An Excerpt From Quot Space To Create In Chinese Science Fiction Quot (ISBN 132691216X)

An excerpt from Space to Create in Chinese Science Fiction
Copyright © Robert G. Price
An Excerpt from
Robert G. Price
Ffoniwch y Meddyg
2017

Copyright © 2017 by Robert G. Price
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or
used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the
publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly
journal.
First Printing: 2017
Cover Illustration Copyright © 2017 by Robert G. Price
ISBN 978-1-326-91216-1
Copyright © Ffoniwch y Meddyg and Logo
41564, Kaarst
www. robgprice.com
Ordering Information:
Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associa-
tions, educators, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the above listed
Website or at robgprice@yahoo.com.
U.S. trade bookstores and wholesalers: Please contact Ffoniwch y Meddig at
robgprice@yahoo.com

Contents
Acknowledgements...............................................................
1 Aims of this Thesis................................................................
2 Western Science Fiction......................................................
2.1 Defining Science Fiction ...............................................
2.2 The Beginnings of Western Science Fiction............
2.3 Roles of Western Science Fiction ...............................
3 Science Fiction: Creator of Worlds..................................
4 Chinese Science Fiction.......................................................
4.1 Defining ‘Chinese’ Science Fiction .............................
4.2 The History of Chinese Science Fiction.....................
4.3 Roles of Chinese Science Fiction.................................
5 The Authors and their Stories...........................................
5.1 Choosing the Authors....................................................
5.2 YE Yonglie.........................................................................
5.3 WANG Jinkang .................................................................
5.4 LIU Cixin ............................................................................
6 An Analysis of the themes used in the stories.............
7 Conclusion ...............................................................................
8 Appendix:.................................................................................
8.1 Sources: .............................................................................
8.2 Multimedia:......................................................................
8.3 Transcripts:......................................................................
8.4 Video Documentaries:...................................................
8.5 Internet Sources: ............................................................

Acknowledgements
I have made this excerpt available for the purpose of introduc-
ing fellow academics to my book “Space to Create in Chinese
Science Fiction.” (ISBN: 132691216X.)
The volume in its full length is the English reworking of the
original German thesis, which was submitted as part of the Magis-
ter Artium course in Chinese Studies at Cologne University under
Professor Doctor Weiping Huang, who allowed me the freedom to
pursue this topic. For that I am deeply grateful. I am also thankful
to all Lecturers and Professors of the University of Cologne who
have supported me during my studies.
I would also like to thank the following friends and colleagues
who were patient and corrected my non-native German for the
original thesis. They are in alphabetical order: Dr. Karen Bandlow-
Bata, Dr. Thomas Gerhards, Laura Gruss, Dr. Markus Heidak, Noël
A. Klos, Yannick Ringot, Dr. Robin Streppelhoff but I would like
to give an extra special thanks to Verena Hartmann and Karen-Anja
and Christian Groeger who proof-read the largest parts and also
took more time to double-check my alterations. Despite the small
army of proof-readers, the dots connected within this work are my
own as are any errors. Also I’d like to thank Wei Binhao (Fanfan),
who introduced me to Science Fiction World back in 2011.
Finally I would like to thank my parents Jane and Stan Price
for their support over the years as well as to Lili Wu, my wife, for
her unending patience and understanding.

Original Chapter 4.3.3
The importance of Freedom of Creativity for China’s
future
After having been banned twice in its brief history, SF is now
supported by the government of China with the aim to encourage
creativity and innovation. To think of the future, it is necessary to
have learned from the past. Therefore two points of unprecedented
technological progress will be explored here. The first point is the
Industrial Revolution in Great Britain and the second is the growth
of home computing in the US in the 1970s.1
In the BBC documentary Why the Industrial Revolution hap-
pened here?2
Professor Jeremy BLACK examines the question: If
other European countries were as technologically capable, why did
this world-changing development take place particularly in Great
Britain? The answer to this question that becomes clear in the
documentary is freedom. The development and improvement of the
design of steam engines were the achievements of people who had
the freedom to work together, exchange ideas, and to experiment
without having to combat bureaucracy or seek out official permits.
Affirmation of BLACK’s reasoning comes from a comparison
with the situation in contemporary France. The competing
neighbour was “…twice the size of Britain, with mineral wealth
and home to some of the finest scientific minds.”3
According to
BLACK, it was the absolute monarchy in France which brought the
French efforts to a standstill. In the liberal parliamentary monarchy
of Great Britain, "... scientific ideas didn’t suffer censorship by
1
Inspiration for part of this section was from the book Imagine: How Creativity Works
(Boston, 2012) by Jonah LEHRER. Despite the withdrawal of the book because of dis-
torted quotes attributed to Bob DYLAN, the book itself contains a wealth of information
that is based on scientifically based studies.
2
BLACK, Jeremy. Why The Industrial Revolution Happened Here. BBC TV documen-
tary, 2013.
3
Ibid. Quoted from 23’23 - 23’36

