At the lively opening ceremony of a major science fiction and fantasy literature conference in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, on Saturday, the event's organizers proposed designating August 25 "China Imagination Day".

By adding a red-character date to our calendar, they are hoping to tap the nation's potential to imagine, thereby unleashing bigger strides in innovation and faster development.

It is an interesting idea.

Questions like whether it is necessary to set aside a specific day, or whether it has to be August 25 are open to debate. But we appreciate the efforts of science associations at all levels to celebrate the imagination.

"In order to fly high in the future, we need a strong set of wings: the left side is called science, and the right imagination," they said in their proposal.

We love the analogy. You can imagine how a bird flies when one of its wings is underdeveloped.

Of course our nation is not devoid of imagination. Our ancestors were unbelievably imaginative. Some of their inventions still inspire awe among today's scientists. But we should feel embarrassed if our contributions to human civilization are limited to what our ancestors achieved.

However, the fact is we have seen few trail-blazing new achievements comparable to papermaking, printing, gunpowder and the compass. There are multiple reasons for this.

One of the most apparent is the current shortfall of imagination. In most areas of science and technology, we are at best diligent followers of the front-runners. Quite a few of our enterprises, which deserve much of the credit for the nation's high rate of economic growth, are engaged in simple processing work that requires and inspires little innovation. They just tirelessly repeat themselves.

The national leadership sees where the problems are, and have called for inventiveness. They want to turn our country into a laboratory of innovation.

The question is how. To come up with an answer, we have to find out what has prevented us from being innovative. Do our culture and society appreciate and encourage imagination? To what extent do our teachers and officials accommodate ideas that are different from theirs?

The lamentable state of science fiction is only one aspect of our society's imagination problem.

It would be a pity if the gathering in Chengdu were taken as nothing more than an insiders' party for fans of science fiction and fantasy literature.

(China Daily 08/27/2007 page4)