6 ms·

The Chinese Wheelbarrow (2011)

88 points by oftenwrong 8y ago

syrrim 8y ago
The western variant does not necessarily save the driver only half the weight, this depends on how the wheelbarrow is loaded. In the standard arrangement, with handles extending out towards the driver, and the wheelbarrow tipping forwards forcing most of the weight to the front, I could see 3/4 of the weight being offloaded to the wheel. While it still loses to the chinese variant, the trade off is that the "barrow" portion of the wheelbarrow can carry loose items, including dirt or even water, whereas the chinese design requires items to be in bags, which are then tied down. Also, anyone who has ever driven a well loaded wheelbarrow knows that they have a considerable danger of tipping, and I think this would be accentuated in the chinese design. Placing most of the weight near the axle between the wheel and the ground means that any slight tendency towards one side (say by an imbalance while loading, or a bump in the road) is more easily corrected for in the western design. I wonder if we might liken this to the distinction between the chinese preference for energy saving and the british preference for labour saving, as recorded during the industrial revolution. A chinese wheelbarrow will require much more time to load, and will require more care on behalf of the driver to prevent it tipping, but will require less energy of them. The western variant can be loaded quickly (perhaps with a shovel), but requires the driver to bear some portion of the weight, and thereby use more energy.
- jaclaz 8y ago
  It is a completely different "intended usage", however. The "western" version is intended to move materials over extremely short paths (for long distance carriages are traditionally used), the Chinese is to carry materials over long distances (and as mentioned in the article over winding and possibly non-paved roads). You can loosely compare the "loading" with a modern quarry/mine truck vs. a container truck, besides the different nature of the goods transported the difference is between short and long haul that more than compensates the increased loading time.
- samatman 8y ago
  From the article: "Later, the Chinese also used western-style wheelbarrows alongside their own design." These are effectively unrelated technologies, as only one is suitable for transporting goods between settlements.
- contingencies 8y ago
  the "barrow" portion of the wheelbarrow can carry loose items, including dirt or even water Here I believe you are confounding a hollow body with central wheel placement, these are two disparate and potentially mutually compatible features. anyone who has ever driven a well loaded wheelbarrow knows that they have a considerable danger of tipping, and I think this would be accentuated in the chinese design If intended for heavy loads they tend to have stands emerging from the outer sides/corners (these are visible in many of the article's images), just the same as the modern ones. Also, because the weight is better balanced in the Chinese central-wheel model you can arguably use a fatter wheel (since you are taking less load and therefore have an easier time controlling the thing) which means increased stability and increased strength and longevity. Also, reduced affinity for 'sinking' in muddy or sandy conditions. Placing most of the weight near the axle between the wheel and the ground One observation is that the Chinese design (central placement of larger wheel) makes this possible with a higher center of gravity (and therefore easier to guide, while avoiding undesirable interactions of the load with plants/water/animals/etc.). A concern in wet weather, overgrown paths, etc. A chinese wheelbarrow will require much more time to load I believe this is a misconception based upon the view of the modern western wheelbarrow which is designed both as a vessel and a vehicle. Coming from an ancient Chinese peasant's perspective, the wheelbarrow would be an all-weather replacement for pack animals, and therefore the likelihood is that goods (for example agricultural harvests) would first be placed in to an appropriate container and then slung over the wheelbarrow in paired or otherwise balanced loads. The slinging would not require any real time investment, probably less than an animal. It means that you can bring the wheelbarrow down a winding path in mountainous fields, take your rattan or similar basket, load your harvest, and then dump it on the wheelbarrow. You might load 4, 6, 8 or 10 such baskets before moving the wheelbarrow. The above assumptions are based on my own observations observing actual agricultural work in remoter parts of China and Southeast Asia over the last 20 years. Strangely, this whole discussion reminds me of the outrageously expensive industry of modern baby strollers, but also the modern stand-on electric monowheel style scooters, which could be said to be essentially a powered version of the simplistic form of the Chinese wheelbarrow.
