Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism, and Individualism in Modern China: The Chenbao Fukan and the New Culture Era, 1918-1928 0739189158, 9780739189153

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Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism, and Individualism in Modern China

Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism, and Individualism in Modern China The Chenbao Fukan and the New Culture Era, 1918–1928 Xiaoqun Xu

LEXINGTON BOOKS Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

Published by Lexington Books A wholly owned subsidiary of Rowman & Littlefield 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com 10 Thornbury Road, Plymouth PL6 7PP, United Kingdom Copyright © 2014 by Lexington Books All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Xu, Xiaoqun. Cosmopolitanism, nationalism, and individualism in modern China : the Chenbao fukan and the new cultural era, 1918–1928 / Xu, Xiaoqun. pages cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-7391-8914-6 (cloth : alkaline paper) — ISBN 978-0-7391-8915-3 (electronic) 1. Chenbao fukan. 2. Chinese newspapers—Social aspects—History—20th century. 3. Chinese newspapers— Political aspects—China—History—20th century. 4. Cosmopolitanism--China—History—20th century. 5. Nationalism—China—History—20th century. 6. Individualism—China—History—20th century. 7. Social movements —China—History—20th century. 8. China—Intellectual life—1912–1949. 9. China—Politics and government— 1912–1949. 10. China—Social conditions—1912–1949. I. Title. PN5369.B453C479 2014 079'.51—dc23 2014008776 TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for

Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America

For All My Teachers in China and America

Preface China’s rise as an economic power since the 1980s has been a source of concern for many politicians and pundits in the developed countries and beyond, especially in the past decade or so when China’s growing influence in the world has seemed to be highlighted by the perceived decline of the United States. As a result, a discourse on “China threat” in various incarnations has recurred periodically in the West. In part to counter the said discourse, Beijing has promoted the notion of a “harmonious world” where should prevail a new model of great power relationship between China and the United States and a win-win scenario in economic cooperation for all countries that have bilateral relations with China—such relationships should replace those of zero-sum games in the past. As widely recognized, the notion of a “harmonious world,” as well as that of a “harmonious society” in domestic context, is not new, but a reapplication of the traditional Chinese notion of “great union all under heaven” to the twenty-first century. Although whether such an ideal is realistic and practicable remains a big question, the answer to which depends on the wills and actions of all parties involved, it would be a mistake to dismiss it out of hand as no more than a convenient Chinese rhetorical device. To better grasp the Chinese mind and thereby interpret on a firmer ground what the rise of China shall mean to the world, it is essential to understand Chinese history and culture. This book makes a case in point. Exploring the intellectual life and cultural practices in early twentieth-century China, the following pages will reveal that educated Chinese at that time harbored a deeply felt longing for a world of universal peace, international equality, individual liberty, and shared culture—a cosmopolitanism that originated in Chinese tradition and was at once reinforced and revised by the world history that the Chinese learned from the Western narrative; and the cosmopolitan longing had an uneasy relationship with a pragmatic imperative to wage nationalist struggle—a nationalism that was informed by the colonial world order as part of the modern world history. That both Chinese cosmopolitanism and Chinese nationalism were driven by the same reality of China being weak and bullied by Western Powers and Japan constituted a poignant intellectual-moral paradox, in a complex relationship with individualism, and in constant negotiations between Chinese tradition and Western culture. Thus, an informed understanding of the paradox offers a clue as to why the Chinese aspired to the possibility of a cosmopolitan world of great union when China was a weak country and why a harmonious world may be what the Chinese still aspire to today when China is stronger but not without many difficulties to wrestle with or into the future when China might be even more prosperous (or not). The Chinese thinker Liang Qichao opined, in the wake of World War I, that cosmopolitanism was an enduring Chinese cultural gene and nationalism was a fad learned from the modern West and a defensive response to imperialism. If one would entertain Liang’s diagnosis, it would

seem plausible that the “China dream,” of which Chinese leaders have spoken in recent years, may be similar to and compatible with dreams of all peace-loving people in the world, and that the rise of China may contribute in some way to the realization, if ever possible, of a common dream that has so far remained elusive in the human history—universal peace, liberty, equality, justice, and a thriving world culture shared by all. In any case, here lies the relevance of the issues treated in this book to China and the world today. Given the concerns on the part of Chinese leaders and citizens, and their counterparts around the world, about China’s relations to the world in the coming decades, it may be worthwhile to explore the Chinese experience in dealing with the intellectual-moral paradox noted earlier as part of the cultural encounters between China and the modern world/West against the historical backdrop of their political encounters. Moreover, beyond a rising China and its relations to the world, the discourses and acts of “clashes of civilizations” in other dimensions or locations also call for alternative, more constructive visions of the world’s future. It may equally be worthwhile, therefore, to ponder whether and how cosmopolitan, nationalistic, and individualistic aspirations in China and elsewhere might be reconciled, and whether and how the notion of a harmonious world might be worked out, at least to some degree if not completely, to bear tangible fruits for the good of humankind. I started this book project after presenting a paper at the international conference on “The Trans-national Dimensions of the Chinese Press, 1850-1949” at the University of Oregon in 2002. Years later I presented a part of the book manuscript at the biannual conference of the Historical Society for Twentieth-Century China in Hawaii in 2008, another part at the international conference on “Republican Era Newspapers: The Journalistic and the Literary,” at the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California-Berkeley in 2009, and yet another part at the international workshop on “The Power of Information in Shaping Chinese Modernity” at University of London Royal Holloway in 2010. I thank the organizers and participants of those conferences for the opportunities to present my research and receive feedbacks. Q. Edward Wang read an earlier and longer version of Chapter 5 on reorganizing national heritage. An anonymous reviewer for the press offered constructive suggestons. I am solely responsible for any defects that may remain in the book. The bulk of Chapter 2 was originally published as an article, “Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism, and Transnational Networks: The Chenbao Fujuan, 1921-1928,” in China Review, Vol. 4, No.1 (Spring 2004):145-173. I thank the Chinese University Press (of Hong Kong) for its reprint permission. A shorter version of Chapter 4 was originally published as an article, “Placing China in the Colonial World Order: Travelogues in the Chenbao Fukan, 1921–1926,” in Twentieth-Century China, Vol. 39, No.1 (January 2014):69–89 (www.maneyonline.com/tcc). I thank the publisher, Maney Publishing (of London), for its reprint permission. I thank Sabah Ghulamali and Brian Hill of Lexington Books for their efficient

editorial work. I dedicate this book to all my teachers, in China and America. Xiaoqun Xu Chesapeake, Virginia

Introduction After the fall of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) and the founding of the Republic of China in 1912, the promise of a functioning parliamentary government was quickly turned into a deep disillusionment for Chinese citizens. In the wake of the authoritarian presidency of Yuan Shikai (1912–1916), the political scene was dominated by warlords who fought one another for the control of the national capital and various provinces. China’s domestic disorder did not help its international standing. It failed to recover full national sovereignty from the unequal treaties with Western Powers and Japan dating back to the nineteenth century; worse, Japan’s encroachment on mainland China only stepped up, with the takeover of the German leasehold in Shandong province and the imposition of the Twenty-One Demands on China in 1915. As a result, Chinese citizens were awakened to the national crisis, crystallized in China’s failure to regain the German leasehold in Shandong from Japan at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. The ensuing May Fourth movement marked the rise of Chinese nationalism. Its twin goals of anti-imperialism and anti-warlordism were culminated in the Northern Expedition (1926–1928) and the founding of the Nationalist Government of the Guomindang (GMD, a.k.a. Nationalist Party). In the process the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was founded in 1921 as a participant in the nationalist cause, but with a Marxist-Leninist ideology. The Nationalist Party initially cooperated with the CCP in 1924–1927 and then turned against it. Through a prolonged civil war, suspended during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and resumed in 1946, the struggle between the GMD and the CCP finally resulted in the latter’s victory and the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Against this broad political backdrop of the early Republican period (1912–28), emerged an important development in cultural-intellectual spheres, known as the New Culture movement. The movement was predicated on certain important social changes that had been occurring, despite the political instability associated with warlord fighting and frequent change of the central government. The education reform dating back to the final decade of the Qing dynasty gave birth to Western-style schools and universities; publishing industry and print media grew on an unprecedented scale, with increasing influence on an expanding readership, especially in cities and towns; along with print media, the growth of marketing and entertainment industries and the proliferation of public spaces (such as libraries, museums, movie houses, theaters, parks, public squares, coffee shops, tea houses, college campuses, school auditoriums, etc.) provided venues for cultural production and consumption; and new social groups or classes, elite and non-elite, emerged with new social roles to play, from modern bankers, lawyers, doctors, accountants, engineers, journalists, writers, university professors, school teachers, college and middle school students, government employees, white-collar workers, industrial workers, to various urban residents collectively known as petty urbanites (xiao

shimin) who were often literate, at least functionally. All this constituted the conditions for a flourishing of intellectual life and cultural practices in early twentieth-century China. For a long time the scholarship on modern China emphasized the importance of the New Culture era (a.k.a. the May Fourth era, circa 1917–1928) for the rise of nationalism, communism, liberalism, and “new literature.”[1] While some recent scholarly works have begun to challenge or add nuances to this conventional understanding of that historical period, much more work is needed to reveal and analyze the full dimensions and rich textures of the intellectual-literary discourses and cultural practices of the time period.[2] This book aims to contribute to such reconsideration and re-appreciation of the New Culture era by studying an influential newspaper supplement, the Chenbao Fukan (Literary Supplement to the Morning Post) published in Beijing during 1918–1928, as a window to explore certain aspects of Chinese intellectual life and cultural practices that formed and informed to a large degree the New Culture phenomenon. The importance to educated Chinese of newspaper supplements in general and the Fukan in particular at that time may be glimpsed in a comment by Zhou Zuoren (1885–1967), a well-known essay writer-translator and a professor of European literature at Beida (Beijing University) in the 1920s: It is our routine to read newspapers everyday; as if addicted, when occasionally a newspaper is not published, one would feel rather bored that day. Newspapers, therefore, have a lot to do with us indeed, and if there are good newspapers for us to read, the benefit is no less than reading books. [. . .] In my own experience, picking up a newspaper, one would usually read the supplement first—some supplements are rather weird, but they still provide a different kind of flavor. Among all items [in the supplement], the first to read are short pieces such as miscellaneous essays (zagan) and correspondences, and the next to read are poems and fictions. We of course wish real works of literature and art appear frequently, but this is something not to be forced, so we have to be content with the current state of affairs and hope the intellectual circles of young people will be spurred to rise with spirit. I think the debates on the issue of mysticism and on the rules of love were pretty good, even though some people may consider them ungentlemanly. The function of a newspaper supplement lies in “contributing to the literary and intellectual cause,” but since daily newspapers are not specialized journals, their quality can be a little bit lax, even though there should not be too much sarcastic and abusive language. These current newspaper supplements, of course, have much room to improve and develop, but they are generally decent, and we need not be too demanding toward them.[3] Zhou’s comment suggests that reading newspaper supplements was an addiction for many educated Chinese, a characterization that would be corroborated by many sources from the early Republican period. The growing role of newspaper

supplements in shaping men and women’s reading habits and engaging their political, intellectual, and literary interests were part and parcel of the social changes sketched earlier and of the intellectual life and cultural practices in the New Culture era. The present study will address the following questions: What materials were published in the Fukan and how did subject matters and viewpoints reflect, and interact with, the social-cultural-intellectual milieu of the time? What was the role of a newspaper supplement as part of the growing Chinese print media in forming and informing “the public” and “public opinion”? How did such a print medium function as a site of cultural production and consumption through satisfying multiple and overlapping social needs, intellectual agendas, and personal tastes, and delivering contents as education, entertainment, and political-intellectual engagements? And what did all this say about the historical significance of the New Culture era? The following pages will show that, situated at the intersection of Chinese political and intellectual history and history of Chinese journalism, the Fukan was much more than an outlet only for the “new literature,” an image often presented in the scholarship on the New Culture movement.[4] A close examination uncovers an extremely rich and multifaceted intellectual-cultural emporium, far beyond what the notion of a new literature is able to capture.[5] As a site of cultural production and consumption, the Fukan offered an easily accessible venue for contributors to publish and for readers to receive information, get education, enjoy pastime, and stay current with intellectual engagements, as it published a wide range of writings informed by, and informing, various imported ideologies, social-political theories, literary and aesthetic tastes, and intellectual and moral sensibilities. One of the contributions this book will make is to shed light on two important questions in studying Chinese print media in the early twentieth century. The first is who made up its readers. While it is always difficult to quantify readers of a publication in discussing the issue of reception, internal evidence in the pages of the Fukan tells us that a large majority of its readers were college and secondary school students and their professors and teachers, plus people in all walks of life who had similar educational background. The Fukan would reach secondary school students in Shanxi, Henan, Guangdong, and even as far as Yunnan province, for instance. One may surmise that the Fukan reached a readership of varying sizes in most provincial capitals and treaty ports, and beyond.[6] The second question is how, besides high-profile intellectuals such as Zhou Zuoren and his brother Lu Xun (a.k.a. Zhou Shuren, 1881–1936), Hu Shi (1891– 1962), Xu Zhimo (1897–1931), and the like, average educated Chinese, such as Fukan contributors and readers, grasped and responded to the political, social, cultural, and intellectual issues of the day, as participants in public discourse. This study gives us a firmer grasp of the degree to which various ideologies from the West were received and appropriated by average educated Chinese in the 1920s. These findings will help a better-informed understanding of the intellectual life, and the role played by print media including newspaper supplements, in the New Culture era.

