My contribution to International Week: China in your everyday life.

I have planned the telling from the standpoint of how China has impacted their individual lives. The story as follows with pictures and references to handouts.

Everyday life	ANCIENT CHINA DISCOVERY	Time	Time of Western development
What do you do when you wake up? 1.       You look at your goldfish	Goldfish bred from Carp with rare colors.	618-906, Tang Dynasty During Song Dyansty only Imperial families could own goldfish.	1611 brought to Portugal
2.       check the time	Clocks	First Mechanical 725 (Tang Dynasty) First water clock ?4000BC (China & India) First Astonomical clock 1088	Mechanical 1176 France. The Salisbury clock 1386 still works. Water clock, Babylon & Egypt 15th CenturyBC Astronomical clock 1336
3.       brush your teeth	Bristle Toothbrush	618-906 Tang Dynasty	Europe, 1690 is the earliest recorded date
4.       for whatever reason use toilet paper	Toilet Paper	589, Sui Dynasty Recorded in poetry	1857, New York
5.       get dressed ... in silk!	Silk Sericulture is silk production/farming from silkworms.	3000 BC Age of ancient scraps of silk. Chinese legend says silk discovered around 2300BC by a princess	400BC silk reached the west. 300AD Japan learned the secret. 552AD Byzantine Empire learns secret of sericulture when 2 monks sneak out silkworm eggs.
6.       heat up your tea with matches	Tea	1500BC Tea as medicine. 3rd Century AD Tea as a drink	1285, Marco Polo wrote of Chinese Tea Taxes. 1557 Portugal establishes Macau and tea spreads to West.
7.       ( matches)	Matches	577AD Invented by ladies trying to cook while under siege	1826 England Invents friction match.
8.       you ride to school on your horse If you ride in your carriage you’ll need:	Horse Harness, Ox-harnesses were used on horses but this choked them and made it inefficient. The horse harness was 4X more effective.	300BC	Europe 600AD	a) Ox harness chokes   b) Chinese horse harness      horse. c) Modern Harness
9.       Otherwise if you ride your horse you’ll need:	Stirrups Considered as important as the wheel and printing press and gunpowder, the stirrup transformed warfare	322	6th or 7th century Europe
10.    if it’s raining you’ll need	Umbrella	300BC	Europe 17th century.
11.    snow?	Snow crystals observed as hexagonal which is a significant discovery.  Observation was very important to the study of nature and the Universe	135BC Becomes a regular part of literature and science.	Europe 1591
12.    If it’s early you might see some stars	Astronomy, star charting, celestial spheres, and armillary spheres. China was an early expert in astronomy, developing complex and sensitive tools, inventing armillary spheres and celestial globes.	79-139AD Han Dynasty catalogued 2500 stars.  Tang Dynasty most advanced star chart of 1350 stars. Armillary sphere was invented in the 4th Century BC	1515 was the first European star chart and in  1693 they’d only catalogued 1564 stars. Armillary sphere in the west was invented by Eratosthenes, 276 –194 BC
13.    school starts with:	Bell	2000 BC	5th Century Italy where Benedictine monks learned hot to cast iron and create bells.
14.    Writing assignment?	Paper One of what China calls “the Four Great Inventions” China invented books, wrapping paper, envelopes, paper cup, paper napkins, toilet paper, and Paper Money	2BC	751  Arabs 11th Century, Europe 1400 Germany 13th Century India Independently: Mayan 5th Century	Paper was different from other mediums for writing in that it had a uniform surface, was flexible, and quite durable. (Papyrus for example could not be folded and its uneven surface made its use inconsistent and it deteriorated rapidly outside of dry climates). Paper became a powerful medium for recording information, expressing ideas, and sharing these things. Paper & Printing gave rise to the Rennaisance.
15.    Read: Princess? Cinderella. Herioc warrior? Art of War the most famous military text of all time.	Cinderella Sun Tzu’s Art of War “war is a necessary evil that must be avoided whenever possible”	850-860AD (Art of War 6th -5thCentury BC)	1634 Italy. 1697 Perrault’s Little Glass Slipper (Art of War translated to French in 1772 )
16.    The book --	Printing books, wrapping paper, envelopes, paper cup, paper napkins, and toilet paper - Paper Money	2nd Century, Buddhism helped the spread of printing 11th Century China Ceramic movable type, 13th Century Koreans invented metal moving type	c.1300 europe (1455 Gutenberg Bible)	Printing changed the world.  It is one of the greatest discoveries of all mankind, like the wheel and fire. It enabled the sharing of knowledge easily so everyone could have the opportunity to read and learn. In 1455 with the Gutenberg bible, high quality and cheap prints spread and helped start the Renaissance.
If you study math: 17.    Negative Numbers,	Negative Numbers	179AD	Europe 1545	3 – 5 =  -2
18.    Decimal System (Decimal fractions)	Decimal Fractions, the foundation of the decimal system.	13th Century BC	Europe 1530	for example:.   or
19.    pi (best version until 15th century)	pi	5th CenturyAD	Not improved until 15th Century India & Persia
20.    Eat lunch? How about Noodles or Pasta	Noodles / Pasta And Stir Fry	2000BC (possibly as far back as 4,000 BC)	1154 Sicily spaghetti. (Probably learned from the Libyans) 1st CenturyBC Rome (Lasagna pasta)
21.    You’ll need a plate: Porcelain/Fine China	Fine Porcelain /China	2nd-4th Century	Reached Europe in 18th Century.	$9.5Million bowl.      $18Million vase (20th or late 19th Century)
22.    Paper Money, Gold Standard.	Paper Money came about because of Paper and Printing and lots of Gold & silver. 1120’s, true money under Song Dynasty, when the government backed it. At first it was regional and limited to 3-years.  Soon it was nationalized (1264-1274).  1273 The Yuan dynasty (Mongol empire) made money without time limits and backed by gold or silver. 1694,	1273 Money backed by the government, and gold and silver (to fight inflation)	1855 Bank of England 1862 USA
23.    Playing Cards, Dominoes, Mahjong, & Hacky Sack	Playing Cards	618-906, Tang Dynasty	1334 Spain
	Dominoes	960-1279, Song Dynasty	18th Century Italy
	Mahjong	500BC (by Confucius) or 1850 by soldiers during Taiping Rebellion, or 1870 by Shanghai nobles.	1895 America
	Hacky Sack	1AD	1972 America
24.    Kites	Kites	1000BC	16th-17th Century Portugal
25.    Ping Pong	not a Chinese invention Named from an 1884 song by Hacre.	1901 introduced to China. 1930’s Edgar Snow comments on the popularity of Ping Pong in China.	1885 (invented in England) but China men have won 60% of all international competitions, and women all but 2.
26.    Merit System	Merit System Tests decide placement and job	2nd Century BC	17th Century India & England

