Transcript The Glimpse of Chinese Culture

A Glimpse of Chinese Traditional Culture
The Four Major
Inventions
The Four Major Inventions
 Compass
 Papermaking
 Gunpowder
 Printing
Compass
 The
compass is a device
showing geographic(地
理的) direction by using
the earth’s magnetic(磁
的) field. It enabled trade
and exploration in whole
new ways.
Compass
Early in the Warring States period, while
mining ores and melting copper and iron,
Chinese people chanced upon a natural
magnetite that attracted iron and pointed
fixedly north.
 Referred to as a "South-pointer", the spoon or
ladle (长柄杓子) shaped compass is made of
magnetic lodestone (天然磁石), and the plate is
bronze. The circular center represents Heaven,
and the square plate represents Earth.


A compass vehicle (指南车)
was an ancient Chinese
vehicle equipped with many
gear wheels and a wooden
figure that always pointed
south no matter which
direction the vehicle went.
It’s an earlier and more
primitive form of the
compass.
 The
Compass gives play to
(发挥) important function in the
navigation after introducing to
Europe.
Paper Making
Papermaking Skill

Paper has been a major
medium of recording,
transmitting, and storing
information in human
civilization. The earliest
characters were inscribed
on bones, tortoise shells
and bronze wares in the
Shang Dynasty and later on
silk, bamboo and wood.
Do you know the process of papermaking?
In the Eastern Han Dynasty (A.D.105), a court
official named Cai Lun (蔡伦) used
inexpensive materials such as bark, hemp (麻
头), rags, fishnet, wheat stalks (麦杆) and
other materials to make paper, known as Cai
lun Paper (蔡侯纸).
 The materials were soaked, cut into pieces,
boiled with plant ash, washed, and grounded
with a pestle in a mortar (杵和臼). The mixture
was then poured evenly on a flat surface to
dry, or baked to become paper. It was
relatively cheap, light, thin, durable and more
suitable for brush writing.

Paper Making


Bamboo Slips
The bamboo slip has
been used as a book
form for the longest
time in Chinese history.
It was the main writing
tool before the
invention of
papermaking and the
popularization of paper.
Gunpowder

Gunpowder was invented in
China, not by people seeking
better weapons or even
explosives, but by
alchemists (炼金术士)
seeking the elixir (长生不老药)
of immortality.
Gunpowder
 Gunpowder
is made of niter(硝
石), sulfur and charcoal three
kinds of materials mixing.
Gunpowder
 In
the Tang Dynasty, the
gunpowder begins to be
applied to the military affairs.
 People utilize the throwing
stone machine, light the
gunpowder bag and throw out,
burn the enemy, this is the
most primitive cannon.
Gunpowder
 In
the Yuan Dynasty, the method of
making gunpowder was introduced to
the Arab world and Europe, bringing a
series of revolutions to weapon
manufacturing, as well as to stratagem
(战略) and tactics (战术) on the battlefield.
Printing
Typography[taɪ‘pɒgrəfɪ] (活版印刷术)
known as “mother of
civilization”, was another great invention
of the Chinese people.
 It has a long history and includes block
printing (雕版印刷) and movable type
printing (活字印刷).
 Printing,

Block Printing was probably
invented between the Sui and
Tang dynasties. The process of
block printing started with the
cutting of wood into blocks, and
then characters were engraved
in relief (凸起) on the blocks. Ink
was brushed on the engraved
block and a white sheet of paper
was spread across it and then
brushed with a clean brush on
its back leaving an image when
the paper was removed.

The woodblock printing appear
in Sui Dynasty. To carve
protruding backward Chinese
character(反写字) on woodblock
with knife, then brush Chinese
ink-liquid, and print on the paper.
The world’s oldest
surviving book
printed on paper is
Vajra Sutra (《金刚
经》).
 It is the earliest
woodcut illustration
in a printed book.


In Song Dynasty, word worker Bi Sheng
(A.D.1004-1048) used the clay with viscidity
（粘性）, made into the rectangle cube（长
柱体）, carved the single Chinese
characters on it, burned it with the fire, and
formed the font（活字）. The printing skill is
named the typography / movable type
printing (活字印刷).
Printing

Movable Type Printing
involved engraving single
words into pieces of clay,
firing them until hardened
and using them as
permanent type. The type
was then set into printing
plates.
Other Impressive Ancient Inventions
 The
ancient Chinese had brought many
other fine inventions to mankind such as
fireworks, the abacus (算盘) and silk.


Fireworks:
Fireworks were probably
first made by stuffing
gunpowder into bamboo
sticks. It was commonly
thought that explosions
would scare off evil spirits
and ghosts.
The abacus was an early form of a calculator.
It is a frame with rows of beads(珠子) on
metal rods(杆) that are used for calculations.
 Usually, it can be separated into two sections;
two beads above, each representing 5 and
five beads below, each representing 1, it was
used for the four fundamental operations (加
减乘除四则运算) of arithmetic (算术).



Silk: A few centuries ago,
European traders trekked along
the Silk Road for China’s
exquisite (精致的) silk which only
the Chinese knew how to make
by rearing silkworms. It takes
40,000 silkworms to make just
five and a half kilograms of silk.
Silk is cool to wear in hot
weather and warm in cold
weather.

Porcelain ['pɔ:səlen] is made
from coal dust and the fine,
white clay called kaolin
['keɪəlɪn] (瓷土). It is baked at
1200 degrees centigrade
while ordinary
ceramics[sə'ræmɪks]（陶）
are baked at 500 degrees
centigrade. The first glazing
color（釉色） was blue from
the mineral cobalt (钴).
Discussion (5 minutes)
 How
do you feel about the Four
Major Inventions in ancient China?
Homework
Discussion
topic for next class:
Tell the difference between Traditional
Chinese Medicine and west medicine.