COSMOPOLITANISM AND NATIONALISM This study argues that the New Culture era was not all about nationalism, communism, liberalism, and “new literature,” but was a much richer and more diverse cultural-intellectual phenomenon, in which deep tensions and complex interactions between cosmopolitanism and nationalism, and between them and individualism, in constant and continuous negotiations between Chinese tradition and Western culture, figured prominently, albeit not exclusively. The Fukan exhibited a cosmopolitan outlook in terms of its content. As one of the major outlets for well-known (and lesser-known) intellectuals, the Fukan frequently published writings and speeches of Liang Qichao (1873–1929), Li Dazhao (1889– 1927), Lu Xun, Zhou Zuoren, Hu Shi, Xu Zhimo, among others. These and many other writers were also translators of foreign works; and the Fukan regularly—in every issue—featured translated works in literature, philosophy, biographies, sciences, and social sciences from foreign countries through Japanese, English, French, German, and Russian languages. In addition, Chinese intellectuals introduced and commented on foreign works. They publicized cultural forms modeled on foreign examples, such as spoken drama. Chinese traveling or sojourning overseas reported and commented on foreign cultures, often in comparison with Chinese culture. Chinese contributors debated issues by citing and comparing foreign (mostly Western) sources as authority or as target. Some Chinese criticized Western prejudice in representation of the Chinese (e.g., Hollywood movies) and racial and religious bias against Africans and Muslims. All this constituted the Fukan’s cosmopolitan character, which was not unique among publications of the New Culture era.[7] The cosmopolitan character of the Fukan was fostered by several historical circumstances. First, Chinese and Japanese translation of Western works in the late nineteenth-early twentieth century prepared the initial ground, in terms of linguistic tools, vocabulary, and translation techniques and strategies, for the subsequent translation projects.[8] Translation of foreign works further expanded into many disciplines during the New Culture movement.[9] Translated works that appeared in the Fukan was part of those efforts, and contributors frequently debated how to best translate foreign works and experimented different approaches, all of which contributed to the vernacular language movement and the popularization of foreignimported concepts expressed in vernacular Chinese (Chapter 3).[10] Secondly, the Fukan was situated in the larger intellectual contestation about what the New Culture should be about, while the movement itself was no means a monolithic whole.[11] That the movement was both inspired and complicated by Western culture shaped the Fukan’s editorial orientation to a large degree, with different intellectual and cultural emphases in the hands of different editors (Chapter 1). At the same time, however, the Fukan was not at all closed to re-evaluation of China’s cultural legacies. In fact readings and interpretations by Liang Qichao, Hu Shi, and others of Chinese philosophy and literature appeared frequently, especially

before Xu Zhimo assumed the editorship in October 1925 (Chapter 5). Clearly, within the New Culture movement all those involved did not see eye to eye on many issues. Diverse views and beliefs informed, and were informed variably by, a diversity of foreign works and ideologies translated and introduced in print media including the Fukan. Thirdly, the Fukan’s editors and many contributors had first-hand exposure to foreign cultures at one time or another and had overseas connections. Their transnational perspectives shaped by personal and intellectual cross-cultural experiences constituted one of the prominent features of the Fukan.[12] Yet, direct foreign exposure or experience of overseas studies would not necessarily translate into an intellectual position of rejecting China’s cultural legacies, as the Critical Review group amply attested to (Chapter 5), besides the Beida professor Gu Hongming (1857–1928) who was born in Malaysia and educated in Europe and learned six European languages, only to become a staunch defender of Chinese tradition. Fourthly, the movement of people and ideas between China and foreign lands was not unidirectional. In the 1920s foreign scholars, writers, and journalists visited and traveled in China in large numbers, including John Dewey, Bertrand Russell, Hans Driesch, Rabindranath Tagore, and Margaret Sangers. One would-be visitor was Albert Einstein, who was scheduled to visit in early1923 but failed to make the trip due to accidental miscommunication between him and the host, Cai Yuanpei (1868– 1940), chancellor of Beida.[13] Typically, foreign visitors’ speeches and writings would appear in translation in the Fukan and elsewhere. Such visits and speeches exposed Chinese audiences and readers to Western ideas and to Western perceptions of Chinese culture. More importantly, such visits, just as Chinese visits to foreign countries, tended to create intellectual bond and personal networks between educated Chinese and their foreign counterparts (Chapter 2). These four historical conditions combined to sustain a cosmopolitan outlook of the Fukan and a cosmopolitan strand in the Chinese intellectual circles in general. The mere presence of foreign works and ideas in the Fukan would not constitute Chinese cosmopolitanism in terms of an intellectual commitment, however; besides the said content, it is what educated Chinese articulated as their larger vision of an ideal world that defined Chinese cosmopolitanism. Based on a reading of primary sources, the term “Chinese cosmopolitanism” used in this book is defined as strong aspirations to a world of universal peace, international equality, individual liberty, and a common culture drawn from and shared by all peoples. Thus, Chinese cosmopolitanism was informed by both the notion in Chinese tradition of “great union all under heaven” and the notion of individual liberty that was of Western origin. As we shall see, the intellectual giant Liang Qichao would articulate this revised or newly synthesized Chinese cosmopolitanism most clearly in the wake of WWI, and such cosmopolitans as Xu Zhimo, Zhou Zuoren, and others would advocate and practice their cosmopolitanism as individualistic endeavors while being expressly wary of nationalism.

Scholars of modern China have explored Chinese cosmopolitanism that was not one dimensional, but had several dimensions. In her study of Chinese modernism in literature, Shu-mei Shih has analyzed Guo Moruo’s (1892–1978) use of psychoanalysis as a case of modern Chinese cosmopolitanism. In her view, cosmopolitanism implied non-Western intellectuals’ knowledge of the West but not Western intellectuals’ knowledge of the non-West and therefore “‘the asymmetrical cosmopolitanism’ is another manifestation of a Western-dominated world view.” Furthermore, as Occidentalism produced cultural power in non-Western societies, so did cosmopolitanism—knowledge of psychoanalysis being one of the manifestations of such cultural power.[14] Going back further in time, Rebecca Karl has found that Chinese nationalism as concept-formation in the period of 1895–1911 was informed by an awareness of the global unevenness (or inequity) among nations and the possibility of a shared struggle among colonized nations and peoples, especially in Asia.[15] In explaining the role of anarchism and its relationship with communism in the Chinese revolution, Arif Dirlik pointed out the connection and contradiction between Chinese nationalism and an “internationalist utopianism.” “The ideal of world unity, once encompassed within the claims to universality of Chinese civilization but no longer contained within the conception of a spatially and temporally limited Chinese nation, was now projected upon the new world of nations as a historical project in whose realization China was to be a participant.”[16] In a study of English language periodicals published by Chinese in treaty-port Shanghai in the late 1920s—early 1940s, Shuang Shen notes two important aspects of Chinese cosmopolitanism: 1) “there were multiple and different cosmopolitan cultures,” and 2) “some forms of cosmopolitanism in early-twentieth-century China were not in opposition to nationalism.”[17] With these important insights, which are born out to varying degrees by the present study, further interpretations are possible regarding the implications of the fact that both cosmopolitanism and nationalism were embraced, however uneasily, by many educated Chinese in the early twentieth century. Chinese cosmopolitanism differentiates from anarchism while overlapping with the latter in some aspects—for example, both valued individual liberty, both opposed oppression and exploitation of all sorts, and therefore both had intellectual connections to socialist and communist ideas on one hand and individualism on the other hand.[18] While historian Hun Yok Ip has usefully pointed out the cosmopolitan strand in the communist ideology, it is worth noting that in the New Culture era the cosmopolitan longing was shared by educated Chinese of different political persuasions who drew on both the notion in Chinese tradition of “great union all under heaven” (tianxia datong) and the knowledge of world history acquired through the Western narrative.[19] The following examples will show a political spectrum of educated Chinese harboring cosmopolitan aspirations in the years shortly after WWI. Li Dazhao, who would become a founding member of the CCP in 1921, wrote in the Xinchao (New Tide) in early 1919 on “Federalism and World Organization.”[20] He expounded the idea that democracy and federalism were two necessary sides of the

same coin for achieving both human emancipation and cooperation. The cosmopolitan notion of universal peace and international equality was central to his argument. He envisioned several evolutionary stages of reaching that goal as follows: 1) Various countries with large territories and multiple ethnicities and nationalities would organize themselves into federated entities; 2) countries in the Americas, Europe, and Asia would form Pan-American, Pan-European, and Pan-Asian Federations; 3) the three pan-continent federations would form a world federation; and 4) thus “all peoples of the world would come together as a great human union, completely breaking down national boundaries. This is the great union of the world (shijie datong) that we all human beings wish and pray for!”[21] Like many writings in the Shaonian Zhongguo (Young China) and other journals, Li Dazhao’s vision remained a vague utopian ideal without details; he did not address, for instance, whether and how democracy would necessarily lead to social or interpersonal equality within each nation so that federations of nations could be established peacefully and effectively. More striking is that he left out peoples of Africa completely in his vision of a great union of humankind through pan-continent federations, which suggests that at least some of Chinese imaginaries of the world, even a cosmopolitan one at that, were mediated by the Western narrative of world history in which Africans had no history. This would counterbalance the fact, as Rebecca Karl has found, that Chinese nationalism and Chinese imaginary of the global modernity during 1895–1911 were predicted upon an understanding of the world that included colonized spaces such as Poland, the Philippines, and Africa, rather than one consisted of only West/Japan and China.[22] Nevertheless, Li’s vision was characteristic of Chinese cosmopolitan longing at that time.[23] A second case was Dai Chuanxian (a.k.a. Dai Jitao, 1891–1948), who would later become a leading member of the Nationalist Party (or the GMD). In an exchange with Kang Baiqing (1896–1958) in the GMD journal, Reconstruction (Jianshe), in late 1919, Dai gave an exposition of why a revolution was necessary and how it was to be done, in response to Kang who believed that a revolution would be counterproductive to improving society. Toward the end of his article, Dai summarized his view as follows: “What is the revolutionary cause today after all? [. . .] 1) The universal equality and happiness of whole humankind is the ultimate goal of the revolution. 2) Reforming Chinese state and society is the current goal of the revolution. 3) Improving economic life and equality of economic opportunities of the entire Chinese people is the ideal way to achieve the current goal. 4) A universal new culture movement is the method to carry out the revolution. 5) Equality of intellectual and mental opportunities and free development of individuals’ rationality are the true meanings of the new culture movement. 6) Free and universal communication of written and oral language and thorough popularization of the means of communication (such as phonetic signs) are the ways to equalize intellectual and mental opportunities. 7) Peaceful and organizational methods are the new forms of the revolutionary movement.”[24] Thus, in envisioning a nonviolent revolution, Dai

supported the New Culture movement, in which free development of individuals’ rationality is imbedded, and the language reform in particular, and connected these with the ultimate goal of universal equality and happiness of whole humankind—a cosmopolitan (or anarchist) proposition. By connecting revolution with a cosmopolitan world, Dai came very close to the communist vision of the same scheme, as Ip has analyzed.[25] Dai’s vision was a more concrete plan than Li Dazhao’s. Zhou Guangxu, a Chinese student in France, continued the same line of thought in an article published in 1923. He argued that a world culture was the sum total of cultures of all nations, and that all nations should share, transmit, and contribute to a world culture. Civilized, advanced countries ought to shoulder larger responsibilities for developing and promoting the world culture; they should not use their cultures to seek self-interest, because such would result in human disaster, just as Germany’s behavior had led to WWI. He lamented that China was not in a position to make greater contributions. “So the common obligation of humankind,” Zhou concluded, “besides sharing a common culture, is for each nation to do what she is best at to contribute to the common world culture, to make all nations rely on their inherent spirits and traits to help one another and act collectively—this is the correct goal of humankind in the world (shijie renlei), the correct path to world peace (shijie heping) and the world of great union (shijie datong).”[26] In his formulation, Zhou assigned more responsibilities for promoting a world culture and achieving world peace to Western nations because they were more advanced and powerful, and criticized them for failing to do so.[27] Although Zhou’s statement may still be regarded as a view of the world where the West dominated, its thrust was to advocate a peaceful, egalitarian, and cosmopolitan world, an alternative to the lived experience of the colonial world order. Little biographic information on Zhou Guangxu is available, and he probably had a professional and apolitical career after his study in France. In that sense, he might have been representative of the views and temperaments of those educated Chinese situated between the Chinese Communists and the Guomindang after their split in 1927. The views cited above were by no means fixed ones for these individuals, but they were not isolated instances either. Indeed, they represented a widely shared mind-set (shared and reflected in the Fukan) at that particular historical moment—the post-WWI period—about the future of the world and humankind, and of China, in the modern era. To be sure, the notion was still within a teleological view of History, of the Enlightenment vantage point, which most educated Chinese had accepted and internalized. The cultural longing for a world where the Chinese would share a world culture composed of cultural riches of all peoples and societies was premised on and bundled up with an envisioned world of universal peace, international equality, and individual freedom, two visions reinforcing one another. In that formulation, a Chinese person’s knowledge of the West or any parts of the world beyond China would be a positive asset conducive to the imagined world community, and this kind of knowledge, just as other forms of knowledge, could be appropriated and deployed as cultural capital in Chinese society.

Such a Chinese cosmopolitanism was in a complicated relationship with Chinese nationalism, defined here as a strong sentiment among Chinese citizens, especially educated ones, that the well-being of China as a nation—a conception of recent and Western origin—must be safeguarded by Chinese citizens—another recent conception—as well as by the Chinese state. As such, Chinese nationalism was a response to the fact that China was under domination of foreign powers, and to the perceived danger that it be overrun by one power (Japan) or dismembered by several powers, a perception shared by contemporary Westerners such as Bertrand Russell. [28] Rather than regarding Chinese cosmopolitanism as a “utopian dimension to nationalism,”[29] one would argue that nationalism and cosmopolitanism were two competing ideologies that coexisted and alternated in the minds of many educated Chinese as an intellectual-moral paradox. The tension between the two ideologies and two courses of action remained unsettled. The notion, articulated or implied, that nationalist struggle (however defined) was a phase of a longer historical process leading to the world of great union was but one way to attempt at a reconciliation between the two, but was not always considered logical or desirable. Moreover, as both cosmopolitanism and nationalism were linked with individualism—how an individual would fit into one or the other scheme—an issue that was not settled either, the tension between the two alternatives was further complicated. Liang Qichao’s view on the subject represented an understanding of the said tension and an effort to reconcile the two visions. During his fourteen-month trip (late December 1918–early March 1920) to observe post-WWI Europe and the Paris Peace Conference, Liang delivered a lecture on Chinese national character at a meeting hosted by the British China Association at the Oriental School of Languages in London in June 1919.[30] Unlike many Chinese critics of Chinese culture at that time (Chapters 2 and 4), Liang spoke of “Chinese national character” in positive terms, as he characterized it in five categories, “adaptability,” “love of liberty,” “religious tolerance,” “social equality,” and “cosmopolitanism,” based on his interpretation of Chinese history and in light of his recent experience in Europe. On cosmopolitanism, Liang said: Lastly, the Chinese are remarkable for their cosmopolitan spirit—I say cosmopolitan for the want of a better word. To us difference between a foreigner and ourselves is political rather than racial, and we have very little racial prejudices. [. . .] This spirit of racial equality explains partly the absence of the extreme forms of aggressive patriotism so characteristic of modern Europe. As to patriotism in its fundamental form which is to be found in the racial instinct, we have it in plenty, as the tragic history of our struggles against the Mongolian and later on the Manchurian invaders amply proves; but when you have the deepseated belief that every man ought to live peacefully with his neighbor, there can be no such [a] thing as nationalism in its extreme form. Liang then discussed what modernization would do to Chinese national character.

