According to Winchester, Volume IV, Part I of Needham’s oubliette magnifique describes the Chinese etymological circumstances surrounding the vastness of Chinese words for oranges. Really, how British. How Sapir–Whorf hypothetic of him to lay out the importance of verbogensis and cultural importance of a concept or concrete item. It is here that fascinated Needham. In the elevating of not just the science and grand physical manifestations of China, but the minutiae and elemental shrapnel that composes China’s national identity.
That he was “even more astonished to find that Chinese scientists had the fathomless capacity for “make-do-and-mend” (p 111). Astonished and astounded enough among his first days in China that the idea for his volumes came quickly.
In this chapter we are also introduced to Huang Hsing-tsung (sp?), whose intellect and energy are a match to Needham. And Huang, or H.T. for short, helped organize a mountain of travel and exhibitions. Actually, this chapter runs through a motley crew of British, German and Chinese characters at a tidy clip. H.T., Professor Shi, Wang Ling, Sir Horace Seymour, Margreat Meade and an old Chinese gardner splicing plum trees. That is a short summary of a much longer list of personalities that forged Needham’s desire to document the great reality of China.
Through all of this Winchester treats us regularly with his wit, such as:
He enjoyed the assistance of only a driver, a part-time secretary from India, and one older man of uncertain responsibilities. (p 121)
Ah yes, the older man of uncertain responsibilities. This sounds like an Wes Anderson movie. But the author begins to reveal quite directly the another true sense of what China was like. Between 1939 to 1941 Chongquing saw 268 bombing raids (p 125), and in a two day period alone over 4,000 bombs were dropped. This is not the peaceful and tranquil environ that Needham embraces with this diary and notes. Although his discomfiture would soon begin to swell as the true duty of his job became an apparent and imminent reality.
Winchester begins to examine the vast nature of the Chinese landscape. From the Three Great Furnaces (p 124) to the “Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan” that then Nationalist Leader Chiang Kai-shek believed China would need to hold to hold China (p 128) from ultimate ruin.
The board is displayed before the reader with all of the setting pieces concrete. The players, or at least the first brigade of historical oddballs and intellectual nomads, are readied. Needham perinatal network of peers, colleagues, paramours and antagonists is beginning to form.
Sources:
Winchester, S. (2008). The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom. New York: Harper.