The Identity Of Treaty Port Intellectual Shen Yugui In Late Qing Dynasty

Shen Yugui was one of the most famous treaty port intellectuals in the late Qing Dynasty.He was deeply influenced by traditional culture and exposed to Western thought in the open ports.His rich life experience allowed him to have new identities as a religious man,newspaper man,and educator.By analyzing the construction process of Shen Yugui’s multiple identities and outlining his pursuit of meaning under different identities is helpful to understand his confusion and exploration in the process of transformation.In 1867,Shen Yugui was baptized and became one of the earliest Christians.The doctrine of God’s love for all the world comforted him in his suffering life,Shen constructed identification of religious belief and religious identity.At the same time,Young John Allen and other missionaries had influenced him a lot regards of Confucianism and Christianism were interconnected.He followed this theory and put forward that only Christianity could save China.His identity as a traditional scholar made him worry about the country all the time,while his religious identity made him regard faith in God as the cause of technological development,and link it with learning from the West and the country’s wealth and strength.Shen worked in "The Globe Magazine and A Review of the Times" for 18 years.In the prosperous newspaper running environment of Shanghai in the late Qing Dynasty and under the background of the Westernization Movement,he gradually grew from a missionary’s assistant to a professional newspaperman.In his early days,Shen Yugui often felt confused about his identity as an assistant,and he was ashamed to mention his profession to others because society at that time considered the press as the lowest occupation.After helping William Muirhead with the translation of Bacon’s The New Organon,he changed his mind and identity.With the development Westernization Movement,Chinese editors were gradually reappointed,and in 1872,Shen became the chief writer of the newspaper.and from 1878,he became the editor-in-chief.He emphasized political edification in content and impartiality and objectivity,and began to publish many articles,and formed a new view of China and foreigners and further put forward his own ideas of national salvation.As an educator,Shen cultivated in Chinese and Western academies for 15 years and put forward the idea that "Western learning must be based on middle Chinese traditional learning".During the process of transforming from a traditional scholar to a modern educator,he criticized the disadvantages of imperial examinations and advocated scholars to learn useful knowledge and to establish western learning academies throughout the country with the equal emphasis on Chinese and western learning.The Chinese and Western Academies cultivated a large number of talents for the Westernization Movement,which was highly praised by all walks of life.Shen himself was also very satisfied with the achievements of education.The ultimate goal of Shen’s educational ideal was to enrich the people,which shows his concern of the Confucian traditional scholars to the society.