bsder 8y ago
I find the idea that the Chinese wheelbarrow would have been better in the West somewhat suspect. People are clever everywhere. Such a good idea would have gotten adopted if it were useful. So, the real question is: Why wasn't it useful in the West? I suspect the answer is "mud". The West tends to have a lot more continuous rainfall than most of China.
- takeit137 8y ago
  >People are clever everywhere. Such a good idea would have gotten adopted if it were useful. First I thought of Democracy which is not used in China and a clear counterexample. Clearly it's not the dry weather there which is the reason :). But I deleted that comment as it's political and, although a counterexample, one could argue that the algorithm of counting votes is not the central idea of Democracy, and it is philosophical and cultural rather than technological. I next thought simply of forks and chopsticks. They're both wildly available, but other than Asians, nobody eats with chopsticks in America and Europe, non-Asian restaurants don't even have any. In China I imagine it's the opposite, and restaurants don't even have a fork for you. We are not talking about a wheelbarrow here (or Democracy!) - but just a $0.50 piece of wood/plastic/metal. Clearly it is not true that a good idea is adopted instantly in the same form. Utensils are a great idea. The west uses forks, the East uses chopsticks.
  - Markoff 8y ago
    they have fork and spoon everywhere in Chinese restaurants, what can be hard to find it's knife also most of Asia doesn't eat with chopsticks except few eastern Asian countries, heck whole southeast Asia it's fork+spoon for most of the dishes, it's just strange CN/JP/KR preference
    - takeit137 8y ago
      >they have fork and spoon everywhere in Chinese restaurants I did a Google search and saw: "It is a good idea as cheaper restaurants will not have forks available." https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g294212-i2147-k2629991-Chopsticks_vs_fork_knife_spoon-Beijing.html https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g294212-i2147-k2629991... This is from 2009, so has this changed in the past 9 years?
rbobby 8y ago
> The wheelbarrow gave the Chinese armies such an advantage in moving goods that it was kept secret - early Chinese writings talk about wheelbarrows in code. It's strange to think that the wheelbarrow was at one time super high tech and a game changer for military operations. Added to my list of inventions I'll steal if I ever time travel :)
- lyrachord 8y ago
  Huh, someone did to the china tek for thousand years. And someone declared that typography was his invention, but I don't think you will make similar declaration even travelling time.
masklinn 8y ago
> Before the arrival of the steam engine, people have always preferred to move cargo over water instead of over land People have always preferred moving cargo over water than land period, that's still the case today. Steam and combustion engines made overland transport faster and more flexible and thus took over some of the more time-sensitive transport, but the bulk of manufactured chinese goods don't travel to europe or the middle-east overland, neither do central and south-american goods to the US or canada.
Markoff 8y ago
how it's this better than two wheeled cart, which is much more stable? this has benefit only on very narrow paths somewhere in mountains/forest, but otherwise carts are superior, you don't need to balance them, so I can see why this never took off outside China since there is obviously better solution to this problem
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  There is no comparison between the 'Western' and 'Eastern' variants. The article is in a way very misleading. 'Wheelbarrow' in 'The West' is generally a local tool, used to move things like dirt and what not 50 feet to somewhere else. What the Chinese have there is a '1 wheeled cart' for transportation, which in the west would have '2 wheels' or even '4 wheels'. And yes, one would be right to question why on earthy they wouldn't add another wheel or two. Maybe resources?
  - oftenwrong 8y ago
    The article says: "Compared to a two-wheeled cart or a four-wheeled wagon, a wheelbarrow was much cheaper to build because wheel construction was a labour-intensive job."
  - chimpunk 8y ago
