Amdo In The Eyes Of The Yellow Hair:

The traveling writings of Western explorers and missionaries in Tibetan Plateau in the modern times are resources available for scholars, especially that of China Modern History and Tibetology. The part of Amdo in it plays an important role and mainly is the content of this dissertation. The dissertation discusses explorers and writings in period from Przhevalsky at the mid of19th down to the mid of20, when numerous western explorers wrote abundant books, articles on their expedition to Amdo. The whole dissertation is divided into two parts.Part One was divided into five chapters. It reviews background, the supporting organizations, the motives, the activities and achievements of the explorers and missionaries in Amdo, actually is a western exploring history on Amdo. Especially in this part the dissertation focuses on the exploring activities of some key American explorers such as W. W. Rockhill, R. B. Ekvall, J. F. Rock, and some different Christian Missions of U. S. A. such as China Inland Missionary (C.I.M.), Christian and Missionary Alliance (C.M.A.) and Assemblies of God (A.G) at that time.Part Two was divided into eight chapters. It is a study of exploring archives and works that are divided into two sections by features of westerns exploring activities in Amdo, including nature exploration and humanity Exploration.Nature exploration was divided into three chapters, comprises three important zones:Amnye machen, Kokonor and Tsaidam that also are the three Tibetan cultural axis in Amdo. In this section classification on explorers by their activities and times, and survey of names on monasteries, places, and people are intensively studied.Humanity Exploration was divided into three chapters. It refers to three monastery-town explorations in Amdo:Kumbum Monastery, Labrang Grand Monastery and Chone Grand Monastery that also are three civilization centers with dense population. In this section survey of names on monasteries, places, and people are studied, and at the same time the features of all kinds exploring achievements are discussed and analyzed.Finally, as a conclusion, with reviewing Said's Orientalism and through methods of critical study the dissertation introspects political motives and psychological cognition of westerns in Amdo and some domestic views, and reveals some existing problems in studying and using exploring archives nowadays. Key Words:Modern Times, Amdo, Western, Explorers, Missionaries, Exploring, Exploring Archives...