"The Man Who Loved China"

Simon Winchester's "The Man Who Loved China" was our book club's pick several months ago. I didn't finish reading it before our group met but have continued to renew it from the library in an attempt to finish it. Although I enjoy the material, I find myself falling asleep every time I read it so it's been very slow going! Now the library wants the book back or wants me to buy it from them so I guess it's time to give it up!

"The Man Who Loved China" is the fascinating story of Joseph Needham who I'd never heard of before. He was an eccentric, married Cambridge University biochemist who fell in love with a visiting Chinese student, Lu Gwei-djen, and had a long-term affair with her with the full knowledge of his wife, Dorothy Needham. (In fact, even after his wife joined him in China, he managed to later also send for Lu and have her appointed to his staff which didn't sit well with some of his colleagues. Later Lu moved to England and lived on the same street as the Needham's and she and Dorothy seemed to develop a friendship also.)

Needham's love for Lu led him to China in September 1943 as a diplomat. It was during war time and he traveled extensively while there gathering a wealth of information about China that resulted in his writing volumes when he eventually returned to England. "By the time he left China he had visited 296 Chinese institutes, university, and research establishments; he had arranged for the delivery of thousands of tons of equipment and chemical and scientific journals; he would read, endlessly and voraciously, the various thousands of documents which he had collected and which he felt certain would enhance his knowledge of China; and he spent much of his final months laying the foundations for a diplomatically privileged organization to support Chinese science--an organization that would continue to function without him long after he had left." (From page 157 of the hardback edition)

Needham had a keen interest in all things and seemed to genuinely enjoy meeting new people and learning more about them. He also had a special interest in women! Needhams' ability to speak many languages also made it easy for him to converse with those he met -- including those in the scientific community -- in their own language.

Needham's adventures in China are many and it is necessary to read the book to discover how many times he was possibly in danger yet there appears to me to have been a naivete about him so that he rarely realized himself that he was taking any risks. That same naivete and his belief and trust in his friends around the world also was his downfall because he never considered that scientists (especially those he considered his friends) might not tell the truth.

Needham developed many friendships throughout his life but some of them made him suspect in the eyes of the United States as well as others. The fact that he truly believed that the U.S. had used germ warfare during the Korean War, that he strongly supported the new Communist government (believing it really was best for the Chinese people because it meant they had food to eat) and that he'd been a long term member of the Communist Party in England didn't endear him to the Americans either. One of his close friends was Rewi Alley, a New Zealander who lived in China for 60 years and became an intimate of Chinese Communist leaders. Although Needham's friendships -- especially those with Communists -- were often suspect, he was a loyal friend and stood up for what and who he believed in despite any opposition. In later years he began to question some of China's policies as he traveled there again and discovered many of his old friends were no longer available to meet with him -- some having disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

After Needham returned to England, he was invited to become part of UNESCO and was part of that organization in its early days for two years until the Americans became concerned about his left-wing leanings. In the McCarthy era, he was banned from traveling to the United States and the State Department put him on a blacklist. He eventually was allowed to travel and lecture in the States again and he may have unwittingly educated Ted Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber, through a lecture he gave at Northwest University about early Chinese techniques for manufacturing explosives.

Despite periods of times when Needham was persona non grata at home and abroad -- particularly at his own college, he did go on to earn many honors as well as being elected a Master at Cambridge and President of Caius College.
Needham obtained permanent rights to a college room at Cambridge (for his lifetime)and it was here that he began his work on what would turn into 24 volumes about China called "Science and Civilisation in China" published by the Cambridge University Press from 1954-2004. He had a wealth of information that he had collected to sift through and he chose Wang Ling, a Chinese historian he'd met in China, as his assistant. Eventually, Needham's mistress, Lu, also helped with the project. It was his love of Lu that led him to China and to "single-handedly change the way the people of the West looked on the people of the East." (page 252 of the hardback edition) Needham eventually had to delegate whole volumes to other experts
rather than being the sole author because he just didn't have to time to complete the work otherwise. Eventually, through the generosity of David Robinson, a permanent home was built - Needham Research Institute -- to house Needham's China collection and as a place where work on the volumes about China could continue. However, even in old age, Needham and Lu had to continue to travel to raise money to support the institute while donating out of their own financial resources.

Dorothy Needham died at home on December 22, 1987, at the age of 92 after suffering for ten years from Alzheimer's. One of her last books written in 1972, "Machina Carnis" describes how muscles work and is still sold in antique book stores as a classic and has been priced for as high as $250. By this time Lu was not well either -- suffering from bronchial complaints brought on most likely by her youthful chain smoking. On September 15, 1989, Joseph married Lu Gwei-djen. They had first met in 1937 and became lovers a year later when he was 37 and she was 33. Lu died on November 28, 1991, at age 98. Needham went on to ask three other women to marry him but all turned him down. Needham died at home at the age of 94 but his legacy lives on.

Volume I of Needham's work (a printing of 5,000 copies) sold out and Cambridge had to reprint it at regular intervals. It is still considered a classic and has never yet been out of print.

The Appendix at the end of this book that lists the Chinese inventions and discoveries along with the date they are first mentioned is a fascinating read. It's quite remarkable how far advanced China was compared to other nations.

The Epilogue, though, describing Chongqing today was depressing -- much wealth and commerce among poverty and pollution. Needham returned to Chongquing in 1982 with Lu and couldn't find the little house he'd lived in while he was there but he was not surprised by the changes as he thought China would "turn out like this, sooner or later." Some things have not changed -- the written language, the cuisine, the use of chopsticks, the rivers and landscape.

One aspect that puzzled Needham and came to be known as the "Needham question" was why the Chinese who had been so creative, so inventive suddenly seemed to lose all this around AD 1500 when "nearly all modern scientific advance transferred itself to where it remains today, becoming the nearly exclusive preserve of the West." (page 259 of the hardback copy)
Others wonder if the questions shouldn't by "why it did develop in Europe" rather than why it didn't develop in China. However, today's China may be proof that creativity and inventiveness are again live and well in China.

pazt