Shanzhai: Deconstruction in Chinese

by Byung-Chul Han, Philippa Hurd (Translator)

Tracing the thread of “decreation” in Chinese thought, from constantly changing classical masterpieces to fake cell phones that are better than the original. Shanzhai is a Chinese neologism that means “fake,” originally coined to describe knock-off cell phones marketed under such names as Nokir and Samsing. These cell phones were not crude forgeries but multifunctional, stylish, and as good as or better than the originals. Shanzhai has since spread into other parts of Chinese life, with shanzhai books, shanzhai politicians, shanzhai stars. There is a shanzhai Harry Harry Potter and the Porcelain Doll , in which Harry takes on his nemesis Yandomort. In the West, this would be seen as piracy, or even desecration, but in Chinese culture, originals are continually transformed—deconstructed. In this volume in the Untimely Meditations series, Byung-Chul Han traces the thread of deconstruction, or “decreation,” in Chinese thought, from ancient masterpieces that invite inscription and transcription to Maoism—“a kind a shanzhai Marxism,” Han writes. Han discusses the Chinese concepts of quan, or law, which literally means the weight that slides back and forth on a scale, radically different from Western notions of absoluteness; zhen ji , or original, determined not by an act of creation but by unending process; xian zhan , or seals of leisure, affixed by collectors and part of the picture's composition; fuzhi , or copy, a replica of equal value to the original; and shanzhai . The Far East, Han writes, is not familiar with such “pre-deconstructive” factors as original or identity. Far Eastern thought begins with deconstruction.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, China, Art, Theory, Essays, History

104 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 1, 2011

About the author

Byung-Chul Han, also spelled Pyŏng-ch'ŏl Han (born 1959 in Seoul), is a German author, cultural theorist, and Professor at the Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK) in Berlin, Germany.

Byung-Chul Han studied metallurgy in Korea before he moved to Germany in the 1980s to study Philosophy, German Literature and Catholic theology in Freiburg im Breisgau and Munich. He received his doctoral degree at Freiburg with a dissertation on Martin Heidegger in 1994.

In 2000, he joined the Department of Philosophy at the University of Basel, where he completed his Habilitation. In 2010 he became a faculty member at the HfG Karlsruhe, where his areas of interest were philosophy of the 18th, 19th and 20th century, ethics, social philosophy, phenomenology, cultural theory, aesthetics, religion, media theory, and intercultural philosophy. Since 2012 he teaches philosophy and cultural studies at the Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK), where he directs the newly established Studium Generale general-studies program.

Han is the author of sixteen books, of which the most recent are treatises on what he terms a "society of tiredness" (Müdigkeitsgesellschaft), a "society of transparency" (Transparenzgesellschaft), and on his neologist concept of shanzai, which seeks to identify modes of deconstruction in contemporary practices of Chinese capitalism.

Han's current work focuses on transparency as a cultural norm created by neoliberal market forces, which he understands as the insatiable drive toward voluntary disclosure bordering on the pornographic. According to Han, the dictates of transparency enforce a totalitarian system of openness at the expense of other social values such as shame, secrecy, and trust.

Until recently, he refused to give radio and television interviews and rarely divulges any biographical or personal details, including his date of birth, in public.

Han has written on topics such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, borderline, burnout, depression, exhaustion, internet, love, pop culture, power, rationality, religion, social media, subjectivity, tiredness, transparency and violence.

Reviews

[Trevor · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best books I've read in ages. Stunningly good and even though it looks like a Penguin 60s from the 1990s, it costs about the same as a much larger book - even so, look, it contains so much that is interesting and so many beautiful images, it is an utter delighted. You need this book - you should get it now.

I know I'm enjoying a book when two contradictory things happen. The first is that I read something I want to immediately read out-loud to whoever the poor bastard is that is sitting near me - but then I hesitate because it will mean not being able to read on. That happened twice while I was reading this - and then, when I started to read the section out to my friend that I found so interesting, I had to go back a couple of pages more and start from there because… well, just because.

