Maker
HEIRLOOM TECHNOLOGY
CHINESH INGENUITY
By Tim Anderson
LOOK FOR THE TECHNOLOGY OF THE FUTURE IN THE OLDEST CIVILIZATION!
I recently took my camera on a trip to the coast of China near Taiwan. Quanzhou was described in glowing terms by Marco Polo. It was the terminus of the “Maritime Silk Road” of trade between Far and Near East.
The fishing junks I saw in the walled harbor of Chongwu were similar to a reconstruction of a 1200 year old ship unearthed near the Maritime museum: sculpted eyes at the bow to see the way, watertight bulkheads, wings at the stern, kick-up rudder, transom bow and stern. Some have a socket to step the mast for sailing, but small gasoline engines now power most of these boats.
Besides their obvious beauty, these boats impressed me with how smoothly they cut through the waves and the good speed they achieved with their little 6hp “Mao” engines. I saw one sailing into a sharp chop and the sail was very still, which is a sign of a good sailing design.
Many of the boats I came across were at war with worms. Gribble and Teredo, the boring worms, feast on wooden boats in warm water. Walled harbors are built into the mouths of rivers. Fresh water from the river kills the worms, which are saltwater creatures. These boats are careened (left high and dry) with every tide. The drying and oxygen that enters the planking kills the worms, too. The tung oil and lime mixture is impervious to worm larvae.
Paint doesn’t appear to adhere well to these boats. Possibly they are soaked with an oily vermitoxic compound prior to painting, or possibly they are made of tropical hardwoods containing oils naturally toxic to the worms.
Photography by Tim Anderson
Need a boat and all you’ve got is conduit and styrofoam? Just weld a boat-shaped conduit cage around your foam and head out to sea.
CONSTRUCTION
An unbelievable amount of construction goes on in China (right). The scaffolding is lashed bamboo. Way up in the air on two bamboo ladders tied end-to-end, a man welds with one hand, hanging on with the other (far right).
Construction workers wear bamboo wicker hard hats like this. They cost about 80 cents and are surprisingly sturdy. Probably fine to stop a falling wrench. Motorcyclists also wear them, but they lack padding at the back of the head.
BIKE MODS
Underside of another motorized rickshaw showing frame structure and power transmission (above). This one has an air intake hose going to a larger air filter canister. A layer of shoe foam insulation makes a load of ice blocks last longer.
Bicycle sidecar rickshaws carry materials and people across town (above). There’s no limit to what one of these can carry — a load of logs or granite blocks, or a dozen school kids. The cargo capacity of these rickshaws exceeds any I’ve seen in the world. I saw one bike with a small motorcycle engine under the sidecar. It used an IV bag to drip water on the motor to keep it cool going uphill on a hot day.
Sometimes a motorcyclist will put out his foot to give one a power assist up a hill.
SHOE FOAM FLOATS
Half the world’s running shoes are made in this province (left). This dinghy is made from shoe foam. I saw people carrying these bundles of foam blocks on their bicycles and didn’t realize they were dinghies. This man paddled to shore from his boat using pieces of plastic flotsam as paddles. He bobbed up and down on the waves as they smashed against the seawall and then climbed up with help from his wife.
Tim Anderson, founder of Z Corp., has a home at stuff.mit.edu/people/robot/home.html. When not ice-kite-butt-boarding in a rooster-crested motorcycle helmet, he can be found all over the world using and documenting heirloom technologies.