Study
of Chinese Culture and BBC TV show Sherlock
The BBC television show
“Sherlock” represents many Chinese elements in The Blind Banker (episode 2,
season 1). However, those plots made by western producers for westerner
audiences did not use Chinese elements accurately.
The purpose of this study will
be to explore how do producers of western film or TV show misuse of the Chinese
elements in the BBC television show “Sherlock” which designed for western
audiences. This study will also explain why they made mistakes of using Chinese
elements.
China
is an ancient country. Chinese character was invented at Shang dynasty and it
was 3,500 years ago. China has very long history and abundant culture.
However, China is not a very open
country. As we all know, Chinese can’t log in Facebook, Twitter and some other
foreign websites legally. Now, many Chinese choose to log in Facebook or
Twitter by VPN, but most of people in China still have never log in Facebook.
Some Chinese even don’t know about these websites. There is a special wall
called The Great Firewall blocks Chinese people.
Facebook
is a global social network. It makes people around world could join in a big
discourse community to communicate each other. There is too much information
exchanged in every second among social network. However, Chinese can’t participate
in this communication. So we lose the chance to touch the outside and be known
by other countries.
As
a Chinese I don’t want to say that how difficult we could get visa to go abroad.
We need to offer verity certificates, forms, applications, invitations. Even if
I make enough preparation, it is still possible that I would be rejected. And it’s
also different for foreigners to come China. There are only 46 countries are
visa-free with China. This kind of limitation makes China to be misunderstood
by foreigners.
With
the economy developing in China, China was noticed by western countries. Westerners
find a very big market in China. Many top 500 companies of world came to China
and set many companies. Film and TV show producers are also want to get more
profit by appealing Chinese audience because China has the most population
around the world. Western Film and TV show producers also take advantages of
Chinese elements to attract attention.
For instance, the Disney movie Hua Mulan and DreamWorks Animation
cartoon Kung Fu panda used Chinese stories and images to make movies and got
good feedback. Western audiences are also interested in Chinese culture.
Chinese are the symbol of myth in most of westerners’ mind. So using Chinese
elements could be a useful method to attract both Westerners’ and Chinese
people’s attention.
However,
those producers are not so familiar with Chinese culture, so they might make
some mistakes while using Chinese elements in their films or television shows.
The BBC Television show Sherlock can be a good example of misusing Chinese
elements.
Screenwriters
of Sherlock add many Chinese elements in The Blind Banker (Episode 2, Season
1). I would like to introduce the whole story first. There is a Chinese
criminal gang called Black Lotus Tong. They are engaged in smuggle activities.
They secretly transport Chinese antique to England and sell them as very high
price. However, a jade hairpin worth 9 million pounds disappeared during one
trade. The master of Black Lotus Tong, Shan who lives in China, is anxious to
find out who steal the hairpin. So Black Lotus Tong goes to England and
pretends to be a Chinese acrobatic. Shan wants to find the hairpin during
performance. The link men of that trade are Van Coon and Lukis. Shan believes
that one of them must steal the hairpin. So Shan draw the secret code on place where
they can see to warn them they should return the treasure. But no one returns
the hairpin. Finally both of them were killed. Sherlock is in charge of this case.
He finds that the secret code is a kind of ancient Chinese numeral called
Hangzhou numeral. Finally, Sherlock decodes the Hangzhou numeral and catch the
Black Lotus Tong.
I
watched The Blind Banker (episode 2, season 1 of Sherlock) many times to find out
what elements they use are not correct. I list all of them and chose the
appropriate elements to do some research.
Then
I did research on internet. I find academic resources on Google Scholar, EBL,
Springer or other online library. I got the information about Suzhou numeral,
Unicode Standard, Chinese painting, Japanese painting, Japanese and Chinese
culture and Jade.
I
find that there three main kinds of misusage of Chinese elements in BBC
Television show Sherlock: First, Suzhou numeral was called Hangzhou numeral.
Second, a Japanese painting was used as Chinese painting. The last one: a cheap
hairpin was regarded as ancient jade hairpin.
