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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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!

Ark Encounter, Amazing Architecture!

The Ark Encounter (Kentucky), built on Biblical proportions, is a massive construction meant to wake people to the reality of what building and living in the ark for a year really entailed. Bible scholars, Christians and non-Christians go to visit the monolithic construction built out of wood. I have to say that although I read my Bible and was practically weened on the story of Noah and the Ark, walking through this ark and visualizing a home on the water with thousands of animals and only eight people to feed and water them and muck out their crap, I was stunned! 

For years my questions have been how did people live a whole year without the vitamin D from the sun? How did they deal with the stench of so many animals? Indeed, how did so many animals fit into the tiny ark, esp when so many animals are quite large and they were taken into the ark in pairs for the unclean animals and for the clean animals in groups of seven (or was it 14, discussion on this number confusion discussed)? How could the eight people prepare food without refrigeration for themselves, and get fresh vegetables for maintaining health? How did massive amounts of food fit into the ark when I've know for years that just a single elephant in captivity eats about 6 bales of hay a day, and no way could there be enough space on the ark for food for even one elephant for a year, let along two elephants, let alone a whole host of animals! How could enough food along with the thousands of animals fit onto the ark????

Well, there are no definite answers, and what is possibility and what is actual fact is clearly distinguished when any information (and there is a lot) is presented. Facts are clearly given and, if poetic license is used, e.g. naming Noah's wife or assigning roles to specific family members, the information is stated as a choice for envisioning family functions or for creating individuality and character in an otherwise detail-less story enactment. Excellent creation of what is thought to be period scenes, based on other archaeological discoveries (these points are discussed too in the creation of the scenes). I thought the research done in the building of the ark scenes was astounding! 

So here are some ideas about the layout of the ark ... these are SOME ideas. The ark was filled with innovative possible mechanisms and strategies for feeding, watering and maintaining the animals and the eight people who had faith that God would provide and care for them.

First and second floors dealt mainly with the logistics in constructing the ark, the research behind its construction, and the care and housing of the animals.

Amazing central architecture! This openness between the floors (poetic license) allowed for ventilation and air flow between the floors. It also allowed the lighting from the unfinished top area to filter lighting to even the lower level of the ark.

Wouldn't it make sense that only young animals would be taken on the ark? They wouldn't eat as much, they would be more resilient to the change of the earth afterwards, and have more time to reproduce and repopulate the earth after the cataclysmic destruction.

Parts of the second and third floors contained information regarding geology, Biblical interpretations, myths surrounding the Flood (over 200! collected throughout the world), and much much more.

The third floor was primarily dedicated to the living and working quarters of the family of eight. It held their kitchen and cooking and growing facilities, a blacksmith shop and woodworking shop (something is bound to always be breaking on a big boat in a violent sea!), it held a dedicated room for each of the four couples, and each room was decorated to show different personalities and different skills, what is thought to be a pretty display of the talents, arts and crafts of the time.

Impressive! Educational! Based on Biblical literature!

A very profound experience!

Gilgamesh

[DUSTCOVER] Gilgamesh is considered one of the masterpieces of world literature, and although previously there have been competent scholarly translations of it, until now there has not been a version that is a superlative literary text in its own right. Acclaimed translator Stephen Mitchell's lithe, muscular rendering allows us to enter an ancient masterpieces as if for the first time, to see how startlingly beautiful, intelligent, and alive it is. His insightful introduction provides a historical, spiritual, and cultural context for this ancient epic, showing that Gilgamesh is more potent and fascinating than ever.

Gilgamesh dates from as early as 1700 BCE — a thousand years before the Iliad. Lost for almost two millennia, the eleven clay tablets on which the epic was inscribed were discovered in 1953 in the ruins of Nineveh, and the text was not deciphered and fully translated until the end of the century. When the great Poet Rainer Maria Rilke first read Gilgamesh in 1916, he was awestruck. "Gilgamesh is stupendous," he wrote. "I consider it to be among the greatest things that can happen to a person."

