Image Searches. Yuandadu

Many Westerners visited China during the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and left a lot of literature on the capital city of the Dynasty known as Yuandadu. However, studies on Yuandadu are few so far. This thesis attempts to compare the similarities and differences between the images of Yuandadu in the Western and Eastern literatures and explore the possible reasons for the differences. The thesis first discusses the origin of the"oriental image"in the West as well as the different concepts of city between the West and the East, and then, by sorting out and analyzing the Western and the Eastern literatures on Yuandadu, examines the differences in representing the image of Yuandadu between the East and the West. Special attention is paid to the differences in cultural perspective in the East and the West respectively.This study finds two major reasons that explain the difference in the Yuandadu image as shown in the Western and Eastern literatures. First, the western image of the Far East is established on the basis of the image of the Middle East formed through their long-term contacts, and second, due to their lack of knowledge about traditional Chinese culture, these westerners tend to misunderstand the cultural connotations behind the Chinese buildings in Yuandadu. In addition, this study also examines the cultural background of the Yuan Dynasty, and suggests that it should not be treated as relatively backward dynasty in terms of cultural development, and rather it should be understood as a dynasty with unique cultural needs and tendencies in the history of China.