How did Chinese inventions go west? Trade and War.

The Mongol dynasty encompassed most of Asia, the middle east and Europe from Vietnam, to Korea, to Iran, to Poland, and Hungary, down to Iran.

Baghdad, Moscow, Kiev and Cracow were some western cities under the empire. (Calendar handout - attached)

The Chinese Zodiac calender is used by most of Asia and was used by Bulgaria, Romanians, and Huns. It is also when the West learned of firecrackers and guns.

Some Chinese inventions were secret, others were difficult to understand, and others in plain sight or sound.

Bells inspired people who hear them.

The Chinese understanding of the compass was easy to understand and very useful.

One famous person, Marco Polo, was one of the first traders to write about his travels.  Because he wrote about China, more people learned of it.  No one even remembers that his father went to China before him. 

Though he did not bring pasta to Italy, Marco Polo did inspire Christopher Columbus. He went to China 800 years ago and he is still famous.  A Thousand years from now, people will still remember his name.

Paper and Silk by contrast were imperial secrets and China maintained a monopoly for on paper for almost 800 years, and on silk for at least 3 thousand years.

Paper - Muslims captured 2 papermakers in a war and learned it from them. 

Silk was made from silkworm cocoons. The Romans though the Chinese made silk from tree leaves. 300BC Japanese kidnapped 4 silkfarmers and some eggs. Then in 552, some monks snuck silkworms out of china.

Money was not adopted by other countries for almost 600 years because it requires a very organized government to manage and the technology is not easy either since you dont want forgeries. so you need to understand paper and printing.  early chinese money was printed in 6 colors with imperial seals, and the paper had bits of color to make it hard to copy.

Porcelain is a very difficult technology that even if you know what to do, it is very hard to do.  Many civilizations knew how to make pottery but none could replicate the technology to make fine china until recently.