    According to Richard Bulliet's History of the World lectures (available online), four-wheeled wagons are globally less common than wheelbarrows or two-wheeled carts because: (a) extra wheels add considerable weight and friction (b) wagons have a larger turn radius (See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagon_wheel_(transportation)#Terminology_and_design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagon_wheel_(transportation)#T...) TFA answers the question "why a wheelbarrow and not a two-wheeled cart": "Compared to a two-wheeled cart or a four-wheeled wagon, a wheelbarrow was much cheaper to build because wheel construction was a labour-intensive job. Although the wheelbarrow required a road, a very narrow path (about as wide as the wheel) sufficed, and it could be bumpy."
  - CydeWeys 8y ago
    It's true that the eastern and western wheelbarrows were different, but the Chinese also used "western"-style wheelbarrows for moving bulk materials short distances on construction sites, whereas we had no equivalent of their wheelbarrow for longer distance travel. Sounds like they won there. As for adding more wheels, why? You're just adding more weight. Keep in mind that these need to be pushable by a single person. A single large wheel is the best design for handling rough terrain and optimizing maneuverability, while still being pushable by one person. By the time you've added multiple wheels you're talking about a larger type of vehicle that needs better roads and draft animals to pull it.
sonnyblarney 8y ago
"Our road infrastructure - mostly based on asphalt - is more similar to that of the Ancient Chinese and will disintegrate at a much faster rate if we lose our ability to maintain it. The Chinese wheelbarrow - and with it many other forgotten low-tech transportation options - might one day come in very handy again." It's funny how such intelligent and thoughtful people can write a serious article topped off by this. At first I think it's tongue-in-cheek humour, but then I realize, no, they're half-serious. I should add - this is a great magazine, nice find!
- upofadown 8y ago
  What is the actual rebuttal here?
- CydeWeys 8y ago
  Every civilization that has existed prior to the modern age has fallen. And unlike them, we're now destroying the planet's very ability to support life as well. It's a deadly serious matter whether human civilization can continue in its present form, and if it does not, it's worth considering what it might fall back to. It's happened many times before.
  - sonnyblarney 8y ago
    "Every civilization that has existed prior to the modern age has fallen" No. Though every political organization has fallen, a great deal of the social and local political infrastructure remained the same, moreover, almost every political organization ever founded is an evolution of the one previous to it. Do you really think that Sicily changed political hands prevented them from knowing how to 'build Roman roads' if they wanted to? "we're now destroying the planet's very ability to support life as well." Our roads will be fine, and no, we don't need to reconsider 1- wheeled carts, 'just in case'.
- oftenwrong 8y ago
  I don't think it's crazy to suggest that roads and the standard of living in some places could decline to the point that it becomes more common to use currently-outmoded methods to transport goods over land. What if the future sees: - Oil production decline to the point of significant scarcity - 20000km supply chains falling out of the profitability zone - Under-funded municipalities on the edges of civilization not able to maintain their roads. Some parts of the United States are already starting to un-pave their roads: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/7/26/the-un-paving-of-american-roads https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/7/26/the-un-paving-... - Large-scale decline in standard of living ...Et cetera. Given enough neglect and time, everything we have built will crumble. When "developed" places fail, they will start to look more like "developing" places. Dirt roads, bicycles, working animals, reduced conspicuous consumption, and maybe even wheelbarrows as a seriously-considered form of transportation - all of it could return in the long-term.
sbierwagen 8y ago
>The Chinese and Roman road systems were built (independently) over the course of five centuries during the same period in history. Curiously, due to (unrelated) political reasons, both systems also started to disintegrate side by side from the third century AD onwards All ancient societies were Malthusian, living at the limit of their food supplies. A period of global cooling started in the third century, knocking down the Roman and Chinese empires at the same time, for the same reason: https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/12/famine-fever-and-the-fall-of-rome/ https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/12/famine-fever-and-the-fal...

