When considered collectively, all of these small changes added up to something revolutionary. If we visualize two tray beds as heat maps—one tray bed from the Republican period, and one from after the move to natural-language arrangements—we can begin to appreciate the consequence of this new form of classification (figure 7.7).63 In these heat maps, the color of each cell is a scaled chromatic representation of the number of adjacent characters with which a given character can be combined to form a real, two-character word, with white equaling 0 (indicating that a character cannot be meaningfully combined with any adjacent characters) and shades of light to dark gray corresponding to the range of values between 1 and 8 (8 indicating that a character can be combined meaningfully with all of its adjacent characters). Looking at them, we witness the “predictive turn” in Chinese information technology—a revolutionary vernacularization of taxonomy that formed the conceptual and practical foundations of what we now refer to as “predictive text.”
7.7 Heat map comparison of typewriters from before and after the predictive turn
As illustrated in this visualization, Mao-era experimentation with the Chinese typewriter resulted in a significantly “hotter” tray bed, one in which only a very small proportion of characters were not located next to at least one other character with which they tended to appear in natural language.
A further comparison of the UNESCO tray bed visualization with that of the UN machine—that is, between two machines which both employed predictive text organization—is equally revealing, alerting us to the dramatically decentralized and democratic dimension of this experimental movement. Although the goal was to produce more perfectly the rote and repetitive nature of phraseology within Maoist China, each tray bed was utterly individual and personal (figure 7.8).
7.8 Heat map comparison of two natural-language tray beds
There was an immense space for individualization within this practice, that is to say, with many factors to consider beyond those of vocabulary. To create a predictive text tray bed, one had to determine which characters to include on the tray bed; which two-, three-, and four-character sequences to make adjacent; where and how to create these adjacencies; where on the tray bed to place the centermost character (so as to avoid crowding or bunching up); how to place certain “dead-end” characters that were limited to only very specific two-character pairings (such as the jin of Tianjin, which pairs with few other characters); and how to shape the directionality of these pairings, among many others. There was also quite likely a mnemonic dimension to predictive text tray beds—that is, the ways in which typists would have used associative clusters not only to accelerate the speed of typing, but also as an aide-mémoire for the location of specific characters within specific clusters (for example, remembering the location of the character mei—美 “beauty”—by remembering that it formed part of the cluster Mei diguo—美帝国 “American imperialist”). To produce a predictive text tray bed was no simplistic matter of regurgitating rote phraseology, but a profoundly subtle “memory practice.”64
By the close of the 1980s, natural-language arrangements had become so popular among typists that typewriter manufacturers began providing consumers with blank tray bed tables. Rather than printing conventional tray bed guides—guides that, since the 1910s, had mapped out the precise location of every one of the roughly 2,500 characters on the machine—these new manuals included a tray bed table left purposefully blank, providing users with nothing more than “suggestions” as to general principles of natural-language organization (figure 7.9).65 Still other manuals provided more detailed recommendations on how to conceptualize a natural-language arrangement, but again left it up to individual typists to determine exactly how they would implement the system on their devices (figure 7.10).66
7.9 Predictive text tray bed organization chart (1988)
7.10 Explanation of “arrow style” organization in 1989 typewriting manual
Once eager to standardize and centralize these new experimental efforts in the domains of typesetting and typewriting, publishers and companies were now capitulating to local-level, user-led changes, spending the waning years of the Chinese typewriting industry trying to catch up along a path that had already been forged by the “masses.”
Notes
1 Thomas S. Mullaney, Coming to Terms with the Nation: Ethnic Classification in Modern China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010).
2 Ha’erbin shi renmin zhengfu gong’anju zhengzhi baoweichu (哈尔滨市人民政府公安局政治保卫处). Special thanks to Michael Schoenhals for allowing me to view select archival records.
3 As shown by Antonia Finnane; Beijing shi fu shipin shangyeju dang zu.
4 For example, the August 30, 1955 typewritten report entitled “Qing shi guoqingjie taixiang shunxu wenti (請示國慶節抬像順序問題),” produced by the Zhong Gong Hebei shengwei jiyaochu [中共河北省委機要處],1955. As evidenced in archival collections compiled by Daniel Leese.
