Ancient inventions that enrichedour ancestors can still inspire us, but they should not be excuses for living in outdated ways.迷你倉 InDecember, the Chinese abacuswas listed as an intangible cultural heritage at the annual UNESCOWorldHeritage Congress.Itwas not big news in China. But it perplexed asmany people as itmade proud: Arewe supposed to keep using the old calculating tool, or shouldwe place it inmuseums? I grewupwith the clicks and clacks of the abacus. Iwas not very good at it, doing a bangup job at addition and subtraction only.My father, an oldschool accountant, could use two abacuses at the same time like a pianist playing a Steinway.And he tried to teachmemultiplication and division on one, but that proved an impossible task for me. Fortunately, the electronic calculator came intomy life at the right time, savingme fromthe embarrassment of using pen and paper to do complex calculations.Iwas not the only one to heave a sigh of relief. Students not excelling in the craft ofmoving the beads along the rodswould have the same feeling.We either relied on the scribblingmethod ormental arithmetic. The abacuswas reserved for the smartypants.As theworld is made upmostly of clumsy people likeme, the calculator and the computer quickly replaced the abacus in the lives ofmost Chinese—probably faster than horse carriages gaveway tomotor cars.When I saw an abacus recently, it was on somebody’s wall as a decoration — to show off the owner’s taste for tradition and sophistication, I guess. He wouldn’t have done it three decades ago. Some people want to set themselves apart by doing things opposite to prevailing fashion, which is not a bad thing because most simply adopt the herd mentality. But that does not mean they truly love those things the public has given up.TheUNESCO recognition, in a sense, highlights the cultural value of the ancient tool. But it does not point to its future direction. Some suggestedwe should start teaching zhusuan (literally, calculationwith the abacus) in elementary schools. I wonder howmany parents and studentswould choose it if itwas an elective course.Culture, in the broad sense, refers toways of doing things. The abacus waswhat people used for calculation inmany parts of theworld. I did not knowthat itwent back to theMesopotamian civilization.Neither did I knowthat the Chinese abacus and the Roman devicewere so similar therewas conjecture about their origins. And I’mpretty certain that evenmy father could not do square root and cube root calculations partly because he had little need for them.I never heardmy father lament the vanishing of his favorite calcuPANG LI / CHINA DAILY Honor the past, live in the present lating tool. Elegant as itwas, there was no chance it could compete with the electronic version. There’s only somuch the abacus can do. For one thing, I cannot imagine manipulating a large spreadsheet on an abacus.Whatever glowit gets from authorities, the abacus is not going to be revived on a large scale or in a seriousmanner. There are reasons it has beenwashed away bymodern gadgets. TheUNlisting acts to alert us to the glory of our ancestors, of whichwe should be rightly proud. Butwe should not be carried away to the point of believing thatwe can still live in old times, say the Song Dynasty (9601279), when the abacus made an appearance on the counter of an apothecary’s store in the famous long scrollAlong the River During the Qingming Festival. The abacus is not the only thing on our heritage list. In the past three decades,many thingswe took for granted gaveway tomodern replacements.When Iwas a kid,we used to sit onwooden benches and nowwe have chairs and sofas. (We had simple chairs then, but sofas did not come in自存倉o ordinary households until the reformand openingup, at least inmy hometown.) For heating our bed,we used to have bottles filledwith hotwater or even bronze containerswith halfburnt charcoal,which could be dangerous if you inadvertently overturned it in your sleep.Nowwe can electronically heat the blankets, or better, heat the entire roomwith various convenient, but expensive, technologies.We used to turn to thermos bottles for hotwater, and now—well,we still do, at least in addition towater coolerswith the heating function…Honestly,when the old stuffwas first gone,we almost had a feeling of good riddance. Itwas onlymuch later thatwe gradually realized the value—aesthetic and cultural, if no longer functional—of the things that used to be part of our lives. Our cultural identity ismade up of many things,most ofwhichwill evolve beyond our control.We used to live in singlestory courtyard homes, but rapid urbanization necessitates higher density. It has become simply impractical for everyone to have oldstyle residences.We used to cook everymeal, but nowwe have all kinds of fast food and cooking has turned into a luxury. Overall, to live like a Chinese of oldwould require considerable wealth. But that’s assuming the lifestyle of the ancient aristocrat. For themajority, life today ismuch improved as comparedwith the old times. Remember, even something as simple as the abacuswas not really available in every Chinese home. Itwasmuch less ubiquitous than the calculator today.Many of the things the ancient Chinesewere enamoredwithwere abolished a century ago, including bound feet and the QingDynasty (16441911) men’s hairdo; others are still tenaciouslywith us but are looking frayed, such as the preference formale heirs. Physical things have an easier time finding their newplaces. They can be housed in museums or collected by individualswho cherish antiques and can afford them.It is intangible heritage that has caused themost headaches. Take local operas, for example. There used to be hundreds of varieties across the country but,with the rise of television, the loss of audiences formost operas has been so devastating they cannot survive. Should the government keep themresuscitated by subsidizing themunconditionally? Mind you, it’s not that their shows are not affordable, but their target audience hasmoved on to other forms of entertainment. Or should the government pick a few varieties stillwith a sizable, but ageing, audience to support? Or should it suppressmodern competition, such as popmusic, to divert audiences to the old forms?The Chinese government has been searching forways to preserve and protectmuch of this intangible heritage. In recent years, it has started to pay basic salaries to descendents of artisans for a few selective grassroots crafts. It encourages themto turn the inheriting of special skills into enterprising efforts that can sustain themselves in themarketplace, especiallywith the aid of the tourismindustry. The way I see it, the situation is similar with the abacus. In a nation of 1.3 billion people, there should be a few remaining masters of the tool, if not as a hobby then as a governmentsponsored academic pursuit. The device itself can be a collector’s item or a curiosity for travelers. But it’s wishful thinking that it reappears on every accountant’s desk. There is a difference between loving something as a confirmation of one’s cultural identity and loving it as a pragmatic instrument for getting things done.Contact thewriter at raymondzhou@chinadaily.com.cn. Whatever glow it gets from authorities, the abacus is not going to be revived on a large scale or in a serious manner. There are reasons it has been washed away bymodern gadgets.迷你倉出租
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