church or state as happened in many European countries"4
“... [It
was] a prolific exchange of scientific and technological ideas that
contrasted markedly with the situation across most of Europe.” 5
Attempts by the French to steal and improve upon the steam
engines designed by James WATT (1736 -1819) and Matthew
BOULTON (1728-1809) were doomed to failure because they
lacked precisely this “free exchange of ideas needed for innovation
to flourish.”6
Partly it was the bureaucracy in France that had nipped such
developments in the bud. The introduction of any innovation was
hampered by the wait for stamps and approvals of the latest ideas
from l'Académie des sciences. According to Professor Éric
BRIAN,7
director of studies at the Academy of Social Sciences
EHESS in Paris, 8
the process of compiling information, reviewing
it, and the final release of some innovations took so long that they
were not published until more than a century later. 9
“In contrast to
Britain, [French] individuals were not free to come up with an idea,
find a financial backer and build a machine.” 10
According to other
sources, the success of British innovation was not only due to the
bureaucratic element.
There was a flowering of scientific associations and societies
of Great Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries which held meetings
in coffee houses and Masonic lodges 11
such as the famous Lunar
Society in Birmingham. In such societies, men of science and dis-
covery were closely linked to form “creative communities”12
in
which they had the opportunity to attend presentations on new sci-
4
Ibid. Circa 7’49
5
Ibid.. 7’29 - 7’49
6
Ibid. 24’45 - 25’01
7
http://eric-brian.blogspot.de/
8
l'Ehess - École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
9
BLACK, Jeremy. Ca.25’07 - 25’53
10
BLACK, Jeremy. 26’20 - 26’22
11
MOKYR p.44
12
SMITH et al. p.14

entific evidence, meet like-minded people as well as share informa-
tion.
The Israeli-US-American economic historian Joel MOKYR
indicates that people (in this case - men) were motivated to become
involved in such activities to gain the “esteem of their peers.”13
The
number of organizations for technical and scientific knowledge in
Britain had grown to more than a thousand in 1850, having alto-
gether no fewer than 200,000 members. 14
Among the members of
the Lunar Society were Matthew BOULTON and James WATT,
who were crucial to the industrial development in this period.15
Across the Channel, the picture was quite different. Being an
academic associated with the Academy of Sciences was considered
an elite status. 16
Legally, there were a limited number of around 56
memberships. 17
In addition to this, there was no discernible net-
working as was happening in the UK.18
To compare this concept with an example from modern times,
one only needs to look back to the Homebrew Computer Club
which was founded in 1975 to bring people with similar interests in
computer science together. The association emerged out of interest
in Ed ROBERTS’ newly released personal computer Altair 8800
(the very one which ROBERTS named after the planet in Star
Trek.) A few months after the announcement of the $400 DIY
computer kit appeared in the journal Popular Electronics,19
the first
meeting of the Homebrew Computer Club was held in the garage of
the club founder in Menlo Park.
13
Ibid. quote from Adam SMITH, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. n.pag.
14
Ibid. p.15
15
SCHOFIELD, Robert E. Isis, Vol. 48, No. 4 (Dec., 1957) p.409
16
HAHN, Roger. The Anatomy of a Scientific Institution: The Paris Academy of Sci-
ences, 1666 – 1803. California. p.108
17
Ibid. p.85
18
CLARK, William. The Pursuit of the Prosopography of Science in PORTER, Roy
(Ed.) The Cambridge History of Science Volume 4: Eighteenth-Century Science
19
IMBIMBO, Anthony. Steve Jobs: The Brilliant Mind behind Apple. NY, 2009. p.46

