A Cognition of the Chinese Technical Tradition(p.51)
The research and investigation on the history of technology in ancient and contemporary China means a cognition of or a discovery of the Chinese technical tradition·Such specialists as Liu Xianzhou and Wang Zhenduo initiated textual and monographic research on machines in ancient China, and even restored some machines.Joseph Needham,Lu Jingyan Hua Jueming and other scholars made many studies in this field However, ancient records and archaeological studies cannot supply enough information for researchers. Aninvestigation on contemporary traditional machines especially in country is an effective approach to discover the technical tradition. Researchers from China and other countries had already made a lot of work for it.Since 1990, the author of this paper investigated some traditional machines to make a detailed inquiry into their construction, materials, manufacturing technology and usage, including his interviews with machine一makers, so that he have had a further understanding of the technical tradition and have recorded many techniques·It is very necessary to make an investigation and research on technical tradition in different cultural contexts.<br/>