Tcheng-Ki-Tong's Dilemma

Tcheng -Ki-Tong is a famous diplomat and intellectual in Late Ch'ing Dynasty. He created many works in French, aiming at introduce Chinese culture and eliminate Westerners' prejudice against China, which have repercussion all over Europe. However, we can find some cultural paradoxes in his works, speeches and behaviors. In this thesis, the author sets the cultural exchange between west and China in late Ch'ing Dynasty as the background, and tries to explore the next three questions by interpreting his paradoxes: 1. The differences between the ideal China in Tcheng -Ki-Tong's works and the social reality of Late Ch'ing Dynasty, and the influence of west-China cultural exchange on Chinese writers' literary creation reflected by those differences; 2. The presentations of the nature of male-centered discourse reflected by Tcheng -Ki-Tong's contrary views about the female in different time and space; 3.To analyze his cultural identification while drifting between western culture and Chinese culture.Facing the pluralistic cultural concepts, the intellects often feel hard to make a choice, which shows us the special tension and charm of that age. Both Tcheng -Ki-Tong and his works are full of contradiction, which made them worth ruminating and exploring. In this thesis, the author analyzes the cultural dilemma which Tcheng-Ki-Tong has encountered in order to scrutinize the historical complexity under the appearance of the intellects' paradoxical concepts about culture, at the same time, to reveal the imprint that the culture collision and hybrid of the transitional period in late Ch'ing Dynasty have left on the intellectuals.