As we continue our examination of Chinese and global information technology in the age of computing and new media, then, one of our biggest challenges remains: to liberate our imaginations from a past that never actually existed.
Notes
1 Brian Rotman, Becoming Beside Ourselves: The Alphabet, Ghosts, and Distributed Human Being (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008).
2 Eric Singer, “Sonic Banana: A Novel Bend-Sensor-Based MIDI Controller,” Proceedings of the 2003 Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, Montreal, Canada, 2003.
3 It is worth noting that, as these keystrokes are sent back and forth across fiber optic cables, in theory they become susceptible to the very kinds of surveillance we have become ever more cognizant of in the wake of recent revelations—none as stirring and unsettling perhaps as the Edward Snowden leak. Despite the public’s increased wariness of surveillance over private communications, however, we have collectively overlooked the ways in which the shifting ground of technology has now made possible new and potentially more invasive forms of surveillance: the ability to spy on a person as he uses Microsoft Word or TextEdit, perhaps as easily as when he sends SMS messages or emails. See Thomas S. Mullaney, “How to Spy on 600 Million People: The Hidden Vulnerabilities in Chinese Information Technology,” Foreign Affairs (June 5, 2016), https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2016-06-05/how-spy-600-million-people
4 David Bonavia, “Coming to Grips with a Chinese Typewriter,” Times (London) (May 8, 1973), 8.
5 Philip Howard, “When Chinese Is a String of Two-Letter Words,” Times (London) (January 16, 1978), 12.
6 The description reads: “A special exhibition celebrating the eccentric and bizarre in the museum’s collection. A clockwork bird-scarer, a box of dust, a Chinese typewriter and a battered old suitcase are just some of the objects with stories to tell.” “Eccentricity: Unexpected Objects and Irregular Behavior,” special exhibition, Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, England, 2011.
7 Chinese typewriter formerly employed by Wang Shou-ling in Uppsala, Double Pigeon style, manufactured c. 1970, housed at the Tekniska Museet, Stockholm, cataloged as “Skrivmaskin/Chinese Typewriter,” inventory no. TM44032 Klass 1417.
8 The original reads: “Hieroglyfer är bildtecken, picktogram … Dagens trafikskyltar är en sorts piktogram. Även kinesisk skrift är piktografisk och har tiotusentals tecken … Till skillnad från den piktografiska skriften har de alfabetiska ganska få tecken, ‘bokstäver.’ Det gor att det är mycket lättare att utveckla tryckteknik om man använder alfabetisk skrift.” Visit by author, summer 2010.
9 The Simpsons, season 13, episode 1304, “A Hunka Hunka Burns in Love,” December 2, 2001.
10 Exchange between Nora (Knoxville, Tennessee) and Cecil on straightdope.com, 1995.
Table of Archives
Asia
AS Academia Sinica (Taipei, Taiwan)
BMA Beijing Municipal Archives (Beijing, China)
NDL National Diet Library (Tokyo, Japan)
SMA Shanghai Municipal Archives (Shanghai, China)
TMA Tianjin Municipal Archives (Tianjin, China)
United States
BL Bancroft Library (University of California, Berkeley)
DZS Devello Z. Sheffield Letters & Photographs (Ruth S. Johnson Family Collection)
GKP George Kennedy Papers (Yale University, New Haven, CT)
HI Hoover Institute (Stanford University, Stanford, CA)
HML Hagley Museum and Library (Wilmington, DE)
HUNT Huntington Library (San Marino, CA)
IBM International Business Machines Corporate Archives
LOC Library of Congress (Washington, DC)
MBHT Museum of Business History and Technology (Wilmington, DE)
MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA)
MPH Museum of Printing (North Andover, MA)
NARA-CP National Archives and Records Administration (College Park, MD)
NARA-SB National Archives and Records Administration (San Bruno, CA)
NCM National Cryptologic Museum (Annapolis Junction, MD)
PCA Philadelphia City Archives (Philadelphia, PA)
PENN University of Pennsylvania Archives (Philadelphia, PA)
PSBI Pearl S. Buck International (Perkasie, PA)
RBML Columbia University Rare Books and Manuscripts Library (New York, NY)
SI Smithsonian Institute (Washington, DC)
SMML Seeley Mudd Manuscript Library (Princeton University, Princeton, NJ)
STAN Stanford University Special Collections (Stanford University, Stanford, CA)
TSM Private Collection of Thomas S. Mullaney (Stanford University, Stanford, CA)
UD University of Delaware Special Collections (Wilmington, DE)
UH University of Hawai‘i at Manoa Special Collections (Honolulu, HI)
UN United Nations Archives (New York, NY)
WES Wesleyan University Special Collections (Middletown, CT)
YULMA Yale University Library Manuscripts and Archives (New Haven, CT)
Europe
BNF Bibliothèque Nationale de France (Paris, France)
CFV Dipartimento di Studi sull’Asia Orientale, Università Ca' Foscari di Venezia (Venice, Italy)
CW Cable and Wireless Archives (Porthcurno, United Kingdom)
DNA Danish National Archives (Copenhagen, Denmark)
HH Private Collection of Henning Hansen (Copenhagen, Denmark)
MAM Musée des Arts et Métiers (Paris, France)
MME Musée de la Machine à Écrire (Lausanne, Switzerland)
MS Mitterhofer Schreibmaschinenmuseum (Partschins/Parcines, Italy)
NI Needham Institute (Cambridge, United Kingdom)
OHA Archivio Storico Olivetti (Ivrea, Italy)
PTM Porthcurno Telegraph Museum (Porthcurno, United Kingdom)
RH Private Collection of Rolf Heinen (Drolshagen, Germany)
TM Tekniska Museet (Stockholm, Sweden)
UDD Private Collection of Umberto Di Donato (Milan, Italy)
Biographies of Key Historical Persons (alphabetic by surname)
Auguste Beyerhaus (?–?), printer in Berlin and developer of divisible type “Berlin Font” for Chinese
Bi Sheng [畢生] (990–1051), inventor of movable type
Chen Lifu [陳立夫] (1900–2001), former Guomindang secretary general, minister of education, and inventor of five-stroke (wubi) Chinese character retrieval system
Du Dingyou [杜定友] (1898–1967), library scientist and inventor of shape-position (xingwei) Chinese character retrieval system
Samuel Dyer (1804–1843), British Protestant missionary and printer in China, and developer of steel typeface for Chinese
Pierre Henri Stanislas d’Escayrac de Lauture (1826–1868), developer of experimental Chinese telegraph code
William Gamble (1830–1886), Irish-born American printer, oversaw operations at the Presbyterian Mission Press in Ningbo, China, beginning in 1858
Thomas Hall (1834–?), inventor of Hall index typewriter
Carlos Holly (1838–1919), engineer, inventor, and assistant in manufacturing Chinese typewriter by Devello Sheffield
Hu Shi [胡適] [Hu Shih] (1891–1962), Chinese language reformer, philosopher, former president of Peking University, and diplomat
Jin Jian [金簡] (?–1795), bannerman from Shenjing, former Grand Minister of the Household Department, and Supervisor of the Wuying dian
Robert McKean Jones (1855–1933), typographer, keyboard designer, Remington employee, and inventor of Phonetic Chinese typewriter
Kataoka Kotarō (?–?), inventor of Otani Japanese Typewriter
Marcellin Legrand (?–?), type designer and codeveloper of divisible type Chinese font
Lin Taiyi [林太乙] (1926–2003), daughter of Lin Yutang
Lin Yutang [林語堂] (1895–1976), linguist, author, and inventor of MingKwai Chinese typewriter
Edwin McFarland (1864–1895),
inventor of first Siamese typewriter