The epic is the story of literature's first hero  — the king of Uruk in what is present-day Iraq — and his journey of self-discovery. Along the way, Gilgamesh discovers that friendship can bring peace to a whole city that a preemptive attack on a monster can have dire consequences, and that wisdom can be found only when the quest for it is abandoned. In giving voice to grief and the fear of death— perhaps more powerfully than any book written after it  — in portraying love and vulnerability and the ego's hopeless striving for immortality, the epic has become a personal testimony for millions of readers in dozens of languages.

AUTHOR STEPHEN MITCHELL, widely known for his ability to made ancient masterpieces thrillingly new, has also written Tae Te Ching, The Book of Job, The Gospel According to Jesus, The selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, Bhagavad Gita, and Loving What Is (written with his wife Byron Katie).

About this version of Gilgamesh, Mitchell calls it a translation for many reasons. He doesn't read cuneiform and has no knowledge of Akkadian for judging textual meaning. Therefore, he depended on A. R. George's meticulous two-volume edition of the original text as well as profiting from the readings of other translations. 

Wikipedia - the first is the tablet containing the story of the GREAT FLOOD,
the second and third are the front and back and tablet V of 11 tablets relating the story of Gilgamesh

In writing Gilgamesh, he grasped the story and then transformed his notes on the story to English verse, using a loose, non-iambic, non-alliterative tetrameter which is rare in English. Two examples of this meter in English verse that Mitchell is aware of are Eliot's Four Quartets and Elizabeth Bishop's "Sestina". Mitchell endeavored to keep the rhythm from sounding too regular, varying lines so no two consecutive lines maintained the same rhythm.

BOOK 1 (opening stanza): 

Surpassing all kings, powerful and tall
beyond all others, violent, splendid,
a wild bull of a man, unvanquished leader,
hero in the front lines, beloved by his soldiers  —   
fortress they called him, protector of the people,
raging flood that destroys all defenses  —   
two-thirds divine and one-third human,
son of King Lugalbanda, who became
a god, and of the goddess Ninsun,
he opened the mountain passes, dug wells
on the slopes, crossed the vast ocean, sailed
to the rising sun, journeyed to the edge
of the world, in search of eternal life,
and once he found Utnapishtim  — the man
who survived the Great Flood and was made immortal  —   
he brought back the ancient forgotten rites,
restoring the temples that the Flood had destroyed,
renewing the welfare of the people and the sacred land.
Who is like Gilgamesh? What other king
has inspired such awe? Who else can say,
"I alone rule, supreme among mankind"?
The goddess Aruru, mother of creation,
had designed his body, had made him the strongest
of men — huge, handsome, radiant, perfect.

Gilgamesh in a nutshell

The story is of King Gilgamesh who meets a man nearly as perfect as himself, a counter-self who balances out Gilgamesh's rapacious tendencies (despite being called perfect which he clearly wasn't), and the two great powerful men become the best of friends. Gilgamesh is tempered, but in his docility to his kingdom he still sought to conquer and still felt omnipotent. He convinces his powerful friend Enkidu to go on a journey to vanquish Humbaba, watcher of the Cedar Forest. They succeed but the price is Enkidu's slow and draining death of which Gilgamesh mourns violently, and then realizes his own mortality. So how his journey is to seek immortality, and his burning journey takes him onward. 

Ultimately, he meets Utnapishtim, the man who along with his wife survived the Great Flood and was given immortality afterwards. Gilgamesh failed Utnapishtim's first test of finding immortality but he heard of another way, to dive deep into the ocean and procure a plant which would be "the antidote to the fear of death". But Gilgamesh, after nearly dying in procuring the plant, became timorous and decided to return to his kingdom and test the plant on one of his old men first, so he journeyed homeward. On the way he stopped to bathe at a pool and leaving the plant on the ground beside the pool where he bathed, the fragrance of the plant allured a snake to take it and "throw off its skin" (gain immortality). The plant was gone, Gilgamesh wept, and ... obviously died for the story ends with him returning and describing the timeless description of his glorious, magnificent and ancient city Uruk.