Superfluous Things

After reading Wen Zhenghe’s “Superfluous Things” and Li Yu’s “ Notes Written in Moments of Idleness”, it is difficult to find out the fundamental differences in furniture and interior design between the Ming and Qing dynasties. This happens only because Wen and Li belong to a similar generation: Wen (1585-1645) was a great Ming dynasty scholar and painter, who was born is Suzhou; Li (1610-1680) lived in the late-Ming and early-Qing dynasties and born in Jiangsu, which is close to Suzhou. That’s why their texts of description of furniture and interior design are very similar.
In details, Wen’s and Li’s perspectives are very similar, which can be found in two different ways: appearance and function.
First of all, from their description, the style of furniture and interior deign are visually simple, concise, and in good taste. All the materials the creators need, are very common and cheap. According to Superfluous Things, Wen argues that no matter what object it is,
First, Wen’s work seemed so much more objective in his introduction of the rule of using and arranging the furniture and interior design than Li’s work. Furthermore, Wen wrote many short paragraphs to introduce the furniture and interior one by one. Each paragraph is very clear and pointed, which help me to catch up the useful information quickly.
In the notions on room order, it shows that the textbook authors only share the perspectives of the native informants; they just translate and paraphrase the excerpts from the original text without any change. In the Chinese furniture, the textbook authors engage the perspectives rather than just sharing information, they summarize some text to show clearly their thesis: Li Yu as a great Ming “scholar” and decorator, is a perfect example to help us to understand the art of living “Chinese