On The Images Of China Of Foreigners’ Travel Notes During Late-Qing And Early Republic Of China

During the late Qing Dynasty,China and the Western countries began to communicate with each other more and more frequently,the foreign missionaries,diplomats,journalists,businessmen,scholars came into Chinese coastland and inland,some even traveled to the remotest frontier.The Qing Court also sent diplomats to England,France,Germany,Japan to travel and do fieldworks.These cultural envoys left us plentiful travel notes.Travel note is a documentary style that full of immediate images from passing glances.Although travel notes aren’t as fastidious as academic monograph,they are more valuable in the terms of truth and originality like uncut jade.By observing China from foreigners’ views and observing the Occident from Chinese views,we can often get unexpected gains,and experience the block and attraction of the cultural intercourse between China and the Occident engendered by cultural differences,and discover lots of funny history,find the rich meaning of Chinese images,and comprehend the Occident expectation of Late Qing Dynasty and the future of China by understanding these images.The foreigners’ travel notes of Late Qing Dynasty and Early Republic of China are as vast as the ocean,this paper only used dozen representational travel notes as discussing objects.The earliest was An Embassy to China,Travels in China,An Authentic Account of an Embassy From the king of Great Britain to the Emperor of China(1793).The latest was Mildred Cable’s the Gobi Desert.She was an English missionary.It was at 1923 that she began to travel in the Gobi Desert.The authors of these texts include geographers,embassies,journalists and missionaries,their traces ranged widely,include Canton,Yunnan,Guizhou,Sichuan,Xinjiang,Shanxi,Shaanxi,Shandong,Liaoning,Peking,Zhejiang,Shanghai,etc.These travel notes which spanning about one hundred and twenty years bespeak the Chinese images from the perspective of foreigners in detail.Two English travel notes were used,such as Eliza J.Gillett Bridgman’s Daughters of China: or,Sketches of Domestic Life in the Celestial Empire,and Francesca French’s and Mildred Cable’s The Gobi Desert,ten about translated travel notes were discussed,such as the German geographer Richtofen,L.Von’s Travel notes of China,the Qing Dynasty official,English,Robert Hart’s Diary(1835-1911),The English missionaries’ travel notes: Robert Morrison’s Memoirs of the life and labours of Robert Morrison,George Smith’s A narrative of an exploratory visit to each of the consular cities of China,and to the islands of Hong kong and Chusan,in behalf of the Church Missionary Society,in the years 1844,1845,1846,Dugald Christie’s Thirty years in Mukden 1883-1913,being the experiences and recollections of Dugald Christie,C.M.G,John Macgowan’s Man and Manners of Modern China,Samuel Pollard’s In Unknown China,Timothy Richard’s Forty-five years in China.The English diplomatic corps’ travel notes: George Macartney corps’ An embassy to China,Travels in China,An Authentic Account of an Embassy From the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China;William Pitt Amherst corps’ doctor,Clarke Abel’s Narrative of a Journey in the Interior of China,and of a Voyage to and from that Country in the Years 1816 and1817.The English journalist William R.Kahler’s My Holidays in China,Rambles round Shanghai.The Australian journalist George Ernest Morrison’s An Australian in China.The American missionary Arthur Henderson Smith’s Chinese Characteristics.The Japanese journalist scho’s Rambles in China.Additionally,this paper referred to several Late Qing Dynasty officials’ and scholars’ notes of traveling in the Occident,such as GUO Song-tao’s An embassy to the Occident,HE Ru-zhang’s An embassy to Japan,XUE Fu-cheng’s An embassy to England,France,Italy,Belgium,LI Shu-chang’s Memoirs of the Occident,WANG Tao’s Travels in Japan,etc.These men were the pioneers who opened eyes to the world during Late Qing Dynasty,they knew much more about the world’s situations than the contemporaries.Comparing their western images to the foreigners’ Chinese images,is helpful to think over various faces of Late Qing Dynasty and Early Republic of China under the world context.The following is a concrete framework:Chapter one showed the rulers’ images in travel notes during Late Qing Dynasty and Early Republic of China,included the images of the possessors of imperial power and officials’ images,such as the images of Qianlong,Cixi,Zhang Zhi-dong,Wang Wen-xiong,etc.Chapter two showed the lower orders’ images,included coolies’ images,soldiers’ images,beggars’ images and refugees’ images,etc.Chapter three showed Chinese women,include women’s binding feet,women’s suicides,women’s labours,clothing and decorations,etc.Chapter four referred to discussion of critics of Chinese problems in foreigners’ travel notes,include education,nationality and environments.Chapter five treated mission work,travels and emotions of Chinese,geography,historical curiosities of several missionaries such as Robert Morrison,Samuel Pollard,Mildred Cable,Dugald Christie.Epilogue summarized the differences between the Occident images in Late Qing Dynasty officials’ and scholars’ travel notes and the Chinese images in foreigners’ travel notes,and compares Late Qing Dynasty images to today’s Chinese images.