Research On Robert Van Gulik

Sinologist Robert Van Gulik was not only a diplomat but also an outstanding Sinologist. He did a wide range of researches about Chinese culture and Chinese literature. Many Sinologists are not able to do it. Especially during the period that China was in the darkest and backward situation and Western countries had many misunderstandings and distortion of China. He concentrated on the study of Chinese culture and transmited Chinese culture to foreign countries. He also rectified many Western countries' misunderstandings of China. He had made great efforts to make western readers know a real China and contributes a lot for "rectification of the name of Chinese culture". In this paper the author pays much attention to introduce two world-famous books in the world academic circle of sinology. They are Judge Dee series novels and sexology masterpiece Sexual Life in Ancient China (including its predecessor Erotic Colour Prints of the Ming Period). There are three main parts in this paper.The first part is a general overview of Robert Van Gulik's life, his cultural practice and China's current study about Robert Van Gulik. Robert Van Gulik, born in the Netherland, had ever visited mandy Asian coumtries such as China and Japan as a diplomat. Since his childhood he was interested in Chinese character and culture. He married a Chinese as his wife, and mastered Chinese lute-playing, chess, calligraphy and painting. He has a wide range of researches about Chinese culture, involving literature, history, language, mathematics, chess, newspaper, philosophy, lyre, blockprinting, etc. While he was world-renowned for his novels Judge Dee and sexology masterpiece Sexual Life in Ancient China (including its predecessor Erotic Colour Prints of the Ming Period) The former makes him possess a wide range of readers and supporters, and the latter is famous for its professionalism and preciseness in the field of sexology. But unexpectedly, there are relatively few domestic researches about such a prolific and great sinologist due to many reasons. Many readers know Robert Van Gulik from Judge Dee, but they do not know Robert Van Gulik well. In many articles there are no systematic and in-depth study about Robert Van Gulik, only a brief introduction of his life and his novels, which is really a great pity.In the second part, we focus on an analysis of Robert Van Gulik's series novels Judge Dee. A foreigner wrote Chinese traditional legal case novels in English(Robert Van Gulik translated one of them into Chinese).How to attract the Western readers and preserve Chinese characteristics? The story of the novel is in China, and Robert Van Gulik adopts the form of Chapter Novel of the Ming and Qing Dynasty in his writing. The novel involves a lot of Chinese traditional objects, and it also preserves the Chinese traditional thoughts. Robert Van Gulik almost follows the historical facts, all of which is attractive to Western readers. Mysterious ancient oriental/eastern country, prosperity of the Tang Dynasty and the unique plots bring the western readers freshness and fun. On the other hand, the set of the suspense of the story, the description of the process of detection, the treatment of feudal superstition and the description of the women in the story also show the thinking pattern of the westerners in the twentieth century. Meanwhile, it is also one flexible way to cater for the Western readers. From the social impact of this novel, Robert Van Gulik transmits Chinese culture successfully. His way of transmission is worthy of our reference.In the third part, the two books ( Erotic Colour Prints of the Ming Period and Sexual Life in Ancient China) is extremely important for the study of ancient China's sex culture. The creation background of the two books has close relationship with the publication of Judge Dee. Due to the limitation of my knowledge and experience, I can only do the research sententiously. I hope that we can pay much attention on it. Therefore, in this part the author analyzes the status of Chinese women from Sexual Life in Ancient China (which also gives some supports to the analysis of women in the last part of Judge Dee ) and the unscientific points in Sexual Life in Ancient ChinaRobert Van Gulik's successful transmission of Chinese Culture had a great impact in the 20th century. In the 21st century of China, in the time of frequent information exchange among countries, during the period that we need to output China's excellent culture, it also inspires us greatly.