“Will the Chinese lose their cosmopolitan spirit and have in its stead aggressive nationalism? Personally I hope not, but much will depend on how we shall be treated by our neighbors—if they let us choose between the adoption of what we may call the European form of patriotism and the loss of our independence, you may be sure we will choose the former.”[31] Aside from the obvious question—whether cosmopolitanism best characterized one aspect of Chinese national character or Chinese history, Liang’s was a clear statement about the conflict between cosmopolitanism as a vision of an ideal world and nationalism as a deplorable but pragmatic course of action that the Chinese might have to choose. He fully justified China’s likely adoption of what he called “European form of patriotism” or “nationalism in its extreme form”—in order for China to survive as an independent nation, in the absence of a cosmopolitan world (see also Chapter 5). After his return from the European trip in early March 1920, Liang Qichao published his essays collectively entitled “Reflections on a European Journey (Ouyou xinying lu).” In one of the essays Liang discussed the League of Nations favorably, in terms of building what he called “cosmopolitan nations (shijie zhuyi de guojia)”: This time the League of Nations finally made the beginning of reconciling cosmopolitanism and nationalism. [. . .] In essence, the relationship among nations from now on will become more intimate. Under such conditions we should build a kind of “cosmopolitan nations.” What is a “cosmopolitan nation”? One should love the nation, [but] should not take obstinate, narrow, old notions [about one’s nation] as patriotism, because in today’s world the nation cannot be developed this way. Our patriotism is that on the one hand one should not love the nation at the expense of individuals, and on the other hand one should not love the nation at the expense of the world. Under the protection of the nation we should maximize the nature-endowed capability of each individual in the nation to make great contributions to the entire civilization of the world and mankind. This will also be the trends for various nations in the future.[32] While clearly attempting at reconciling cosmopolitanism and nationalism, Liang warned against the kind of nationalism that would harm a cosmopolitan world on one hand and individual freedom on the other, a point to be discussed below. In contrast, in an article published in April 1920, “The Enlightenment Movement of Asian Youth,” Li Dazhao also spelled out the tension between cosmopolitanism and nationalism, and came down on the side of cosmopolitanism (before he became committed to the communism that also had a cosmopolitan element). Li called on young people of Asia to break down the racial and national barriers to seek collective enlightenment and progress. The notion of Asia was not a racial category, he stressed, but only a geographic area where Asian youth—including Russian youth living in the Far Eastern part of Russia—should start working together for a common purpose of human unity and community. He would disagree with the Japanese allegation that the Chinese student movement was anti-Japanese, and with Chinese

students’ claim that theirs was a patriotic movement. “We do not think there are any reasons to love the nation (aiguo); we think that to kill other people and take other people’s land for the sake of loving the nation is the behavior of robbers, behavior contrary to humanity and reason; we only admit that the Chinese student movement is an anti-imperialist (fandui qiangquan) movement.” Chinese youth thanked and admired the Soviet Russian government’s renunciation of Russian privileges in China, Li explained, not for the material interests returned to China, but for “the humanitarian and cosmopolitan spirit the Russian government showed in the world of hegemony.”[33] Such was an instance of a Chinese imagining and constructing “Asia,” not in the same ways other Chinese imagined it in the 1905–1907 period.[34] In Li’s utopian formulation, Asia was not a collective of colonized peoples against imperialist powers, but a collective of young people of whatever racial or national origins to participate in making a world of great union, even though Li’s argument was devoid of any concrete notions about how those Asian countries would be organized and governed internally. This might have been a telling sign that Li was still under the influence of anarchism or he had not resolved such issues intellectually.[35] Wang Guangqi (1892–1936), a cofounder of the Association for Young China, articulated a similar view in 1919: In the phrase ‘young China’ of which I am speaking, the word ‘China’ should be understood as a place name, just as ‘Asia’ or ‘Zhili [a Chinese province],’ not as ‘guojia’ (nation) [English in the original]. I am a person who dreams about a world of great union (datong shijie). I regard this place China as a part of the world. To make the world reach the status of great union, we must first make this place China deserve being a part of the world of great union. In my mind national borders do not exist. The activities to seek happiness for humankind need not be limited within China’s borders to begin with. But since people of various nations in Europe, America, and Japan are already seeking happiness for their nations, the responsibility to improve China falls on our shoulders. [. . .] Nationalism— aggressive or peaceful—that has been popular in the modern times has no place to stand in my article.[36] This was a forceful statement of a cosmopolitan position against nationalism. At the time, Wang was a resident reporter in Beijing for the Sichuan News (Chuanbao) and the Masses (Qunbao) published in Sichuan province, after his graduation from China University in 1918. Having cofounded the Association for Young China and its two journals (a weekly and a monthly), Wang played a leading role in both endeavors until he departed in April 1920 for Germany where he would switch his study from political economy to music in 1922 (and earned a doctoral degree at University of Bern in 1934).[37] In other words, Wang pursued a professional career; like Zhou Guangxu, Wang is notable as representing those who were of similar education and temperament in the late 1910s and early 1920s. As part of the discursive context and intellectual environment in the late 1910s

and early 1920s, the strong faith expressed by educated Chinese in cosmopolitan and transnational unity to overcome both nationalist impulses and imperialist behavior was an important aspect of China’s encounter with the West in the immediate post-WWI period, just as was Chinese nationalism. Not only in spite of, but also because of, the nationalist struggle that even cosmopolitan-minded Chinese had to confront, an unpleasant task in their eyes, in response to Western and Japanese imperialism, they longed to be able to participate in the modern world on a basis of equality among nations. In this connection, one detects additional implications of Chinese cosmopolitanism. First, a cosmopolitan world of universal peace and equality was imagined to be an avenue for China as a nation and Chinese as a people to emerge as a member of the world of peace and equality from an inferior status, measured by a lack of “modernity,” in the world of colonial hierarchy. Second, the vision of a cosmopolitan world offered a hope or possibility that Chinese cosmopolitans could participate directly, as individuals and world citizens, instead of members of Chinese nation, in a world culture and a world of peace, bypassing the issue of China’s standing as a nation in the modern world on one hand and the issue of an individual’s relationship with the nation on the other. The latter issue involved another intellectualmoral paradox implicated in the one between nationalism and cosmopolitanism, that is, the tension between individualism and nationalism, to which Liang Qichao had alluded in 1919. Some salient examples of the tension are also seen in the writings of Xu Zhimo and Zhou Zuoren (Chapters 1, 2, and 6). In this sense, Chinese cosmopolitanism was not so much a position of joining the colonial metropolis by intellectuals from the colonial periphery as one of envisioning transcendental liberation that in essence sought to equalize all parts of the world and emancipate all human beings as individuals, wherever they were, from international (imperialist) aggression and exploitation and domestic oppression and restraint including those in the name of nationalism. The “individualism” in this imagination was not exactly the same individualism that drove industrial capitalism. Thus, the cosmopolitan vision based on individualism gave educated Chinese a higher moral ground than the nationalist one to criticize imperialist practices of the West and Japan, and allay a nagging sense of insecurity about China as a nation being backward or less than modern. In a nutshell, Chinese cosmopolitanism (with individual liberty at its core) and its tension with Chinese nationalism constituted one of the key intellectual nexuses, resulting from the colonial and cultural encounters between China and the West and giving rise to many intellectual-cultural engagements in the early twentieth century.

TEXTS AND CONTEXTS The above discussion delineates an important strand in the intellectual life, public discourses, and cultural practices of the New Culture era, which were multidimensional with multiplicity of meanings and meaning-makings, as seen in the Fukan and beyond. The following pages will sample and analyze these diverse

contents in six chapters. Chapter 1 covers the changing editorial policies of the Fukan during 1918–1928 in the hands of different editors (focusing on Li Dazhao, Sun Fuyuan, and Xu Zhimo) and explores the ways in which the supplement became a site where continuous interactions among editors, writers, and readers/contributors (many people played those roles at the same time) took place, with regard to what societal or public functions newspapers should perform. It shows that the Fukan editors were driven by business competitions among newspapers and journals to cater to, and motivated by social agendas and intellectual commitments to train, readers’ reading habits and aesthetic tastes. This chapter also serves as a chronological overview of the Fukan, whereas subsequent chapters expand on a variety of themes and issues, involving interactions among cosmopolitanism, nationalism, and individualism, in constant negotiations between Chinese tradition and Western culture in the making of Chinese modernity. Chapter 2 examines Chinese reactions to the British philosopher Bertrand Russell, the Russian Esperanto teacher Vasilij Eroshenko, and the Indian writer and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore who visited and lectured in China during 1921– 1924, highlighting the intellectual and moral tension between cosmopolitanism as a political-cultural longing and nationalism as a pragmatic imperative in the world of colonial hierarchy. Chapter 3 examines the theory and practice of translation. In light of translation theories, the analytical issues include how Chinese translators perceived the benefits and pitfalls of translation and their own role in the endeavor and how an awareness of cultural capital informed the debate on translation. It sheds additional light on the ways in which the vernacular language movement was reinforced and mediated by translation theories and practices. Chapter 4 surveys travelogues, an emerging genre at the time. It analyzes the public discourse that Chinese travelogues participated in, which would construct or confirm or destabilize such notions as “Chinese nation,” “national character,” “colonial people,” “civilization,” and “progress.” Thus this chapter tackles the ways in which colonial world order framed the mental process of Chinese travelers encountering colonial metropolises and colonized peoples and societies. Equally significant are travelogues on interior or native China, as well as treaty-ports, which served to introduce readers who were mostly urban residents to the vast country and helped construct what China as a nation or Chinese as a people was. The juxtaposition of travelogues about foreign lands and peoples and those about treaty-ports and interior China produced a level of poignancy otherwise unavailable. Chapter 5 shows that although conventionally known as one of the leading print media participating in the New Culture movement, the Fukan did not eschew the task of “reorganizing national heritage” that Hu Shi, best known for promoting “new literature,” actually advocated. The enterprise is not to be conflated with “national essence movement,” with which cultural conservatives who also valued Chinese tradition were often identified. The chapter examines the ways in which the

“reorganization” was conducted, focusing on philosophy and literature. Chapter 6 samples some of the debates in the pages of the Fukan on political, social, and intellectual issues, involving both famous and average Chinese. The issues include “science vs. philosophy of life,” the wisdom of boycotting Japanese goods (revealing varied understandings of nationalism and socialism), and the “rules of love.” These debates manifested a wide variety of ideas, concerns, and sensibilities that might be called “modern” and were informed by ongoing interactions between Western cultural influence and Chinese cultural-intellectual milieu of the time. This chapter shows alternative visions of modernity and alternative ideologies available to the Chinese and the ways in which such alternatives informed the intellectual engagements and commitments of educated Chinese. This book does not deal with such literary works as play scripts, fictions, and poems—these are left for scholars of modern Chinese literature. Even on the genres and issues covered, the book is not intended to be, nor it could be, exhaustive; the limited objective is to tour, with adequate coverage, the richly textured and multidimensional intellectual landscape of the New Culture era to broaden our understanding of the time period, beyond a perspective framed by the political history of twentieth-century China. In a sense this is to subvert the intellectual and discursive hegemony of the New Culture/May Fourth narrative by both GMD and CCP intellectuals that was reinforced by the historiography of modern China until recent years. At the same time, the issues regarding cosmopolitanism, nationalism, and individualism and regarding Chinese tradition vs. Western culture examined in this book bear immediate relevance to China and the world today, as quickened globalization has brought all parts of the world together far more closely than a century ago.

NOTES 1. The classic is Tse-tsung Chow, The May Fourth Movement: Intellectual Revolution in Modern China (Stanford UP, 1960). Also see, for example, Maurice Meisner, Li Tachao and the Origins of Chinese Marxism (Harvard UP, 1967); Jerome B. Grieder, Hu Shih and the Chinese Renaissance: Liberalism in the Chinese Revolution, 1917– 1937 (Harvard UP, 1970); Arif, Dirlik, The Origins of Chinese Communism (Oxford UP, 1989); Merle Goldman and Leo Ou-fan Lee, An intellectual History of Modern China (Cambridge UP, 2002), 110–141; Vera Schwarcz, The Chinese Enlightenment: Intellectuals and the Legacy of the May Fourth Movement of 1919 (Berkeley: UC Press, 1986). 2. Some of the scholarly works that have added nuances to the conventional understanding of the May Fourth/New Culture era include Lydia Liu, Translingual Practices (UC Press, 1995); Michel Hockx, Questions of Style (Brill, 2003); Kai-wing Chow, et al. eds., Beyond the May Fourth Paradigm: In Search of Chinese Modernity (Rowman and Littlefield, 2008); and Edmund Fung, The Intellectual Foundations of Chinese Modernity: Cultural and Political Thought in the Republican

Era (Cambridge University Press, 2010). 3. Chenbao Fukan (CF hereafter), 1923/12/1. For the debates on mysticism and rules of love Zhou referred to, see Chapter 6. 4. To cite one example, An Intellectual History of Modern China by Merle Goldman and Leo Ou-fan Lee reads: “A learned and enterprising editor, Sun Fu-yuan, took over the literary supplement of first the Ch’en-pao (Morning news) of Peking and then the Ching pao (Capital news) of Tientsin and turned them into prominent showcases of New Literature which feature the works of many new talents” (p. 163). 5. There is reason to question whether the term “new literature” should be capitalized to imply a canonical body of works, since such was what the practitioners of the new literature claimed their works to be and they competed against one another for its ownership (see Michel Hockx, Questions of Style). As this study will show, the new literature was not the dominant type of writings at that time, even if writing in vernacular Chinese was increasingly becoming dominant by the 1920s. 6. For an example of analysis of readership through internal evidence of a publication, see Weipin Tsai, Reading Shenbao: Nationalism, Consumerism and Individuality in China, 1919–1937 (Palgrave, 2010). 7. It is tempting, but could be misleading, to classify the Fukan in terms of political and aesthetical schools. I find the content of the Fukan was more diffuse than could be subsumed by one particular school. The editorial orientation, however, did change somewhat from the period when Sun Fuyuan was the editor to the period when Xu Zhimo and Qu Shiying were the editors and the publication was regarded as an outlet of the Crescent Moon School (xinyue pai) (see Chapter 1). 8. Lydia Liu, 1995, pp. 259–378; Howland, 2002; Gimpel, 2001, pp. 150–166; Wong, 1999. 9. Vera Schwarcz, 1986, p. 120. 10. The translation of foreign works that appeared in the Fukan and other publications in the 1920s prepared the readership of or the demand for the “massive translation and production” of foreign works, for which Shanghai of the 1930s has been called “the cosmopolitan city par excellence” (Leo O. Lee, Shanghai Modern (1999), pp. 313–315). 11. Lydia Liu’s caution against dividing modern Chinese intellectuals into radicals, liberals, and conservatives is well taken. See Liu, Translingual Practices, p. 241, 250. 12. Sun Fuyuan studied at University of Paris in 1928–1931, only after having been the editor of the Fukan, but he was one of the most ardent practitioners of the Chinese enlightenment in the May Fourth era (Schwarcz, 1986, p. 142, 153; MRD, 780). Sun was apparently well informed of Western culture, at least in part because he was in communication with his brother Sun Fuxi who studied at the University of Paris during 1922–1925 (Foster, 2001). Xu Zhimo had studied at Clark and Columbia Universities in the U.S. and at Cambridge in England during 1918–1922 and toured Europe including Russia in March-August 1925 before he assumed the editorship of the Fukan in October 1925 (Zhao, 1999; Chen, 1949). Graduate of Yen-ching

