So I'm brushing up my Asian history and I am just wondering
Everyone has heard of eastern tech such as gunpowder and paper making traveling westward but was it just a one sided affair?
Did the Chinese not incorporate any western tech before?
The only thing I even think they used was superior Portuguese cannons and even the I think it was prodominatly used by the Japanese
>>789583
Glass from Byzantines.
Its first Chinese application? The creation of sunglasses.
>>789583
The portugese brought bread and deep frying to japan.
>>789583
Other way around. The Chinese used more cannons than Japs.
Theres a reason why japan uses the Chinese name for Portuguese breech loaders (Furanki. From the Chinese Folangqi Pao= Ferenggi Cannon)
>>789583
Lenses and other optical instruments used for navigation and looking at stars.
Some musical instruments
Clockwork
A more accurate calendar (not sure about this one)
>>789583
I have an explanation of this I call Superiority Through Inferiority:
1 -- The villain of history is the helpful centralizing State who just wants to think of the children. The State's favorite activity is to identify and neutralize threats to itself, because it believes that it can solve all human problems if it ever gets enough power. Volatility from technological change is the same thing to this perspective as a peasant uprising.
2 -- Every society suffers this evil and the ones who claim to have moved past it are the worst. Asians are very good at the early parts of civilization and they always get strong centralized states together. These states then murder Asian genius in its cradle, because of what is explained above. This perspective is alive and well in Vancouver-Han insistence that Beijing's government of engineers will always do the ethical thing.
3 -- Occidentals (Westerners or Europeans) are not morally superior to Asians, they fell for the Strong State trap too, but, being later in developing and intellectually slower in the broad section, no European government ever had the control that was generally taken for granted by Chinese governments. As a result -- as an accident and not on purpose -- Occidentals were untouchably superior innovators for centuries. Problem with one statelet? Cross a border or start a new country.
Tldr -- the thing that is necessary is not to luck into winning a benevolent king, the necessary thing is to not have a king in the first place.
>>791953
So... you're an anarchist?
>>791961
No.
But one more illustration serves OP's point.
French priests showed Chinese courtiers this higher math which the Chinese never developed. Think it was Calc. The Chinese played around with it and after an evening, understood it as thoroughly as though they had come up with it themselves. So why didn't they?
The same Frogs suggested to the Chinese that a phonetic writing system similar to Korean Hangul be adapted for Potungua,and the Chinese were all lkke, "Nnnno, I donnn't think we'll be doing that."
One more: somewhere there are the Instructions To Ambassadors, in which non-Chinese people living in China are pretty much required to cosplay as natural born Han. Like, Howard Hawks levels of detail orientation focused on protecting random townspeople from ever so much as seeing an non-Chinese article of clothing.
Tldr, they weren't stupid, but they were eager to sacrifice innovation for stability. Unfortunately Big Xi is lurching that way again.
>>791991
>The same Frogs suggested to the Chinese that a phonetic writing system similar to Korean Hangul be adapted for Potungua,and the Chinese were all lkke, "Nnnno, I donnn't think we'll be doing that."
You don't understand the Chinese language if you think they should adopt an alphabet.
>>791953
>>791991
Qingz wuz ruled by Manchus who literally destroyed all previous firearm technologies which Ming dynasty had an abundance of because they believed bows and arrows were superior.
During the Ming dynasty Chinese scholar official Xu Guangqi learned many things from western Jesuit priests.
>One more: somewhere there are the Instructions To Ambassadors, in which non-Chinese people living in China are pretty much required to cosplay as natural born Han. Like, Howard Hawks levels of detail orientation focused on protecting random townspeople from ever so much as seeing an non-Chinese article of clothing.
u wot m8?
>>791991
But why do you think that stems from an absence of power in Europe rather than a power with different abilities and ideas? England and Holland were strong states in a sense of fiscal and military ability but they afforded their subjects many civil liberties and something resembling a free market.
>>792023
There are several unofficial systems, it's pretty much a hobby of students, because the phonemes are limited and the tones easily represented. The Chinese ruling class deliberately imposed Hanzi so that class mobility would be difficult. Compare the explosion in working class literacy in Enlightenment Europe. Now imagine the American Revolution getting off the ground with every printer juggling two thousand (it was historically more) unique symbols. Yes many are built out of eachother like in the Halpern radical index system, but you can't juxtapose full-sized ones and expect them to be read as their radical forms.
>>792029
In England at its strongest the king was bound, and at times beheaded, by Parliament; prior to this England gave the world "The King Must Obey The Law."
Holland? Holland a strong centralized monarchy like China? Not exactly.
Also, this loathesome sentence I cannot forgive. The English system is negative rights which already exist, not privileges granted by a fickle government that can snatch them back. Yes the modern British have totally fogotten that, but this changes nothing. I believe my argument has already spoken to this issue of hoping that Vathek has our best interests at heart.
>>791991
>The same Frogs suggested to the Chinese that a phonetic writing system similar to Korean Hangul be adapted for Potungua,and the Chinese were all lkke, "Nnnno, I donnn't think we'll be doing that."
Oh cool, what did that look like?
>>792380
It got rejected for reasons of maintaining social stability so we'll never know.
If you visit OmniGlot they have both representative writing systems and fantasy or artificial ones, and several people have offered candidates for Mandarin.
I myself did one where the tone was a vertical line, the initial consonant was a horizontal mark coming off that line, vowels were a variety of things underneath, and final consonants where applicable were a separated horizontal line under the vowel. In this way you have syllabic representation out of smaller bits.
>>792399
I should clarify that I did not submit my idea to OmniGlot.
But it is a cool site. Apparently the Phillipinos had a native writing system, slightly modified by the Spanish.
>>792280
So a strong parliament and weaker king but together still a strong state correct? If it wasn't strong it would have devolved into anarchy or be invaded by a foreign power. All in all the parliament seems to have actually created a more stable society.
>>789583
Go read Needham, Science & society in China.
>>792436
Okay, so looking further, apparently they have only one, slightly awkward script for Turkish, which happens to be one of the world's most normalized languages. That gives me an idea...
>>792414
That's the paradox.
The real stability comes from a fat middle class, represented by Parliament both officially and structurally.
Monarchic structures (like the unaccoubtable Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee) must waste every available resources worrying about threats to their power. In the name of stability they are less stable.