At that time it was impossible to buy a ready-assembled com-
puter – it was necessary to build it yourself. Therefore, the
meetings were of great importance for people who had an interest
in this field. 20
It was at one of these meetings that Steve
WOZNNIAK and Steve JOBS decided to start their own company.
According WOZNIAK, he designed the Apple I for fun, just to
show the boys from the Homebrew Computer Club (but not as a
product for his business.)21
In later years, the success of Apple with
its Mackintosh computer revolutionized the PC industry, heavily
‘influencing’ Bill GATES’ Microsoft Windows which became a
standard platform all over the world.
The new developments which started in these groups of the
seventies were born out of the free exchange of ideas. No one could
have conceived that the results of this free flow of information over
40 years ago would have led to changes in today’s human society,
changing it almost beyond recognition.
Here then, are examples of the kind of innovation that China
wants to create. These two periods of innovations were born in a
climate of freedom, which China is not willing to or can not afford
to give.
Perhaps China cannot afford not to allow freedom for creativ-
ity.
According to an editorial in 2006 in The New Atlantis China’s
aspirations of becoming an immediate scientific superpower are
putting tremendous pressure on Chinese scientists to achieve break-
throughs at an unrealistic speed. The incidents that have harmed the
credibility of Chinese scientists in recent years include accusations
of plagiarism, forgery and downright piracy. 22
20
CARUSO, Denise. Interview with Robert Eiling. InfoWorld (magazine) 27. Aug. 1984.
p.44
21
GITMAN, Lawrence & McDANIEL, Carl. The Future of Business: The Essentials p.95
22
Editorial. The New Atlantis, "China's Phony Science," The New Atlantis, No. 13, Sum-
mer 2006, p.103

In 2003 CHEN Jin became a national hero and won several
awards for the creation of China's first microchip, the Hanxin or the
so-called China chip. Three years later he was discharged from the
Jiaotong University on the grounds of having falsified his results
and for claiming an existing microchip created by Motorola as his
own work.23
In 2003, QIU Xiaoqing of Sichuan University was accused of
falsifying research findings published in the journal Nature Bio-
technology: Six of the co-authors asked to have their names
removed from the article. Three years later, the vice president of
the same university, WEI Yuquan was accused of falsifying test
results of cancer studies. The vice president of Anhui Normal Uni-
versity LIU Dengyi claimed authorship of four articles in various
journals; three of these articles did not even exist.24
Such incidents have led to more than 120 Chinese researchers
(most of whom are based in the US) to sign a petition designed by
microbiologist, FU Xin-Yuan. The petition is a call for research
facilities to carry out “official processes” with regard to such cases.
25
Many of these cases were uncovered by the website New
Threads, intended to debunk unethical practices in Chinese science.
According to the administrator, US biologist FANG Zhouzi, the
site had uncovered 400 cases of scientific misconduct alone in the
years 2000 - 2006.26
An article in the New York Times, which highlights the prob-
lem, 27
asks whether the state puts its masterminds under too much
pressure to innovate in order to catch up with the West. Could such
23
BARBOZA, David. In a Scientist's Fall, China Feels Robbed of Glory. The New York
Times, May 15. 2006
24
Editorial. The New Atlantis, "China's Phony Science," The New Atlantis, Number 13,
Summer 2006, p.103
25
HAO XIN. Government Crackdown, Please, in SCIENCE, VOL 312, 19 MAY 2006
p.987
26
http://www.china.org.cn/english/scitech/167255.htm, accessed 10.04.2014
27
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/15/technology/15fraud.html?_r=0, accessed
25.02.2014

cases be representative of how even the smartest and most success-
ful people in China are forced to take academic shortcuts to meet
the goals of the nation? Cases of plagiarism and counterfeiting
show that science in China has to open up to other ways of think-
ing. In the words of US journalist Evan OSNOS: “…the system
that allowed China to master the production of wind turbines and
batteries does not necessarily equip China to invent the energy
technology that nobody yet has imagined.” 28
One can not be so naive as to say that the reading of SF will
save Chinese science, but if the Chinese government wants to cre-
ate innovation in the minds of young people, then the form of SF
must be allowed to develop and continue to grow, even at the ex-
pense of using stories containing non-scientific, fantastic elements.
Countless modern technologies were once nothing but a novum
described in science fiction – and… here it must be stressed… at
that time they were purely fictional. Over the years SF has postu-
lated countless new technologies as well as new applications for
existing technologies. Unlike scientists, SF writers are not neces-
sarily bound by ‘rules’ and therefore their creative scope is allowed
to be much broader. Naturally, scientists have to examine whether
these speculations can become reality or not - in accordance with
the latest scientific standards – and that is the task of the scientists,
not the creative minds that produce SF.
As discussed in the previous section, one can understand why
certain issues do not appear in Chinese SF e.g. those sensitive is-
sues including references to China's recent history such as the
Tiananmen Square Massacre of 1989. TIDHAR relates that US
author William F. WU had tried to sell a story set in Taiwan to the
magazine SFW. The story was rejected. 29
The recent efforts by the
Chinese government of a peaceful rise of China (heping jueqi, from
28
OSNOS, Evan. Green Giant in “Freeman Dyson (Ed.), Tim Folger (Series Ed.) The
Best American Science and Nature Writing 2010. New York. p. 347
29
TIDHAR n.pag. To this he says: „Taiwan, like Tibet, is considered 'a part of China',
and to claim otherwise is unwise.”