University, Qu Shiying studied philosophy and education at Harvard during 1924–1926 and returned with a Ph.D. before starting editing the Fukan in October 1926 on behalf of Xu Zhimo who took a leave from which he never returned (Minguo Renwu Dacidian (MRD); Zhao, 1999, p. 209; CF, 1926/10/13). Similarly, among the more frequent contributors, Lin Yutang went to Harvard in 1919 and then to Leipzig in Germany, returning with a Ph.D. in Linguistics to teach at Beida in 1922 (Wan, 1998). Xu Dishan studied aesthetics, philosophy, religion, and folklore in the U.S. and England, and visited India, during 1923–1927 (Song, 1998). Chen Dabei studied theater in Japan in 1918–1919 to become a major promoter of amateur theater in China in the 1920s. Another was Yu Shangyuan who studied theater in the U.S. in 1923–1925 (MRD). Chen Xiying had a Ph.D. in Economics from University of London in 1922 (MRD). Liang Shiqiu, Jiang Shaoyuan, and Bing Xin studied in the U.S. during 1923–1926 (MRD). As for Liang Qichao, Li Dazhao, Lu Xun, Zhou Zuoren, Hu Shi, and Yu Dafu, their experiences in Japan, America, and Europe are well known. The above is but a partial list of the contributors who engaged in translating and discussing foreign works in the Fukan. 13. See CF, 1923/1/15. 14. Shu-mei Shih, The Lure of the Modern, p. 97. 15. Rebecca Karl, Staging the World: Chinese Nationalism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (Duke University Press, 2002). 16. Arif Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution (UC Press, 1991), p. 55. 17. See Shuang Shen, Cosmopolitan Publics: Anglophone Print Culture in SemiColonial Shanghai (Rutgers University Press, 2009), pp. 22; 23. 18. For anarchism in early twentieth-century China, see Zarrow, Anarchism and Chinese Political Culture (Columbia University Press, 1990) and Arif Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution. 19. See Hung-yok Ip, “Cosmopolitanism and the Ideal Image of Nation in Communist Revolutionary Culture,” in Kai-wing Chow, et al. eds., Constructing Nationhood in Modern East Asia (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001). His definition of cosmopolitanism as a “longing for world unity and human brotherhood” and “enthusiasm for learning and absorbing other peoples’ cultures” (p. 239, note 5) is close to mine but does not include the element of individualism. 20. The English title given by the founders of the journal, was “The Renaissance,” even though “New Tide” is a more common translation in the China scholarship. 21. Li Dazhao, “Lianzhi Zhuyi Yu Shijie Zuzhi (federalism and world organization),” Xinchao, Vol.1, No. 2 (Feb. 1919):151–155. 22. See Rebecca Karl, Staging the World: Chinese Nationalism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (Duke University Press, 2002). 23. For discussions of Li Dazhao’s pre-communist phase of internationalism and “new Asianism,” see Maurice Meisner, Li Ta-chao and the Origins of Chinese Marxism (1967), pp. 178–188. 24. Dai Chuanxian, “Geming—Hegu? Weihe? (revolution: why? for what?)” Jianshe, 1, 3 (Oct. 1919):1–31.

25. Hung-yok Ip, “Cosmopolitanism and the Ideal Image of Nation in Communist Revolutionary Culture.” 26. Zhou Guangxu, “Shijie Wenhua Yu Minzu Texing (world culture and national traits),” Shaonian Zhonguo, Vol. 4, No. 6 (August 1923):1–4. 27. Not insignificantly, Rabindranath Tagore made the same point, but his view was not introduced to the Chinese in translation until 1923 when Hu Yuzhi published his translation of Tagore’s essay entitled “The East and the West.” See Dongfang Zazhi, 20, 18 (Sept. 1922):17–24. 28. Bertrand Russell, The Problem of China, p. 14. 29. Arif Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution, p. 57. In contextualizing anarchism, Dirlik analyzed the issue in terms of what the Chinese wanted to achieve, whereas my approach is to consider both what the Chinese wanted to achieve and how they consciously evaluated various Western ideologies including nationalism. Educated Chinese often associated nationalism with national self-interest, Social Darwinism, racism, and militarism exemplified by the actions of European nations before and during WWI. Besides Li Dazhao’s article discussed below, see Chapter 6. 30. According to Liang Qichao Nianpu Changbian (p. 885), Liang lectured on the topic on June 19, 1919, but the speech was published in the North China Herald (NCH) in early September 1919. 31. “A Chinese on Chinese,” NCH, Sept. 6, 1919, pp. 637–638. 32. Chenbao, 1920/3/19, p. 7. 33. Li Dazhao, “Yaxiya Qingnian De Guangming Yundong (the enlightenment movement of Asian youth),” Shaonian Zhongguo, Vol. 2, No. 2 (August 1920):1–2. 34. For the earlier imagination, see Rebecca Karl, Staging the World, pp. 151–176. 35. Peter Zarrow considered Li Dazhao’s writings in the Xinchao expressing anarchist ideas. See Anarchism and Chinese Political Culture, pp. 217–218. 36. Wang Guangqi, “Shaonian Zhongguo Zhi Chuangzhao (the creation of Young China),” Shaonian Zhongguo, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Aug. 1919):1–2. 37. MRD.

Chapter 1

Social Agendas and Personal Tastes The Chenbao Fukan’s Editorial Policies On November 29, 1925, a crowd of several hundred college students, after a mass rally in front of the Tiananmen attended by 50,000 people, shouting slogans “Down with the Chenbao and Public Opinion Thieves (yulun duzei),” marched to the editorial office of the Chenbao (the Morning Post), located at Chengxiang Hutong, Xuanwu Menwai Dajie, in Beijing, and set it afire. The blaze partially destroyed the office (and damaged adjacent houses), putting the newspaper out of business for one week.[1] This was one of the few instances in the Republican era where a newspaper editorial office was physically attacked by mob actions. What prompted this outburst of indignation from the attackers against the newspaper? The answer is to be found, at least in part, in the changing editorial policies of the Chenbao Fukan and, by extension, the evolving and contested functions of Chinese newspapers, and the public perception thereof, at that time. Through tracing the evolution of the Fukan’s editorial policies over time, this chapter aims to explore the way the supplement became a site where multidimensional, continuous interactions between editors, contributors, and readers (many people played those roles at the same time) took place, with regard to what societal or public functions a newspaper supplement should perform.[2] The issue is examined in terms of both content and format of the Fukan, as the editors were driven by business competitions among newspapers and journals to catered to, and motivated by social agendas and intellectual commitments to train or cultivate, readers’ reading habits and aesthetic tastes. In discussing a newspaper supplement as part of Chinese journalism that was both an intellectual pursuit and a business enterprise in the 1920s, one of the issues to be considered is the way boundaries of literature (wenxue) and non-literature writings were constantly crossed, interfaced, and interacted, as newspaper supplements would publish both types of writings and contributors would write for both newspaper supplements and literary journals. Michel Hockx has studied the Republican-era literary journals and literary societies through analyzing the styles of a “literary field” that was composed of “literary production” and “literary activity.”[3] The editorial policies and published contents of the Fukan (and other newspaper supplements) may be usefully described and analyzed as variations in literary styles, in the same way a host of literary journals fashioned themselves and competed with one another. While not using the word “styles” explicitly, this chapter shows that the editorial policies, and the published contents in the Fukan due to such policies, paralleled and interacted with many contemporary journals. Individual editors played a decisive role in the way a newspaper supplement would function. Depending on issues, different editors either encouraged or

circumscribed 1) diverse political-social-cultural positions and ideological viewpoints and 2) the participation of the public (from well-known writers to unknown contributors to interested readers) in cultural production and consumption as well as intellectual discourse via a newspaper supplement. Since the Fukan was simultaneously an information provider, an educational tool, and an entertainment venue, its editors placed different emphases on these functions. The editorial polices resulting from varied emphases entailed varying looks, flavors, and substances of the Fukan during its life span. The Fukan’s shifting and evolving editorial policies and published contents both reflected and contributed to the larger political-social-cultural milieu of the New Culture era.

THE SOCIAL AND INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT The Chenzhong Bao (Morning Bell), the forerunner of the Chenbao, was first established in Beijing in August 1916, sponsored by Tang Hualong (1870–1918), Liang Qichao, and Pu Boying (a.k.a. Pu Dianjun, 1875–1931) of the former Progressive Party that morphed into the Study Clique (yanjiu xi) in the chaotic political scene of the early Republic (1912–1927).[4] After being shut down by the Duan Qirui (1865–1936) regime in September 1918, the newspaper reappeared as the Chenbao three months later.[5] As it was common for newspapers to have a dedicated page as “Fukan” (supplement) for leisurely readings, the Chenbao adopted the same practice. The page seven was understood to be its supplement, containing such columns as “Literary Garden” (wenyuan), “Fiction” (xiaoshuo), “Travelogue” (youji), “Talks” (tancong), “Humor Ground” (xieshu), and “Household Tips” (jiating changshi).[6] On October 12, 1921, the supplement was expanded into a four-page publication officially entitled “Chenbao Fujuan” that was distributed daily with the newspaper, with its monthly and annual collections published separately. Even before this expansion, by 1920 the supplement had built up its reputation and influence among educated Chinese, counted among the four major newspaper supplements (sida Fukan).[7] From April 1925 to June 1928, the title of the supplement changed from “Chenbao Fujuan” to “Chenbao Fukan” (it is referred to as “Fukan” throughout in this book). The Chenbao Fukan became an influential publication for at least two reasons. First, its readers and contributors included some of the best-known intellectuals, a partial list of which include Liang Qichao, Li Dazhao, Hu Shi, Lu Xun, Zhou Zuoren, Cai Yuanpei, Jiang Mengling (1886–1964), Chen Dabei (1887–1944), Pu Boying, Xu Zhimo, Bing Xin (1900–1999), Xu Dishan (1894–1941), and Shen Congwen (1902– 1988), besides many lesser known or unknown contributors. It is by no means accidental that Lu Xun had his most important fiction, “The True Story of Ah Q,” first published in the Fukan. On the other hand, it is through publications in the Fukan and elsewhere that some of those writers became better known, such as Chen Dabei, Bing Xin, and Xu Zhimo, among others. Second, the contributors such as those named above were also writing for other contemporary newspapers and journals

(literary and non-literary), such as the supplement of the Beijing News (Jingbao, 1918–1937), the New Youth (Xin Qingning 1915–1922), the Theater (Xiju, 1922– 1927), the Weekly Review (Meizhou pinglun, 1918–1919), the Guide (Xiangdao, 1922–1927), and the Endeavor (Nuli zhoubao, 1922–1923), to name just a few. Frequent debates and exchanges among writers in all those publications on political, social, philosophical, literary, and artistic issues were commonplace, which formed a vibrant public sphere characteristic of that era. In this cultural-intellectual-political context, the Chenbao Fukan faced any number of possibilities in terms of its editorial policies, aesthetic orientations, political views, and ideological positions. It is with its actual trajectory amidst the possibilities that this chapter (and the book as a whole) is concerned. In spite of the political origins of the Chenzhong Bao/Chenbao as a mouthpiece of the Study Clique, its partisan position was almost indiscernible, at least in its supplement, due to the editors’ understanding of the functions of a newspaper as a public organ for society (shehui gongqi).[8] In fact, the inaugural issue of the Chenzhong Bao published on August 15, 1916, under the column heading “Legal Words” (fayan), declared the following: Freedom of speech is one of the rights of citizens, which is common in all countries with constitutional governments. With the dismantling of the monarchy [set up by Yuan Shikai in 1915] and the restoration of the Republic, our citizens’ right to freedom of speech has now been fully reinstated. Yet, the abundance of different opinions and the proliferation of diverse agendas are still following the old pattern of the second year of the Republic [1913], which has resulted in a loss of the true meaning of freedom of speech.[. . .] As this newspaper has begun to publish and participate in the journalistic endeavor, it will express impartial views based on facts, with the purpose of representing citizens; and what is good to the public and what is bad to the public—what is to be praised and what is to be condemned—will be laid out to the world, so as to promote [public] virtue and cultivate [social] norms. In short, non-partisan speech is the true speech of freedom.[9] The statement may be taken as a rhetorical exercise done by many newspapers in early twentieth-century China where the notions about freedom of speech and about newspapers speaking for the public interest were gaining popularity among educated Chinese, even though journalistic professionalism was still in its infancy.[10] The statement, however, probably did reflect the actual sentiments and intentions of the editor of the newly founded newspaper. The first editor-in-chief of the Chenzhong Bao was Li Dazhao, a returned student from Japan and a future communist, who wrote the statement quoted above. Invited by Tang Hualong to be the editor-in-chief, Li only served in the post for less than a month before resigning, because he felt he was restricted by the newspaper manager in deciding editorial policy.[11] The second editor-in-chief was Xu Baohuang (1894–

1930), a returned student who had studied economics and journalism at the University of Michigan, but he did not serve on the post beyond 1916.[12] Pu Boying, one of the sponsors of the newspaper, served as the editor-in-chief for a period of time in 1918. [13] The longest serving editor-in-chief, from December 1918 to June 1928, was Chen Bosheng (1891–1957), a returned student who had studied political economy at Waseda University in Japan.[14] As seen elsewhere, the founder or publisher of a newspaper, who had intention to use the medium for political purposes, was often unable to control the editorial policy and political-intellectual orientation of the newspaper that took on its own life in the hands of its editors.[15] This seemed to be true of the Chenbao. Furthermore, under Chen Bosheng, a separate editor edited the supplement while Chen as editor-in-chief handled the newspaper. This institutional arrangement allowed larger room for the Fukan editor to shape editorial policy and intellectualaesthetic orientations of the supplement. Indicative of this fact, in February 1919, less than three months after the reappearance of the Chenbao, Li Dazhao returned to the newspaper as the editor of the supplement and remained in the post until July 1920, when Sun Fuyuan succeeded him. After the supplement became a four-page publication in October 1921, it was consecutively under the editorship of Sun Fuyuan (1921–1924), Liu Mianji (1924–1925), Xu Zhimo (1925–1926), and Qu Shiying (1926– 1928). To discuss its editorial policies, the Fukan may be roughly divided into three periods, under Li Dazhao, Sun Fuyuan, and Xu Zhimo (and Qu Shiying), respectively. The differences in the content and format of the supplement during these periods resulted from editors’ different perspectives and approaches, which were in turn determined by their individual temperaments, intellectual commitments, personal tastes in aesthetics and literary styles, as well as their understandings of the Fukan’s social agenda or public function—what readers wanted and needed and what the supplement should offer.

