Creativity - When East Meets West

Creativity - When East Meets West by Sing Lau, Anna N N Hui and Grace Y C Ng (2004, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.)

This book gives great insights into Creativity between East and West. Everything's written so well and interesting that i'm tempted to copy whole chapters haha.

The following are sections of the book i find relevant in knowing in regards to my designing for China. There's still more to come too!

p58 3. Conceptualization of Creativity within the Chinese Cultural Context

Conceptualizations of creativity can be described as explicit or implicit. Explicit theories of creativity are consutrctions of psychologists or other social scientists that are based on theoretically derived hypotheses that can be empirically tested (Sternberg, 1985). In contrast, implicit theories are drawn from the individuals' belief systems that exist in the minds of these individuals (Runco & Bahleda, 1987) and need to be revealed rather than invented.

3.1 Explicit concepts of Chinese Creativity

.. Consequently researchers started to search for the historical and indigenous roots of the concept of creativity and to compare Chinese conceptions with those of North American and Western perspectivies. The results of such comparisons led Weiner (2000) to conclude that, "Creativity in the Western sense might be seen as absurb from common Hindu and Buddhist perspectives" (p.160). Bearing in mind that elements of invention and novely, a willingness to reject tradition, orientation on self-actualization, celebration of individual accomplishment, and concentration on the future, are almost inherent to Wester conception of creativity we can easily notice that these elements are foreign to the traditional Chinese ideals of respect for the past, and maintaining harmony with the forces of the nature.

Novelty and inventions understood as attributes of creativity in the Western concept are either non-existent or, at the best, differently conceptulaized in Chinese traditional teaching. Throughout the history of Chinese philosophy, creatibity was perceived as discovering the nature of following "the way" (the Tao), as there was nothing new to create. Thus, those people "who desire creating something new live in ego illusion" (Weiner, 2000, p. 160). The foremost goal of any human activity is to attain harmony with forces which are far greater than humans. Within the Taoist and Buddhist teaching, creatibity was viewed as an inspired imitation of the forces of nature. Creativity was needed for figuring out what respnose was consistent with "the Way", as well as for showing others that one was indeed following "the Way" (Weiner, 2000). Within common Chinese conceptions, the "new" creations such as bronzes, sculpture, ceramics, and paintings came into the being in order to honor "the eternal ways of heaven and nature, the ancestors, and the ancient texts" (Weiner, 2000, p. 178). Such a perception of the motivations and aims of creative effort is strikingly different from the willful quest for novelty inherent to Western creations since the Renaissance.

"Between the Chinese and foreigner of today there exists a distance, but far greater distance exists between the Chinese of today and the Chinese of antiquity, While the former distance will diminish with time the latter distance will lengthen"

- Wu Guanzhong, One of the greatest contemporary Chinese artists.