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Rppingyams: Science in Asia V\Fitten by Mes Baiker, Waikato University

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Rppingyams: Science in Asia V\Fitten by Mes Baiker, Waikato University rppingyams: science in Asia V\fitten by Mes Baiker, Waikato University In three previous articles in New Zealand ScienceTeacher^ enduring part of the history of China's south-west. Much of I have told a number of stories from the history of science this is due to the enigmatic and eccentric character of this - stories that are intended to illuminate the nature of stocky, 1.72m tall, habitually pith-helmeted scientist. It was science itself. Unashamedly to catch the eye, I chose to call not just that his temperament was volatile; it was that his them collectively'ripping yarns', a label that has strong personality was deeply contradictory. connotations from a bygone age of blissful imperialism. Often charming in European company, he was privately Actually, bubbling through the three new science stories perpetually lonely. He was both self-aggrandising and in this article can be found one of the dominant features deeply insecure. He was frequently dismissive of Han of the age of imperialism: uneasy race relations.The Chinese culture and surprisingly obtuse about the Tibetan scientist in the first story, Austrian-American botanist world, but he was nevertheless invariably affectionate, if Joseph Rock (1884-1962), who worked in China, has been somewhat patronising, towards the Naxi minority people described as "an egomaniac at best, a racist at worst."^ who inhabit the area of the south-western province of Then there is science and technology historian Joseph Yunnan where Rock made his base near the town of Lijiang. Needham (1900-1995) who, initially through his research After a wearisome time in the remote country ofthe assistant and lover at Cambridge University, Lu Gwei-djen, borderlands, he would long to be rid of China, but once ultimately came to be described as "the man who loved back even in Shanghai (let alone Boston or Vienna) he China"^ and who, controversially, became an apologist for would be decrying'civilisation'and longing for the solitude the newly constituted People's Republic of China.The final and the grandeur ofthe China-Tibet borderlands. And all story features Indian J.C. Bose (1858-1937), physicist and of these erratic foibles spilled over into his science. While botanist, who for decades contended heroically with the his meticulous and pioneering botany was internationally lofty and patronising attitudes ofthe British Raj science greatly respected, his contributions to ethnography were establishment. generally seen by specialists as flawed because of his However, each story also has its own particular purpose - to fascination with the macabre and the sensational. It was illuminate an important proposition about the nature of impossible to identify where Rock the scientist and Rock the science.These propositions feature in the classic catalogue"* idiosyncratic citizen ofthe world began and ended. Indeed, ofthe features of science (Table 1) that I used in the three his life is a good example ofthe proposition that sc/ení/sís earlier articles. Since I wrote those fourteen stories, however, participate in public affairs both as specialists and as the need to explore the Nature of Science in classrooms, citizens. proclaimed in the banner headline across each page of our Rock, by a combination of opportunism and bluff, suddenly science curriculum of 2007, has taken on a greater urgency. became a botanist in his early twenties. Born into the lower I address this after I have told these three new stories. classes in status-conscious Vienna, he had experienced an Rhododendrons, yak butter and brigands impoverished childhood, made more bitter by the contrast Botanist-explorer Joseph Rock's idea of dinner in the field' with his father's workplace - Franz Rock was a steward in was more elaborate and less communal than that of most the luxurious home of a wealthy Polish count. scientists. Wherever he found himself in the great north- At eighteen years of age, Joseph Rock left Vienna with south corridor ofthe China-Tibet borderlands - in a steamy no academic qualifications but having demonstrated a jungle, a forest of fir trees beside a rushing torrent, on a formidable memory and a gift for languages. (Ultimately, grassy plain beneath snow-clad mountains - Rock's evening he taught himself eight languages, including Sanskrit; he expectations would be the same.The clean linen cloth began learning Chinese in Vienna at the age of thirteen.) would bespread on the folding table, the bottle of good wine would appear, and his cook (from the Naxi ethnic Drifting his way to the United States and, out of work in minority people) would serve, on a gold dinner service, Honolulu, he successfully persuaded the Division of Forestry dishes similar to those that Rock recalled from his boyhood that he was needed as an herbarium collector.That day he in thetwilight of the Hapsburg era in Vienna. blustered and charmed his way into a successful lifelong career, made