Unit 9

Text A

Pre-reading Activities

First Listening
Before listening to the tape, have a quick look at the following words.

decimal
十进位的

movable type
活字

transport
运输

Second Listening
Listen to the tape again. Then, choose the best answer to each of the following questions.

1. Which of the following best expresses the main idea of the passage?
A) Most people think that the West, rather than China, is the source of technological innovation.
B) China deserves much more credit than is usually given for the development of
the modern world.
C) China had a glorious past, but has not been important in recent world history.
D) The importation of paper, printing, and moveable type from China have been
crucial to the development of the West.
2. Which of the following is NOT given as an example of a Chinese innovation?
A) The game of chess.
B) The printing press.
C) Modern educational methods.
D) Modern agricultural methods.
3. The passage emphasizes the importance to the West of Chinese advances in which of the following areas?
A) Agriculture and writing.
B) Mathematics and clocks.
C) Financial organization and taxation.
D) Paper money and the steam engine.
4. Why does the author of this article emphasize the many contributions made by China?
A) To assert Chinese superiority over the West.
B) To point out that China actually produces more grain than the United States.
C) To underscore（强调）that China and the West are true and equal partners.
D) To give the true history of agriculture.

The West's Debt to China

Robert Temple

One of the greatest untold secrets of history is that the'"modern world" in which we live is a unique synthesis of Chinese and Western ingredients. Possibly more than half of the basic inventions and discoveries upon which the "modern world" rests come from China. And yet few people know this. Why?
The Chinese themselves are as ignorant of this fact as Westerners. From the seventeenth century onwards, the Chinese became increasingly dazzled by European technological expertise, having experienced a period of amnesia regarding their own achievements. When the Chinese were shown a mechanical clock by Jesuit missionaries, they were awestruck. They had forgotten that it was they who had invented mechanical clocks in the first place!
It is just as much a surprise for the Chinese as for Westerners to realize that modern agriculture, modern shipping, the modern oil industry, modern astronomical observatories, modern music, decimal mathematics, paper money, umbrellas, fishing reels, wheelbarrows, multi-stage rockets, guns, underwater mines, poison gas, parachutes, hot-air balloons, manned flight, brandy, whisky, the game of chess, printing, and even the essential design of the steam engine, all came from China.
Without the importation from China of nautical and navigational improvements such as ships' rudders, the compass and multiple masts, the great European Voyages of Discovery could never have been undertaken. Columbus would not have sailed to America, and Europeans would never have established colonial empires.
Without the importation from China of the stirrup, to enable them to stay on horseback, knights of old would never have ridden in their shining armor to aid damsels in distress; there would have been no Age of Chivalry. And without the importation from China of guns and gunpowder, the knights would not have been knocked from their horses by bullets which pierced the armor, bringing the Age of Chivalry to an end.
Without the importation from China of paper and printing, Europe would have continued for much longer to copy books by hand. Literacy would not have become so widespread.
Johann Gutenberg did not invent movable type. It was invented in China. William Harvey did not discover the circulation of the blood in the body. It was discovered — or rather, always assumed — in China. Isaac Newton was not the first to discover his First Law of Motion. It was discovered in China.
These myths and many others are shattered by our discovery of the true Chinese origins of many of the things, all around us, which we take for granted. Some of our greatest achievements turn out to have been not achievements at all, but simple borrowings. Yet there is no reason for us to feel inferior or downcast at the realization that much of the genius of mankind's advance was Chinese rather than European. For it is exciting to realize that the East and the West are not as far apart in spirit or in fact as most of us have been led, by appearances, to believe, and that the East and the West are already combined in a synthesis so powerful and so profound that it is all-pervading. Within this synthesis we live our daily lives, and from it there is no escape. The modern world is a combination of Eastern and Western ingredients which are inextricably fused. The fact that we are largely unaware of it is perhaps one of the greatest cases of historical blindness in the existence of the human race.
Why are we ignorant of this gigantic, obvious truth? The main reason is surely that the Chinese themselves lost sight of it. If the very originators of the inventions and discoveries no longer claim them, and if even their memory of them has faded, why should their inheritors trouble to resurrect their lost claims? Until our own time, it is questionable whether many Westerners even wanted to know the truth. It is always more satisfying to the ego to think that we have reached our present position alone and unaided, that we are the proud masters of all abilities and all crafts.
We need to set this matter right, from both ends. And I can think of no better single illustration of the folly of Western complacency and self-satisfaction than the lesson to be drawn from the history of agriculture. Today, a handful of Western nations have grain surpluses and feed the world. When Asia starves, the West sends grain. We assume that Western agriculture is the very pinnacle of what is possible in the productive use of soil for the growth of food. But we should take to heart the astonishing and disturbing fact that the European agricultural revolution, which laid the basis for the Industrial Revolution, came about only because of the importation of Chinese ideas and inventions. The growing of crops in rows, intensive hoeing of weeds, the "modern" seed drill, the iron plow, the moldboard to turn the plowed soil, and efficient harnesses were all imported from China. Before the arrival from China of the trace harness and collar harness, Westerners choked their horses with straps round their throats. Although ancient Italy could produce plenty of grain, it could not be transported overland to Rome for lack of satisfactory harnesses. Rome depended on shipments of grain by sea from places like Egypt. As for sowing methods — probably over half of Europe's seed was wasted every year before the Chinese idea of the seed drill came to the attention of Europeans. Countless millions of farmers throughout European history broke their backs and their spirits by plowing with ridiculously poor plows, while for two thousand years the Chinese were enjoying their relatively effortless method. Indeed, until two centuries ago, the West was so backward in agriculture compared to China, that the West was the Underdeveloped World in comparison to the Chinese Developed World. The tables have now turned. But for how long? And what an uncomfortable realization it is that the West owes its very ability to eat today to the adoption of Chinese inventions two centuries ago.
It would be better if the nations and the peoples of the world had a clearer understanding of each other, allowing the mental chasm between East and West to be bridged. After all they are, and have been for several centuries, intimate partners in the business of building a world civilization. The technological world today is a product of both East and West to an extent which until recently no one had ever imagined. It is now time for the Chinese contribution to be recognized and acknowledged, by East and West alike. And, above all, let this be recognized by today's schoolchildren, who will be the generation to absorb it into their most conceptions about the world. When that happens, Chinese and Westerners will be able to look each other in the eye, knowing themselves to be true and full partners.
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