A Study On The Localization Strategy Of William Edward Soothill’s Religious Culture Transmission

Since the reform and opening up,China’s economic and social development has been rapid,and its international status has been increasing day by day,triggering a worldwide Chinese language boom.Learning Chinese and understanding Chinese culture have become an inevitable need for cooperation and exchanges with Chinese economies.Since its establishment in 2002,Hanban has been committed to the promotion of overseas Chinese and the spread of Chinese culture to the outside world.The dissemination of language and culture,especially in heterogeneous cultural environments,is a long and difficult task.Combined with the cross-cultural communication theory since the 1970 s,it is undoubtedly an important breakthrough for the Confucius Institute to study overseas development strategies from the history of Chinese and foreign cultural exchanges.Throughout history,there are many typical periods of cultural integration and spread in China,but at the same time there are very few periods with high research value,sufficient research materials,and scientific research methods.Wenzhou,known as China ’s Jerusalem,together with Zhaotong of Yunnan is regarded as the two most successful examples of modern Chinese missionary undertakings.In Wenzhou’s religious and cultural dissemination,the British missionary William Edward Soothill was the first to be praised.From the 1870 s to the early twentieth century,it was the era of Soothill ’s missionary in China,and also the era of rapid changes in modern China.Soothill ’s series of communication strategies adapted to the times and localities,and the strategy of localization of foreign religions made it a great success.Soothill took advantage of the global trend of western learning and deeply combined with the needs of modern Chinese local society,established church schools and church hospitals,combined the promotion of local social modernization with missionary work,and walked out of a combination of top-down and bottom-up missionary path.In the process of localizing the "other" religious culture,the strict and effective organizational management system has ensured the long-term stable operation of the church machine,with a foresighted development policy for the development of Chinese church autonomy and autobiography.Persistence and compromise coexist,these two treatments of cultural differences has successfully realized the localization of foreign Christian culture.Also as a "other" culture,Soothill ’s success has important reference value for the overseas Confucius Institute’s development strategy to promote Chinese culture in the world.This article takes the voluntary work experience of the Confucius Institute of Scotland’s Schools in Britain as an example,and gives some practical suggestions at the end of the article.