POLITICAL INTEREST AND BEYOND: LI DAZHAO AND THE FUKAN The Fukan that Li Dazhao inherited in February 1919 was characteristic of all newspaper supplements at that time—to inform and entertain. On December 1, 1918, for example, the Fukan on page seven carried such items as “the History of Declaring War on Germany” under the column “Special Feature,” “Historical Sources of the European War [WWI]” under “Historical Sources,” a eulogy of Tang Hualong (one of the sponsors of the Chenbao, who fell victim to a political assassination in Canada in September that year), a speech by Tang to Chinese students in America, a serialized fiction, a travel interest piece describing a Buddhist temple outside Beijing, a review of the theater circles in Beijing, and a few household tips.[16] These types of writings exhibited a flavor typical of a literature and art supplement—a combination of

materials for both politically informed readers and those who were interested in light, leisurely readings. Under Li Dazhao’s editorship the Fukan immediately exhibited some changes in content. On February 7, 1919, the day Li took over, the Fukan featured the following columns: “Free Forum,” “Biography,” “Literary Garden,” “Translations,” “Theater Review,” “Fiction,” “Notes,” “Household Tips,” plus a one-time special feature, posthumous writings by Tang Hualong—his diary of a tour in the United States prior to his death. While headings such as forum, fiction, biography, and translations are selfexplanatory, other columns require some comments. The “Literary Garden” contained poems or very short essays in classical Chinese until the column was replaced in early 1920 by the “New Literature and Art” and then simply “Literature and Art” or “Talks on Art” that contained writings in vernacular Chinese, reflecting the ongoing New Culture movement. “Notes” were initially bits and pieces of history, such as how the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty killed himself when the rebels entered Beijing, taken from sources such as official dynastic history or unofficial historical writings. In August 1919, the content of “Notes” was changed to political commentaries on topics such as China’s social-political conditions or the Japanese politics, which also reflected Li’s concerns, before the column was dropped in early 1920, as related contents appeared in other columns. The “Household Tips” included practical information on health, hygiene, daily life, and household chores. Many pieces in columns other than “Translations” (or “New Translations of Famous Works”) were translated works as well. To get a better sense of Li’s editorial approach, we sample what was being published in early 1919. In the “Free Forum” published on February 7, Li penned an article entitled “The Post-War World Trend: Bloody Social Revolution and Bloodless Social Revolution.” He discussed the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and the 1918 German Communist Revolution, both resulting from WWI. He noted that some Japanese spoke of the possibility of such a radical revolution happening in Japan and that the British government was reacting to radicalism by introducing reform measures—what Li meant by “bloodless social revolution.” Li asked readers to think about how China would deal with the world trend of revolutions that were ultimately about distribution of the fruits of labor.[17] Whether Li Dazhao was a Marxist or an anarchist-cosmopolitan at that point is an intriguing historical question.[18] It is noteworthy, however, that Li did not seem to be promoting a particular political or ideological agenda in the Fukan he was editing. The “Biography” column presented a translated biography of William II of Germany. The “Translations” column carried an article, “Utilitarianism,” translated by Luo Jialun (1897–1969, pen-named Zhixi), a Beida student active in the New Culture movement and a well-known scholar later. The “Fiction” column featured a short story entitled “Repentance” by Wu Tianfang (pen-named Tianfang), another Beida student. These three, and Li’s article, were serialized for several days. Significantly, some of the pieces in the Fukan were written in vernacular Chinese, such as Li Dazhao’s article, the translation of “Utilitarianism,” and the biography of William II, while others were in classical Chinese, such as short story, notes, and

pieces in “Literary Garden.”[19] Looking over the time span of the Fukan, it is obvious that a gradual transition from classical Chinese to vernacular Chinese was taking place from August 1916 to early 1920, thereafter pieces written in classical Chinese all but completely vanished from the Fukan. This suggests that Li Dazhao and Sun Fuyuan may have preferred vernacular Chinese, but they did not find it wise to let it take over the Fukan completely until 1920. In other words, there was a “natural” growing process of the vernacular language, as the same transition can be observed in the most iconoclastic journal of the day, the Xin Qingnian (New Youth) during 1915–1920.[20] Another example of the lingering influence of classical Chinese was that when Zhou Zuoren was hired in 1917 as a professor to teach the history of European literature at Beida, he wrote his lecture notes (later published as a textbook by the Commercial Press in 1918) in classical Chinese, even though he used the foreign language originals for person names, place names, and the titles of the works introduced.[21] In the meantime, the issue of classical vs. vernacular Chinese in translation was still being hotly debated (Chapter 3). Thus the trajectory seen in the Fukan reflected a wider intellectual phenomenon, and it paralleled the movement of popularizing vernacular Chinese, along with standardizing Mandarin as national language, through adopting textbooks written in the language.[22] Li Dazhao’s approach to editing the Fukan included explorations of different ideologies. On February 18, 1919, the “Free Forum” republished an article that originally appeared in the Weekly Review, entitled “A Fundamental Idea of the New Era,” explaining what “democracy” meant.[23] The interest in democratic form of government would show again in a speech by John Dewey, who was lecturing in China in mid-1919, on the evolution of American democracy, while an exposition of Karl Marx’s Capital was being serialized in the Fukan in the meantime.[24] Another example of diverse political or ideological stances in the Fukan was that it republished Lu Xun’s “The Diary of a Madman,” on March 11–12, 1919, originally published in the New Youth in May 1918. This displayed a particular shade of the intellectual spectrum of the time—Lu Xun’s story was a prime example of the iconoclastic criticism of Chinese tradition, and Confucianism in particular.[25] A political concern about China’s future and a related intellectual interest in European ideologies remained. On April 1, 1919, the Fukan began to run a biography of Karl Marx in the column “Short Biography of Famous People.” The author, pennamed “Yuanquan,” stated that his purpose was to stimulate readers’ interest in studying socialism and to inform readers of “the life of past sages who were devoted to the pursuit of scholarship.” “If this motivates readers to devote themselves to studying socialism some day, then what this short piece contributes to human society will be immeasurable.”[26] The biography started a long-running exposition of Marxism in the column “Studies of Marx” that would continue through December 1919 when it was succeeded by a new column “Russian Studies.” On May 5, 1919, while the Chenbao reported on the May Fourth demonstrations staged by college students in Beijing, its supplement began to run a long article introducing Marxism and opened a

new column “Women’s Issues” with a discussion on socialization between Chinese men and women.[27] In addition, there appeared an article on Tsarist Russia, an article on the history of Russian Revolutions dating back to 1905, and a short story. [28] In other words, four out of five pieces published that day were on political topics, which would suggest Li’s attention or interest at that point. Interest in various ideologies went hand in hand with a nationalist concern. China’s failure to regain Shandong from Japan at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 refreshed the memory of the Twenty-One Demands (imposed by Japan in 1915) in the minds of educated Chinese. On May 7, 1919, page one of the Chenbao, normally reserved for advertisements, splashed sixteen characters in large print on the top half of the page: “What Day Is Today? [It Is] May 7th. [It Is] National Humiliation Day, the People of This Country Do Not Forget.” Correspondingly, both page six (normally for news) and page seven (supplement) were devoted to a special, “Commemorating the National Humiliation” (guochi jinian). It included an editorial on the Twenty-One Demands, several related historical documents released by the Chinese and Japanese governments on the event, and a short article “What Is National Humiliation?” under a heading “Painful Words” (tongyan). Saying that the average Chinese did not have a sense of what a “nation” (guo) was, the author proceeded to explain that the national humiliation represented by the Twenty-One Demands boiled down to this: Human beings had a right to live on their land, but Japan and other Powers did not treat the Chinese as human beings by taking away the land the Chinese lived on; and the Chinese government sold the people as pigs and horses, while the latter were content to be treated as pigs and horses, despite wearing faces of human beings.[29] Thus the author assumed a position of educating the public about nation, nationalism, and the national humiliation in question. From May 8, 1919, onward the Fukan resumed its regular coverage of various topics, with columns ranging from “Studies of Marx,” “the Post-War World,” “Women’s Issues,” “Fiction,” “Household Tips,” to “New Intellectual Trends.”[30] On June 10, 1919, Liang Qichao’s “World Peace and China” appeared under a new column heading “New Works on Travels in Europe” (Ouyou xinzhu). The piece was not about his travel in Europe, however; it was about China’s place in the post-WWI world. Apparently written in Europe before the Paris Peace Conference, Liang argued for the Open Door policy that the United States advocated in 1899–1900, and more specifically, abolition of foreign leaseholds, foreign control of railroads, foreign spheres of influence, extraterritoriality, and foreign control of custom duties in China. [31] Since none of these happened under the Versailles Treaties, this piece published in June, after the Paris Peace Conference had ended, served as a reminder of China’s total failure at the conference and of the nationalist agendas for the coming decades. Liang’s more extensive writings on his travel in Europe, “Reflections on a European Journey” (Ouyou xinying lu), would be serialized in the Fukan in March– May 1920.[32] Available information suggests that Liang sent his essays to the Chenbao before his return to China and Li Dazhao timed them to appear immediately

after Liang’s return.[33]

EDUCATION AND ENTERTAINMENT: SUN FUYUAN AND THE FUKAN After Sun Fuyuan, a Beida graduate, became the editor in July 1920, the Fukan continued to accommodate diverse intellectual and ideological interests in its pages, but there was a shift in its intellectual and aesthetic orientation, especially after the Fukan became the “Chenbao Fujuan” in October 1921. First, sciences and literature, including theater, fiction, vernacular poetry or new poetry (xinshi), and travelogue, claimed more space than before, becoming regular features; and correspondingly, political commentaries diminished. Second, translated works came to dominate the Fukan, including lectures and speeches given by visiting foreign scholars. On December 1, 1921, forty days after the Fukan’s expansion, Sun Fuyuan wrote a piece to reflect on the supplement’s shortcomings. First, it published too many pieces that inculcated knowledge and too few that cultivated sentiments—a concept that was not defined, but seemed to mean making one more refined and exquisite in tastes and sensibilities; second, it had too many long pieces and too few short ones; and third, there were numerous translated works but few original writings, all of which caused people to complain that the Fukan was boring. Sun offered his explanations for these problems. Writers became more cautious than before in writing on various issues, which was “not confined to this supplement, but is an almost universal phenomenon in the publishing circles nationwide,” because writers realized their lack of solid theoretical grounding to make arguments. They decided to start laying the groundwork through translation, which resulted in long and knowledgeimparting articles. In addition, vernacular Chinese itself was still in the process of being created. All this made the Fukan dry and tedious. In Sun’s opinion, Chinese writers resorted to translation because Chinese cultural resources did not offer theories for the kind of political and social issues China faced. Without apology, Sun and many contributors regarded translating foreign works as the way for educated Chinese to build a solid theoretical ground, in order to seek solutions to China’s political-social problems. It is significant that Sun spoke of vernacular Chinese as a language still in the making and the Fukan (and other publications) was helping that growth process. Sun articulated and defended his editorial policy: Readers were partly to blame if they did not find the Fukan interesting. They were still caught up in the old habit of being superficial and flippant (fuzao) and were not used to dispassionate and careful study. The editor should not cater only to readers’ shortcomings, but should decide what to publish based on the merits of the materials. “They [readers] are unwilling to read materials that impart knowledge, but if we consider it necessary, we can try to use good methods to impart knowledge. They are unwilling to read translated works, but if we consider it necessary, we can take special care to improve translation, making the unwilling gradually willing to read. In short, from now on the policy of this

supplement is, on one hand, to recognize the value of the works to be published, try to remedy the above-mentioned three defects, and correct readers’ viewpoints, making them develop an ardent love for knowledge as well as for art; and on the other hand, we hope that after this period of [publishing] prudent and careful translations, more and more writers will be fostered in the circles of sciences and of literature and art, to change the trend in the whole country.”[34] Clearly, Sun envisioned that the Fukan would play an important role in training both readers and writers, cultivating their tastes, and augmenting their capacity to appreciate various genres of writing and tolerate diverse political or intellectual positions. To Sun, these were concrete aspects of a desirable “new culture” or “new literature,” beyond the use of vernacular Chinese. The notion that newspapers performed a function of educating the reading public was not confined to Sun Fuyuan as the editor, but was shared among many educated Chinese. For instance, Tan Xihong (1891–1956), a professor of biology at Beida, contributed an article on newspapers’ social responsibility. He said: Nowadays people place the solution to all social problems on education, which is not wrong. [. . .] It can be said that besides ordinary schools that cultivate young people, the most powerful [tool] for the cause of educating humankind is newspaper. An ideal newspaper provides people with accurate news, makes people intelligent, introduces knowledge to people, and enhances people’s ability. It can certainly be imaged what the society’s situation would be like without such an educational enterprise [as newspapers].”[35] The view that public media had educational functions expressed here would explain the success of the Fukan under Sun Fuyuan who strived to make the supplement perform that function. To Sun, a newspaper supplement’s educating and entertaining functions had equal importance. “According to common practices of Chinese and foreign newspapers, the supplement of a daily newspaper should give priority to being interesting and entertaining (quwei). Under the special circumstances in China today —underdeveloped education, a lack of knowledge among ordinary people, and a lack of interest in pursuing learning—it is naturally indispensable for the supplement of a daily newspaper, such as the ‘Lamp of Learning [of the Shishi Xinbao],’ the ‘Awakening [of the Guomin Ribao],’ and this publication, to discuss philosophy and sciences. Yet, I very much hope that [all kinds of] journals will be gradually established to study and disseminate a variety of specialized and general knowledge so that our supplements of daily newspapers can be spared of this burden and return to its original proposition [of being interesting and entertaining], allowing people to read it not as textbooks but as high-brow pastime.” He then discussed the difficulty finding materials that would appeal to readers because “the Chinese are a nation that really lacks the taste for the interesting and the entertaining”—traditional books of jokes were full of poisonous vulgarity.[36] Assuming a position of enlightener, Sun tried

to strike a balance between educating and entertaining functions he assigned to the Fukan. In practical terms, educational function was performed through publishing articles not only on sciences and social sciences introduced largely through translation, but also on Chinese cultural legacy (Chapter 5); entertainment (and education as well) was provided in literature such as spoken drama scripts, fictions, poems, and travelogues. All these constituted a “new literature” in that they were written in vernacular Chinese and thus distinguished from the writings in classical Chinese that had once appeared in the “Literary Garden” of the Chenzhong Bao and Chenbao in 1916–1918.[37]

DIVERSE TOPICS AND GENRES The way Sun Fuyuan arranged the content and columns in the Fukan may illustrate his handling of the dual tasks to educate and entertain. When Chapter 1 of Lu Xun’s “The True Story of Ah Q” began to appear for the first time on December 4, 1921, it was under the column “Words for Fun,” but by the time the second installment— Chapter 2—appeared on December 11, 1921, it was placed under the column “New Literature and Art.”[38] In other words, Sun initially did not realize the significance of Lu Xun’s short story that was to become a classic in the new literature, because Sun received only the beginning part of the story and considered it a piece of humorous writing. Only upon reading the whole story did he become impressed by its deep meaning and decided to highlight it as a piece of new literature.[39] Yet, the column of “New Literature and Art” was changed to “Literature and Art” from January 8, 1922, when “The True Story of Ah Q” progressed to Chapter 5, while Bing Xin’s long poem, “Stars,” had begun to be serialized under “New Literature and Art” from January 1, 1922.[40] Why the word “new” was dropped was not explained. One possibility is that Sun did not want to associate the Fukan too closely in appearance with the new literature in order to broaden its appeal to as wider a readership as possible. In terms of substance, the Fukan joined the new literature through an arrangement with the Association for Literature Study (ALS, wenxue yanjiuhui). On June 1, 1923, the Wenxue Xunkan (literature tri-monthly) debuted, which would substitute the regular Fukan three days a month. The tri-monthly was sponsored by the ALS and edited by Wang Tongzhao, a leading member of the organization.[41] In its inaugural issue, Wang spoke of the great mission of literature to transform Chinese mind and emphasized the role of literary criticism in developing new literature. “We dare not assume the position of critics; neither dare we take our views as infallible, but the reason why we publish this Xunkan in the grey city under siege [his metaphor for the bleak literary scene that he deplored] is that we are willing to work for the literature with friends’ help, to contribute to China’s new literature.” He said that the society had no prejudice for or against any side of various literary schools and debates; criticism would be based on artistic standards; everyone was entitled to his own views; and [the correct] attitude was to be consultative. Yet, he and his likeminded fellows would not tolerate writings that opposed literature, blindly worshipped

the ancient, or were meaningless and poisonous to society, such as low-brow literature (tongshu wenxue).[42] In effect Wang’s words served as a declaration against cultural conservatives as he defined. Thus, the Xunkan was a platform for new literature and for the ALS in particular, and opened a dedicated space for new literature. Beyond the Xunkan edited by Wang, the regular Fukan in Sun’s hands continued to publish poems, fictions, spoken drama scripts, literary essays and reviews, and travelogues. These materials added to the Fukan’s academic quality and highlighted its mission to educate and entertain readers In publishing literary writings, Sun faced the issue of balancing the artistic quality and the accessibility of the Fukan. In early 1922 Sun made an experiment: on Sunday the Fukan would feature pieces aiming at being accessible. A few months later Sun informed readers of his experiment. “Our initial plan contains two intentions. One is to make materials as accessible (tongshu) as possible so that most people are able to understand, and to that end, all scholarly and theoretical materials are excluded on Sunday; and the other is to emphasize literature and art so that most people can have spiritual enjoyment, and to that end, all dry and pedantic materials are excluded on Sunday.” He admitted that it was difficult to define “accessible” and “artistic,” and it was even harder to achieve both at the same time, and it was unrealistic to expect readers to enjoy literature and art only on Sunday or expect readers to read only Sunday’s supplement for its accessibility.[43] Sun recalled a conversation with some regular readers of the Fukan who never understood why “The True Story of Ah Q” would appear only once a week and never noticed the difference between Sunday and weekdays in the Fukan materials. So the experiment would end, while the efforts to make the Fukan accessible would continue.[44]

