Papermaking: Cai Lun

Gunpowder: Ge Hong

Compass: ominous, changed from ancient "Sina".

printing: Bi Sheng, perfection.

when the "four great inventions" of the west-manned spacecraft, the atomic bomb, cloning and the internet industry-became popular in the world, the country that historically claimed to have the "four great inventions" of the East was not silent. This is because the sages who first invented papermaking, printing, gunpowder and compass failed to bring permanent honor to the descendants of the Chinese people. Once upon a time, western papermaking and printing overtook China. Compass made you discover the new continent and many colonies, and gunpowder and foreign guns finally blew their doors open. Moreover, China's four minor inventions, ceramics, spinning wheel, cloisonne and seismograph, as well as four pieces of national quintessence silk, tea, traditional Chinese medicine and Peking Opera, have also gone from bad to worse. No wonder many Chinese people are worried, and there are many regrets about how many contemporary inventions China has. Isn't there a great invention in ancient China that can inspire the pride and self-esteem of contemporary compatriots?

Arabian nights talk-the first invention

Faced with this puzzling and puzzling problem, I really don't know how to interpret the children's children. I just rely on the traditional patriotic education for many years, so I am almost paranoid and confident that China, with a history of 5, years of civilization, must have a creature that precedes the four ancient inventions and is superior to the origin of foreign civilizations. Otherwise, why can we hope to breed the largest ethnic group in the whole mankind on the west coast of the Pacific Ocean and the southeast of the Asian continent? Natural selection and competition, survival of the fittest. What kind of carrier and what kind of inheritance is the strength and wisdom to adapt to the survival and development of this great ethnic group?

following the primary survival needs of living entities, this paper traces back to a certain demand of the ancestors of Zonghanzu in Zihua who changed their primitive bad habit of eating animals and eating blood from the fire since they knew how to slash and burn. Because of the high temperature of flame and hot soup, it is not allowed to follow the habit of reaching out and grasping, so there is a substitute for finger, an arrow, a spear or a branch. Obviously, a single arrow only has the function of pricking and picking, which is far less convenient than holding it with two fingers. The most primitive thinking of our ancestors has learned that the dexterous thumb can be extended by using two branches. Moreover, our ancestors have exercised their fingers freely in hunting and labor skills, and they have pinched two twigs in their hands, doing their best to insert and pierce the clips, scoop and stir, and can also be used for feeding and broadcasting spoons, frying rolls and frying. It is really eighteen kinds of food skills. It can be inferred that the first invention of Hua Han ancestors was born. It is called invention and creation because chopsticks completely conform to the three laws given to invention and creation today: novelty, creativity and practicality, and also have inexhaustible raw materials that can be used for processing and mass production. Therefore, it can be further asserted that the ancestors invented bows, arrows, spears and some farm tools, so the first folk daily necessities were chopsticks. With the popularization and extensive use of chopsticks, the materials used to make chopsticks gradually evolved into branches, wood strips, bamboo branches, bamboo strips, bone strips and tooth strips. Its shape and length have gradually formed rules. Its length is due to primitive tribes and the custom of eating around food containers, so it must have a certain length to reach for food. And this length must be convenient for the wrist to move in the radius between the food container and the mouth, and the movement radius of the arm is also restricted by the two fulcrums from the wrist bone to the elbow bone, so the length of the forearm has generally become the length standard of chopsticks. This view is very important. Is the concept of the length of ancestors really related to chopsticks? In fact, primitive people's initial confirmation of distance and length is often based on the principle of ergonomics, taking self as the scale, including fist, finger and stride, and extending to the range of spear and arrow, but this kind of formation is obviously not as convenient as chopsticks. Because of the birth of chopsticks, not only the custom of surrounding food was determined, but also the diameter and width of square table and round table for dinner were determined according to the length of chopsticks and arms as the radius, and the convention of the length around the table and the number of diners in the space was determined. Finally, chopsticks became the length unit of the original size, and a city ruler was about equal to the length of forearm plus fist, so was the original chopsticks. Just because wooden and bamboo chopsticks are easy to bend, coupled with the development of folk houses and utensils, people gradually move from the wild to the indoor, and the chopsticks of eating tables and utensils are gradually short and exquisite. As for the shape of chopsticks, the upper part and the lower part are rounded, which is probably related to Fiona Fang's theory of heaven and earth advocated by our ancestors. Since the heaven is round, it is natural to hold Fiona Fang in the palm of your hand. Interestingly, many ideas and original grades between clans and tribes are also reflected by chopsticks. According to the quality and difficulty of making dental bone bamboo and wood, according to the length and thickness of chopsticks and the different decorative patterns deliberately made, the rank and seniority of chopsticks holders are determined. In order to meet the needs of the traditional etiquette country, chopsticks have evolved into gifts and sacrifices. When offering sacrifices to the gods for three grains, people insert chopsticks into the offerings. In order to determine the time of worship, some people lit vertical wooden and bamboo chopsticks for timing. Then, it was found that chopsticks made of a certain kind of wood would give off fragrance after burning, or form a faint flame, which seemed to drive away mosquitoes, flies, insects and ants and drive away hungry ghosts and ghosts, adding to the mystery of the ceremony. The original incense burning and candle burning came into being, and it was not until later generations knew how to stick spices and paraffin on chopsticks that candles and incense burning came out, but their carrier was a chopstick.