5 As found in the archival collections of Jacob Eyferth. Chinese Communist Party Baodi County Committee (Zhongguo gongchandang Baodi xian weiyuanhui), “Survey Report on Living Conditions and Political Attitudes in Baodi County (Zhonggong Baodi xianwei guanyu nongmin sixiang qingkuang de diaocha baogao) [中共宝鸡县委关于农民思想情况的调查报告],” August 17, 1957.
6 As shown in Benno Weiner’s work.
7 “Whatever Work Aims to Complete and Not to Fail the Five Year Plan, All That Work Is Glorious! (Renhe laodong, dou shi wancheng wunian jihua buke queshaode laodong, dou shi guangrongde laodong!) [任何勞動,都是完成五年计划不可缺少的劳动,都是光荣的劳动!],” designed by Zhou Daowu [周道悟], March 1956, PC-1956-013, private collection, chineseposters.net.
8 The Poems of Chairman Mao (Mao Zhuxi shici) [毛主席詩詞], 1968. Type-and-mimeograph edition by self-identified Red Guard, released on or around International Workers’ Day, author’s personal collection; Long Live Chairman Mao Thought. Selections from 1957 and 1958 (Mao Zhuxi sixiang wansui 1957 nian–1958 nian wenji) [毛主席思想万岁 1957年–1958年文集], c. 1958. Type-and-mimeograph edition by members of the Yunnan University Mao Zedong-ism Artillery Regiment Foreign Language Division Propaganda Group (Yunnan Daxue Mao Zedong zhuyi pao bing tuan waiyu fentuan xuanchuan zu) [云南大学毛泽东主义炮兵团外语分团宣传组], author’s collection.
9 Liansu Meng, “The Inferno Tango: Gender Politics and Modern Chinese Poetry, 1917–1980,” PhD dissertation, University of Michigan, 2010, 1, 233–234.
10 “A New Typing Record (Dazi xin jilu) [打字新記錄],” People’s Daily (Renmin ribao) (November 23, 1956), 2.
11 Ibid.
12 Ingrid Richardson, “Mobile Technosoma: Some Phenomenological Reflections on Itinerant Media Devices,” fiberculture 6 (December 10, 2005); Ingrid Richardson, “Faces, Interfaces, Screens: Relational Ontologies of Framing, Attention and Distraction,” Transformations 18 (2010).
13 Pierre Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992), 57.
14 “Kaifeng Typesetter Zhang Jiying Diligently Improves Typesetting Method, Establishes New Record of 3,000-plus Characters per Hour (Kaifeng paizi gongren Zhang Jiying nuli gaijin paizifa chuang mei xiaoshi san qian yu zi xin jilu) [開封排字工人張繼英努力改進排字法創每小時三千余字新紀錄],” People’s Daily (Renmin ribao) (December 16, 1951). Reprinted from article in Henan Daily (Henan Ribao).
15 Zhang Jiying first worked at the Zhengzhou Xinhua Publishing Company (Zhengzhou Xinhua yinshuachang).
16 Zhang Jiying, “How Did I Raise My Work Efficiency? (Wo de gongzuo xiaolü shi zenme tigao de?) [我的工作效率是怎麼提高的],” in Zhongnan People’s Press (Zhongnan renmin chubanshe) [中南人民出版社], ed., The Zhang Jiying Typesetting Method (Zhang Jiying jianzifa) [張繼英揀字法] (Hankou: Zhongnan renmin chubanshe, 1952), 20.
17 Li Zhongyuan and Liu Zhaolan, “Kaifeng Type
setter Zhang Jiying’s Advanced Work Method (Kaifeng paizi gongren Zhang Jiying de xianjin gongzuofa) [開封排字工人張繼英的先進工作法],” People’s Daily (Renmin ribao) (March 10, 1952), 2–4.
18 My thanks to Kamran Naim for alerting me to the etymology of the term.
19 Franz Schurmann, Ideology and Organization in Communist China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966), 59–68; Alan P.L. Liu, Communications and National Integration in Communist China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), 139.
20 Li Zhongyuan and Liu Zhaolan, “Kaifeng Typesetter Zhang,” 2–3.
21 Zhang Jiying, “How Did I Raise My Work Efficiency?”
22 Sigrid Schmalzer, The People’s Peking Man: Popular Science and Human Identity in Twentieth-Century China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 126–128.