INTERACTIONS WITH AVERAGE READERS/CONTRIBUTORS A prominent feature of the Fukan during the Sun Fuyuan period was that Sun frequently interacted with readers by publishing their letters and responding to them. On the issue of what to publish, Sun found it hard to satisfy all readers since their opinions were often contradictory. On December 6, 1922, he published two letters from readers to make the point. One reader praised the Fukan for publishing articles on literature and philosophy and criticized long, translated articles on sciences. The other expressed the opposite view by commending the Fukan for publishing articles on sciences which Chinese society needed. Sun declared that in deciding what to publish and how much space to assign to various topics, he would consider the Fukan’s mission first and readers’ opinions second.[45] Sun Fuyuan was attentive to readers’ interest and opinions, but he would also defend his editorial decisions. In August 1922, under the column heading “Forum” Sun Fuyuan published a long article in ten installments that compared Tao Qian, the Chinese poet of the Jin dynasty, and Leo Tolstoy, the Russian writer (Chapter 5). One week after the end of the article, Sun published a letter from a reader. The reader disapproved the comparison between Tao Qian and Tolstoy and asked Sun not to

publish such articles that would mislead readers. Sun responded in a note. “First, we always treat our readers as readers and never dare to treat them as children to receive force-fed education. The intellectual and academic circles are land of freedom, where one who speaks can never say ‘you all must follow me,’ and readers too must have their own opinions and have judgment on other people’s speeches, not blindly following others. That is why I do not believe we will mislead readers. Second, the nature of the ‘Forum’ is to publish whatever opinions and words. The power of the editor is only generally evaluate logic and grammar [in contributions] to avoid errors, and as for whether contributions ‘make forced comparisons’ or not, it is not what the editor cares.” He would continue to welcome criticisms from readers regarding errors in logic and grammar.[46] Sun did take different editorial approaches to different columns. He would allow all views and positions in the “Forum,” and was even more tolerant of a variety of opinions and intellectual qualities in contributions for the column “Random Thoughts,” and for a reason. In August 1923, a female contributor commented that the Fukan was widely regarded as a valuable publication within the country, but that since the debate on “the rules of love” (Chapter 6) there had frequently been meaningless quarrels ending up with two parties verbally abusing each other, costing the Fukan’s space and reputation. She hoped such mutually destructive articles would disappear and more quality articles such as the debate on “science vs. philosophy of life” (Chapter 6) would appear. Sun replied that as editor he wanted to accommodate opinions from all sides and could not care too much about authors’ manners. “We feel that since our readers are all over the world, if [we] can collect opinions from all sides and select better ones to put in a column for all readers of the Fukan, then the effect is perhaps better than that of publishing the works of a few famous persons only.” Sun made clear that this policy was mainly applied to the column “Random Thought,” and other columns on scholarship and literature and art were handled differently.[47] As we shall see, Sun’s able editorial hands did bring forth more interesting and diverse materials in the Fukan. Sun Fuyuan’s approach to contributions and his interaction with readers had a financial side to it. As the Fukan was popular among young people, especially college and middle school students, the latter would contribute unsolicited pieces to it, but most of those contributions were not published. Sun told readers that he would not throw away contributions from unknown writers just because they were unknown. He strived to seek out new writers to make the Fukan more interesting, but many contributions did not meet the minimum requirement of having a clearly articulated idea. Sun explained the policy on remunerating for contributions: Unlike commissioned articles, unsolicited contributions were generally not compensated, but some might be, depending on their qualities. In any case, Sun noted, the payment would be small so that the Fukan could be sold at a very low price to benefit readers.[48] This disclosure reveals that the Fukan was not only popular and influential but also financially viable, precisely because it relied on unpaid contributions from the unknown as well as paid contributions from the well-known.

Regarding finance, the Fukan and several independent journals advertised one another in their pages. The advertisements in the Fukan were free until July 1923 when a new policy was set: A two-square-inch space will be charged for one yuan per week. The Fukan announced that “the sales number of the [monthly and annual] collections of this publication has soared and the effect of advertisement therein is huge. Starting next month, the collections will increase the number of pages for advertisement. The above-mentioned rate only applies to print media; but if commercial firms and stores, and all suppliers of stationery, clothing, food, etc., want to advertise in the collections of this supplement, please directly contact the ad department of this newspaper.”[49] The success of the Fukan as an intellectual endeavor and a business enterprise was evident.

INTERACTIONS WITH WELL-KNOWN WRITERS To his credit, Sun Fuyuan treated average readers/contributors and well-known writers in the same way, which helped the Fukan’s standing among the reading public. In one instance, Sun openly rebuffed a complaint about his editorial policy from Xu Zhimo, a rising star of “new poem” who returned from study in America. In early 1923 Xu Zhimo was in Shanghai, Ke Yicen (1894–1977), the editor of Lamp of Learning (literary supplement of another newspaper, Shishi Xinbao), asked him for contributions. Xu gave Ke some old manuscripts including a poem he wrote in England in 1922 when he was reading James Joyce’s Ulysses. Stimulated by Joyce who wrote the latter part of Ulysses without punctuations, Xu experimented with his poem using no punctuations.[50] When the poem was published in the Lamp of Learning on July 7, 1923, it included a short preface Xu had written at the time of writing the poem. Xu said that he often thought punctuations unnecessary in either prose or verse since one did not use punctuations when speaking. “Recently we have worshipped the West so that not only in writing contemporary texts do we follow rules to use ‘new punctuations,’ but also innocent works such as works of classics, the Dream of Red Mansion, and the Water Margin [of which the original texts had no punctuations] are cut apart into pieces by people who had no better things to do. [. . .] Actually, really good writings did not need punctuations.”[51] This comment invited three rebuttals in the Fukan (an example of interactions among newspaper supplements and journals).[52] Xu’s point was obviously indefensible, which allowed the three contributors to laugh at his argument. In response, Xu wrote a public letter to Sun Fuyuan saying that he did not really oppose punctuations and he was only discussing the way Chinese language might obtain “elasticity” (the word in English) that Western languages had. And he blamed Sun for publishing the rebuttals against his comment. “Relatively speaking, the Chenbao Fukan has colors of literature and art; so I advise you, Fu Lu [Sun’s pen-name], there should be a standard in selecting manuscripts to publish: It does not matter even if they are speculations or fabrications, as long as they are interesting—as long as they are ‘beautiful’—this, I think, is the responsibility the editor should have to his

readers.”[53] Xu implied that the criticisms of his view were not interesting nor beautiful. To Xu’s advice, Sun Fuyuan responded as follows. “In my view, during a debate [in a newspaper], [an author] turning against the editor is the worst tactic. In the end, what can be taught to the editor is no more than the matter of ‘standards’”—an author always wished the editor to use different standards, favoring the author but not his opponents. Sun said that he routinely received accusations of “suppressing public opinion,” “favoring private clique,” and was called “the scum of the journalistic circles” and “a newspaper bully.” “If Mr. Xu Zhimo thinks it over dispassionately, his inflated air will subside without my advice, and he will realize that the words about the editor having standards already fell into the pattern of transferring anger toward the editor when being refuted and losing all arguments, a pattern that is beneath a great literary writer. This supplement has published three articles attacking Mr. Xu Zhimo’s writing about abolishing punctuations, but the three [contributors] never mentioned a word about the editor of the Lamp of Learning, asking him ‘to have standards.’ This is where Mr. Xu Zhimo fell below others.”[54] This sharp rebuttal from Sun was consistent with his editorial policy and was very much on the target. Wisely, Xu Zhimo did not respond further. If Sun Fuyuan was unassailable in the above episode, his role was more ambiguous on another occasion. On April 9, 1924, the Fukan published two pieces in the column “Random Thoughts.” One is from a contributor pen-named “LT,” who related a piece of writing he happened upon in a middle school—an essay written by a student and corrected by a teacher. The essay’s title was “On Hu Shi.” The essay attacked Hu Shi for destroying Chinese morals by promoting equality between sexes and free marriage and by rejecting Confucianism, and it called Hu Shi “the enemy of the people (minzei).” Citing the essay, the contributor said: “You young people with high purposes: Do not be too optimistic! Look at such bizarre phenomena!”[55] The second piece was an account by a contributor who came across a set of twenty-seven classical poems written by Wu Yu (1872–1949). The contributor used the title “Recent Works by ‘the Old Hero Who Single-Handedly Destroyed the Confucian Store’” and enclosed those poems, which Sun published.[56] Wu Yu was a transitional intellectual. He was schooled in the traditional learning but came to criticize Confucianism during the May Fourth era, in such journals as the New Youth and elsewhere, and was therefore called the “old hero” by reformers such as Liang Qichao and Hu Shi. In 1924 he was teaching at Beida and other universities in Beijing. Yet, Sun re-publishing Wu’s poems seemed to mean to make fun of him, because the poems were all about his love for a prostitute he frequented and were clearly in the category traditionally called “erotic poems” (yanci, yinshi).[57] These two pieces caused some readers to write to Sun, questioning the wisdom to publish them in the Fukan, a supposedly progressive publication. On April 12, 1924, Sun publicly replied to the reactions. He had thought it would be obvious that the two pieces were satires, but some readers were either too numb or too sensitive

to see them as such and thus questioned why the Fukan would publish such garbage. Now he had to tell those honest and simple readers that he was not promoting such writings but attacking them with satire.[58] A striking fact is that Sun republished Wu Yu’s poems without Wu’s permission, which was not even an issue, not even to Wu Yu, and the issue was whether publishing such writings was good or bad for society. Sun’s reply brought forth another contributor pen-named XY who vehemently attacked Wu Yu as a person. Saying that those disgusting poems revealed Wu’s true character, XY dismissed Wu’s published work, Wu Yu Wenlu, that contained articles criticizing Confucianism, calling him an old salesman in the Confucian store instead of the old hero destroying the store.[59] This attack caused Wu Yu to write to the Fukan to defend himself. It was Hu Shi who jokingly called him “the old hero who singlehandedly destroyed the Confucian store,” and he simply did not reject the saying. As for his poems that he wrote a long time ago, he did not edit them before having them published, which meant he did not try to hide anything. That he favored a particular prostitute was nothing uncommon, since Liang Qichao, Cai E (a general who challenged Yuan Shikai’s monarchical ambition in 1915), Chen Duxiu and Huang Jigang (two of Wu’s colleagues at Beida), and others all did the same. Some of the accusations made by XY against him were groundless.[60] Sun Fuyuan was fair enough to publish Wu’s response and a few more letters on the issue, either attacking or defending Wu.[61] Historian Kristin Stapleton has pointed out that Wu Yu’s rise and fall as the spokesman for the May Fourth movement was due to “the generational and cultural differences that separated him from the men who shaped the movement and its image in the schools and journals of eastern China.”[62] Among others, Sun Fuyuan played a role in highlighting such differences and turning Wu Yu from a hero of the New Culture movement into a comic figure.

THE PRIVATE AND THE PUBLIC The Wu Yu episode points to a larger phenomenon: Print media in the 1920s often put private lives of citizens, with their real names identified, on public display, turning them into subjects of public debates. The Fukan in Sun Fuyuan’s hands was no exception. On May 7, 1924, Sun published a rather unusual contribution from a reader. Han Quanhua, a female student at Beida, received on April 26 a long letter from Yang Shiyi (Yang Donglin), a professor of economics. Yang relayed a rumor about Han and him being romantically involved and hoped Han would join him to issue a statement to refute it. Yang urged Han to respond to him, but not to share the letter with anyone, especially her father. Previously, in December 1923 Han received a Christmas card with Yang’s name and a short love poem in English on it. Then in January 1924 an anonymous letter reached Han, with a clipping of a newspaper wanted ad by Yang for a tutor for his child. The April 26 letter was the last straw— feeling she was being improperly pursued or harassed, Han wrote a letter to the Fukan describing her situation and enclosed Yang’s long letter. “I did not expect that a professor at the best institution of high education in our country would behave in

such a way toward a female student—a female student he has never met. I think this kind of thing not only involves me as an individual, but is also really a big obstacle to co-education in our country. This is unfortunate for our female students at Beida and for our Beida as a whole. If I continue to ignore it, I am afraid the worse could happen. That is why although I will not issue joint statement with someone I do not know, I feel I should make this matter public.” Sun duly published Han’s letter, with Yang’s letter attached.[63] Two days later the Fukan carried a letter from Yang who explained the whole matter as a misunderstanding. Tan Xihong, a colleague of Yang, in a conversation with Yang, had joked about the supposed romance between Yang and Han, which was quoted in detail in Yang’s letter to Han. Now Yang enclosed a private letter from Tan who complained about being misrepresented by Yang in his letter to Han that was published. For Yang to enclose Tan’s private letter, of course, was to prove that such a rumor did exist.[64] The incident was engineered by some Beida students who started the rumor about Yang and Han, the “university flower” (xiaohua), by writing on the wall of a restroom. Cheng Houzhi, then a student at Beida, would later recall the episode as one of the two big scandals about Beida at that time, saying that after the publication of Han’s letter, posters by students were everywhere in Beida calling Yang to resign.[65] More relevant to this study, however, was that Jiang Shaoyuan (1898–1983), a graduate of Beida and now a faculty there, wrote to Sun Fuyuan as a fellow Beida alumnus, faulting him for publishing Han’s letter which tarnished Beida as an institution. His argument ran as follows: If people who belonged to the same group had a problem between them, they should try to resolve it privately; if they could not resolve it, they should then hand it to the group’s leader; and only if it still could not be resolved, should it then be arbitrated by society outside the group. “This is the proper way, the very economic way, because one’s own problem should be resolved by oneself, and it should not be first handed over to outsiders to handle.” In addition, Jiang made a passing remark that the advertisement section of the Chenbao was being used by two rival universities to attack one another, which made people despise journalism.[66] Sun Fuyuan published Jiang’s letter, along with his own response. He dismissed Jiang’s argument as an old mentality rooted in the lineage practice where a guilty person was flogged in the ancestral hall and judged by the patriarch. He made a few more points: 1) Since Yang and Han were in Beijing and the Chenbao was a newspaper in Beijing, the publication of Han’s letter could be considered a matter handled within the group—literate residents of Beijing. 2) The “family rule” (jiafa) that Jiang preferred was not necessarily fairer than social arbitration (shehui gongduan). Sun learned from another reader’s letter that the Beida president had told Yang to resign, and Sun considered such an action too harsh. “The whole matter deserves neither the Beida president’s attention, nor social arbitration. Its only use is for the Fukan to publish it, seriously speaking, to provide reference for people who study