Chopsticks are really wonderful because our ancestors endowed them with great plasticity, which in turn inspired the creativity of our compatriots. Because primitive tribesmen developed production while creating civilization and culture, chopsticks played an irreplaceable role. While chopsticks become a unit of length, people pay equal attention to quantity and number. How to record the fruits of labor? Before the birth of numbers, people began to use chopsticks as a bargaining chip, and the progressive coding method of one, two, three, and seven came into being. However, when too many chopsticks were needed for the progressive number, decimal mathematics was formed by taking the length and thickness as the system for the convenience of substitution, exchanging ten short ones for one long one and ten long ones for one thick one. The square numbers created in the early days are chopsticks with uneven length, plus the heads and tails of the bent and folded chopsticks, which are based on the digital prototype of the horizontal and vertical hooks. The ancient Chinese characters, which are characterized by symbolism and understanding and created by chopsticks, are bound to form a square font, because the hard pen as a word-making and writing tool was originally a chopstick picked up at will. Besides sketching on the desktop wall on the ground, the wooden bamboo tooth bone pen also found that it was of great use to tie feathers and animal hair at the end of the pen and dip the pigment extracted from plant minerals or the original earthy animal blood. Among chopsticks, it is easiest to fill feathers in the hollow tube at one end of bamboo chopsticks, so the use of a large number of writing and drawing tools produces calligraphy paintings and colors and patterns painted on the clothes of the altar objects in the house. All kinds of cutting, scraping, painting, branding and carving techniques attached to chopsticks brushes are also attached to the Zhong Ding Rock Jade Wall Hall in Oracle bones. In order to meet the needs of the astronomical war, the ancestors who were good at metaphysics and Taoism took the altar as their site, zoned the land for Fiona Fang's yin and yang, set a chopsticks as the divination and divination, and then put a long and short hairpin around the center of the fish of yin and yang as the yin and yang. This was the first thing that Zhou Wang, who took ivory as his cue, did not expect. As a matter of fact, chopsticks were called chopsticks at first, because the common people said that their sound was similar to "living" and changed it to mean "fast". It is considered that eating quickly is a great pleasure in life, so how can we go ahead without making progress? It is an extraordinary pair of chopsticks that strengthens the concept of finger extension and grasping, resulting in the derivation of objects such as tongs and scissors. The arrangement of chopsticks crisscrossed from small to large, from short to long, which made the ancestors living in the cave bird's nest understand the composition and function of column beam purlin and fence cage. The ancestors of Luban demonstrated the first horizontal building in ancient China with chopsticks. In the ancient temple tower and palace building, the chopsticks arrangement was rigorous and orderly or intrigued. Of course, the bird cage and cage also belonged to the nature of chopsticks. Therefore, it is associated with the simultaneous evolution of western nations, who also hold knives and forks with one pair of hands, and different feeding and dining rules stretch into different styles of culture and ideas. The left knife and right fork are lined up and even become a long dining table. Without the pleasure of chopsticks, word-making is caused by the change of sign language and fingers, and writing is thanks to a tube of feathers. As for building a house, whether it is Gothic Romanesque, it is nothing more than a pile of stones, which really lacks the spirituality and charm of this chopstick. Until the guests and friends in Europe and America who have experienced the development of civilization for thousands of years, everyone who wants to enjoy the wonderful cooking in China must learn from chopsticks. Then I realized that the most civilized feast for all mankind is by no means the flow of people dancing knives and forks. Using two exquisite chopsticks skillfully, we can make relative movements at will. It can be seen that the original relative method of "Yanhuangstein" is thousands of years earlier than the number of westerners.