Tonight, while I was writing this review nipped out to the supermarket and while there then my eldest daughter called to see if I was interested in a walk - I was annoyed, because I wanted to give her the book to get her to read it (her being one of my resident experts on all things Japanese), but then, while we were walking, told her everything about the book anyway…

In the West we are obsessed with the idea of an original. It is not always easy to say exactly what an original is, but we certainly don't like anything that is fake. This is, in part I think, related to our idea of us being individuals and that as individuals we are fully responsible for their own creations. One of the nice things that James Burke does in 1970s TV program, Connections (whatever it takes, get to see this - if only to see what TV could have been, although rarely has been since) is that it shows how revolutionary ideas (the steam engine and so on) rarely were quite as revolutionary as we generally imagine them to have been. That is, Newton's 'shoulders of giants' applied a hell of a lot more often than we seem to believe. But copyright and profit and an obsession with individual genius means we zoom in on the guy up in the clouds, ignoring all those holding him up there.

We also have a God who is a creator God and who creates the universe out of nothing. Now, even in the Western tradition this isn't the only kind of God available. The Greek gods, for instance, didn't create the universe out of nothing, but rather ordered the chaos they found, something that is at least as interesting as our ex nihilo one. These attitudes to creation in the West influence how we think about human creations too. The idea of one god and one creator and His creation being 'true' impacts on how we think about, say, Steve Jobs and his Mac computers or iPods (again, ignoring all the people who went to 'create' those and attributing them to the sole 'genius' yet again). And this also reflects how we think about artworks and paintings, particularly those we call fake or authentic.

This book argues that the Chinese notion of 'fake' is significantly different from the Western notion, and much more recent - and that this has something to do with Eastern notions of life being a process, one where life is a cycle of reincarnation. That is, where there is no real 'original' and that the point of each iteration is in seeking a higher perfection. In that sense, then, a 'copy' isn't really a 'fake' but rather something that might possibly be 'more original' than the merely original or first instance. And given this cyclic repetition of the process, the notion of an original in the first place quickly starts to no sense.

I have to say that I've long thought that the Western idea of forgeries and fakes in art was deeply odd. Like so many other people, I can't help feeling that a lot of art is really a form of autograph hunting. I know there is meant to be a kind of aura that hangs around an 'original' - but the point made here is that if the copy is so good that even an expert can't tell the difference between it and the 'original', then what is it that makes the second painting 'fake'? Why is your appreciation of the work of art suddenly diminished when you find out it was not produced by the artist whose signature appears on the bottom?

There is a lot of discussion I n this book about signatures - there is a lovely Chinese painting that is discussed and how it contains a series of poems that friends added to it about a friend who was parting from them - and the various friends' signitures. It is a truly beautiful thing. I love the idea that artworks in China might leave spaces for future commentary - but I think that this is also true of works of art more generally. When we learn something new about a work of art - or hear some speculation about it - that can (maybe the word is must?) transform the work in our minds in ways that can surprising to us. And not just in the current way of people not being able to watch Woody Allen films because he may or may not have been a paedophile.

He ends this by talking about fake products made in China as copies of high-end products - Samsung phones, say. But while we in the West see this as basically a rip-off, he makes the point that sometimes these 'copies' improve on the original and that since the copies are not tied to the production cycles of the high-end product itself, they can introduce innovations ahead of time and so the 'copy' can be literally better than the original.

But the bit of this that really got to me was the discussion on Japanese temple that has existed for the last 1,300 years and had been a world heritage site until it was removed because the UN complained it didn't deserve to be on the list of world heritage sites because over that time the temple has been totally rebuilt every 20 years. That is, entirely rebuilt, from scratch, in every detail. So, the UN said that actually the site is only 20 years old - something the Japanese must have found completely perplexing. And then this made me think of a lovely scene in Julian Barnes's book Talking It Over where the woman is restoring a painting and talking to one of the male characters about how, when you are restoring a painting, you never know how far to strip the paint back, or really what the 'true' colours had been when it was originally painted - that you have to make an educated guess. And that the pigments of the paints fade and change colour at different rates and in different ways and so educated guesses are really ever only 'best guesses' and so a restored painting is a kind of 'companion' piece to the original, rather than bring the painting being back to what it had originally looked like because, well, how could you ever know? All we have is the ruin of the painting, the version that has been marked by all of the time that has occurred between the then when it was painted and the now it is being 'restored' in ways we can only guess at. You might want to type into the search box in Google Images 'Sistine Chapel before and after' to see what I mean.