88 points by oftenwrong 8y ago

The western variant does not necessarily save the driver only half the weight, this depends on how the wheelbarrow is loaded. In the standard arrangement, with handles extending out towards the driver, and the wheelbarrow tipping forwards forcing most of the weight to the front, I could see 3/4 of the weight being offloaded to the wheel. While it still loses to the chinese variant, the trade off is that the "barrow" portion of the wheelbarrow can carry loose items, including dirt or even water, whereas the chinese design requires items to be in bags, which are then tied down. Also, anyone who has ever driven a well loaded wheelbarrow knows that they have a considerable danger of tipping, and I think this would be accentuated in the chinese design. Placing most of the weight near the axle between the wheel and the ground means that any slight tendency towards one side (say by an imbalance while loading, or a bump in the road) is more easily corrected for in the western design. I wonder if we might liken this to the distinction between the chinese preference for energy saving and the british preference for labour saving, as recorded during the industrial revolution. A chinese wheelbarrow will require much more time to load, and will require more care on behalf of the driver to prevent it tipping, but will require less energy of them. The western variant can be loaded quickly (perhaps with a shovel), but requires the driver to bear some portion of the weight, and thereby use more energy.

jaclaz 8y ago
It is a completely different "intended usage", however. The "western" version is intended to move materials over extremely short paths (for long distance carriages are traditionally used), the Chinese is to carry materials over long distances (and as mentioned in the article over winding and possibly non-paved roads). You can loosely compare the "loading" with a modern quarry/mine truck vs. a container truck, besides the different nature of the goods transported the difference is between short and long haul that more than compensates the increased loading time.
samatman 8y ago
From the article: "Later, the Chinese also used western-style wheelbarrows alongside their own design." These are effectively unrelated technologies, as only one is suitable for transporting goods between settlements.
contingencies 8y ago
the "barrow" portion of the wheelbarrow can carry loose items, including dirt or even water Here I believe you are confounding a hollow body with central wheel placement, these are two disparate and potentially mutually compatible features. anyone who has ever driven a well loaded wheelbarrow knows that they have a considerable danger of tipping, and I think this would be accentuated in the chinese design If intended for heavy loads they tend to have stands emerging from the outer sides/corners (these are visible in many of the article's images), just the same as the modern ones. Also, because the weight is better balanced in the Chinese central-wheel model you can arguably use a fatter wheel (since you are taking less load and therefore have an easier time controlling the thing) which means increased stability and increased strength and longevity. Also, reduced affinity for 'sinking' in muddy or sandy conditions. Placing most of the weight near the axle between the wheel and the ground One observation is that the Chinese design (central placement of larger wheel) makes this possible with a higher center of gravity (and therefore easier to guide, while avoiding undesirable interactions of the load with plants/water/animals/etc.). A concern in wet weather, overgrown paths, etc. A chinese wheelbarrow will require much more time to load I believe this is a misconception based upon the view of the modern western wheelbarrow which is designed both as a vessel and a vehicle. Coming from an ancient Chinese peasant's perspective, the wheelbarrow would be an all-weather replacement for pack animals, and therefore the likelihood is that goods (for example agricultural harvests) would first be placed in to an appropriate container and then slung over the wheelbarrow in paired or otherwise balanced loads. The slinging would not require any real time investment, probably less than an animal. It means that you can bring the wheelbarrow down a winding path in mountainous fields, take your rattan or similar basket, load your harvest, and then dump it on the wheelbarrow. You might load 4, 6, 8 or 10 such baskets before moving the wheelbarrow. The above assumptions are based on my own observations observing actual agricultural work in remoter parts of China and Southeast Asia over the last 20 years. Strangely, this whole discussion reminds me of the outrageously expensive industry of modern baby strollers, but also the modern stand-on electric monowheel style scooters, which could be said to be essentially a powered version of the simplistic form of the Chinese wheelbarrow.

bsder 8y ago

I find the idea that the Chinese wheelbarrow would have been better in the West somewhat suspect. People are clever everywhere. Such a good idea would have gotten adopted if it were useful. So, the real question is: Why wasn't it useful in the West? I suspect the answer is "mud". The West tends to have a lot more continuous rainfall than most of China.

takeit137 8y ago
>People are clever everywhere. Such a good idea would have gotten adopted if it were useful. First I thought of Democracy which is not used in China and a clear counterexample. Clearly it's not the dry weather there which is the reason :). But I deleted that comment as it's political and, although a counterexample, one could argue that the algorithm of counting votes is not the central idea of Democracy, and it is philosophical and cultural rather than technological. I next thought simply of forks and chopsticks. They're both wildly available, but other than Asians, nobody eats with chopsticks in America and Europe, non-Asian restaurants don't even have any. In China I imagine it's the opposite, and restaurants don't even have a fork for you. We are not talking about a wheelbarrow here (or Democracy!) - but just a $0.50 piece of wood/plastic/metal. Clearly it is not true that a good idea is adopted instantly in the same form. Utensils are a great idea. The west uses forks, the East uses chopsticks.
- Markoff 8y ago
  they have fork and spoon everywhere in Chinese restaurants, what can be hard to find it's knife also most of Asia doesn't eat with chopsticks except few eastern Asian countries, heck whole southeast Asia it's fork+spoon for most of the dishes, it's just strange CN/JP/KR preference
  - takeit137 8y ago
    >they have fork and spoon everywhere in Chinese restaurants I did a Google search and saw: "It is a good idea as cheaper restaurants will not have forks available." https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g294212-i2147-k2629991-Chopsticks_vs_fork_knife_spoon-Beijing.html https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g294212-i2147-k2629991... This is from 2009, so has this changed in the past 9 years?

rbobby 8y ago

> The wheelbarrow gave the Chinese armies such an advantage in moving goods that it was kept secret - early Chinese writings talk about wheelbarrows in code. It's strange to think that the wheelbarrow was at one time super high tech and a game changer for military operations. Added to my list of inventions I'll steal if I ever time travel :)

lyrachord 8y ago
Huh, someone did to the china tek for thousand years. And someone declared that typography was his invention, but I don't think you will make similar declaration even travelling time.

masklinn 8y ago

> Before the arrival of the steam engine, people have always preferred to move cargo over water instead of over land People have always preferred moving cargo over water than land period, that's still the case today. Steam and combustion engines made overland transport faster and more flexible and thus took over some of the more time-sensitive transport, but the bulk of manufactured chinese goods don't travel to europe or the middle-east overland, neither do central and south-american goods to the US or canada.