social problems, and humorously speaking, to provide people with after-work entertainment. That is all. Precisely since this case was the most private kind, and since laws in civilized countries do not even criminalize sexual affairs, on what grounds should the president fire the professor who only wrote a letter with improper words to a woman he did not know (at most trying to seduce)?” 3) Like many people, Jiang seemed to think that without being publicized, things that happened could be treated as never happened. 4) As for advertisement, it was a tool, and a newspaper was not responsible for how the tool was used by people.[67] Sun’s first point was not a serious argument, and more like a joke. The last three points addressed the issues of privacy, morality, public opinion, university policy, and functions of newspapers. He held that publishing Han’s letter was a legitimate act for a newspaper supplement for educational and entertaining purposes, but the university president’s reaction to the publication was unnecessary fuss. Another round of exchange between Jiang and Sun on the matter appeared three days later. Jiang emphasized that he was concerned about the self-government of Beida (therefore he would not question how the president treated Yang) and the future of co-education in China. The publication of Han’s letter might weaken Beida’s self-governing ability and furnish ammunition for conservatives who opposed co-ed. Jiang strongly disagreed with Sun’s view that a newspaper was not responsible for advertisement—“this is really the religion of money, the cult of commodity, and the creed of the believers in newspaper advertisement that is couched in science, which those of us who are not baptized [by it] cannot understand without careful study. Let us drop this topic.”[68] Sun responded that Jiang mistakenly conflated the issue of co-education with the Yang-Han case, since Yang and Han were not co-ed students but a professor and a student. Moreover, relationship between sexes existed in society at large, not just in co-ed universities, and immoral relations would have existed without co-ed. The coeducation was to be earned through struggle, not to be received as charity. If all people who supported co-ed were as defensive as Jiang, their goal would be destroyed anyway, even if they extinguished all human desires. Sun repeated his view that beyond academic matters, the Beida president should not regulate the private life of a professor.[69] Not insignificantly, Zhou Zuoren, also teaching at Beida and writing under the pen-name “Tao Ran,” said that firing a professor for writing an improper letter to a student was excessively harsh, and that he was especially displeased with the Beida students who fueled and fanned the entire episode, a sentiment that Sun Fuyuan shared.[70] In the final round of exchanges, Jiang Shaoyuan, while expressing regret that he and Sun could not convince one another, laughed at Sun’s logic that since there were men and women in society, immoral relations would exist regardless of other conditions. He implied that Sun abused his position as editor, saying sarcastically: “You are a journalist. The sole duty of a journalist, accepted by the public as proper, is to provide readers with the materials they want to read. [. . .] Since the Fukan’s

readers want to read love news—love news of new men and women (you told me that personally), you did not decline to publish [Han’s] letter.” He also noted the fundamental difference between his collectivism (tuanti zhuyi) and Sun’s (and Zhou Zuoren’s) individualism (geren zhuyi). In response, Sun denied that he was catering to readers’ tastes only and declared an end to the discussion. Sun came to regard Yang Shiyi as a victim entrapped by the students who started the rumor that led to Yang writing to Han. That is, Sun began to have misgivings about what he had done, but refused to admit that his publishing Han’s letter led to unintended consequences. [71]

The above episode illustrates the ethical, if not legal, implications, which were unsettled, of what should be published in print media in matters of privacy. Sun’s view on people’s conduct in private life may be regarded as liberal, or individualistic as Jiang Shaoyuan saw it, in that he considered it to be outside the purview of a university administration. Yet, he considered such matters fair game for print media, even if only for readers’ amusement, which was in line with his view on newspaper advertisement, one of free market or capitalism as Jiang pointed out. Significantly, Sun chose to defend his editorial decision from this position, instead of arguing that it was Han who requested to publish her letter in order to stop Yang’s advance.

POLEMICS AND PEN-NAMES The above were minor cases of numerous polemics and debates in print media including the Fukan where intellectual discourses would often degenerate into personal vendettas among contributors. What Michel Hockx has identified as “abusive criticism” with regard to literary works applied to non-literary writings, as the traditional notion that writings reflected the writer’s character (wenru qiren) legitimated abusive criticism.[72] Indeed, debates in the Fukan on political, ideological, and artistic issues would often lead to name-calling and personal attacks. Sun Fuyuan and those who succeeded him as editors were not averse to hosting such debates, because they grew up and shared in this cultural norm and because hot polemics spiced up with personal attacks would sell, more often than not. One common practice that increased the possibilities of, and actually facilitated, personal polemics in print media was the use of pen-names which allowed anyone to say anything without being easily identified. In the 1920s Zhou Zuoren, writertranslator-Beida professor, used many pen-names, including “Tao Ran” and “Jing Sheng.” In an article calling for more humorous writings and complaining about the Chinese lacking of humor, Lin Yutang (1895–1976), yet another Beida professor, said that the writings by “X Ran” and “X Sheng” were exquisite and cute in abusing people, but did not make much difference in humor; yet, if Zhou Zuoren would write something humorous, “then I would admit the new literature is Westernized.”[73] Two points are made here. First, for Lin Yutang, the new literature was not sufficiently Westernized because it lacked humor. Second, he knew that Tao Ran and Jing Sheng were Zhou Zuoren’s pen-names, and he was saying that written under his real name, Zhou’s

humorous or satirical essays could have made larger impact. Five days later Zhou Zuoren responded, under the pen-name “Tao Ran.” “Why not use one’s real name? To this question there can be several plausible and noblesounding answers, but to me a frank answer is that [doing so] can save a lot of troubles.” He then began his satirical prose: “You all know that China is a country where everything is upside down: ‘writing from right to left, and meal ends with drinking soup;’ and old people engaging in dating and love and young people maintaining moral propriety (lijiao). If we are not careful in speaking, we can easily throw people of a younger generation into rage, either being dismissed as ‘muddled egg’ (hundan), which would be fortunate, or being accused of being partial and radical (pianji). Mr. Hao Ran of my generation was already found to be Japanese,[74] [. . .] and I will perhaps become Indian soon, because I do not support the idea that Tagore, ‘a slave who lost his country’ (wangguonu), should be expelled [from China].”[75] Another reason for using pen-names was that “although the Chinese like to tell jokes (of course jokes of the-old-woman-of-Sanhe-county type), they are totally incapable of understanding humor (youmo) or irony (ailunni).”[76] As Zhou’s comment illustrates, using pen-names was necessary precisely because criticisms and debates in print media and among educated Chinese were not civil and because humor and irony were confused with sarcasm and abusive language in public discourse. All this was true of the Fukan, and Sun’s editorial policy was adopted under these cultural conditions. From 1920 to 1924 Sun Fuyuan as the Fukan editor grew increasingly confident or assertive and, to a degree, arrogant. In this context, his quitting the editorship in October 1924 was perfectly consistent with his character and temperament at that point. What prompted Sun to resign in protest was almost trivial: Without Sun’s knowledge, Liu Mianji, the acting editor-in-chief of the Chenbao, withdrew a poem by Lu Xun that Sun had already arranged to appear on a particular day.[77] Suppressing Lu Xun’s poem would be a big deal for Sun, because of the close personal relationship between Sun and Lu as fellow natives of Shaoxing, as former student and teacher, and as editor and writer at that time.[78] It was rumored that Liu wanted Sun to quit and schemed to set him off by axing Lu Xun’s poem. In any case, that is how Liu replaced Sun as the Fukan editor in October 1924. The Fukan edited by Liu did not immediately change its look and content, until April 1, 1925, when the layout of the Fukan changed, and two tri-monthlies were added—the “Forest of Art” (Yilin xunkan) and the “New Youth” (Xin shaonian xunkan). A more pronounced difference in format and content would occur in October 1925 when Xu Zhimo became the editor.

“MY TRUMPET”: XU ZHIMO AND THE FUKAN Xu Zhimo was recruited by Chen Bosheng, the editor-in-chief, and Huang Zimei, the general manager, of the Chenbao. Upon assuming the post, Xu told readers how he would edit the supplement. He would do his best but could not guarantee the results;

he would not cater to the psychology of the masses or the authority in print media or the stupidity and shallowness in society; and he would only say what he wanted to say and would not say anything he did not want to say. Xu spoke of what he believed ought to be the function of newspapers as follows: Newspapers by design came with the principle of the common people (pingmin zhuyi) and industrial-commercial civilization (gongshang wenmin). The biggest characteristic of modern times is the mental laziness of the ordinary people. The ultimate success of an educator is to make an individual to think for himself, but who among the ordinary people wants to think, as they would rather take a nap in a bathhouse than use their brain? On the other hand, the sole purpose of a thinking person is to excite the ordinary people into mental activity; he makes you feel unpleasant and uncomfortable, forces you to open your eyes to see, and press you to concentrate to think; he does not give you ready-made ideas like government orders, or say ambiguous and slippery words like daily newspaper editorials, or tell you where there is a fight and where houses are on fire like all the news; [. . .] When such a person runs a newspaper, it would have eighty to ninety percent of chance to fail as a business. Perhaps the cause of ideas is meant to be the privilege and the mission of a minority; and newspapers are meant for the ordinary people and cannot be a neighbor of ideas.”[79] Notably, Xu regarded the supplement that he would edit as having separate and special functions from the news stories and editorials in the newspaper itself. His elitist view about the enlightening mission of the newspaper supplement set the tone of his editorial policy, and he was aware of the possibility that his policy be at odds with the commercial side of the newspaper. While defending himself in advance for a possible failure of the Fukan in his hands, Xu boasted the support from many intellectuals, who had promised him to write for the supplement. It is useful here to list those contributors, as many of them will appear in the following chapters. Xu highlighted the erudition and writing skills of Liang Qichao, Zhao Yuanren, Zhang Xiruo, and promising young scholars Jin Longsun, Fu Sinian, and Luo Jialun. In terms of disciplinary expertise, Xu mentioned Yao Mangfu and Yu Yueyuan for Chinese visual art; Liu Haisu, Qian Daosun, Deng Yizhe for Western visual art; Yu Shangyuan and Zhao Taimo for theater; Wen Yiduo for literature; Weng Wenhao and Ren Hongjuan for sciences; Xiao Youmei and Zhao Yuanren for Western music; and Li Jizhi for Chinese music. In terms of geographic locations of the committed contributors, Xu named Guo Moruo, Wu Desheng (Wu Jingxiong), and Zhang Dongsun in Shanghai; Yu Dafu and Yang Jinfu in Wuhan; Chen Zheheng, Ding Xilin, Chen Xiying, Hu Shi, Zhang Xinhai, Tao Menghe, Jiang Shaoyuan, Shen Xingren, Ling Shuhua, Shen Congwen, Jiao Juyin, Yu Chengze, and others in Beijing. “These are the people I personally know, and we certainly very much hope to receive fine contributions from outside at any time; otherwise we would not be able to easily sustain [the Fukan], despite the long list of names above.”[80] Conspicuously, Lu

Xun and Zhou Zuoren were absent on the list—indeed they did not write for the Fukan anymore.[81] On October 2, 1925, Zhang Xiruo (1889–1973), a professor of politics at Qinghua University with a master’s degree from Columbia University, expressed in the Fukan his disapproval of all newspaper supplements as worthless, so as to highlight the difficult task that Xu Zhimo was undertaking. Zhang hated supplements because students would use them as textbooks and encyclopedia and at the same time write to publish in them, but newspaper supplements ought to aim at general readers, not serve students only (his complaint testified to the appeal of the Fukan and the like to college students). Zhang proposed that instead of being conventional supplements, the Fukan might publish special pages once or twice a week in various academic disciplines such as economy, literature, and diplomacy, each edited by a well-known scholar in the field.[82] Logically, Zhang’s criticism of newspaper supplements would apply to the Fukan under previous editors. What he proposed (weekly special topic issues) was something already agreed upon between Xu Zhimo and Chen Bosheng when Chen persuaded Xu to be the editor, because Xu did not want to worry about obtaining materials to publish on a daily basis.[83] Under the agreement, Xu was responsible for the regular Fukan that would appear on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday. In other words, one prominent change in the Fukan was the appearance of special topic pages on other days of a week. Starting in October 1925, the special pages of “International” was featured on Fridays; the “Society” on Tuesdays; and the “Family” on Sundays (the “Society” and the “International” would cease in June 1927). In addition, the “Poetry” was featured weekly from April 1–June 10, 1926, followed by the “Theater” from June 17–September 23, 1926.[84] In the meantime, poems and spoken drama scripts continued to appear in the regular Fukan pages. Along with the specials, another change was in the look of the Fukan. The portrait layout of the publication became a landscape layout. The heading of each issue of various specials and the regular Fukan was decorated with a drawing or a photo: The regular Fukan was fashioned with a drawing of a skeleton-like person standing on a rock and shouting; the “International,” a photo of the Statue of Liberty; the “Family,” a photo of a Caucasian child; and the “Society,” a drawing of a woman bound with ropes. As using drawings and other artistic images on the cover and as illustrations was a prevalent practice for most literary journals at that time, the Fukan’s adoption of such images signaled that it belonged to the ranks of those literary journals and was in dialogue with them.[85] A third change was that, as Xu Zhimo and Zhang Xiruo had suggested, contributors were largely limited to experts in their fields, mostly professors or wellknown writers. Amateurish writings from college students and others that were often seen in the Fukan edited by Sun Fuyuan were gone. Xu Zhimo himself wrote many pieces in the Fukan, more than Sun Fuyuan ever did. At the same time the topics in the Fukan became narrower and the style more pedantic than before. Thus the

