In conjunction with their 80th anniversary, Popular Book Co (M) Sdn Bhd organised an exhibition called “Books - The Chinese Journey” to provide an insight into the evolution of the Chinese Characters and substrates used starting from rocks to paper, papermaking and its process. We thought it would be beneficial to enhance our knowledge of Chinese culture (being Chinese ourselves) and decided to make a trip there this morning.

Though it was just a small exhibition but the displays and the flow was well presented. Indeed it was interesting to see how Chinese characters actually evolved from symbols to its current day’s simplified form. Also it was amazing to learn how tedious it was to make paper in ancient times.

An illustration of the paper-making process during the Han Dynasty.

While I was browsing thru the exhibits, my better half suddenly posed a question

“If Cai Lun, the inventor of paper had copyrighted his invention like Bill Gates with his OS, we’ll have a big problem today. We would end up having to pay for patent or copyright on every sheet of paper we used. Just imagine having to pay royalty charges each time you wrap up your business in the toilet! Thank god for bestowing the Chinese with the ancient wisdom rather than the business geniuses like Bill Gates, otherwise we’ll have to really worry about making ENDS meet first thing in the morning.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 7th, 2004 at 8:03 pm and is filed under General, humour.