Error of Translation
During solving the case, Sherlock found a
kind of mystical character. Those characters are Suzhou numeral. However, when
Sherlock mentioned this kind of numeral system that was used in ancient China,
he said: “Hangzhou numeral”. As a Chinese, I never heard that there is Hangzhou
numeral. Obviously, they made a mistake.
Suzhou
numeral is original in Suzhou in Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279). In that
time, there was no city called Hangzhou. Ancient Hangzhou was named Linan. Linan
was near Suzhou and they are both water countries, these two cities have
different cultures. Linan was the capital of Southern Song, but economic in
Suzhou was more developed than Linan. There is an old saying: When Suzhou and
Huzhou (A city near Suzhou) have a bumper crop, the country will be free from
hunger. As the economic center, there were a lot of trade happened in Suzhou,
then Suzhou numeral was created for accounting during trade. Suzhou numeral is
a kind of rod numeral. Rod numeral is an old numeral system. It was created by
branch at first. Rod numeral was used for accounting but not write. So it looks
a little complex. Suzhou numeral does not disappear now. Hong Zhang, who works
in department of East Asian Studies in Colby College did some research about
present situation of Suzhou numeral. According to Hong’s research about Chinese
numerals in Chinese Numeral, the Journal of
East Asian Linguistics 16.1 (2007)[1],
Suzhou numeral was used in in market and it was popular in Hong Kong until
1990s since it was replaced by western numeral. However, some secret
organizations like criminal gang or smuggles still use Suzhou numeral to convey
as code to transfer information. The screenwriters of Sherlock know about this
so they added Suzhou numeral into their plot.
In
BBC television show, Sherlock, screenwriters knew that smuggle organization use
this mystical numeral as code. They found this kind of numeral was Hangzhou
numeral according to Unicode Standard System. However, they did not know there
is a misnomer in the Unicode Standard System. In Unicode Standard, Suzhou
numeral was record as Hangzhou numeral by error.
Unicode Standard is a system
that provides different language characters with one standard character set.
The purpose of setting this system is reducing the quantity of mapping system.
If every kind of language has its own mapping rules, we need to download a lot
of different character set and install a lot of different input methods to type
different languages or characters. With the Unicode Standard, Thousands of
characters are using one mapping system. It will be more convenient for people
especially for computer engineer. However, nothing is perfect. There are many
anomalies in Unicode Standard.
Asmus Freytag
who got Ph. D from University of Illinois is an expert of Unicode Standard
System. According to Asmus’ report: UTN #27: Known Anomalies in
Unicode Character Names, we could know that
Suzhou numeral was record as Hangzhou numeral in Unicode Standard by error. And
creator believes Hangzhou numeral is just a name of that old numeral system. So
they don’t need to spend extra time and money to alter it. (2014) [2]
In
Unicode Standard, characters of Suzhou numeral are named Hangzhou numeral. And
I think it is not only a misnomer but also a kind of misunderstanding about
China. Unicode Standard is created by western people especially English
speaking people because keyboard of computer and mapping system of English is
remain in Unicode. The QWERTY keyboard was created for English speaking
countries. Every computer use QWERTY keyboard though it’s not so convenient to
type other language. Unicode Standard is based on the English characters.
Suzhou
and Hangzhou have different local culture. But they are just the same in
western people’s mind because Suzhou is near Hangzhou and both known as
beautiful sight. So they made that mistake. That’s the reason why western
screen writer often use Chinese elements incorrectly.
Screenwriters
did not notice this mistake because they do not understand and pay much
attention to Chinese culture. Their information is from Unicode. In fact, it’s
easy for them to realize the name of that special numeral is Suzhou numeral is
they did some research of Chinese numeral. However, using Chinese elements
seems a method to attract attention. Their audiences are almost Westerners.
They only need to know that is a kind of numeral of ancient China no matter
where it came from.
Error
of Distinction
When
Sherlock Holmes was searching the Chinese antiques that auctioned on Internet.
We could see a painting on the computer screen which was explained as a Chinese
painting. However, if we see it carefully, we will find it is not a Chinese
painting but a Japanese painting.
