How can these ingenious Chinese craftsmen suddenly be so pitiable in the eyes of the descendants of the British empire? This is, of course, related to the nineteenth-century image of the extreme weakness of China.
巧手神工的中國匠人，怎地忽然在大英帝國後裔的眼「可憐」了起來？這當然與十九世紀以來中國的積弱形象有關。