Chinese culture is pretty impressive. On one hand China is this mysterious place, the longest standing continuous culture that actually allows them a lot of leeway when describing their past. Intellectual property rights (IPR) here are a good example of this phenomenon. I am reading some papers on IPR in China (classified as humorous works?) and in these articles I have noticed two things.
1-Chinese are oftentimes full of shit about their past- due to the fact that they alone usually are in possession of ancient ‘finds’ they seem to ‘discover’ and ‘enterpret’ those things which show them in a good light
2-oftentimes the Chinese will talk out of both sides of their mouths or contradict themselves, all to make their country look good when it comes to her past.
For instance, in point one, it is often said that some ancient Chinese guy named Nik Nak, according to the locals, is credited with the first form of copyright protection. They say that Mr. Nik scribbled on a rice husk that some work was his and his alone and could not be copied. The local ‘academicians’ as much as it pains me to use that word with this country, say that Mr Nik was before his time and this is proof of China’s respect for intellectual property. The problem is that due to the nature of China, most of us never get much of a chance to check out our verify these archeological ‘find’s, till the chicoms get their mitts all over them, so in reality can we trust what they say? Secondly, imho the locals are given a broad range in interpreting these ‘Chinese artifact’, which lead to liberal interpretations.
For point 2, the Chinese will also claim, however, that the reason for their inability to protect intellectual property is that they have never had it and thus it runs contrary to their culture.They say that historically or for thousands of years, the locals had no property as all they had belonged to the pigeon toed broad skulled men of the lineage of people like Yuan, Song or Tang, thus the Chinese do nor properly understand IPR protection.They try to put a noble spin on the teachings of Confucius, the guy who said the righteous man in his town lies to protect his father, and say that due to Confucius all things esoteric belonged to the whole not individual thus IPR was bad.
Hmmm, does it not seem odd that both of these can be true? In truly Chinese fashion they wish to sit on the fence, while using the tired old excuse that they are a fledgling country of sorts and thus civilization must be patient while they upgrade to the 19the century, while at the same time claiming that they are slaves to thousands of years of history. So which is true?
To me it would appear that what we hear from ‘historians’ seems to be a simple form of propaganda served up 200ad style. When one yanks back the shroud of mystery from China one finds out that much of the romantic notions of this place are nothing more than the fervent cries of nationalist propaganda. There are bright spots, however like the Tang dynasty which really kicked butt and the Qing for their attire, but in reality we can look at China objectively and ask the following question?:
OPEN QUESTION TO CHINA
If you have been around for 5000 years then wtf have you really accomplished in this time? Spare me the invention of the wheelbarrow, fireworks and such. Even if we give you credit for all those things lets compare your inventions to a man like Edison, De Vinci or the like. How in the heck have you been around for 5000 years and accomplished so little?
The land of freedom and minoirty presidents -USA has been around for about 230 years or about 21.7 times less than China. So, Mr. China you should have at least 21.7 internet like inventions, not to mention :blogs, GPS, DNA computing, and all the others (btw those are just a few from the ’90s see here) not to mention all of the others (here).
I think it is safe to say that a country rife with corruption who seems on the brink of copying her way to infamy would have a little more to show for her 5000 years on this earth, but maybe I am asking too much. Maybe those little old time emperors are to blame, or maybe it is the fault of the Qing as they are not Han people like the rest. Or maybe it was the Boxer rebellion and the fault of the foreign devils who invaded this place and stole the recipe for Kung Pao chicken. Or maybe it’s something more simple. Maybe this country is set up , per good Confucian tradition to value memorization and rote skills while giving one’s life to the emperor so they do not suffer from a death from a thousand cuts, or some equally scary alternative. Maybe the sad reality is that in a country with 2,836,000,000 hands, they do not want to innovate as innovation brings efficiency and efficiency brings job loss and job loss brings conquered emperors.
End of rant
Understanding China, One Blog at a Time 