Though
there are some similarities between Chinese painting and Japanese Painting. We
can still distinct them by style, color, expression or other characters.
Caroline
Self and Susan Self pointed out that Chinese painting is famous of brush
drawing in their book: Chinese Brush
Painting : A Hands-on Introduction to the Traditional Art. Caroline Self
and Susan Self are both learn Chinese brush painting for many years. They gave
a brief introduction of Chinese brush painting. We can also know the history of
Chinese panting in their book.
The main tools of Traditional Chinese painting is brush,
ink, silk paper. Line is the core of Chinese painting. Chinese painting has
clear structure, and accurate verve. Philosophy and scene are very important in
Chinese painting. Not like western painting, we always can’t find too much
detail in Chinese paintings. Just simple lines could express the soul of
character. In the Song and Yuan dynasties, literati painting became popular
among artists. Poetry and painting are combined together. Literati painting has
abundant connotation, moral or symbolic. It is also called “the silent poetry”.
In the long history, painting and
art crafts combined together with decorative style. In Han Dynasty, folk
craftsmen have been able to take advantage of a variety of physical materials
to create a variety of painting techniques, form and style. Among a vast land
of China, different regions interact and exchange, Chinese painting gained its
own national style: Soul is the most important part of painting. [3]
In Tang Dynasty, productivity increased rapidly. China
became the world's center of political, economic and cultural. There are three main
characters of painting in Tang Dynasty. One is the revival of ritual painting,
the other is the rise of enjoying painting and palace painting, and the third
is the deepening of literati painting.
Painting
showed on screen was a Japanese Ukiyoe. We can distinct them by style which
explained by active director of the International Art Society, Ryukyu Satio in
his book: Japanese Ink Painting : Lessons in Suiboku Techniques.
Japanese painter after Han Tang dynasty completely
mastered the painting style in Tang dynasty. They also learned a lot of
techniques from western countries. But their closet Chinese soul in their
painting is difficult to remove. So the Ukiyoe became mixed art, Ukiyoe. The
name of this art is original in term "floating world" from the
Buddhist term. Since the 15th century, Ukiyoe has been interpreted as normal
world. It also meant all the pleasures places like brothels later. Ukiyoe
contain sex as the main content, then people began to use the word Ukiyoe to
refer to this kind painting. (2010) [4]
The Japanese painting showed on screen is Ukiyoe. It
showed a man and a woman is lying together. The painting is expressed in
detail. And the clothes of people are kimono which is traditional clothes of
Japanese.
According
to Tang Dynasty Tales : A Guided Reader written
by William H. Nienhauser: Chinese and Japanese paintings are similar in some
way because China and Japan are both Asian countries. William is a Professor of
Classical Chinese Literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In Tang
Dynasty, there were a large number of Japanese scholars came to China to learn
advanced knowledge. The large number of traditional Japanese culture preserved
Chinese elements including painting style. (2010) [5] So westerners are
difficult to distinct Chinese and Japanese.
When
producers make television shows, they should choose resources. The producers of
Sherlock are seems not careful enough. However, if we think deeply, we will
find that maybe producers are not only one should be blamed. Producers must
search information online. They found a Japanese painting because publisher of
that painting made the same mistake first. Westerners lack enough knowledge to
distinct Chinese painting and Japanese Painting.
Error
of Value
The
treasure Black Lotus lost is a jade hairpin that used by an empress lived
before 1000 years ago and it worth nine million pounds. In that sense, this
jade hairpin should be extremely delicate and beautiful. Jade with high quality
should be very bright. However the quality of hairpin appeared on the show
seems very poor. That hairpin was din and shoddy.
Professor
of University of Michigan, Joan M. Hartman was
talked about Chinese ancient jade in Chinese
Jade of Five Centuries. Ancient
jade stone has a smooth texture and shiny color. It will not be too cold in
winter or excitatory in summer. Therefore jade was loved among China and
gradually became an important ritual to characterize the feudal system.