2004) 30
and of peaceful development (heping Fazhan, since 2011)
31
make it easy to understand why China wants to avoid stories
about conflicts within the immediate future.
The absence of such themes as time travel in stories however is
more mysterious. Time travel is one of the earliest themes of mod-
ern SF and 6 years before WELLS’ Classic The Time Machine was
even used in Mark TWAIN’s A Yankee in King Arthur's Court
(1889).
Time travel is a topic which is hard to find in Chinese SF, al-
though it has frequently been used in historical TV dramas as a plot
device, allowing a modern protagonist (almost always female) to
travel back in time and experience life at the imperial court.
After the release of the first show of this genre Shen Hua
(Myth, 2010) 32
which had been based on a 2005 Jackie CHAN
movie of the same name, growth in the number of dramas depend-
ent on this plot device pushed SARFT to initiate steps to discourage
the production of such TV shows, accusing “[t]he producers and
writers [of] treating the (sic) serious history in a frivolous way,
which should by no means be encouraged anymore.”33
Columnist
of the magazine New Yorker Richard BRODY postulated another
reason:
“What the Chinese time-travel plots, […], have in
common is the notion of escape: leaving contempo-
rary, Communist-dominated China for the China of
another era, one where, despite mores that are, in
30
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/02/02/willy.column/, accessed 1.04.2014
31
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-09/06/c_131102329.htm, accessed
1.04.2014
32
http://www.chinahush.com/2011/04/03/no-more-time-travel-drama-authority-says-it-
disrespects-history/
33
http://techland.time.com/2011/04/13/china-decides-to-ban-time-travel/, accessed
1.04.2014

some ways, odd and outdated, love and happiness can
be found.”34
Despite not appearing in Chinese SF stories, time travel is still
available in the form of translations from foreign stories, such as
WELLS’ The Time Machine and William TENN's Me, Myself and
I. 35
The time travel movie Looper was a box-office hit and made
history of being the first film to make more profit in China than in
the US. 36
The cult BBC time-traveller series Doctor Who (1963- ),
the longest running SF series in the world is freely available in
DVD format in China.
Perhaps it is the absence of any scientific importance that is the
reason to suppress the genre of time travel. According to a press
release from 2011 on research from the Hong Kong University of
Science and Technology, it has now been proven that photons,
"obey the speed limit of the universe." 37
Since this proves
EINSTEIN’s theory, one could assume that any further research on
time travel by aspiring young Chinese scientists would be a com-
plete waste of time - theirs and that of the institutes which employ
them.
There are scientists who would strongly disagree with such
statements. Among them is Professor Ronald L. MALLETT of the
University of Connecticut, who conducts research in the fields of
general relativity and gravitation, black holes, relativistic astro-
physics, cosmology and quantum field theory. He has appeared in
TV documentaries concerning time travel38
and has written books
on the subject. 39
He has even declared that he intends to build a
time machine with the proceeds from his books.
34
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2011/04/china-bans-time-travel.html,
accessed 1.04.2014
35
Translated as Sange Wo (三个我) in SFW Feb.1992
36
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/oct/01/looper-box-office-china-us, accessed
1.04.2014
37
http://www.ust.hk/eng/news/press_20110719-893.html accessed 27.13.2014
38
http://www.phys.uconn.edu/~mallett/main/documentary.htm accessed 27.13.2014
39
MALLETT, Ronald L. and HENDERSON,Bruce. Time Traveler. London, 2007

