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 are not very accurate.

The purpose of this study will be to explore how producers 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.

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 or other foreign websites legally. Now, many Chinese could log in Facebook or Twitter by VPN, but most of people in China still have never log in Facebook yet.

Facebook is a global social network. It makes people around world could join in a big circle to communicate. There are too much information is exchanged in every second. However, Chinese didn’t participate in this communication. So we lose the chance to touch the outside and be known by other country.

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.

With the economic 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. 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 take advantages of Chinese elements to attract attention.  For instance, the Disney movie Huamulan and DreamWorks Animation cartoon Kung Fu panda used Chinese stories and images. And, 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 an example of misusing Chinese elements.

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, Shan who lives in China, is anxious to find out who steal the hairpin. So Black Lotus goes to England and pretends to be a Chinese acrobatic. Shan wants to find hairpin during performance. The link men of that trade are Van Coon and Lukis. One of them must steal the hairpin. So Shan draw the secret code on where they can see to warn them they should return the treasure. But no one returns the hairpin then both of them were killed. Sherlock is in charge of this case. He finds the secret code is a kind of ancient Chinese numeral called Hangzhou numeral. Finally, Sherlock decode 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 misuse 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. In fact, 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 Lin’an. Lin’an was near Suzhou and they are both water countries, these two cities have different cultures. Lin’an was the capital of Southern Song, but economic in Suzhou was more developed than Lin’an. 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. Suzhou numeral is a kind of rod numeral. Rod numeral was used for accounting but not write. So it looks a little complex. According to Zhang Hong’s research about Chinese numerals, 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 smuggles still use Suzhou numeral to convey as code to transfer information. (2007)

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 different character set and install different input methods to type different language. However, nothing is perfect. There are many anomalies in Unicode Standard.

      Asmus Fretag is an expert about Unicode Standard System. According to Asmus Fretag’s report, we could know that Suzhou numeral was record as Hangzhou numeral in Unicode Standard. (2014)

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. 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 but not researching of Chinese. 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 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 and Susan pointed out that Chinese painting is famous of brush drawing in their book: Chinese Brush Painting : A Hands-on Introduction to the Traditional Art.

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.

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. (2012)

Painting showed on screen was a Japanese Ukiyoe. We can distinct them by style which explained by Ryukyu Satio.

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)

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. 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) 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.

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)

Chinese people believed jade crystal essence of nature, so that jade had an unusual religious symbolism. Jade products\ 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 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

Producer 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, producer regard a Japanese painting as Chinese painting and they use a cheap hairpin to present an ancient jade hairpin valued 9,000,000 pounds. They are errors of translation, distinction and value.

Producers made those mistakes because they are not familiar with Chinese culture. They just want to use Chinese elements to attract attention. Producers are not really interested in Chinese culture so they did not do accurate research. And Chinese culture is very complex. Though China is a big country but we are not open to the world. Westerners have limited ways to know China. So they do not know clearly about Chinese culture. So what Chinese should do is promoting Chinese culture forwardly then there will be less misunderstand of Chinese.