Although it is not quite true that our body replaces every cell over seven years, for many cells in the body this actually happens at a much faster rate, all of our skin cells, for instance - we humans are a bit more like the Japanese temple than we are the Sistine Chapel ceiling. I am not quite as outraged by the idea of the Japanese temple being rebuilt anew every 20 years - in fact, it quite makes sense to me that the 'forever new' temple is more respectful to the original than a temple that is allowed to become a ruin would be.

There are lovely images here of painters copying the works of other painters - and not just from Chinese painters, but in the Chinese way of understanding art this is how one becomes a master, by making a perfect copy, and this makes sense to me as well. How else can you learn your craft?

There's more to be said about this book - like all of Han's books, it is bursting with interest - the only other think I want to say is that he mentions, as an aside, that it is hardly surprising that the Chinese invented printing. And then I couldn't help but think about this - and how complex Chinese logograms are, and then this had me rushing off to Wikipedia to see how the Chinese actually produced movable type to print their language at all - something I'd never really thought about before but that sort of hurt my head when I did thing about it. I mean, where would you begin to make the characters for 中文翻譯為「敏捷的棕毛狐狸从懶狗身上跃过」(which I think says: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog)? And then I thought, surely, if you were from Mars or something, you would guess that a nation with an alphabet would have invented printing, particularly printing with movable type, before the Chinese would have. You know, 26 letters and all that - compared with…well, something like 30-100,000 movable types. So, even one of Han's throwaway lines has sent me off on tangents that seem worthwhile to me.

I loved this book - I can't recommend it too highly. Utterly fascinating and a joy.

[merixien · Rating 4 out of 5]

Doğu ve Batı kültüründeki farkı; Çin'in dünyayı ele geçiren taklit" çakma" üretimleri üzerinden anlatıyor. Bizim standartın bir taklidi olarak gördüğümüz "çakma" ürünün çok daha özel görme üzerine, sanatın ve güzelliğin standart bir sabit mi yoksa evrimsel olarak gelişen- değişen bir süreç mi olduğuna dair iki kültürün farklılıklarına yoğunlaşıyor. Keşke biraz daha detaylı ve derinlere inseydi diye düşündüm onun dışında çok sevdiğim, farklı bir kitap oldu. Doğu kültürü ve Çin'den kaynakla yükselen taklit kavramı ilginizi çekiyorsa tavsiyedir.

[Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a story I read recently about the philosopher Jacques Derrida, who, on a trip to China, once shocked his hosts by declaring that the Chinese have no philosophy - only thought. I can't source the truth of the story, but in a way, that makes it all the more appropriate. After all, for Byung-Chul Han, the Western obsession with origins - and its corollaries 'Being' and presence - have never found purchase in the Chinese milieu, which has for centuries attended to notions of impermanence, change, and transience in a way far at odds with the Platonic esteem of immutability. So much so in fact, that while it took a 1960/70s Derrida to 'arrive' at deconstruction, for Han, 'Far Eastern thought begins with deconstruction'; or, to put it in a yet more Derridian turn of phrase: Far Eastern thought was always-already deconstructive.

That Han doesn't put it this way says a great deal about his overall approach: despite the Derridian inspiration, Shanzhai is about as straightforward a book of criticism as can be. In fact, the very name 'Derrida' appears only once in the entire book - buried in a footnote - even as the tract makes ample use of Derrida's signature concepts like trace and deconstruction. Regardless, the pleasure of the book comes less from the concept-mongering at work - fine as it is - than in the many artistic examples through which it makes it case. On the indifference to issues of origin and copy for instance, will Han cite the many occasions in which Chinese master painters would have their reputation buoyed for their ability to pass off successful forgeries, elevating their rank all the more for their skill in copying. Or else consider the confusion into which UNESCO was thrown when having to consider the world heritage classification of the 1,300 year old Ise Shine in Japan - rebuilt every 20 years, and wrecking havoc on the organization's classificatory principles in the process.