possible by his orderly, systematic mind, his Later, after dining alone, and while his party of up to two prodigious memory, his relentless energy for writing and hundred settled in for the night. Rock would relax his travel- exploring, his love of natural beauty and solitude, and his weary body in steamy water in his Abercrombie and Fitch willingness to go where few trained botanists had ever collapsible bathtub. Meanwhile, in the shadows around penetrated. During his subsequent travels in India, Burma him, the servants attended to Rock's personal comfort; the and mainly China over the next thirty years, he shipped porters unloaded the plant presses, cameras, and so on, thus more than 80,000 plant specimens back to institutions as releasing the yaks or mules for feeding and watering by the prestigious as the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard University, muleteers; and the mercenaries took up lookout stations, Kew Gardens in London, and the Smithsonian Institution in guarding against the ever-present possibility of brigands Washington. He specialised in rhododendrons, had two new emerging from the anarchical countryside to attack the species named after him, and his numerous but irregular expedition. journeys back to London, Edinburgh, Berlin and Boston In the first half of the twentieth century, other botanists, kept him well informed, and also enhanced his international each with their carefully-guarded territory, worked on prestige. Curiously, however. Rock never actually published the resplendent and, at that time, little-known flora of any works on the botany of China. the China-Tibet borderlands. However, Rock's flamboyant Early in his time in China, Rock's attention was diverted expeditions and his colourful personality have become an towards another discipline - ethnography. In 1924 Rock, New Zealand Association of Science Educators now an American citizen, secured a lucrative contract with home of twenty-seven years near Lijiang. Forthe next National Geographic Magazine ana over the next ten years eleven years he was a perpetual emigrant, always travelling, "our man in China"^ became known internationally to nowhere at home. He gave up ethnography and returned to millions of readers through the nine articles he wrote. His his two early interests, botany and languages. Rock died of a achievements in this area are uneven.The articles contained heart attack in Honolulu in 1962, just prior to the publishing stunning photography; amazingly. Rock was taking and ofthe second volume of a monumental and still widely developing in the field the first colour photographic plates revered dictionary ofthe language ofthe Naxi people. in the 1920s. For example, such photos flamboyantly Joseph Rock's story reminds us that scientists are citizens too. illustrated Rock's account of the production and display of Sometimes this becomes apparent when scientists become the sculptured and tinted yak butter deities which formed involved in public action-taking: Nobel Prize winners British the backdrop to the festive devil dancing at the Choni crystallographer Dorothy Hodgkin,and New Zealander lamasery up in Gansu province.* However, his frequent Maurice Wilkins, of DNA renown, also devoted much of their claims to be "the first white man" to view aspects of energies towards international peace and understanding^• indigenous life, or to explore a snowy peak or a river gorge and many climate scientists "are going out of their way as betray (certainly to our ears today) at best a Eurocentric private citizens to say,'Wake upiThis is not a good thing to be bias.With readership and funding no doubt in mind, doing.'"' And sometimes scientists' lives as private citizens his attention was frequently transfixed by macabre and spill over and, unintended, influence their specialist activities sensational details; even the titles of his articles spoke of in science: there is evidence that the private religious views "weird ceremoniesT'strange kingdomsT'brigand-infested of scientists as eminent as Sir Isaac Newton and Charles central China','"holy mountain ofthe outlaws'7 And he can Darwin inevitably affected their professional lives.'" So, too, be rightly accused of dismissively treating everyday people did Joseph Rock's private inner world impinge dramatically and customs with a high-mindedness that contrasted with and erratically on his public work in science. the avid attention he paid the indigenous, so-called, kings and princes ofthe region. Approaching a settlement, Rock Joseph Needham's great iabour of iove would often require his entourage to carry him into the Cambridge University historian Joseph Needham's long town in a sedan chair, in order to impress the population, life (1900-1995) is remarkable for one titanic enterprise and especially its rulers, of his importance. It is hard to that he came passionately to embrace: the documenting escape the conclusion that his attitude towards people in of China's entire history of science and technology, power was an outcome ofthe way he forever begrudged and its contribution to world civilisation generally.
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