(2012) [6]
Chinese people believed jade crystal essence of nature,
so that jade had an unusual religious symbolism. Jade production which came
from nature and caved in palace was seen as a status symbol to represent rank. Meanwhile,
jade also has an incomparable mystical religious significance because of its
special role of in the funeral aspect. And because of the appearance and color
of jade, people put some of the natural characteristics of the analogy itself
in moral person, as so-called "gentlemen" should have to be advocating
the virtues and praise. It is the Chinese people's great creation. Therefore,
jade is the manifestation of oriental spirit and foundation of the essence of
traditional Chinese culture.
Qin is the phenomenon that jade changed its color after
long-term contact with water, the environment, the quality of the soil and the
other elements.
The color of Qin would be different because of different locations
unearthed.
The jade appeared on screen seems not shiny and dainty.
There is not Qin on jade and carving of jade is coarse.
British
TV show is well- known by the quality. They do not need to really find a nine
million hairpin to be a stage property. But they are responsible to find a
hairpin that could express the quality of a Chinese treasure. In fact, they
care more about what Chinese elements could convey to audiences but not Chinese
element itself because their audiences are almost western people.
Most
audiences of western television show are not Chinese, screen writer maybe just
want to use Chinese elements to attract attention so they do not pay much
attention to accuracy of those Chinese elements. Shen Yizhen, a media editor, proposed
in his research: Creating
National Image: A New Mission of Film and TV Art: “China itself could create
national image by film and TV art.” So it’s necessary to create some
representative film and TV arts to show new Chinese national images. (2007) [7]
Producers
of BBC television show, Sherlock used Chinese elements to attract attention and
they did a good job but they still misuse some of Chinese elements in TV show:
The ancient Chinese numeral—Suzhou numeral was called Hangzhou numeral, their
information is from Unicode Standard which is created by westerners; Producers
regard a Japanese painting as Chinese painting because some Japanese paintings
are similar with Chinese paintings; And they use a cheap hairpin to present an
ancient jade hairpin valued 9,000,000 pounds. Producers must don’t know how
great jade should be. These mistakes could be summarized as errors of
translation, distinction and value.
Producers
made those mistakes because they are not familiar with Chinese culture. They
decided to use Chinese elements to attract attention. Producers are not really
interested in Chinese culture so they did not do accurate research. Those mistakes
could be easily avoided if they did research carefully. And Chinese culture is
very complex. Actually, western audience will not notice these mistakes because
they also don’t familiar with Chinese culture. Western audiences should be
interested in Chinese culture and believe what are represented on TV. It will
deepen misunderstanding of Chinese culture.
Though
China is a big country but we are not open to the world. Westerners have
limited ways to know Chinese culture. Suffering on internet could be the
fastest way to know the world outside; however it is not useful when westerners
want to know about China. Coming to China is also difficult. That’s one of the
reasons that westerners do not know much about Chinese culture. Another
possible reason is China do not express Chinese culture effectively. Chinese
have trouble with sharing Chinese culture over the world because of The Great
Firewall. And it’s also difficult for Chinese people to go abroad. In my
opinion, what Chinese should do is promoting Chinese culture forwardly then
there will be less misunderstand of Chinese.
References:
- 1. Zhang, Hong. “Chinese Numerals.” Journal of East Asian Linguistics 16.1 (2007): 43-59. Web.27 Apr. 2014.
- 2. Asmus Freytag, Rick McGowan, and Ken Whistler. “UTN #27: Known Anomalies in Unicode Character Names.” N. p., n.d. Web. 2 May 2014.
- 3. Self, Caroline, and Susan Self. Chinese Brush Painting : A Hands-on Introduction to the Traditional Art. Boston: Tuttle Publishing, 2012. Print.
- 4. Saito, Ryukyu. Japanese Ink Painting : Lessons in Suiboku Techniques. Boston: Tuttle Publishing, 2012. Print.
- 5. Nienhauser, William H. Tang Dynasty Tales : A Guided Reader. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Company, 2010. Print.
- 6. Hartman, Joan M. Chinese Jade of Five Centuries. Boston: Tuttle Publishing, 2012. Print.
- 7. “Creating National Image: A New Mission of Film and TV Art” Journal of School of Chinese Language and Culture Nanjing Normal University. 2007.Web. 3 May 2014.