As for shanzhai ('fake'), the manuscript's headline concept, well, anyone whose ever lived in Asia will know the charm and glee of seeing a range of 'Adadas' shoes and 'Nika' sportswear ranged out across a marketplace benchtop, or having to haggle over getting the genuine-fake Patek Philippe timepiece, and not the poorer quality fake-fake Patek Philippe - this being the topsy-turvy conceptual world also explored in Han's closing chapter on the topic. And though I can't help but feel there's something a little too easy in the simple casting of 'Far Eastern thought' as deconstruction avant la lettre, perhaps that's just my over-inculcated will-to-fidelity at work. Less philosophy, more thought as a remedy perhaps?

[R · Rating 5 out of 5]

An alternate take on what it means to be creative and original in a Chinese context, providing an insight into unique cultural ways of thinking and philosophy. Truly an eye-opening and delightful read 11/10 recommend.

[G · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un interesante libro de estética deconstructivista. Byung-Chul Han discute el problema de la falsificación, sobre todo las diferencias al respecto entre Oriente y Occidente. En particular, parece que le interesa defender el shanzhai -el fake en versión china- y el pensamiento chino en general. Para lograr estos objetivos, este autor surcoreano presenta una colección de argumentos que resultan retóricamente eficientes, pero erróneos o por lo menos objetables en mi opinión. La noción de esencia como cierre inmutable contra la que define el arte abierto y cambiante chino está distorsionada. Creo que la relación occidental entre ser y esencia es más bien dialéctica. Lo mismo pienso que ocurre con la relación entre esencia y materia en la filosofía griega antigua. Hay conflicto en la individuación material de una forma abstracta occidental. Es decir, según el pensamiento occidental habría guerra ontológica entre la esencia como forma limitante y el ser como expansión infinita. Dicho de otra manera: la esencia no cierra del todo, por lo tanto no es adecuada como antagonista del arte abierto, deconstructivista, infinito, propio del pensamiento chino según Han. Como la distinción está falseada, también la apología del shanzhai queda falseada. Occidente es un infierno, pero no creo que sus problemas de fondo se expliquen por dicotomías tan sencillas como las de Han. Siguiendo el mismo razonamiento, Han sugiere que las falsificaciones chinas son aún mejores que los originales porque son obras que muestran mayor creatividad. Esto no es cierto. Si bien hay copias que mejoran al original, también hay copias de baja calidad motivadas únicamente por el lucro. El mismo autor presenta ejemplos de shanzhai empresarial. Pienso que Han confunde intencionalmente al lector con este planteo. Hay formas de fake que se fabrican sólo por su valor en dólares, como queda claro en la película Fake de Orson Welles. Recuerdo que el falsificador dice en Fake que la pintura es el negocio en que más dinero puede ganarse en la menor cantidad de tiempo. Creo que lo dice mientras dibuja una paloma de Picasso. Es decir, esta discusión estética está incompleta, radicalmente falseada, si se omite el problema del mercado. Han desvía la discusión hacia un plano que se cierra sobre lo valioso de la estética china y lo estrecho del pensamiento occidental sobre el arte. En el deslizamiento, Han suprime el mercado para ganar fuerza retórica mediante una simplificación shanzhai que funciona como apología china. Todo esto es muy astuto. Parecen reflexiones estéticas de vanguardia, pero la deconstrucción propuesta -con todo su valor actual- no deja de ser rancia como apología de una revolución futura que ocurrió hace unas cuatro décadas. Sabemos hace tiempo que la estandarización conceptual es una forma de violencia política, de dominación ideológica, incluyendo la estandarización del original en arte. Sin embargo, de ahí no se deriva que el shanzhai tenga un valor estético superior ni que el pensamiento chino sea sistemáticamente preferible al pensamiento occidental. En la confusión promovida por el autor se han mezclado problemas que conviene distinguir. Falta aplicar un poco de saludable analítica occidental. Recuerdo que una de las estrategias de Schopenhauer en su dialéctica erística -de influencia oriental- es justamente confundir mediante la supuesta derivación de conclusiones que tienen alguna relación con los argumentos, pero que en realidad no pueden ser derivadas porque tales argumentos tienen un alcance más limitado. Buen intento, Byung-Chul.

