You Say China Never Invented Anything?

Question

A short list of ancient inventions


* Abacus Chinese Calculator
* Paper money
* Battens in sails
* Belt drive
* Blast furnace
* The cannon
* Cast iron
* Chain drive
* Chinese cuisine: Tofu, Noodles, Ramen, Sushi
* Chinese clothing: Qipao, Hanfu
* Chopsticks
* Bituminous coke for the iron and steel industry
* Compass
* Crossbow and repeating crossbow
* Escapement mechanism for clocks
* Exploding cannonball
* Fire Arrow
* Gunpowder
* Firearm
* Horse collar
* Hull compartments/bulkheads
* Kite
* Land mines
* Lottery
* Matches
* Paper
* Pendulum (Zhang Heng)
* Printing (woodblock printing and movable type)
* Rockets: Fire Arrow, Multistage rocket
* Rotary fan
* Rudder
* Sailing carriage
* Seismometer (of Zhang Heng)
* Silk
* South Pointing Chariot (differential gear, of Ma Jun)

More at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_inventions

Peace

Jim

.

Over in the political section, you will find a lot of disinformation about China. One in particular is china haters will say China never invented anything.

Some here say they are copiers, not innovators. Since I live here and see how this country is reinventing itself, I'd say China is innovating on steroids and inventing, improving, etc.

.

Prior to the 1840's when westerners visited China they often went away thinking the culture and country was superior to their own.

That changed when after 75 years of opium importation by the Brits and the Brit govt had gotten to a point where it represented almost 60% of china's imports and 90% of the males under 40 in the coastal regions were addicted when the Opium Wars broke out. 110 years later after the west had screwed the Chinese with "unequal treaties" that exempted foreigners from Chinese law, ceded Hong Kong to them, etc, etc, is when China had enough and slammed their door shut when Mao came into power.

Who the hell can blame him.

Look up the Opium Wars and Boxer rebellion.

.

Answer 1

I never said they didn't. Bully for them, and thanks to all for their contributions to the advancement of mankind. Cheers.

Answer 2

You are right but you forgot fortune cookies. The Brits forced the Chinese to lease Hong Kong. Yes the Brits were in the wrong. But the reason the Chinese got Hong Cong back is the lease ran out. Mae and other communists have surpassed the old time British for murder and mayhem. I started worrying about China when Nixon went to visit. We should have left those people in the dark ages. To steal a phrase from Yamamoto ..."we have awakened a sleeping giant." In this case the giant is China not the United States. It is likely that the Chinese will rule the world befor this century is over.

Answer 3

It's a long held perception that non-white and non-European nations were not capable of innovation. Japan is often used as an example, although in recent times it is unarguably an innovator in its own right especially in the field of electronics and automobiles. People will be surprised that many of the new inventions in America have been contributed by people of Chinese descent or heritage. The founder of this Yahoo site is a good example.

Answer 4

Hey Jim, you've done it again ~~

Yes, not to leave out the pasta. archaelogical findings earliest to date show that the pasta should be a Chinese invention. I thought they should've included the Han characters in the list as well. Afterall those are the hieroglyphics of the East.

There are recent inventions, one that I'm aware of are the palm sized portable hard drives and the usb disks you can find nowadays at appliance stores. Those are more brainchilds from the Chinese.

Answer 5

For my own personal reason, I do not answer any questions beyond the reach of Comics and Animations, however, I shall make thsi an exception due to the fact that I strongly believe China does not receive enough credit for anything. Everything I read about China is NEGATIVE!! I do not understand why. It had loads of amazing and beautiful places, and whenever I learn about China in school they always pick the poorest and most undeveloped places to show us! I mean, what the heck? Why can't people actualyl see the real China for once?

Answer 6

Nobody said China never invented anything. In fact, virtually everyone past the 7th grade is quite aware of Chinese inventions. However, your 'fire arrows' is a bit confusing. You mean flaming arrows? The Egyptians and Greeks used those as well.

Answer 7

I used to know the daddy of all this school of thinking, Joseph Needham, the author of 'Science and Civilisation in China' in 12 vols.
My only criticisms would be, 1. that getting there first doesn't always mean they invented it for everyone else, as several of these things had to be invented again elsewhere; 2. all this inventiveness didn't stop China from becoming relatively backward even when still a great power under the Qing. Needham was an admirer of Mao Zhedong, and his thesis could be seen as an adaptation of the Stalinist idea that Russians invented everything.

Answer 8

For big part of human history, Chinese dynasties(i.e. Han, Tang, Song, Qing) have been super powers and leaders in their time. Dynasties rises and falls, however, Chinese civilization has never been disrupted, which made China the oldest living civilization on earth....Empires collapsed and rise again and again... thats just simply amazing.

Answer 9

Thanks again, Jim!!!

++++++++++++++++++++++++

To : Boris

Sushi is not an invention from Japanese!!!! It's originated in Southern Asia - mostly around far south of China - Guang Dong area! See below link about history of sushi.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sushi

Most people think green tea is from Japan, sushi is from Japan, but if you google wikipedia, both these two were not originated from Japan!

Chinese were the people who started to drink tea (more than 4000 years ago!) and cultivated tea trees.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea

Answer 10

Mr Jim, you are absolutely right. To tell you the truth, I wasn't much of a Chinese myself when I was very young (can you blame me after all I was born and raised in a multi-racial country where Islam is the official religion here)?

Luckily for me, I have my parents who guided me and showed me my true heritage, culture and everything about myself that I never realised. I thank them and you for teaching me so much about 'myself'. Honestly, I didn't know that my own race has invented so many things. Thank you for letting us know and I really appreciate how you have always stood for us. You know and understand who we really are and not some chinese haters who only know how to envy us and those that do not understand our culture are really immature.

We love you, Mr Jim. On behalf of all Chinese, I thank you and may God bless you and your family.

Answer 11

Nobody said that. Most people think Japan didn't invent anything. You got the countries mixed up.