You, Me, and Technology; No. 9; China, Japan, and the West

<v narrator>This device measures a precious commodity we call time. <v narrator>It does no other work. <v narrator>And yet it's one of the most important machines ever invented. <v narrator>In this program, we'll use time and the mechanical clock to show <v narrator>how technology can spread from one society to the next and how the same <v narrator>technology can influence different cultures in different ways. <v Speaker>[intro music] <v narrator>Technology is an extension of the human being. <v narrator>It is our way of reaching out into the world using knowledge and creativity <v narrator>to expand human potential and modify the environment. <v narrator>Of all the inventions that illustrate the differences between Eastern and Western <v narrator>approaches to technology, the mechanical clock is perhaps the most revealing.

<v narrator>From the time mechanical clocks were invented, Western society has had a love <v narrator>affair with them. <v narrator>Clocks do more than keep the time they are ornaments, artwork <v narrator>and even forms of entertainment. <v narrator>To find out how this technology came to mean so much to Western society, <v narrator>we have to return to the Middle Ages before the mechanical clock was invented. <v narrator>In those days, society moved at a slower pace. <v narrator>The chief occupation was farming. <v narrator>And religion was the dominant force of daily life. <v narrator>The religious tradition taught that God had given humanity stewardship over

<v narrator>forests, fields, and all living creatures. <v narrator>According to this belief, it is the moral duty to find, extract <v narrator>and put to use all the resources the Earth has to offer. <v Speaker>[hymms] <v narrator>This teaching was especially influential in monastic life <v narrator>in monasteries throughout Europe. <v narrator>Monks worked very hard to put it into practice. <v narrator>They till the fields, built churches and even produced fine wines and <v narrator>brandy. <v Speaker>[bell tolling] <v narrator>Monks worked according to a very strict daily schedule. <v narrator>Their day was divided into periods set aside for work, meals and <v narrator>prayer. Bells marked every period of monastic life.

<v narrator>But the monks were not the only ones who were working hard, <v narrator>tradesmen in cities throughout Europe were acquiring wealth through the manufacture and <v narrator>sale of textiles and other goods like everyone else in their society. <v narrator>They, too, relied on church bells to help them regulate their daily lives. <v narrator>More and more time itself came to be regarded as a precious resource. <v narrator>For the monk, wasting time was a deadly sin. <v narrator>For the tradesman, wasting time and wasting money. <v narrator>Of course, the more precious resource is, the greater the need to measure it carefully. <v narrator>And So it was with time. <v narrator>No one knows exactly who invented the clock or precisely when it was invented. <v narrator>But by the end of the 13, hundreds mechanical clocks like this one were already <v narrator>ticking in Europe.

<v narrator>They used an ingenious device called an escapement. <v narrator>To mark the time, the rhythmic beat of the escapement divided time into separate <v narrator>pulses. <v narrator>In the towns and villages of Europe, the clock was soon accepted as the regulator <v narrator>of the day's activities. <v narrator>Many communities installed a town clock even before they had organized sewage disposal <v narrator>or water supply. <v Speaker>Along with its new machine, Western culture got a new virtue, punctuality, <v Speaker>the virtue of being on time. <v Speaker>We have never gotten over it. <v Speaker>But the invention of a mechanical clock gave us more than punctuality.

<v Speaker>It also played an important part in the rapid growth of technology in the Web's. <v Speaker>As it became more precise, the clock helped usher in a new age of science. <v Speaker>The tools and the skills that went into Clarke making were used to fashion precision <v Speaker>instruments of all kinds. <v Speaker>The story of the clock in Europe shows how a particular technology can spread <v Speaker>quickly through a culture helping to transform it. <v Speaker>There are a few other technologies which, like the clock, have had a profound impact <v Speaker>on our culture. <v Speaker>The stern rudder and compass are such technology. <v Speaker>The compass allowed sailors to venture safely out onto the open sea. <v Speaker>The stern rudder provided reliable steering control. <v Speaker>Together, they made it possible for Europe to embark on the great age of discovery. <v Speaker>Another basic technology was printing with movable type Western

