BARBARIAN PARADISE: CHINESE VIEWS OF THE UNITED STATES, 1784-1911

This study attempts to explore the Chinese views of the United States, 1784-1911, as reflected in diaries and travel accounts of the Chinese diplomats, fiction and plays about the United States, and Chinese translations of American literature.; Chapter One deals with early, idealized Chinese views represented by the works of Chinese scholar-officials, all of whom depict America as a paragon of democracy and a land of plenitude and advanced technology.; Chapter Two explains ambivalent views of American character and value as found in the diary-form travelogues by Chinese envoys to the United States. Their views of the United States are partly romantic and partly critical.; Chapter Three dwells upon a more critical phase. Huang Tsun-hsien's narrative poems express the poet's bitterness about the racial attitude of the United States toward Chinese immigrants. Two other important intellectuals, K'ang Yu-wei and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, call attention to the American presidential election, the U.S. expansionist policy, racial unrest, and other flaws they saw in the United States.; Chapter Four analyzes the disillusionment of the Chinese at the American Exclusion Laws. In the corpus of literature created in this period, earlier positive images of Americans have been replaced by the depiction of America as a "floating hell" and other negative images.; Chapter Five discusses the Chinese translations of American literary works, including Longfellow's "Psalm of Life," Bellamy's Looking Backward, 2000-1887, and Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. The first two works reflect the Confucian approach, both moralistic and utopian; while Chinese adaptation of Stowe's novel is an attempt to demythologize early idealization of the United States as an egalitarian and harmonious world.; The oscillation in the Chinese views of the United States, between praise and condemnation, persists down to the present day. Hopefully, this study may help us to understand both a specific literary phenomenon and the dynamics of Chinese-American relations.