[sologdin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a work of post-structuralism, but rather an immanent consideration of ancient Chinese habits of thought, this text argues against a 'cult of originality' and for the "buddhist notion of the endless cycle of life, instead of creation there is decreation. Not creation but iteration, not revolution but recurrence." The point is that it's perfectly okay for texts to be collaborative, always in development, interactive, impermanent--even though such practices will be considered plagiaristic in places under the influence of authorial originality doctrine. There is however no truth in the arche, as professor Derrida might tell us.

My favorite observation here is that "Maoism was itself a kind of shanzhai Marxism."

[Bookfreak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Αυτή τη περίοδο έχω πιάσει τα βιβλιαράκια που βγάζει ένας μικρός εκδοτικός των Εξαρχείων (Τοποβόρος) οπότε το επόμενο στη σειρά ήταν αυτό του Κορεάτη που έχει διαβαστεί αρκετά στα μέρη μας. Στο συγκεκριμένο ασχολείται με τη διαφορά πρωτοτύπου/αντιγράφου στην κινέζικη και στη δυτική σκέψη και τέχνη.

[Gala]

tiene algunos conceptos interesantes y algunos lindos pasajes, (sobre todo, la última parte en la que se habla de las copias chinas, me pareció muy divertido) pero creo que son ideas lindas de por sí, no como parte de este libro. como ensayo, me pareció bastante flojo de papeles; ¿qué es "el pensamiento chino"? ¿dónde lo ubica? ¿en qué autores? ¿bajo qué criterio? habla de "lo oriental" como si fuera toda una sola cosa, y así lo hace ver exótico, "lo otro", como si fuera un libro exclusivamente pensado para que "los occidentales" aprendamos sobre "lo oriental" y "lo chino". me resulta raro siendo él coreano, pero me deja de resultar tan raro cuando veo que el libro está escrito en alemán.

[Airácula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hay que ser atrevido para llamar a Miguel Ángel "uno de los últimos chinos del renacimiento".
No se puede negar que Byung es uno de los filósofos contemporáneos más jugados, en cuanto a las temáticas de sus libros se trata. Ahí está su encanto.
Esto no es más que tomarse un café y charlar sobre el valor occidental dado a lo que se considera "original", deconstruyendo este concepto desde el renacimiento hasta hoy día. Esto por supuesto, apoyado en la visión y valorización oriental sobre las copias y los "fakes".
Una visión refrescante sobre el tema de la autoría para toda persona que defiende al "genio creador" a raja tabla.

[Karem · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sal de tu burbuja occidental challenge

[Álvaro Arbonés]

Es fácil pensar en binarismos. En delimitaciones. Existen los nuestros y los otros, el blanco y el negro, lo que está más acá o más allá de las fronteras. Eso nos condujo al romanticismo, al nacionalismo y también a la barbarie ilustrada. Pero, ¿y si hubiera un lugar donde ese pensamiento no hubiera sido el dominante? ¿Y si existiera una tierra donde es posible pensar en algo más allá que en fronteras?

Pues ese lugar existe. Está en Asia y se llama China. O eso nos dice Byung-Chul Han en uno de sus últimos libros, Shanzhai .

Shanzhai es un libro sobre la copia. Como en China las versiones falsas de productos populares pueden ser más auténticos del original. Y para eso se sostiene sobre la diferencia esencial que existe entre Asia y Occidente: mientras nosotros basamos la idea de verdad en lo inmutable y permanente, ellos lo basan en lo mutable e impermanente. Del mismo modo, contrapone las ideas de originalidad de China y Occidente: mientras que para China la copia es el original, en el sentido de que el proceso (y la idea, digamos) es el origen, para Occidente el original es la primera versión, en el sentido de que el original es la esencia de la obra. Una visión puramente platónica. En otras palabras, que la obra de arte lo es en el contexto de su intención.

Esto significa que, en general, la obra de arte en China es condicional a la evolución; se va transformando y ganando en presencia con las transformaciones, que pueden ser tanto físicas (copias de otros artistas) como sociales (la mirada de otras personas). La obra de arte está abierta a la interpretación, a la significación. A lo que aporte cada copia, cada sello y cada mirada. Por ello no existe un original físico para los chinos, sino una idea original. Idea que se va transformando con el tiempo.

