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The Writing on the Wall: How Asian Orthography Curbs Creativity (Encounters with Asia)

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I looked forward to reading Hannas' most recent work, having greatly enjoyed his previous book, "Asia's Orthographic Dilemma". I knew Hannas to be both a thorough and entertaining scholar, with persuasive if somewhat controversial arguments; I believed that if he kept up the same standards he showed in his last book, I would probably enjoy this one as well.

Unfortunately, "The Writing on the Wall" fails to deliver. In the book, Hannas seeks to prove a bold thesis -- that the creativity of East Asians (Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese) is hampered by their scripts. He narrowly defines "creativity" as the ability to come up with revolutionary ideas in modern science.

The first third of the book starts off badly. Hannas runs through the various methods that Japan, China, and Korea use to acquire Western -- primarily U.S. -- technology. But, surprisingly, he seems to think that just by highlighting this well-known fact, he already proves one of his main points: that East Asians lack creativity. He does this by completely ignoring context and making inapt comparisons.

South Korea, for example, has an economy and population about the size of Spain. What sense does it make to compare South Korean research efforts to those by U.S. scientists? In that kind of comparison, South Korea will naturally come up short. But would it come up short in a comparison with a country of its own size and development, one that used an alphabetic script? Hannas doesn't even consider it.

And while China is a huge country, its ability to provide first-rate R&D facilities and the funding to run them is greatly limited (I don't even include the obvious point that China's basic educational infrastructure is so weak in comparison to the developed countries in the West that such spending would probably be wasted anyway, even if it had the money). Does this mean the Chinese are not creative? Or is the more likely explanation that China's development is not high or broad enough yet to support those kinds of projects? Hannas doesn't even consider these questions.

Japan, however, is a large and fully developed economy, flush with cash (even after ten years in an economic rut), and equipped with a solid educational infrastructure. Certainly a comparison between it and the U.S. is worthwhile to consider. But even here, Hannas does not explore the issue enough. He admits, for example, that Japanese corporations are where most of the country's R&D money is spent, and where practical applications are put at a premium; he also says Japan spends less per capita on R&D than the U.S. But he doesn't connect the dots. Isn't a more parsimonious explanation for why Japan appears less creative than the U.S. due to economic rather than linguistic factors?

In another section of the book, Hannas argues that the development of an alphabetic script gave rise to Greek science. He does not consider, however, why the Romans - who also had an alphabetic script - had a stable, long-lasting, wealthy, and relatively free (for its time) empire not noted for its science. Again, Hannas does not consider these points, probably because he would have to admit they do grave damage to his thesis.

There are other arguments to consider. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, some said the U.S. didn't have enough creative people, that its collective mindset was of a more practical bent than theoretical. It could produce a Ford, but not an Einstein. Not until just before WW2, after a large influx of European scientists into the U.S., did this situation change. Could the U.S. have produced the atomic bomb or gone to the moon without these Europeans? Would its universities be as well respected as they are now if these scientists had not been forced or felt compelled to leave their homes to come to the United States? Not likely. Hannas' refusal to consider these other cases in his comparative study raises questions about the validity of his arguments for the cases he does consider.

Perhaps to deflect such criticism of his thesis, Hannas says several times in his book that his idea about East Asians lacking creativity is not controversial in East Asia, that it is the conventional wisdom there. But Hannas bucks the conventional wisdom so often in his book - especially in linguistics - I'm not sure why he would take the East Asians' word for this particular commonly known fact. In my experience, East Asians are very hard on themselves in some areas, unwilling to take credit where credit might be due. Part of the reason they are such fearsome competitors is due to this nature. That they hold symposiums on the lack of creativity in their schools has probably as much to do with their perceived second-rate status in this area as it has to do with anything else; in other words, if they are not the best, they consider it a problem.

Due to space constraints, I cannot go over the final two-thirds of the book in any detail. Suffice it to say, the book improves somewhat, but not enough to save it. Hannas does cite an enormous amount of interesting studies in these chapters, but unfortunately he is still unable to make a coherent argument. Instead he tries a scatter-shot approach against the East Asian scripts, hoping that enough of his material hits the mark to do damage. Some does; some doesn't. What one finally comes away with from this book is similar to what one came away with from Hannas' first book: East Asian scripts are unwieldy and inefficient. But the author fails to advance his new case that they actually inhibit scientific creativity.

