An Insurmountable Gulf

In the history of cultural communications between China and America, the American author and professional journalist John Hersey as well as his thought and contributions to the Sino-American cultural communication was rarely referred to. Born in an American missionary family coming to China, John Hersey completed three novels relevant to China in different periods of his life, i.e. A Single Pebble in the 1950s, White Lotus in the 1960s and The call: American Missionary in China in the 1980s. In these novels, by using specific literary styles, Hersey depicted the images of China in different historical periods, which were reflected in the following layers respectively.The above three novels mainly shed light on three facets of cultural connotations, through which the gulf and conflict between Chinese and American cultures were exposed, thus revealing the author's outlook on the Sino-American relationship. The three facets of cultural connotations are as follows. A Single Pebble shows the enormous gap between western modern scientific civilization and traditional Chinese culture; White Lotus explores the conflict between the Yellow and the White from the racial perspective and The call: American Missionary in China reflects the achieve-nothing reality of western religious belief in China.In the present thesis, the author holds that it's through the presentations of these three cultural layers that the various images of China in the author's eye were revealed. In the different images of China during different periods contain Hersey's in-depth thoughts on the Sino-American political and cultural relationships. Although there exists a hue of pessimism towards the Sino-American cultural communications in the novels, we can clearly see Hersey's expectation toward the communication and dialogue between Chinese and American cultures in his works.Being a professional journalist, as well as the youngest member of the famous American Academy of Arts and Letters, John Hersey left us much space for the study and consideration on the cultural communication between China and America, which really deserves our full attentions.