9In the late feudal Chinese, watch more than itself, and interest in them is not pure time effect watch. We can compare the palace internal classes and external class interests. The clock in the Qing Dynasty Qianlong period popular in the palace, a part of the reason is the emperor of the western art and scientific curiosity. However, in the feudal period, the clock has a special status, it is a valuable "".

First of all, the watch is rare and expensive, and not everyone can have, so watch represents a social class, is the symbol of power and prestige. The clock's significance lies not only in time, but their fancy, exotic, expensive and relatively rare that the people longing for their. When the emperors as the one and only of process and design and obsessed with the watch, watch the real attraction lies in their symbolic meaning. Because the clock process only inside the palace, never rumored. (put the clock process incoming Chinese missionaries worked, in the palace in the workshop to teach skills. Manufacturing to Chinese necessary) Watch a symbol of feudal power, wealth and exclusion

Until eighteenth Century, probably because the watch exclusive or and emperor, watch (no matter how simple it seems) seems to be the elite of patent products. Scholars do not seem to like watches, but at least when we review the history of clocks and watches description, we found in painting and literature occupies a space for one person in the public domain, watch more broad, this means that the watch has become a symbol of government officials and wealthy elite social status.

Chinese aesthetic and aesthetic did not affect the European watchmaking industry, but it has a huge effect on the watch design, in turn influences the decorative watch market. European table production period coincides with the interior decoration style popular Chinese (Chinoiserie

When style). This style is broadly based on Chinese, Japan, and even India pattern, Europeans appreciate strange and eccentric embodies these design of the imagination.

And the study of European manufacturers how to use the clock in Chinese pop to advance their own industry, is full of fun. Inspired by China with European pattern, it is a kind of cross-cultural "hybridization".

Chinese like these clocks, because to them, watch is a "western" characteristics, while European watch manufacturers mistakenly attributed to watch popular design China their "". These manufacturers with the same clock in the European market, but did not realize their clocks in the Chinese court so the real reason for the huge demand. In late eighteenth Century the Europeans, the watch is a manifestation of Chinese characteristics of the microscopic world. To make a long story short, these clocks show Chinese aesthetic viewpoint on europe.

Although the tabulation technology, Matteo Ricci taught 4 eunuchs in the palace of China, but you insist that domestic products have not replaced western table Chinese class position in the heart, this situation until the second half of the nineteenth Century changed. It has experienced a process of how?

At the time Chinese class heart, domestic clocks and watches the competition not western. Of course, in terms of technology, watch Chinese manufacturing, watch not and European technology to produce with the same quality. When we find the feudal period of some existing clocks and in eighteenth Century wrote the court documents, you will find a lot of emperor collected a large amount of China their clocks. So, I don't think "China watch no important role" in the Chinese mind is fair.

Western watches at first in order to cater to the Chinese royal or wealthy, but these precious clock finally returned to the west. One explanation for this is war on Chinese caused disaster. Do you understand?

It's hard for me to comment.

Collection often say: "a collection of watches or clocks is a collection of history." What is your understanding of the history of the watch?

The clock is not only the technical product or attractive decor. Watch and it represents the cultural connotation is closely related to. When the clock is placed in a broader historical context, they can reveal the manufacture and use of their culture. When we appreciate the watch, but also in the microscopic world view of history. On the clock, we see the evolution of Technology (after all, watch is considered to be a basis of machinery); in the watch design, we can read the aesthetic fashion. The clock shows the economic status of an era.

The clock can also be used to (as my research) observation on China foreign invasion, and mixed aesthetic concept and technology. The clock can make people more understanding, in eighteenth Century, 17 missionaries missionary strategy. Many problems and missionaries around the clock extension and development of the rise and fall of the China coincide. Watch and help us to understand the aesthetic Chinese feudal period. Not only that, as I mentioned before, the clock design reveals different cultures "misunderstanding". So, I think the argument is more reliable, and the use of history to explore the watch, as with the clocks of history.