In personal e-mail correspondence with this author he explains
in more detail about his research: “light is used to manipulate space
and time in a way that allows the possibility of time travel using
gravity.”40
More recently, in 2013, Prof. Rainer VERCH submitted a pa-
per entitled Time travel: gravitation meets quantum physics41
to the
Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Leipzig and in the
same year physicist and author of How to Build a Time Machine
(2002), Arizona State University Professor Paul DAVIES wrote an
editorial for CNN, in which he argues that time travel is theoreti-
cally possible. 42
Whether time travel is really possible or not, only
the future will tell. (Or indeed, not).
Independent of any argument for or against whether time travel
should be considered as a serious possibility, the fact is that it is
one of many established genres that do not appear in native Chinese
SF. If one were to compare this principle to the visual arts, it would
be like an artist not using certain colours. 43
There are indeed artists
who experiment with a certain colour, focusing on it, 44
replacing it,
or even omitting it but if all artists were to copy the same methods
or paint in the same manner, one would not evaluate it as being
particularly creative.
China strives to use SF to teach creativity - but they are not us-
ing all the colours. In fact, creativity is seen as a problem in China.
As part of this research, two Google searches were carried out on
03.04.2014, one in English and one in German with the two key-
40
Personal communication (E-Mail) 27.03.2014
41
VERCH, Rainer. Zeitreisen: Gravitation trifft Quantenphysik at
www.researchgate.net/, accessed 27.03.2014
42
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/13/opinion/opinion-time-travel-paul-davies/, accessed
27.03.2014
43
On the other hand, a counter-argument would be that the modern poet does not
necessarily use sonnets but still creates poems. If they wanted to use sonnets, however,
they could.
44
E.g. PICASSO’s Blue Period, which lasted1901-1904. See CHARLES,Victoria. Pablo
Picasso. London & NY, 2011. p.30

words "China" and "creativity / Kreativität" (See Figures 2 & 3 on
pages 154 & 155) The English search returned approximately
30,400,000 results and the German search yielded approximately
1,600,000. On the first page in English 10 results were listed, 7 of
them showed a negative view of the creativity in the context of
China and used words like lack and delay. Among the top 10 Ger-
man results six links showed a negative image.
It must not be forgotten, that it is thanks to creativity that one
of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century changed our
way of thinking about the universe forever.
Albert Einstein once said: “I never think of the future. It comes
soon enough.”45
Despite there being no evidence of his interest in
SF (although his insight that time is the fourth dimension was made
ten years after WELLS wrote about it in The Time Machine), it is
often attributed to him that EINSTEIN was a champion on the side
of imagination as can be seen clearly in the following quote:
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.
For knowledge is limited to all we now know and un-
derstand, while imagination embraces the entire
world”46
The aspect of Einstein's imagination as a source of his thirst for
knowledge and his" different type "thinking was reported by
Ronald CLARK in his biography Einstein: The Life and Times.
“The story is simply told that when the boy (Albert
Einstein) was five, ill in bed, his father showed him a
pocket compass. What impressed the child was that
since the iron needle always pointed in the same
direction, whichever way the case was turned; it must
45
Often quoted. Possibly this quote goes back to: David P. SENTNER "Einstein arrives
in New York today", The Indiana Gazette, 12. Dec. 1930
46
EINSTEIN, A. On Cosmic Religion and Othe Opinions and Aphorisms. 1931, p.49

be acted upon by something that existed in space - the
space that had always been considered empty....” 47
At first glance this account may seem to be unimportant but
the fact is that EINSTEIN’s education had suffered because of the
traditional methods of teaching at that time - mainly because of rote
memorization. However, he taught himself algebra using a game
that he himself had created. Later he learned arithmetic with the
help and assistance of an uncle, who recognized the enthusiasm
within the young EINSTEIN.48
Already at the age of 16 (ca.1895) EINSTEIN had begun day-
dreaming of being in a competitive race against a light particle. He
had the idea that if they both moved at the same speed, they would
seem to stand still. This daydream would later be fundamental for
the development of the theory of relativity. 49
It cannot be stressed enough that it was not the laborious, ex-
hausting deep thought that made EINSTEIN a genius. It was both
the freedom he gave himself to be creative as well as his own
unique way of seeing things and it is fitting that this section should
come to a close with another quote from the man himself:
“It is important to foster individuality [...] for only
the individual can produce new ideas.” 50
47
CLARK, Ronald W. Einstein: The Life and Times p 28-29
48
FORMAN, Lillian E. Albert Einstein: Physicist and Genius. Edina, Minnesota. 2010.
p.9.
49
Ibid.
50
Quoted in ISAACSON, Walter. Einstein: His Life and Universe. 2008. p.33 (Note 8
Einstein message for Ben Scheman dinner, Mar. 1952, AEA 28-931)

An Excerpt From Quot Space To Create In Chinese Science Fiction Quot (ISBN 132691216X)

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to An Excerpt From Quot Space To Create In Chinese Science Fiction Quot (ISBN 132691216X)

Similar to An Excerpt From Quot Space To Create In Chinese Science Fiction Quot (ISBN 132691216X) (20)

More from Aaron Anyaakuu

More from Aaron Anyaakuu (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

An Excerpt From Quot Space To Create In Chinese Science Fiction Quot (ISBN 132691216X)