy and now Jennings' Azteca, both of which were phenomenally researched and crafted with creative ethnology, so now I must go for Waltari's The Egyptian and Renault's The King Must Die, neither of which I'd ever heard of until picking up this book. When great literature is compared with other literary pieces and called similarly brilliant, the reader must listen to the erudite muse of print and ... read on!

The monograph 

And so begins the narrative of a quarrier's son, Mixtli, who was granted an ironic education, became a courier, a renowned warrior, a nobleman, an outcast, a wanderer, and a tradesman, but who ultimately died ignominiously at the hands of the "Christian" invaders who denied Mixtli his own Aztec spirituality and his own authenticity as the last keeper of ancient Aztec records. The narrative begins with him as an old gnarled and twisted man captured by the Conquistadores who want to hear and record a history of the Aztec people they have conquered and are decimating ... and who deny that Mixtli could possibly be telling the truth as Aztecs have no honor, no morals, and are on a ethnic hierarchy far below they themselves who are bringing Christianity to this uncivilized nation ... albeit in a violent bloodbath of deceit, treachery, and mercenary zeal that allows for no spiritual clemency or humanitarian act.

Mixtli, born with the Mexicatl dark spot like a bruise in the small of his back, begins his narrative by relating his abrupt entrance into the world in the Conquistadore year 1466, whereupon he was immediately plunged into a welcoming cold jar of water after which his severed navel string was wrapped around a little wooden war shield and given to the first Mexicatl warrior passing and who

was commissioned to plant the object somewhere on the next battlefield to better the boy's fate, destiny, fortune.

As a babe, his mother daily bathed his face in scalding hot lime water, as was the custom, to discourage the emergence of a beard throughout his adult life.

Mixtli tells of growing up and that lying, "speaking spittle and phlegm," was a grievous sin and punished by lower lip piercing of a thorn to curb such untoward behavior. He told of flags and tapestries made of fine feathers minus their quills — egrets for white, macaws and cardinals and parakeets for various reds, jays and herons for blue, toucans and tanagers for yellows. The colors and iridescence fluttered lively even in the softest breezes. But Mixtli intoned that the know-how for weaving these glorious flags died in the tumultuous years following the arrival of the Conquistadores and the passing of their virulent diseases (which he later related was ultimately what massacred the nation and not really the Conquistadores themselves).

He recalls wars and the need for wars even in peace time to feed the gods and keep them content. In times of peace when pestilence or a drought struck, the gods were thought to be angry and a war between alliances was arranged — not to kill on the battlefield but to take prisoners for sacrifice on temple altars. Warriors who died on the battlefield or as a temple sacrifice had a Flowery Death, that is, a death honorable to one's self and satisfying to the gods. To most effectively please the gods, alliances during the peace-time "wars" would sacrifice their captives on the same day and same hour. The god-nourishing blood of thousands of captives being sacrifices on the same day was thought to gorge the gods and make them replete so they would release their starvation caused by many (perhaps even as many as 20 or 30) warless years.

Using the term "flowers" to describe highly evocative situations was a literary motif of the Aztec. For instance, to give someone a "flower garland" was to kill them in sacrifice to the gods, "to destroy with flowers" was to seek retribution which almost certainly involved death, to have a "war of flowers" was to have a war among alliances for the purpose of taking prisoner-sacrifices to offer to the gods, and more benignly from a male's perspective, "to caress someone with flowers" was to seduce a woman.

Mixtli related that virginity of unmarried girls was required, and girls who went "astraddle the road" (prostituting) were deplored. However, some Aztec girls knew ways of proving their "virginity" on their wedding night. Pigeons fed with dark red seed of some flowers lay red-yolked eggs, so young virgins-to-be would secret an egg inside of them and would "prove" their virginity by the undetectable egg. The egg was used in conjunction with an astringent of buckthorn that would pucker the orifice to adolescent tightness. The Christian Conquistadore scribes were repulsed, insulted yet fascinated by the telling of Mixtli's tales of sexuality and war. The stories were duly documented but, though a baptized Christian of many years and his tales were of his culture or before his days as a Christian, Mixtli was thought to be repulsive to even speak such tales of blood, war and sexual appetites of himself, his people or his culture.

He told of the 5, not 4, directions of the compass — east, north, west and south, represented by the colors red, black, white and blue respectively. But green was the color to mark the center of where a person was at as well as all the space above as far as the sky and all the space below as far as the Mictlan underworld. Green, therefore, was a very important color for the Aztec, as for instance, only a child of a noble lineage could have a name reflecting a name with green in it, e.g. Jadestone Doll.

Mixtli spoke of Aztec medicine taken to the battlefield — salted honey or a healing salve of beeswax mixed with egg yolks, the juice of both adder bark and barbasco root as infection fighters. Soldiers, allies and enemies, too seriously injured in battle were knifed to death and all soldiers, friend or foe, were burned communally but each with a chip of jadestone in hand or mouth to honor their blood shed in battle and as symbols for their acceptance in the afterworld.

Just a cultural aside, the Conquistadores were culturally confused by the crosses found in the Aztec empire. To them, the crosses referenced a Christian burial, but to the Aztec the cross was a wayfarer symbol not for "reverence" but for "gladness" as it marked the presence of clear fresh water nearby.

Azteca as narrated my Mixtli tells of a nation at the height of its culture but in the depths of sacrificial depravity. He tells of the comings of the Conquistadores in the middle of his life, the deaths of all his family and friends, even his second wife who is dying of the disease "Being Eaten by the Gods" (leprosy). Finally, he tells of the overthrow of the Reverend Speaker (king) Montecuzoma and how Cortes, Alvarado and Narvaez lost the entire treasure of the dead king when they fled an uprising of the angry Mexicatl. And thus was lost the treasure now referenced as "the lost treasure of the Aztecs".

So Mixtli "kisses the earth" (swears or pledges honor) that he, as the last Rememberer of the Aztecs, has told his life tale with care and honor so that his history may be known to the conquerors, and yet he knows that before they strike him the last Rememberer down in cold-blood that the great Aztec history will similarly be chopped apart ... as the history of the Mexicatl / Aztecs is now in the hands of those who have no memories but are the usurpers of the nation.

AR (Accelerated Reading) score:   74 points, a very high score