China Image Through Japanses’ Eyes In The Nineteenth Century

The Japanese, lived on the island, have always regarded theChinese as their model to learn from. Therefore, they activelyintroduced the advanced system of culture and materials from China.With the gradual infiltration of western modern civilization and theincreasingly enhancement of Japanese national power, the Japaneseto some extent began to change their attitude to china. In addition, tothose Japanese traveler who came to China to investigate in person,the condition of being violated and poor had strongly changed theiroriginal impression of China. With the development of modern China,the Japanese travelers began to take the further development ofJapan into consideration and do more exploration, therefore, the travelto China at that time has played an important role in the Sino-Japanesecommunication.The Japanese have long been concentrated on Chinese culture,and the same words and the same culture origin have brought muchdeeper understanding for these two nations. Thus such an intimacy haslaid the foundation for China and Japan to communicate with eachother, but also made Japanese mistook that they could understandChina roundly. These Japanese travelers have left numerous noteswhich described China from various perspectives so as to remold theimage of modern China. However, most of the notes embraced of thetravelers nationalities and the preset aims, so the image of modern China created by the travelers was superficial and for the purpose ofJapanese invasion to China.This paper is composed of three parts of introduction, body and theconclusion. Firstly, the introduction mainly introduced the aim,significance and the research done by Japan and other nations.Secondly, in the body, the first part introduces Japanese traveling andstudy in China in the ancient times and what they regarded China as,the second part mainly tells modern Sino-Japanesecommunication--the experience and influence brought by theJapanese official traveling which was organized by the JapaneseShogunate for four times have become a turning point for theJapanese to view China in modern times, the third part has analyzedthe cultural awareness in the travel notes of modern China and theinvisible metaphor from the point of represented people and works,and the fourth part tells about the influence to Sino-Japaneserelationship, Japanese political and military fields brought by the theseJapanese traveler and their notes in the modern times.