23 Zhang Jiying, “How Did I Raise My Work Efficiency?,” 21.
24 “Model Workers from Across China Attend International Workers’ Day Ceremony (Ge di lai Jing canjia ‘wuyi’ jie guanli de laodong mofan) [各地來京參加五一節觀禮的勞動模範],” People’s Daily (Renmin ribao) (May 7, 1952), 3; Zhang Jiying. “How Did I Raise My Work Efficiency?,” 21.
25 He Jiceng [何繼曾], Elements of Type Setting (Paizi qianshuo) [排字淺說] (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1959), 41.
26 Despite certain successes in Jinggangshan, hometown favorite Zhang Jiying still reigned supreme, however. Exploding his 1952 record of 3,820 characters per hour, Zhang reportedly reached 4,890, 5,538, and then 6,252 characters per hour during the years of the Great Leap. See Wang Shigeng [王世庚], “Zhang Jiying Sets Another Typesetting Record (Zhang Jiying zai chuang jianzi xin jilu) [张继英再创拣字新纪录],” Henan ribao [河南日报], (March 30, 1959), 1.
27 Journalism Research Institute of the People’s University of China (Zhongguo renmin daxue xinwenxue yanjiusuo) [中国人民大学新闻学研究所], ed., Typesetting for Newspapers (Baozhi de paizi he pinpan) [报纸的排字和拼盘] (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1958).
28 When combined, these four characters compose the phrase jiejue wenti, or “to resolve a problem.”
29 When combined, these characters form the phrases jianshe zuguo (“develop the motherland”) and tigao changliang (“increase production”).
30 When combined, these characters form the phrases renmin gongshe (“people’s commune”) and shehui zhuyi (“socialism”), via the shared character she.
31 Journalism Research Institute of the People’s University of China, ed., Typesetting for Newspapers, 29. Note that “dingzhen xuxian” is better known as “dingzhen xuma” and is a Chinese word game in which a group of players must produce four-character idiomatic expressions, each person required to think of one that begins with the character that the previous player’s expression ended with. The editors drew parallels between this method and “thimble linking” (dingzhen xuma), a poetry game dating back to at least the Shijing, and popular in the Song and Yuan dynasties. In thimble linking, which bears certain commonalities to the technique of coblas capfinidas in medieval Provençal troubadour poetry, the same character that appears at the close of one verse is repeated at the beginning of the next. The game likely evolved out of oral poetry traditions, as a form of memory aid. Nicholas Morrow Williams, “A Conversation in Poems: Xie Lingyun, Xie Huilian, and Jiang Yan,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 127, no. 4 (2007): 491–506.
32 Journalism Research Institute of the People’s University of China, ed., Typesetting for Newspapers, 29.
33 Ibid., 30.
34 Huawen daziji wenzi pailie biao. Accompanies the Huawen dazi jiangyi (n.p., n.d.; produced pre-1928, circa 1917).
35 The same system of organization governs the arrangement of the character nan (南). Directly above this character sits the character hu (湖), forming “Hunan” (湖南). To the immediate left of nan sits yun (雲), forming “Yunnan” (雲南). And directly beneath nan sits he (河), forming “Henan” (河南). Perhaps the most elaborately interlinked and positioned character is that of xi (西), meaning “west.” Adjacent to this character are those of zang (藏), shaan (陝), guang (廣), and shan (山), forming the names Xizang (Tibet), Shaanxi, Guangxi, and Shanxi.
36 Chen Guangyao [陳光垚], Essays on the Simplification of Chinese Characters (Jianzi lunji) [簡字論集] (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1931), 91–92.
37 Shen Yunfen [沈蕴芬], “I Love the Work Allocated Me by the Party with All My Heart (Wo re’ai dang fenpei gei wo de gongzuo) [我熱愛黨分配給我的工作],” People’s Daily (Renmin ribao) (November 30, 1953), 3.
38 “Introduction to the ‘New Typing Method’ (‘Xin dazi caozuo fa’ jieshao) [‘新打字操作法’介紹],” People’s Daily (Renmin ribao) [人民日报] (November 30, 1953), 3.
