"No, I don't thank you for the fish at all" (notindetroit)
01/25/2014 at 11:47 • Filed to: Chinese Cars, Gish Jen, really you should attend one of her readings its pretty neat
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"No, I don't thank you for the fish at all" (notindetroit)
01/25/2014 at 11:47 • Filed to: Chinese Cars, Gish Jen, really you should attend one of her readings its pretty neat | 2
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A few of you have informed me about the Chinese artistry tradition and the differences in cultural perspective in "copycats." Actually, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (that admittedly wasn't my most well-received work). Anyway, a little bit more on that:
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Culturally, the Chinese place heavy value on "tribute" forms of artwork. It's basically exactly as it sounds like - paying tribute or homage to works, people or other things that inspire them. I heard the story of one Taiwanese artist who replicated a very famous ancient Chinese painting - except instead of doing it brush-stroke for brush-stroke, he assembled it through hundreds of thousands of mosquito stingers. Needless to say it's a pretty impressive form of art in its own right.
The example I mentioned in particular demonstrates a cultural value of trying to combine something you love with something that gives it a greater connection to nature. Or trying to give something a more meaningful personal connection, or so on. It is meant to show love for a work, and really I'm so woefully ill-equipped to explain it. At least, in comparison to !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (she is the person in the photo at the top). I was lucky enough to be able to sit in on one of her readings just short of a year ago of her extensive collection of books on Chinese culture and its contrasts to Western culture. If she's coming to your town, it's really worth the time.
Needless to say it's a more complicated issue than "lol they copy us." I also think that learning at least a little bit more about China's cultural and artistic achievements is well worth it - and as I said, if Gish Jen comes to your town, you'd be able to certainly learn from her (yeah needless to say I'm taking this opportunity to mostly advertise for her). That said, there is much effort put into simply copying us as well. This is a military tradition common with all nations as its the most efficient means to get the upper hand. There is the suggestion that Chinese cyber-espionage was heavily involved in the development of the J-60 stealth fighter, pictured above. I'll get into greater detail about that in a future article.
Image credits Wikipedia, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!
EDIT: I linked to the wrong article at the beginning; I'll leave the linkback to the Cultural Revolution article !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .
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Yup, correcting this several hours after the fact!
Saf1
> No, I don't thank you for the fish at all
01/25/2014 at 18:01 |
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I didn't realise that about their culture! Still, on an industrial scale, how much of the current cars they're making are loving tributes and how many are convenient copies?