<v Speaker>society, used printing to distribute news, literature, political views, <v Speaker>religious ideas and scientific and technological information. <v Speaker>Printing became one of the cornerstones of Western culture. <v Speaker>Gunpowder was another invention of monumental importance. <v Speaker>It radically altered the technology of warfare and placed in European <v Speaker>hands. It changed the entire course of history. <v Speaker>All these basic technologies share one trait in common. <v Speaker>All of them, except for the mechanical clock, were first invented in China <v Speaker>and brought back to Europe by Marco Polo in the thirteen hundred. <v Speaker>Why didn't the Chinese fully develop inventions like gunpowder printing <v Speaker>and the compass? Why did Western culture adopt such technology so

<v Speaker>readily? And why did China resist their development? <v Speaker>To understand the answers to these. <v Speaker>One must understand the nature of Chinese society. <v Speaker>Down to the present day, China's survival has depended on peasant farmers <v Speaker>cultivating every available piece of land. <v Speaker>From the earliest times, flood control and elaborate systems of irrigation <v Speaker>were a necessity in China. <v Speaker>Such large projects demanded efficient organization. <v Speaker>And a centralized government. <v Speaker>These were provided by the emperor and his bureaucracy. <v Speaker>In effect, the emperor controlled all the land, which he could seize at any time <v Speaker>for the common good. He also controlled the calendar, which was used <v Speaker>to determine the most favorable times to begin planting, harvesting and <v Speaker>other major projects. No one else in China was allowed to dabble in calendar <v Speaker>making. To do so was treason punishable by death.

<v Speaker>The calendar was an imperial tool reserved for the exclusive use of <v Speaker>the emperor himself. He alone was the son of heaven. <v Speaker>He alone was the Lord of time. <v Speaker>The first official act of any new emperor in China was to devise a calendar of <v Speaker>his own, to be used in calculating changes in celestial phenomena. <v Speaker>So it was not strange when nearly 300 years before the first European clock <v Speaker>would be built, that the emperor commanded a royal adviser named Sue Song <v Speaker>to fashion a great machine for mapping the heavens to <v Speaker>sun used water to regulate his machine. <v Speaker>The flow of water turned to mechanism in precisely measured intervals. <v Speaker>The turning wheel not only indicated the passage of time, <v Speaker>but also operated several astronomical instruments. <v Speaker>Like this, more modern clock Sue Song's device could foretell eclipses,

<v Speaker>mark the phases of the moon and perform other complicated astronomical tasks <v Speaker>as far as we know. There was nothing else like it in the whole world. <v Speaker>The Chinese were largely concerned with agricultural tasks regulated by the <v Speaker>motion of the sun and the passage of the seasons. <v Speaker>They did not share the eagerness on Westerner's to control and regulate the hours of each <v Speaker>day. Nor did they share the Western passion for exploiting nature. <v Speaker>Rather, they held to the wisdom of Confucius, which taught that humanity should <v Speaker>seek harmony with nature, not mastery of it. <v Speaker>In the Chinese view, even technology is supposed to follow the laws of <v Speaker>harmony and balance. <v Speaker>The Europeans who entered China in the fifteen hundreds were coming from a civilization <v Speaker>that had surged forward on a tidal wave of Chinese inventions, gunpowder <v Speaker>printing and the stern rudder among them.

<v Speaker>But the Chinese reaction to Western technology was not encouraging, <v Speaker>though they were amused and intrigued by clocks, for example, they regarded them as <v Speaker>little more than elegant toys. <v Speaker>This view prevailed in the late 60s, hundreds. <v Speaker>China once again expelled all foreigners and closed its borders to <v Speaker>outside contact this time. <v Speaker>The quarantine lasted nearly 200 year. <v Speaker>Ironically, the Europeans who reopened contact with China in 1841 <v Speaker>used a Chinese invention to do it gunpowder. <v Speaker>Or the Chinese, the obvious superiority of Western technology implied <v Speaker>the inferiority of Chinese culture. <v Speaker>And this they refuse to accept. <v Speaker>They feared that adopting Western technology meant adopting Western values <v Speaker>as well.