39 Ibid.
40 Quanguo qingnian shehui zhuyi jianshe jiji fenzi dahui (全国青年社会主义建设积极分子大会). Shen is cited by name in a speech by Hu Yaobang commemorating the 35th anniversary of the May Fourth Movement—the speech was reprinted in the People’s Daily on May 4, 1954. See Hu Yaobang, “Determine to Be Active Builders and Protectors of Socialism (Lizhi zuo shehui zhuyi de jiji jianshezhe he baowei zhe) [立志作社会主义的积极建设者和保卫者],” People’s Daily (Renmin ribao) (May 4, 1954), 2. She is also cited by name in Cheng Yangzhi [程養之], ed., Chinese Typing Practice Textbook (Zhongwen dazi lianxi keben) [中文打字練習課本] (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1956); and in Deng Zhixiu [邓智秀], “The Achievements of Beijing Model Worker Shen Yunfen (Beijing laomo Shen Yunfen de shiji) [北京劳模沈蕴芬的事迹]” (Beijing: Dianli laomowang [March 6, 2006]), www.sjlmw.com/html/beijing/20060306/2193.html (accessed January 23, 2010).
41 Fa-ti Fan, “Redrawing the Map: Science in Twentieth-Century China,” Isis 98 (2007): 524–538; Schmalzer, The People’s Peking Man, 8; Joel Andreas, Rise of the Red Engineers: The Cultural Revolution and the Origins of China’s New Class (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009).
42 Fan, “Redrawing the Map”; Schmalzer, The People’s Peking Man.
43 Schmalzer, The People’s Peking Man, 126.
44 Franz Schurmann, Ideology and Organization in Communist China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966), 59; Michael Schoenhals, Doing Things with Words in Chinese Politics (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1992).
45 Schurmann, Ideology and Organization in Communist China, 58.
46 Cheng Yangzhi [程養之], ed., Chinese Typing Manual for the Wanneng-Style Typewriter (Wanneng shi daziji shiyong Zhongwen dazi shouce) [万能式打字机适用中文打字手册] (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1956), 1–2.
47 Ibid.
48 Ibid., 2.
49 Tianjin People’s Government Local-State Jointly Run Hongxing Factory (Tianjin shi renmin zhengfu difang guoying huyeju Hongxing huchang) [天津市人民政府地方國營互業局紅星互廠], “Report on the Improvement of the Chinese Typewriter Character Chart (Huawen daziji zibiao gaijin baogao) [華文打字機字表改進報告],” TMA J104-2-1639 (October 1953), 10.
50 Tianjin People’s Government Local-State Jointly Run Hongxing Factory, “Report on the Improvement of the Chinese Typewriter Character Chart,” 31. The example given: if two characters within the “hand-radical” category tended to appear together in actual usage to form a common two-character compound—such as da (打) and quan (拳), which together form the compound daquan meaning “to fight” or “to box”—tray bed designers should place them adjacently, even if this meant disrupting stroke-count organization of other characters within the hand-radical class.
51 Wanneng Style Chinese Typewriter Basic Character Table (Wanneng shi Zhongwen daziji jiben zipan biao) [万能式中文打字机基本字盘表]. Included as appendix in Cheng Yangzhi, Chinese Typing Manual for the Wanneng Style Typewriter.
52 Tianjin People’s Government Local-State Jointly Run Hongxing Factory, �
�Report on the Improvement of the Chinese Typewriter Character Chart,” 10–11.
53 “Reformed” (Gexin) Chinese Typewriter Tray Bed of 1956.
54 Ronald Kline and Trevor Pinch, “Users as Agents of Technological Change: The Social Construction of the Automobile in the Rural United States,” Technology and Culture 37 (1996): 763–795.
55 This move quite likely afforded a measure of job security as well. While state authorities and manufacturers were eager to promote standardization—and with it interchangeability—an operator could not be easily replaced after having reorganized the tray bed into a deeply personal, individualized configuration.
56 Wang Guihua [王桂華] and Lin Gensheng [林根生], eds., Chinese Typing Technology (Zhongwen dazi jishu) [中文打字技术] (Nanjing: Jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 1960).
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