El problema es que esta idea se agota rápido. De ese modo, la abundancia de ejemplos y los puntos de interés dan paso al vocabulario extraño, los fraseos obstusos y la repetición de ejemplos y tesis, cuando no bloques de texto sin relación con el conjunto, que no hacen sino alargar el texto hasta tener las suficientes páginas como para considerarse un ensayo largo. Algo que juega en contra con el hecho de que, de facto, tiene ideas interesantes que deja sin desarrollar. La diferencia entre el fangzhipin y el fuzhipin, la diferente visión de la clonación en Asia y la búsqueda de la iteración como modo de perfeccionamiento a través de una deconstrucción inconsciente son temas interesantísimos que trata de pasada, no ahondando nunca en ello, en favor de repetir la misma tesis, con prácticamente las mismas palabras, cambiando sólo los ejemplos y los cuatro detalles particulares que disemina a lo largo del libro.

Eso es lo más triste del libro. Que podría ser una joya, pero se conforma con ser una piedra en bruto. Algo sin pulir ni trabajar de forma adecuada. Algo que, precisamente, atenta contra la esencia de lo que está narrando: como la unicidad de las cosas nace de su deconstrucción. De verlas no como algo singular, sino como constantes derivaciones que forman un sujeto. Algo que, en suma, Byung-Chul Han no consigue en su escritura.

[lauura · Rating 4 out of 5]

mi amigo más íntimo a este punto. Si no fuera un soso en la vida real me tomaría un cafecito con él. Pero bueno, lo importante: muuuuy interesante la contraposición de como se entiende el arte en Oriente y occidente. He notado incluso un poquillo de humor y de sarcasmo y me he sentido como el meme del perrito trajeado cuando me he visto riéndome. Una lectura ligerita ligerita que me ha dejado con ganas de leer más sobre el tema

[Cristian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Si bien me cuesta tomar el ritmo y comprensión de los textos del coreano, este ensayo nos derriba por completo el pensamiento occidental sobre la copia o la falsificación y nos lleva a un pensamiento oriental este ejercicio suele ser un acto orgánico y natural. Me encantó

[Lorenzo · Rating 4 out of 5]

A concise, interesting book examining its titular Chinese aesthetic attitude. In defying Western notions of originality and persistence through change, Shanzai embodies a fascinating philosophical disposition toward the acceptance of mortality and renewal as part of more than just the Chinese artistic fabric, but economic and political too. While the connections to these latter two parts of Chinese society is somewhat haphazardly rushed to toward the book's conclusion, it's helpful for shifting intuitions toward originality being an intrinsically elusive concept, or at least being one that manifests at every given modular transformation (reproduction, not unlike forgery in the Western sense). Its also worth considering its implications as advocating an almost Stoic impartiality toward nature from an artistic lens, almost inviting Western artists to elevate their art over their ego.

[Thomas Mackell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this a lot more than I did. because i like other stuff of Byung-Chul Han's that I've read, and conceptually this is interesting (knock-off product culture in China, theories on the reproducibility of art, etc.) just kinda shallow. not really much more here besides what you can read in the description/back cover, which i get because it's just a little sub-100 page heater (really more like 50 pages tbh since it's such a small book) so it reads kinda just like an extended abstract for a more in-depth paper. would be cool if he wrote some on the films of Jia Zhangke through this lens maybe

[Lauringui · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shanzai deconstruye el fanatismo por el "original" que existe en Occidente e introduce los conceptos de original, de autor y de construcción colectiva que existe en China (y en otras partes de Oriente)
Es un libro que permite reflexionar sobre el estatuto de lo original y del borramiento de la figura del artista 'genial' favoreciendo la construcción colectiva, la creación conjunta, la edición de obras terminadas, las réplicas, etc.
Interesante y disparador, el libro es introductorio (por eso las 4 estrellas) pero es claro, conciso y tiene imágenes que sirven para ilustrar cada caso.

