Is it Japanese or Chinese

Dkozi

You mean there is a debate about penjing not being a valid art older than bonsai. Crazy I tell you. Crazy.

While I do appreciate bonsai as being significantly different than penjing, to say that they weren't styled until about 100 years ago is absolutley rediculous.

The Chinese were tying branches down with string long before the Japanese had wire. And lets not forget that the Lingnan clip and grow methods are from the Lingnan school of penjing. Lingnan is south of the nanling mountains-refering to Guangdong.

There either has to be a miss print somewhere in previous statments referred to or some far out point has been lost to outragious unfounded claims spoken to stir the pot. Awe shucks it's all about fun anyways right.

I guess my out look on penjing and bonsai is it is like the noodle. You can either eat them as speghetti or as Lo mein either way you look at them though it was the Chinese that had them first.

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rockm

Yeah, it's a mysterious four thousand year old practice steeped in Zen, marinated in ancient Chinese wisdom, and wrapped in some kind of unassailable mysticism....Suuure. Or maybe the truth really is that about 50 percent of that "ancient" history is marketing...

Sure, alot of The "penjing" and "bonsai" we do now is related to the plants that were "shaped" then--although shaped is a relative thing. Old penjing, bonsai or whatever, weren't really shaped. They were mostly collected and plunked in a pot and admired. They weren't "designed" by anyone, just nature. Take a closer look at the pics you posted. See any resemblence to Kokufu bonsai, or to Zhao's land and water penjing? There may be a running simlarity, but they're not the same.

Do you really think that the bonsai we practice today with copper wire, precision tools and water soluable fertilizers is the same thing? Get real. The idea that bonsai and penjing are ancient has alot of marketing myth behind it.

In the here and now, what was done then, only vaguely resembles what is done now.

Yes, there are ancient pictures of penjing. Doesn't make them that relavant to what we're doing today.

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