George McFarland (1866–1942), brother of Edwin McFarland, and proprietor of McFarland typewriter store in Siam
Samuel Morse (1791–1872), inventor of telegraph and codeveloper of Morse code
Jean-Pierre Guillaume Pauthier (1801–1873), Orientalist, translator, and codeveloper of divisible type Chinese font
Qi Xuan [祁暄] (1890–?), inventor of combinatorial Chinese typewriter
Qian Xuantong [錢玄同] (1887–1939), philologist, language reformer, and advocate of abolishing Chinese characters
Devello Zelotes Sheffield (1841–1913), American missionary and inventor of first Chinese typewriter
Shimada Minokichi (?–?), inventor of “Oriental Typewriter”
Shu Zhendong [舒震東] (?–?), codeveloper of Shu Zhendong Chinese typewriter [舒震東華文打字機] (first mass-manufactured Chinese typewriter)
George Staunton (1781–1859), sinologist and first translator of Qing legal code into English
Sugimoto Kyōta [杉本京太] (1882–1972), inventor of Japanese typewriter
Tap-Key (1900–present), apocryphal inventor of Chinese typewriter
Septime Auguste Viguier (1837–1899), codeveloper of four-digit Chinese telegraph code
Wang Jingchun [王景春] [Chin-Chun Wang, C.C. Wang] (1882–1956), former editor of Chinese Students’ Monthly, codirector of Peking-Mukden and Peking-Hankow Railways, and inventor of experimental telegraph code for Chinese
Wang Yunwu [王雲五] [Wang Yun-wu] (1888–1979), inventor of four-corner numerical Chinese character retrieval system (sijiao haoma)
Yasujiro Sakai (?–?), inventor of early kanji typewriter
Y.C. James Yen [晏阳初] (1893–1990), educationalist, literacy activist, and cofounder of National Association of Mass Education Movements
Yu Binqi [俞斌祺] (1901–?), athlete and inventor of Yu-style Chinese typewriter
Zhang Jiying [張繼英] (?–?), developer of natural-language Chinese character rack for printers
Zhao Yuanren [趙元任] [Y.R. Chao, Yuen Ren Chao] (1892–1925), linguist
Zhou Houkun [周厚坤] [Hou Kun Chow, H.K. Chow] (1889–?), codeveloper of Shu Zhendong Chinese typewriter (first mass-manufactured Chinese typewriter)
Character Glossary
aikoku taipisuto 愛国タイピスト patriotic Japanese typist
baihua 白話 vernacular language
baoleishi 堡壘式 fortress style
ba zi shi 八字式 “eight”-character-style character rack
bianyi zipan 貶義字盤 negative connotation terms tray
biaozhun heng zhi shi Zhong Ri wen daziji 標準橫直式中日文打字機 Standard Horizontal-Vertical-style Chinese-Japanese typewriter
biaozhun shi Huawen daziji 標準式華文打字機 Standard-style Chinese typewriter
bihua 筆畫 stroke
bimu moxi 閉目默習 blind (typing) practice
Bi Sheng 畢生
bi shi yu dian er cheng hua 必始於點而成畫 “must begin as a point before becoming a stroke”
bitan 筆談 brushtalk
bushou 部首 radical/classifier
chan 产 to produce/production
Chen Lifu 陳立夫
chinmun 真文 truth script
chokugo 勅語 imperial rescript
chongfuzi shi 重複字式 repeating character style
cunzai 存在 to exist
dao 道 way
Da Qing lüli 大清律例 Great Qing Legal Code
dayin 打印 to print out
dayinben 打印本 typed and mimeographed edition
daziji 打字機 typewriter
dazinü 打字女 typewriter girl
dazi rencai 打字人才 typing talent
dazi tengxieshe 打字謄寫社 type-and-copy shop
daziyuan 打字員 typist
dengdeng 等等 et cetera
denshin jigō 電信字号 telegraph signals
dian 點 dot/point
dianbao 電報 telegram
dianma 電碼 telegraph code
diannao 電腦 computer
dianxin 電信 telegraphy
dianxin zhuquan 電信主權 telegraph sovereignty
dingzhen xuxian 顶针续线 thimble linking
Dishu 地书 Book from the Ground
dōbun dōshū 同文同種 same script, same race
Dongfang tushuguan 東方圖書館 Oriental Library
douzheng 鬥爭 struggle
Du Dingyou 杜定友
duli 獨立 independent
erji mofan 二級模範 second-level model (worker)
fada 發達 to develop
faming 發明 to invent/invention
fangshexing 放射性 radiating style
fuci fangshe zituan 複詞放射字團 radiating compounds
gada gada gada 嘎哒嘎哒嘎哒 onomatopoeia describing sound of Chinese typewriter