This book has an enormous amount of misinformation, but perhaps the most offensive and racist flaw in the book's thesis is the idiotic assertion that Asians "lack creativity."

One only needs to look at the rich, marvelous history of China to debunk this claim. The Chinese, are in fact, one of the most creative civilizations on the planet, having invented everything from gunpowder to accupuncture to printing to ceramics.

A walk down the street of any major modern day Asian metropolis, from Bangkok to Taipei to Tokyo will quickly dispel the idea that Asians "lack creativity."

In fact, a growing share of the world's most cutting-edge, innovative technologies are emerging from Asia these days.

To be sure, Americans do lead in the number of Nobel Prizes received. But this is highly misleading: Nobels are awarded for only one narrow range of science (fundamental science).

Given that the U.S. government is by a million miles the biggest spender of fundamental science R&D, it shouldn't be surprising that Americans lead in Nobel prizes.

However, the Asians are closing the gap on science and already graduate far more scientists and engineers than the U.S. does (a troubling omen for America's future).

Last, but not least, East Asian secondary schools leave their American counterparts in the dust these days.

If you doubt Asians are a creative, innovative people, then spend some time browsing the latest cutting-edge products at your local consumer electronics store some time. All those plasma TVs are made in Asia (and, increasingly with Asian know-how).

Also, note that Japan alone registers twice as many patents as the U.S. does these days, despite the fact Japan has less than half America's population.

"The Writing On The Wall" by William Hannas opens eyes and minds to new arguments about nature or nurture. The timeworn topic is well worth exploring, and it is especially interesting when a Westerner looks across several Asian regions to address it. Fortunately, the author speaks Vietnamese, three dialects spoken in China, Japanese, and Korean. His perspective is unique among Westerners and his views are worthy of careful note.

The book reminds us that China was an empire with a central authority, and all were subordinated to the emperor. So it was for thousands of years; and so it is today with the Communist Party as emperor. Where is there a need to be creative unless it is to devise methods to bring greater glory and power to the State?

This seems similar to the Middle Ages in Europe. Kings and barons ruled fiefs, and their subordinates curried favor. Again, what else was there to do? But, when the kings and other powerbrokers began to speak and write the languages of the little people rather than Latin and French, things began to change. In East Asia today the powerbrokers write in a language [character based] that the little people do not easily comprehend. Memorizing 3,000 characters certainly supports exercising form over substance. And, as in Mandarin times, having completed the form, one could enter the elite. Today, one must perform what work to enter the elite? Answer: memorize 3,000 characters, perform exceptional Party (emperor) work, or be closely related to one who has.

The main job today in China is to accrue power and hegemony. There's little scope for creativity here, given the thousands of years China has practiced at it. So how creative does today's Chinese elite need to be? Only enough to keep the West away from the door, for example by fanning the fires in the Middle East and being able to hold the U.S. 7th Fleet at bay. These seem like simple tasks that can be accomplished with a bit of technology transfer to upgrade antiship weapons and build nuclear strategic deterrence. The technology transfer is well documented in the book and woe to the West for letting it happen so easily.

So is it nature or nurture? Hannas clearly notes that there are many Chinese who have emigrated to the West who have demonstrated creativity. The role of spoken and written Asian languages in creativity is worthy of consideration, and it is well covered in this book.

Dr. Hannas' book The Writing on the Wall answers the question of the lack of creativity in East Asian countries. He has found the correlation between this and the use of the Chinese non-alphabetic character system. I am very much impressed by his extensive research on the subject matter. I concur with Dr. Hannas that ever since the invention of alphabetic systems more than two thousand years ago, all non-alphabetic systems have become inefficient legacy systems -- to quote current IT jargon. Unfortunately, the persistence of the Chinese character linguistic legacy still mars the creativity and productivity of more than one-fifth of mankind who live in East Asia and are handicapped by this archaic writing system. I enjoyed reading Dr. Hannas' well written book and strongly recommend it to all who are interested in learning more about world language issues and, in particular, the implications of the Chinese character system for countries in East Asia.

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Okay I need to point out one thing... THE KOREAN SCRIPT (HANGUL) IS NOT A IDEOGRAPHIC SCRIPT OR SYLLABARY, IT'S AN ALPHABET!!! IT LITERALLY TAKES SOMEONE OF AVERAGE INTELLIGENCE ONLY A FEW HOURS TO LEARN THE KOREAN ALPHABET AND READ IN KOREAN!!!