Isn't it just the primitive law of relativity? China people have learned too many things from a pair of chopsticks, which has formed the unique chopsticks mood and philosophy of China people. It is no exaggeration to say that there is nothing greater than the invention and creation of chopsticks throughout the history of China civilization for thousands of years. If the author describes chopsticks as the carrier of emotion and the inheritance of culture, and describes them as the "first invention" in ancient China, will anyone criticize my shallowness and bias? Yes, since one day more than ten years ago, when the author insisted that chopsticks were an alarmist because of hunger and cold, I immediately grasped the chopsticks that had been snapped abruptly in my hand, and the madman with a whim could not help holding the broken chopsticks like a treasure. Yes, the broken chopsticks made me think about two fables about chopsticks at that time. One is that there was chaos in the pre-Shang Dynasty in the Zhou Dynasty BC, and there were many disputes among local righteous generals for the promotion of leaders. A general immediately ordered everyone to pick up the chopsticks on the dining table and fold them. Sure enough, they were easily broken. It's time for the general to hold a chopstick in his hand and break it constantly, so he knows that everyone should hold the principle of unity and help. People were impressed by it and elected it as Zhou Wuwang, so the Shang Dynasty was destroyed in the Western Zhou Dynasty. The second is that in ancient times, a large family often caused trouble because of its large population. Parents specially made three-foot bamboo chopsticks for this purpose, and ordered their families to hold chopsticks for food. Helpless chopsticks are too long to feed themselves, so they can only feed the people at the opposite table. Therefore, parents understand the family rules of "do what you want first" and "don't do to others what you don't want others", and make the incident disappear. "Chopsticks are so extraordinary, I should make a statement for chopsticks and make a monument for the ancestors! After all, it is with this unusual and extraordinary chopsticks that I have been eating for 4 years that I understand the ultimate virtue of my compatriots in setting chopsticks and thinking of their relatives every festive season. It turns out that people are like chopsticks, and the chopsticks spread out are herringbone ... "Writing an article that seems to be impossible makes the pen more full of endless feelings.

The Story of Roche-Chopsticks Emotion

It is impossible to test when the first pair of China chopsticks started and who invented them. Limited by knowledge and evidence, the author can only fabricate the history of chopsticks in a fable way. Despite more than ten years of research and exploration, I have written and published several articles about chopsticks. Among them, especially the signed article "Philosophical Thinking of Art Neo-Expressionism" published in the column of Scholars' Forum of China Reform News on July 16, 1998; "Hello's New Expressionism Speech" given at Beijing University in October 1996; And the front-page article "The First Publication-Chopsticks and Its Philosophy" published on December 23rd, 2 in China Academy of Sciences and organized by China Academy of Engineering and National Natural Science Foundation attracted people's attention. In accordance with the principle of self-responsibility, I resolutely shouldered the relevant responsibilities of Roche's chopsticks theory, and took pains to take the chopsticks chewed and stretched by my compatriots as the research object and topic. I know that I lack any historical data and evidence, but I have to assert the myths of chopsticks by imagination. Even though this inference is extremely reasonable, its academic value is inevitably questionable. Therefore, I'd rather hope that people who write to the contrary will discriminate or discuss with me, otherwise I'll have to let the author go on in the story of Roche. What is the "chopsticks complex"?