gao 高 high
geming 革命 revolution
genben fangfa 根本方法 fundamental method
genju 根據 according to
gexin 革新 to reform/reformed, to innovate/innovation
gong 公 public
gongji 攻擊 to attack
gou 勾 hook
guangde Huawen dazi buxi xueshe 廣德華文打字補習學社 Guangde Chinese Typing Supplementary School
guibing bushou fa 歸併部首法 Merged Radicals Method
guo 国 country
Guoyu 國語 national language
guoyu yuekan 國語月刊 National Language Monthly
hanzi jianfa 漢字檢法 Chinese Character Retrieval Method
hanzi jianzi he paidie fa 漢字檢字和拍疊法 Chinese Character Retrieval and Stacking Method
hanzi paizi fa 漢字排字法 Chinese Character Arrangement Method
hanzi suoyin zhi 漢字索引制 Index System for Chinese Characters
hanzi wu zui 漢字無罪 Chinese characters are innocent
hanzi xingwei jianzifa 漢字型位檢字法 Shape-Position Retrieval System for Chinese Characters
haoma jianzifa 號碼檢字法 Numerical Retrieval System
hezuoshe 合作社 cooperative
Hiraga Gennai 平賀源内
hitsudan 筆談 brushtalk
hōbun taipisuto kyōkai 邦文タイピスト協会 Japanese Typist Association
hōbun taipuraitā tokuhon 邦文タイプライター讀本 Japanese Typewriter Textbook
hongxing daziji chang 紅星打字機廠 Red Star Typewriter Factory
Hua Mei dazi zhuanxiao 華美打字轉校 Chinese-American Typing Institute
huangdi yong zhi gongwen 皇帝用之公文 clerical documents for use by the emperor
Huanqiu Huawen daziji zhizaochang 環球華文打字機製造廠 Huanqiu Chinese Typewriter Manufacturing Company
Huawen daziji 華文打字機 Chinese typewriter
Hui shi Hua-Ying wen dazi zhuanxiao 惠氏華英打字專校 Mr. Hui’s Chinese-English Typing Institute
Hu Shi 胡適
iroha いろは Phonetic system for organizing Japanese kanji
jian 建 to construct/construction
Jianzhaoshi Huawen daziji 菅沼式華文打字機 Suganuma-style Chinese typewriter
jianzifa wenti 檢字法問題 character retrieval problem
jiaoyu 教育 education
jiatian quezi 加添缺字 to add missing characters
jiefangjun 解放軍 People’s Liberation Army
jiguang dayinji 激光打印機 laser printer
jihua 計畫 plan
jilu 記錄 record
jingyan 經驗 experience
Jin Jian 金簡
jituanshi 集團式 association style
jōyō kanji hyō 常用漢字表 List of Characters for General Use
jue 决 to decide
kaku yubi no bundan 各指の分担 allocation [of keys] to each finger
kang Mei yua
n Chao 抗美援朝 Resist America, Aid Korea
Kangxi zidian 康熙字典 Kangxi Dictionary
kanji seigen o teishō su 漢字制限を提唱す Advocating the Restriction of the Number of Kanji
Keimōsha 啓蒙社
kexingde 可行的 feasible
laodong 勞動 labor
lianchuan 連串 series/chain
lianchuanzi zipan 連串字字盤 connected character tray bed
liang 量 amount/quantity
liansuoxing 連鎖性 chainlink style
lianxi fenzhi 練習分指 practicing fingerwork
lianyu zipan 聯語字盤 connected language tray bed
Lin Taiyi 林太乙
Lin Yutang 林語堂
Li Zhaofeng 李兆丰
Mainichi hiragana shinbun 毎日ひらがな新聞 Daily Hiragana News
Mao zhuxi 毛主席 Chairman Mao
Ma Shoujian 馬守劍
Meidi 美帝 American imperialist
mianji 面積 surface area
min 民 the people
Mingji daziji hang 銘記打字機行 Ming Kee Typewriter Company
minzu 民族 nationality/ethnic group
minzu shibie 民族識別 Ethnic Classification
mobi jianzifa 末筆檢字法 Last-Stroke Character Retrieval Method
moji no oshie 文字の教え The Teaching of Words
mumi wuse 目迷五色 bewildered
Nipponshiki 日本式 Japanese-style
nongye 農業 agriculture
nüdaziyuan 女打字員 female typist/typewriter girl
pildam 筆談 brushtalk
pohuai 破壞 to destroy
qiangji mosuo 強記摸索 rote memorization and groping around
Qian Xuantong 錢玄同
Qian zi jing 千字經 Thousand Character Classic
qinlüe 侵略 to invade
Qi Xuan 祁暄
ren 人 person
richang yingyong jichu erqian zi 日常應用基礎二千字 2000 Fundamental Everyday Usage Characters
rinji kokugo chōsakai 臨時国語調査会 Interim Committee on the National Language
sanmin zhuyi 三民主義 Three People’s Principles
sanzenji jibiki 三千字字引 The Three Thousand Character Dictionary
San zi jing 三字經 Trimetrical Classic
Shanghai Zhongwen daziji zhizaochang lianyingsuo 上海中文打字機製造廠聯營所 Shanghai Chinese Typewriter Manufacturers Association