Markoff 8y ago

how it's this better than two wheeled cart, which is much more stable? this has benefit only on very narrow paths somewhere in mountains/forest, but otherwise carts are superior, you don't need to balance them, so I can see why this never took off outside China since there is obviously better solution to this problem

sonnyblarney 8y ago
There is no comparison between the 'Western' and 'Eastern' variants. The article is in a way very misleading. 'Wheelbarrow' in 'The West' is generally a local tool, used to move things like dirt and what not 50 feet to somewhere else. What the Chinese have there is a '1 wheeled cart' for transportation, which in the west would have '2 wheels' or even '4 wheels'. And yes, one would be right to question why on earthy they wouldn't add another wheel or two. Maybe resources?
- oftenwrong 8y ago
  The article says: "Compared to a two-wheeled cart or a four-wheeled wagon, a wheelbarrow was much cheaper to build because wheel construction was a labour-intensive job."
- chimpunk 8y ago
  According to Richard Bulliet's History of the World lectures (available online), four-wheeled wagons are globally less common than wheelbarrows or two-wheeled carts because: (a) extra wheels add considerable weight and friction (b) wagons have a larger turn radius (See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagon_wheel_(transportation)#Terminology_and_design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagon_wheel_(transportation)#T...) TFA answers the question "why a wheelbarrow and not a two-wheeled cart": "Compared to a two-wheeled cart or a four-wheeled wagon, a wheelbarrow was much cheaper to build because wheel construction was a labour-intensive job. Although the wheelbarrow required a road, a very narrow path (about as wide as the wheel) sufficed, and it could be bumpy."
- CydeWeys 8y ago
  It's true that the eastern and western wheelbarrows were different, but the Chinese also used "western"-style wheelbarrows for moving bulk materials short distances on construction sites, whereas we had no equivalent of their wheelbarrow for longer distance travel. Sounds like they won there. As for adding more wheels, why? You're just adding more weight. Keep in mind that these need to be pushable by a single person. A single large wheel is the best design for handling rough terrain and optimizing maneuverability, while still being pushable by one person. By the time you've added multiple wheels you're talking about a larger type of vehicle that needs better roads and draft animals to pull it.

sonnyblarney 8y ago

"Our road infrastructure - mostly based on asphalt - is more similar to that of the Ancient Chinese and will disintegrate at a much faster rate if we lose our ability to maintain it. The Chinese wheelbarrow - and with it many other forgotten low-tech transportation options - might one day come in very handy again." It's funny how such intelligent and thoughtful people can write a serious article topped off by this. At first I think it's tongue-in-cheek humour, but then I realize, no, they're half-serious. I should add - this is a great magazine, nice find!

upofadown 8y ago
What is the actual rebuttal here?
CydeWeys 8y ago
Every civilization that has existed prior to the modern age has fallen. And unlike them, we're now destroying the planet's very ability to support life as well. It's a deadly serious matter whether human civilization can continue in its present form, and if it does not, it's worth considering what it might fall back to. It's happened many times before.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  "Every civilization that has existed prior to the modern age has fallen" No. Though every political organization has fallen, a great deal of the social and local political infrastructure remained the same, moreover, almost every political organization ever founded is an evolution of the one previous to it. Do you really think that Sicily changed political hands prevented them from knowing how to 'build Roman roads' if they wanted to? "we're now destroying the planet's very ability to support life as well." Our roads will be fine, and no, we don't need to reconsider 1- wheeled carts, 'just in case'.
oftenwrong 8y ago
I don't think it's crazy to suggest that roads and the standard of living in some places could decline to the point that it becomes more common to use currently-outmoded methods to transport goods over land. What if the future sees: - Oil production decline to the point of significant scarcity - 20000km supply chains falling out of the profitability zone - Under-funded municipalities on the edges of civilization not able to maintain their roads. Some parts of the United States are already starting to un-pave their roads: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/7/26/the-un-paving-of-american-roads https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/7/26/the-un-paving-... - Large-scale decline in standard of living ...Et cetera. Given enough neglect and time, everything we have built will crumble. When "developed" places fail, they will start to look more like "developing" places. Dirt roads, bicycles, working animals, reduced conspicuous consumption, and maybe even wheelbarrows as a seriously-considered form of transportation - all of it could return in the long-term.

sbierwagen 8y ago

>The Chinese and Roman road systems were built (independently) over the course of five centuries during the same period in history. Curiously, due to (unrelated) political reasons, both systems also started to disintegrate side by side from the third century AD onwards All ancient societies were Malthusian, living at the limit of their food supplies. A period of global cooling started in the third century, knocking down the Roman and Chinese empires at the same time, for the same reason: https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/12/famine-fever-and-the-fall-of-rome/ https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/12/famine-fever-and-the-fal...