<v Speaker>Many simply preferred to wall themselves off from Western influence as much as possible. <v Speaker>It was a reaction that has had a long standing effect on Chinese life down <v Speaker>to modern times. <v Speaker>Although China is the world's most populous country and its oldest continuous <v Speaker>civilization, it remains technologically undeveloped. <v Speaker>It seems odd to call this oldest of civilizations a developing nation, <v Speaker>a nation that has decided to catch up with the technological world that it rejected many <v Speaker>years ago. <v Speaker>It's a contradiction at the very heart of China, whose history is filled with wonder <v Speaker>and whose future is clouded by uncertainty. <v Speaker>Anyone searching for a technological success story can focus on Japan, <v Speaker>efficient, prosperous and very up to date. <v Speaker>This small island nation, unlike China, has chosen to become <v Speaker>a modern economic powerhouse.

<v Speaker>But it wasn't always that way. <v Speaker>Four at one time, Japan faced the same decisions about Western technology <v Speaker>that China had to make. <v Speaker>Like China, Japan had expelled all foreigners in 16, 36 <v Speaker>military rulers feared that introducing Western influence. <v Speaker>Especially Western armaments would upset the delicate balance of power that the ruling <v Speaker>Shogun maintain among various elements of Japanese society. <v Speaker>In 1853, an American fleet thunder Commodore Perry <v Speaker>ended over 200 years of Japanese isolation while the West had <v Speaker>become a mighty technological civilization. <v Speaker>Japanese society had barely advanced from its medieval state. <v Speaker>The shock was profound. <v Speaker>The Japanese had no desire to change their way of life. <v Speaker>But at the same time, they realized that if they did not modernize, they would <v Speaker>eventually be swallowed up by the Western powers.

<v Speaker>The Japanese elite decided to transform the country. <v Speaker>They initiated an all consuming national effort to build a modern society. <v Speaker>They changed traditional institutions and they adjusted the habits and patterns <v Speaker>of centuries in favor of Western. <v Speaker>Less than 50 years later, in nineteen hundred and five. <v Speaker>The transformation was so complete that the Japanese inflicted a stunning military <v Speaker>defeat on the forces of the Russian empire. <v Speaker>They had developed from an isolated society to a technologically modern world power <v Speaker>within the span of a single lifetime. <v Speaker>It was an astonishing cheap. <v Speaker>But Japan's dreams of military glory were eventually shattered by World War Two. <v Speaker>After the war, Japan was a devastated country.

<v Speaker>Its industry was destroyed, its cities in ruins and its economy <v Speaker>collapsed. <v Speaker>But once again, the Japanese gift for adaptation came to the rescue. <v Speaker>Supported by America's occupation policy in the 1940s. <v Speaker>And large scale American economic aid and investment after 1950. <v Speaker>Japan saw the value of imitating American business method, as <v Speaker>they had before, the Japanese once again modified their society with a single <v Speaker>minded and communal effort. <v Speaker>Today, the words made in Japan stand for quality products <v Speaker>at a reasonable price. <v Speaker>The Japanese success has been so overwhelming that in the 1980s they opened <v Speaker>factories in the U.S.. <v Speaker>Perhaps what is most amazing is that the Japanese have managed to imitate the Western <v Speaker>and particularly American technology while remaining uniquely Japanese. <v Speaker>They have not abandoned their group outlook or their dedication to community goals.

<v Speaker>Equally amazing is the Japanese ability to take what is most useful from other cultures <v Speaker>and apply it to their own purposes and to do so on a massive national <v Speaker>scale. They accepted the changes demanded by technology <v Speaker>and in a way that is uniquely Japanese. <v Speaker>They have reconciled modern technology with ancient traditions. <v Speaker>Time and the clocks that measure it have already told us a great deal about the relation <v Speaker>of China, Japan and the West. <v Speaker>Today, the clock is still a reflection of the complexity of modern technology. <v Speaker>Extremely accurate watches are no longer an expensive rarity. <v Speaker>In developed countries, at least, practically anyone can own a watch. <v Speaker>Whatever style might suit their fancy. <v Speaker>It's interesting that this technology, once so identified with the West,

<v Speaker>is now becoming a specialty of the East with a few new wrinkles, to be sure. <v Speaker>What does Time have in store for the three great civilizations we have seen <v Speaker>in this program? All we know for sure is that their futures, <v Speaker>like their histories, will be closely tied to technological progress. <v Speaker>The flow of technology, like the clock itself, has brought us <v Speaker>full circle.