The fact is simple: There was no paper in the Warring State Period (戰國時代).
The classical description is paper was invented by Cai Lun (蔡倫) of the Han Dynasty, at around the 2nd century. However, Cai was largely responsible for refining the technique of paper-making, and there is a wealth of archaeological evidence that primitive paper existed in China at least 200 years before Cai was born.
In other words, when Sima Qian (司馬遷) wrote the Records of the Grand Historian (史記), paper was around - but the quality was poor and that thin sheet of fiber could not be used for routine writing.
And that familiar phrase of ours did not appear in Chinese literature until the Qing (清) era. No, it was not referring to Zhao to begin with, and the comment was first linked to the story of Zhao Kuo officially in the Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (現代漢語詞典) - the first dictionary of Putonghua published by the People's Republic of China.
1 comment:
Your last two blog posts about history and paper reminded me the story my son told me about his class (4th grade, ~9 years old). His teacher told the class that paper was invented by Chinese. We live in US and he was the only Chinese student in class. His classmates ended up blaming him for the invention of paper and causing them to have homework!
Post a Comment