Not to mention the long history of "setting chopsticks to miss your relatives". Before the New Year's Eve dinner, parents always put chopsticks on delicious food, and invited their grandparents to enjoy it. In the Mid-Autumn Festival, people often miss their relatives by placing chopsticks beside the empty small handleless wine cup of the absent. The first lesson for young children to sit on the table is the method of holding chopsticks and the family instruction of making chopsticks hold vegetables nearby. I still remember the first family style in my life, because my father hit me on the head because the food was in the front, and I heard two chopsticks click on my huge forehead. In order to save paper and pen when learning Chinese characters and writing, I imitated my father to daub Chinese characters on a stone with chopsticks. The childhood fable was taught by my mother that "a chopstick is easy to break, but a chopstick cannot bend". Mother is not only knowledgeable, but also skilled in knitting and glass painting. The bamboo needles she used to weave the rattan chair on the brown bed were made of several bamboo chopsticks, and the sweaters of her sons were knitted with sweaters cut from bamboo chopsticks. Later, I cut the chopsticks thin and cut them short, strung a bunch of wooden beads, and made the first earth abacus for children after studying. I think that when our ancestors invented the first abacus, it was probably made of beads with chopsticks. After that, I wrapped a piece of cloth with chopsticks to make the piston rod of the bamboo tube water gun used by children in water fights, and cut it into small piano codes on the horn of erhu, or cut it into thin keels on small kites. However, this move stole a small chopstick without consulting with my mother, and was scratched by a kitchen knife when cutting the keel. Mother picked up chopsticks to hit her son's little palm, only to see the wounds and blood on her fingers, and she was so sad that she shed tears. Yes, chopsticks are more important than sons. Without saying anything, she bought a bamboo, cut open the bamboo with her hands that had cut the candle core when she was young, and cut a lot of bamboo chopsticks and kite keel. "Do it yourself is better than anything. Chopsticks are too short for bamboo to be long enough, which means that things are short and strong ... "After listening to the mother's training, we learned something, because I saw chopsticks and saw bamboo forests. Yiyang, Hunan Province, which is known as the hometown of bamboo in China, has hundreds of acres of bamboo forests everywhere. Bamboo used as bamboo chopsticks has also been produced into bamboo crafts with bamboo mats, bamboo curtains and bamboo utensils that are well-known at home and abroad. From bamboo houses, bamboo walls and beds to bamboo stools, cages and spoons, the people in Zhuxiang have enjoyed it for generations. By the time I finished my primary school, I was just catching up with the local government's approval to recruit artists in the bamboo art factory in order to explore the bamboo craft that has been inherited for thousands of years. Under the age of 14, I was admitted to the factory as an artist because of my foundation in art and sculpture. Listening to the skilled teacher's words and deeds, the first class is of course about the tradition of bamboo art. "You know, these bamboo wares were originally handed down by my master's master's master. No one can tell who the master is, but the first product is chopsticks. It is said that Yiyang is also the birthplace of bamboo chopsticks!" The speaker who has no intention of listening is beneficial. At least I saw with my own eyes that the first bamboo chopstick machine in China was born in the factory building here, and the quality and efficiency of it simply surprised the craftsmen who worked by hand. I watched the happy birthday characters or dragon and phoenix patterns completed on the chopsticks by carving machines and pyrography machines, and watched the pairs of gift chopsticks sealed in exquisite packaging boxes, and I felt more and more the hard work and selfless dedication of the workers day and night, and what feelings they gave bamboo chopsticks. It wasn't until I learned that the words "Made in China" were added to the chopsticks box that I learned that there were many foreigners who liked chopsticks and Chinese food besides overseas Chinese in neighboring countries. Because in their view, chopsticks are a special complex of China people and a traditional culture of China people. As a result, chopsticks are everywhere in Japan, South Korea and New Matai, and people who use chopsticks always have a good impression on each other when enjoying Chinese food.

chopsticks are really incredible. A great ethnic group, which accounts for a quarter of the global population, has always adhered to this national quintessence for thousands of years.