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Q: What is China's greatest achievement?
Ok. I am interested in other peoples view on China's greatest achievements. I will narrow it down so I don't get the Great Wall etc to the greatest achievement since 1900. Can be cutural, invention, engineering, dont really care. Discuss.
Their mastery of reverse engineering.... (not saying they invented it, but the entire country embraces it). It has made the country the financial superpower it is today, by because able to take product and ideas for other places and reproduce it cheaper here. First thing that comes to the mind of many in the West when talking about modern China is of course the cheap copy markets.
Njord:
Nothing new, the Japanese did it as did Korea, the trend here is the same as the other two aforementioned...
The Chinese have many important inventions:
• Silk
The Chinese knew how to produce silk at least by 1300 B.C.
• Tea
Tea drinking originated in China and spread throughout the world.
• Porcelain
Porcelain, also called "china," is a type of clay pottery that was invented in China by using clay with special minerals.
• Paper
Probably the most important Chinese invention. According to Chinese written historical accounts, paper was manufactured about 104 AD by Cai Lun
• Printing
The Chinese invented both block printing, to reproduce the Confucian classics and the movable type
• Gunpowder
Gunpowder was invented in China c. 1000 A.D. The Chinese used it primarily for firecrackers.
• Compass
Historians believe that the Chinese invented the magnetic compass and used it for navigation c. 1100 A.D.
• Alchemy [Chemistry]
• Civil Service
Exams for government service were introduced in both France and England in the 1800s, apparently inspired by the Chinese practice instituted almost two thousand years earlier, in 154 B.C.
• Grain Storage
The U.S. Secretary of Agriculture from 1933 to 1940, introduced governmental storage of excess grain after reading the dissertation of a Chinese student at Columbia University on Confucian economic policies.
• Wallpaper
• The folding umbrella
Of all the inventions the Chinese have made they selected four which they chose to call 'great' as with so many other things. Paper, printing, gunpowder and the compass.
nevermind:
The Koreans invented movable type. And grain storage has been done since the 1800s.
GoldenBoy:
Oops, it's a good job you admin guys are here to point out my mistakes. And I thought Wenna was bad.
wenna7:
Everyone here thinks I am bad... Don't care... But if u can really teach me, let me understand why I am wrong, it will help a lot... I always want to ask why and need to get an answer, either when people ask me to do something or when they want to stop me doing something...
GoldenBoy:
Wenna, that is so typically Chinese of you. We are westerners and most of us teachers but we will not give free English lessons nor will we teach you anything about ethics or morals.
Being able to copy anything and reproduce it (even if the quality doesn't follow)
Since 1900? That's tough. The best ever was the compass though.
Yuan Longping's hybrid rice. I know it sounds boring, but the actual effect on the world is immeasurable.
They pioneered internet censorship, helping to keep petty dictatorships across the world in power.
Although not new but their women are note worthy (wenna7 and her like excluded of course)
wenna7:
Haha～ U r really a... U want to be excluded, u said u don't want to be like Chinese and feel sick when people get localized... But it's so great an honer that u think I am one of the greatest for China!!! Thank you so much...
Since 1900, I think the Communist Party is their greatest achievement. Over 75 million members. That's amazing, man!
beaufortninja:
Most of those people just join the party so they can have special privileges. Send their kids to the best schools and get the best jobs.
GoldenBoy:
What are the other 55+ million Chinese people a member of?
wenna7:
Never join any parties and never voted for almost 10years since 18!!!!! Never know what's going on in the country... But of course the Communist party is the greatest one!!!!
The answer came to me as if in dream. I was distracted and in a whimsical daydream whilst teaching my class. The noise of the classroom faded into a haze and then it struck me: The greatest Chinese invention this century has to be the typewriter.
Yes I know you are all thinking the typewriter was invented else where and it's true but it had to be reinvented for the Chinese language.
I know this because I bought a book titled the wisdom of Confucius by linyutang . His son wrote an introduction on his fathers life. This guy invented and demonstrated the Chinese fast typewriter in New York in 1948. His invention was capable of writing (in theory) 90,000 characters.
His system revolutionized China going from the typewriter to the dictionary. The Instant Index System he invented was his real success, a system that was first used in computers in 1985.
This man was nominated for the Nobel prize on two occasions and if nothing else he pioneered in bridging the gap between the 'East' and the 'West'.
kikoya:
Lin YuTang's "Moment in Peking" is a very good book, telling the story of Yao Mulan and her family during the tumultuous first half of the twentieth century. An entertaining way to learn chinese modern history
GoldenBoy:
I haven't seen that book but I also have 'my country, my people'.