[Elena Carmona · Rating 4 out of 5]

me ha faltado quizás enfrentar el concepto de shanzhai con la teoría del aura y el problema de la reproductibilidad en walter benjamin, pero oye, el mejor ensayo de byung-chul han que he leído hasta ahora. AH y lo que me contó santi de los editores chinos que incluían a propósito erratas en los textos también podría haber estado perfectamente.

Es bien sabido que Miguel Ángel era un falsificador genial. En cierto modo, fue uno de los últimos chinos del Renacimiento.

[Gerj · Rating 5 out of 5]

Byung-Chul Han is rapidly becoming one of my favourite writers and philosophers. He takes such dense philosophical material and waves such powerful, yet incisive works with it. His willingness to make explicable something as fascinating and deeply woven together as shanzhai is a testament to his skill. My only complaint is a simple: more.

[Frederic · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent little book, very clearly and concisely puts forward a philosophy of material culture, authenticity, production and reproduction that I've previously had to pull together from a variety of sources that never brought in all of the relevant pieces.

[Chris Beiser · Rating 4 out of 5]

solid but breezy, underwhelming take on Shanzhai vis-a-vis the history of painting in China

[Josh Curtis · Rating 5 out of 5]

WTF I love iPncne now.

[jeanne]

han introduces some very interesting interpretations/examples to support his thesis which i honestly just enjoyed reading about:

- the idea of quan 权 (literally meaning weight hat can be slide back and forth on a scale) as a flexible one: "the potential inherent in a situation rather than a set of rules that remains the same."; corollary idea of 权利: "power belongs not to subjectivity but to situativity."
- adorno: "as spiritual entities, works of art are not complete in themselves...one relates to a work of art not merely, as is often said, by adapting it to fit a new situation, but rather by deciphering within it things to which one has a historically different reaction."
- all the messages from friends on wang fu's farewell meeting at feng-ch'eng!
- how modular production of artwork (e.g., with the terra cotta soldiers) might affect what it means to be "original"

and i think that the characterization of 山寨 creation as intentionally playful in subverting the institution of originality is a compelling one:

"Shanzhai products do not deliberately set out to deceive. Indeed, their attraction lies in how they specifically draw attention to the fact that they are not original, that they are playing with the original. Shanzhai's game of fakery inherently produces deconstructive energies. Shanzhai label design also exhibits humorous characteristics....Shanzhai products often have their own charm. Their creativity, which cannot be denied, is determined not by the discontinuity and suddenness of a new creation that completely breaks with the old, but by the playful enjoyment in modifying, varying, combining, and transforming the old."

and ofc i enjoyed him 打脸ing hegel politely in the intro lol. but ultimately i wasn't persuaded by the idea that the 山寨 phenomenon/the practice of counterfeiting in china is primarily an outcome of buddhist and taoist ideology. writes han:

"By contrast, Chinese philosophy is deconstructivist from the outset, to the extent that it breaks radically with Being and essence...With its unrelenting metamorphoses, process also dominates the Chinese awareness of time and history. For example, transformation takes place not as a series of events or eruptions, but discreetly, imperceptibly, and continually. Any kind of creation that occurred at one absolute, unique point would be inconceivable...This is why Chinese thought does not appreciate ruins. It does not recognize the kind of identity that is based on a unique event. To this end it does not accept the idea of the original, as originality assumes a beginning in the emphatic sense."

it's more thoughtful than most examples of this type of rhetorical pattern i've come across but nevertheless it still gives 神秘东方 vibes.

i came across a conversation between three profs about this work (Prof. Chen Anying of Tsinghua School of Art, Prof. Xia Ying of Tsinghua Dept. of Philosophy, Prof. Chang Peijie of Renmin University) that i found quite instructive. the discussion is occasionally too technical for a noob to understand but here's what i liked from what i understood:

- prof. chen: philosophical traditions don't necessarily map over to the practice of art; given that a fundamental idea here is the differences between western and eastern philo, wishes it was more clearly established how great a role this thinking actually plays in artistic + daily life (韩炳哲在书中总是把这些东西和经典的哲学放在一起，把中西方文化的差异、艺术的差异和一些根本的核心点的差异联系到一起。但首先要搞清楚这个哲学话语在我们生活实践里面起作用的方式是什么样的，这是我稍微有点不满的地方。). also: "the pre-qin period is also a construction of the han dynasty and a product of knowledge construction...there are a lot of artistic and calligraphic traditions that don't refer to pre-qin. so why do modern scholars only discuss confucianism and taoism when talking about the spirit of ancient chinese art?" (要具体来看，因为先秦是被汉代建构起来的，也是一个知识生产过程。我们看到很多画论、书论，里面也没有言必称先秦。但是为什么今天学者归纳，说中国古代艺术精神，全是儒家、道家的精神？)
- prof. xia: the issue of originality was magnified by the commodification of art under capitalism (我觉得这就是资本主义时代到来以后的问题，就是一个艺术生活的价值化，它把异质的东西敉平，变成可交换的、可沟通的东西。); also raises the interesting point that rather than this being a matter of "eastern" vs. "western" perspectives in conflict it might be something more like modern vs. ancient (see 其实这不是一个中西差异，而是一个古今之别 etc.).

[Guilherme Smee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mais um livrinho curtinho e rápido de ler de Byung-Chul Han, mas que nem por isso é menos genial e profundo. Em Shanzhai, Han explica a filosofia budista/chinesa da mudança e da desconstrução perenes. Para eles, não existe um acontecimento que desfaça a ordem das coisas, já que tudo é transformação. Dito isso, para os chineses não existe um conceito de algo original, já que toda obra é produto de um movimento para que se chegasse até sua forma atual e que, com o passar do tempo, ela irá se transformar, tanto aos olhos do fruidor quanto no tempo e no contexto. Por isso, a relação com a cópia por parte dos chineses, é diferente da nossa, quem copia bem não é um falsário ou um enganador, mas alguém que está melhorando e fazendo jus ao original, criando algo a partir dele. Por isso a cultura chinesa é profícua em produtos copiados, Made in China. Essa relação com a cópia, a reprodução e a inovação nos faz pensar sobre os memes e principalmente a relação dos chineses com os memes de internet, que parecem compartilhar da mesma filosofia de desconstrução e fuidez sem autoria que se alastra na cultura budista e chinesa.

[Wan Feng An · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting exploration of east asian concepts such as 山寨(counterfeits in the sense of wish.com versions - Adidas vs Asadi - which generates creative difference and bifurcation) and the dichotomy between 复制 and 仿制(replicas vs imitations, in the sense that the former is identical and the latter a pale copy). Feels as though the political applications are lacking: implying that the Chinese government may tend towards democracy due to the subversive nature of their 山寨 communism seems misguided and ungrounded. In all an interesting and concise read.

[Helga Mariel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Muy interesante. Creo que hubiera estado bueno una explicación más profunda de alguno de los puntos que desarrolla, pero de todos modos me parece un libro que puede ser un puntapié para repensar ciertos tópicos no sólo del arte, si no también de la "generación de contenido" en la edad contemporánea.

[Sevgi Şen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Çin'in çakmacılığının altında bir felsefe barındırması epey ilginç geldi. Özgünlüğün önemli olduğunu düşünürken özgünlüğe yüklenen önemin veya değerin abartılı olduğuna biraz ikna oldum sanırım. Yine de mesela aynı mantıkla 1300 yaşında olması gereken Şinto Tapınağını 20 yılda bir baştan inşa etmelerini kabullenemedim :)

[Jon Norimann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shanzhai: Deconstruction in Chinese is a very short but surprisingly informative work on how copying masterpieces of art is seen differently in China compared to the western view of copies as fakes.

[Estuardo Choc Salazar · Rating 5 out of 5]

La mentalidad china es explicada con ejemplos gráficos y en pocas páginas, vale mucho la pena leerlo y aprender otras formas de ver la creatividad.

[Amanda Chen]

Everyone we're getting more chinese this year

[Irem Ercan · Rating 3 out of 5]

sahte/çakma kavramına yönelik batı-doğu (bu kavramları kullanmayı sevmesem de) farklı bakış açılarına değinen bir kitap. okuması çok kolay olmadı benim için ama kafamda daha da soru işaretleri oluşturmasını sevdim.