Fukan exhibited a distinctive flavor of Xu Zhimo’s personal taste and style, which he openly admitted. “Thanks to the tolerance and trust of the Chenbao owner,” quipped Xu, “the Fukan became my trumpet; with its mouthpiece I can play my bizarre and inharmonious tune; and it serves as a mirror in which is shown my bizarre and incoherent shape. I will never cover my original shape: me is me.”[86] In the same article quoted above, which was written four months after the arson of the Chenbao office, Xu Zhimo also revealed the following: “When I initially came to edit the Fukan, I had a wish. I wanted to give myself entirely to my readers who could accommodate me. Frankly, the readers I had in mind were the young people of this generation. I felt that only the heart of young people had the room to accommodate me, and I wanted to lean on their [bodies of] warm blood and listen to their pulse. I wanted to discover in my feelings their feelings, and to reflect their thoughts in my own thoughts.” Ironically, this was not what some young people perceived, and hence the arson. The attack on the Chenbao office transpired within two months of Xu Zhimo becoming the Fukan editor. At least partly, the event was a reaction to Xu’s editorial policy in the supplement, and partly to the editorials in the Chenbao. What was in the Fukan that could fire up people to try to burn down its editorial office? Xu Zhimo’s “offense” was that right after he took over the Fukan, he launched a debate on Soviet Russia and did so with a perceived slanted position in favor of criticizing the newly founded Soviet Union, a country that some radical students looked upon as a model for China’s rejuvenation. The background of the debate was that in the 1920s news reports and editorials in Chinese print media including the Chenbao would refer to the Soviet Union’s policy toward China as “red militarism” or “red imperialism,” especially with regard to the Russo-Chinese dispute over the Chinese Eastern Railway.[87] On October 6, 1925, the Fukan weekly special “Society” carried an article by Chen Qixiu (1886–1960), a professor of politics at Beida, “Does Imperialism Have a Difference between Red and White?” His point was that calling the Soviet Union red imperialism was erroneous because imperialism was based on highly developed capitalism but Soviet Russia had destroyed capitalism and was promoting communism in the world. He held that the real enemy of China was imperialism (Western Powers); and even if Soviet Russia was not China’s friend, the Chinese should not miss the real enemy by targeting Russia as enemy.[88] Chen’s article invited a swift response two days later from Zhang Xiruo. Zhang argued that Chen’s logic did not stand because China might have more than one enemy. He considered Soviet Russia a worse enemy than Western imperialism because the Russians tried to “buy our conscience,” “corrupt our souls,” “fool our young people and scholars,” and “occupied our Outer Mongolia,” and were acting as “our military officers and diplomats in Guangdong.”[89] Zhang also attacked the editorial policy of the Fukan. A newspaper should have a consistent opinion on issues important to society; if it says one thing today and another tomorrow, then it becomes a child’s play. It is

known to all that recently the Chenbao was opposed to communism and Soviet Russia. Today, a time when people dare not express their view on this important issue, you [Chenbao] are courageous to openly come out and oppose [Soviet Russia and communism]. Whatever your reason is (perhaps to oppose your old opponent Guomindang), the position of not being lured by [Russian currency] Rube and not being overwhelmed by popular views is already admirable. But I advise that on this issue you should pay attention not only to the news pages but also the commentaries in the supplement, not let enemy’s propaganda sneak in. Frankly, if you had not published Mr. Chen’s article whitewashing Soviet Russia, I would have not needed to rebuke you now. At the same time, I do not blame Mr. Chen for bullying you. Bernard Shaw said “fighting war by fighting in the enemy’s camp.” Mr. Chen has learned the essence of that saying.”[90] Zhang made several points here. 1) He believed a newspaper should take a consistent political position and exclude opposite views. 2) He thought the Chenbao was taking a position of anti-communism and anti-Soviet Russia, against the popular trend, because it was anti-GMD. 3) He labeled Chen Qixiu an agent of Soviet Russia, the worse enemy of China than imperialism, working inside the anti-Soviet camp—the Chenbao. Ironically, such rigid views, and the logic and mentality behind them, were exactly those of young radicals at the time, both nationalist and communist varieties, which would lead to the arson of the Chenbao office. In other words, Zhang was advocating what would be practiced by radical GMD followers whom he was criticizing. Liu Mianji, the editor of the “Society” then, responded to Zhang Xiruo and defended his decision to publish Chen’s article. He personally did not agree with communism and especially red communism (by which he meant Bolshevism), but he felt Chen’s article met the criteria for being published in the “Society.” He stated that the unwritten constitution of the Fukan was to not conflate editorials in the Chenbao with commentaries in its supplement so that scholarship and politics were separate. The value of the Fukan was to have different views aired, which did not have to be consistent with the Chenbao editorials. Liu emphasized pointedly that this was not a child’s play; on the contrary, this was an extremely serious attitude to which journalists should adhere. “We must know that people who are journalists (most of whom, news reporters) should keep in mind the word ‘society.’ Listening to other people’s views is a principle, and [expressing] one’s own view is an exception. Especially, the Chenbao is a newspaper of the society, not a party paper, nor a business paper; it need not exclude all the words and speeches it disagrees with as a party paper does. [. . .] When there are various issues, we a few people in the editorial office dare not monopolize societal opinions; especially on issues concerning actual [political] systems and ideologies, we study and criticize them with a dispassionate and open mind.” He also argued from another angle: The Chenbao editorials used a catch phrase “red imperialism” as a tactic to reach common readers to serve a strategic purpose that was political in nature (i.e., defending China’s

national interest as the editor-in-chief saw it), but the supplement had room for scholarly debates and should allow discussions on whether a phrase such as “red imperialism” was accurate.[91] Liu’s response must be considered a well-articulated defense of freedom of speech and professional journalism. Xu Zhimo appended his own comment to Liu’s article. He said the issue about Russia and China, communism and China, and communist party in China had become a pustule on the body of Chinese society that needed to be cut open in a public debate by a few people of independent thinking with a sharp knife of reason. While expressing his commitment to freedom of speech, he cautioned that Liu’s view on scholarly debate might let disguised propaganda sneak into the door of scholarly debate (Xu said he did not mean Chen’s article was such). Responding to Zhang Xiruo’s complaint about the Chenbao’s inconsistency between its editorials and its supplement, Xu said that he agreed to edit the Fukan because he was promised his independence in running it, not to be limited by what was in the Chenbao’s main pages. His sole standard in publishing materials was truthfulness of ideas.[92] He stated his position of impartiality and independence repeatedly during the debate.[93] What was Xu Zhimo’s personal view on communism and Soviet Russia? Did his view affect his editing? In January 1926, after the debate was put to an end by the arson of the Chenbao office, Xu had an occasion to reveal his view on these issues. Chen Yi (1901–1972), a communist who would become the first foreign minister of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, wrote to Xu Zhimo to commemorate the birthday of the Russian Communist leader Lenin (January 21), and explain how, guided by Leninism, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was leading the nationalist revolution in China.[94] Xu quoted Chen’s short message and gave a long response in the Fukan. He took exception to Marxism and did not think class struggle theory would explain Chinese society. He faulted the CCP for following a foreigner (Lenin) and a foreign ideology (Marxism-Leninism) to launch a revolution. He made an unequivocal statement of his belief: “I am an incurable individualist. This is not profound. This is to say I only know individuals, only recognize individuals, and only believe individuals. I believe that the meaning of democracy is universal individualism; the true and pure spirit of democracy lies in each individual’s self-conscious mind and self-conscious efforts.”[95] In view of the above, in contrast to Zhang Xiruo, both Xu Zhimo and Liu Mianji tried to adhere, at least in their conscious mind, to the principle that the Fukan was an open and independent forum for diverse views, even though they both were opposed to Soviet Russia and communism. This was also the impression Chen Qixiu had. In responding to Zhang Xiruo’s article on October 8, Chen said that the Chenbao was a newspaper of the society precisely because the editors had tough bones, not afraid of authority and pressure, and allowed articles of dispassionate discussions to be published.[96] Liu Mianji noted in Chen’s very article, however, that he had deleted several sentences, presumably involving sharp words against Zhang. Within two months, the Fukan and its special “Society” published no fewer than

fifty pieces on the issue under debate. The debate was animated, with more heat than light, but pertinent views presented went little beyond what had been expressed in the initial articles by Chen Qixiu and Zhang Xiruo. An important fact is that despite Xu Zhimo’s claim to be impartial, an overwhelming majority of articles published during the debate was on the side of Zhang Xiruo that Soviet Russia was an enemy of China, whether it was called imperialism or red imperialism or something else and that communism was not suited to China. It is the perceived slanted position of the Fukan, along with the Chenbao editorials, against Soviet Russia and therefore against the GMD policy adopted by Sun Yat-sen to cooperate with Soviet Russia that caused the attack on the Chenbao office.[97] On November 28–29, 1925, when the special international conference on China’s tariff autonomy was being held in Beijing, the GMD Beijing Executive Committee organized rallies and demonstrations against imperialism, attended by college students and others, with Zhu Jiahua (1893–1963), a professor of geology at Beida, presiding over the event. On each day direct actions followed the rallies and demonstrations. On November 28, the home of Zhang Shizhao (1881–1973), Minister of Education, was stormed and set to fire. On the following day, the same befell the Chenbao office.[98] This dramatic turn of event indicated a shift in the political ecology, with the radicalization of the GMD left (and the CCP) riding the upsurge of Chinese nationalism in the wake of the May 30th movement of 1925. The changing political environment did not move Xu Zhimo, however. Upon the Fukan’s resumption of publication, Xu wrote: “The fire destroyed the house made of wood, but cannot burn down invisible belief in my mind; although my life experience is not very deep, the superficial events of human affairs do not scare me easily. [. . .] From now on this supplement will continue to use the previous standard to select articles to publish—independence and truthfulness of ideas, not to cater to [any one] as before, nor curry favor as before, nor to be fashionable as before.”[99] Indeed the Fukan did not change its intellectual-ideological bent or its aesthetic orientation in the following years, and it continued to host or to participate in various debates in print media. Even after Xu Zhimo departed from the editorship for personal reasons in October 1926, his successor at the Fukan, Qu Shiying (1901–1971), largely carried on the same editorial policy for another twenty months. As shown above, the Chenbao Fukan exhibited varying intellectual orientations and aesthetic flavors in the hands of its major editors Li Dazhao, Sun Fuyuan, and Xu Zhimo. The three men shared what may be called the May Fourth spirit, in that they all believed in the necessity of a fundamental change in China’s culture, society, and politics, but their views differed on the way the change should happen and the role a newspaper supplement should play in the process. Li Dazhao placed an emphasis on exploring and sharing various theories and ideologies to find solutions for changing the bleak political landscape in China, which he was also doing in other print outlets, and hence his interest in publishing studies of

democracy, WWI, socialism as well as Karl Marx and Russian revolutions. With an understanding of the functions and purpose of a newspaper supplement, however, he did not attempt to turn the Fukan into an exclusively political publication. He maintained a proper balance between political topics and leisurely readings. In contrast, Sun Fuyuan was more interested in the educational and entertaining functions of the supplement as he defined them, and regarded such functions as part of changing Chinese culture and society. The abundance in the Fukan edited by Sun of translated works on sciences, social sciences, and literature indicated his personal taste and intellectual orientation. Also noteworthy was that during his period spoken drama scripts and travelogues were among the most published genres, besides articles on sciences and social sciences. Of the three editors, Sun was most conscious of the business side of a newspaper and its supplement and strived to appeal to readers with entertaining materials while pursuing an enlightenment mission by providing knowledge. His interactions with readers/contributors added to the accessibility of the Fukan for average readers as well as well-known writers. Finally, Xu Zhimo spoke of an educator’s mission to make the ordinary people think, which implied a social agenda. Yet, he edited the Fukan as he pleased—using it as his personal trumpet to play his favorite tunes. He did not offer or favor any particular theories and ideologies for solving China’s problems, beyond professing his own belief in individualism that he had embraced during his years of overseas study. His appreciation of British bourgeois writers, and his longing to become someone like them, shaped much of his aesthetics, literary style, and personality, which were recognizable in the Fukan he edited, as in his other works.[100] He was aware that his elitist approach—a reflection of his aesthetics, literary style, and personality—might not advance the Chenbao as a business, but he did not care and was ready to quit anytime. He refused to bend in the direction of any particular political wind. In terms of editor-contributor-reader interactions in the making of a discursive site or a public sphere, the different approaches of the editors meant varied degrees of such interactions and public participation in the Fukan. A comparison can be made between the Sun Fuyuan period and the Xu Zhimo period (with the Li Dazhao period in between), the latter being more elitist and allowing less input from unknown contributors and fewer voices from readers to be present in the Fukan. One important note, however, is that the Chenbao and its supplement was just one of many newspapers and publications in the 1920s, so that writers and readers always had choices to interact with one or more publications other than the Fukan, and writers could and did start their own publications—that is why Xu Zhimo was keenly aware that his editorial approach might hurt the Chenbao as a business. In short, Li Dazhao, Sun Fuyuan, and Xu Zhimo as the Fukan editors represented several overlapping shades of the intellectual spectrum among educated Chinese in the early twentieth century, and the changing editorial policies of the Fukan reflected, and contributed to, the multiplicity of meanings in the Fukan’s texts and their socialcultural contexts, suggesting different possibilities of Chinese intellectual and literary developments at the time. While it is tempting to explain the trajectory of the Fukan’s

editorial policies and the editor-contributor-reader interactions by placing it in the context of political history of the period, the point of this chapter is precisely to emphasize the roles of the Fukan editors as independent individuals and the character of the Fukan as a public organ of free speech as the editors defined it, in spite of as well as because of the political developments in the country. As concerned citizens they did respond to the general conditions in which China was situated, but as editors they did not embrace or endorse a particular ideology or a course of action advocated by one or another political force in the country. This approach to reading the Fukan and other print media at that time helps us see that the intellectual life in the New Culture era was much richer and more diverse, with idiosyncratic flavors and moments defying easy categorization, than an approach framed by the conventional political history would allow. It is also in this light that one detects the prominence of an intellectual-moral paradox, a tension between cosmopolitanism and nationalism, and between them and individualism, in constant negotiations between Chinese tradition and Western culture, as further detailed in the following chapters.

NOTES 1. CF, 1925/12/7; the journal of the CCP and Left-wing GMD, Zhengzhi Shenghuo (the Political Life Weekly), defended the arson as the unnecessary but excusable result of a mass movement partly sabotaged by hooligans and scabs (see Zhengzhi Shenghuo, No. 60 (Dec.10, 1925):3–5). And Hu Shi and Chen Duxiu became estranged because in their correspondences about the event the latter sharply defended the arson (see Shao Jian, “‘Chenbao’ Zonghuo An (the Chenbao arson case),” Shuibi (Random notes), Jan. 2007:55–65). 2. For the commercial nature and cultural functions of Chinese newspapers in the early twentieth century see Bryna Goodman, “The New Woman Commits Suicide: The Press, Cultural Memory, and the New Republic,” Journal of Asian Studies 64, no.1 (2005): 67–101; Bryna Goodman, “Appealing to the Public: Newspaper Presentation and Adjudication of Emotion,” Twentieth-Century China 31, no. 2 (2006): 32–69; Weston, Timothy. “Minding the Newspaper Business: The Theory and Practice of Journalism in 1920s China,” Twentieth Century China, 31, 2 (2006):1–31; Haiyan Lee, “‘A Dime Store of Words’: Liberty Magazine and the Cultural Logic of the Popular Press,” Twentieth-Century China, 33, 1 (Nov. 2007):53–80; Weipin Tsai, Reading Shenbao: Nationalism, Consumerism and Individuality in China, 1919– 1937 (Palgrave, 2010). 3. Michel Hockx, Questions of Style: Literary Societies and Literary Journals in Modern China, 1911–1937 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2003). 4. The Study Clique was a loosely connected political group that originated in the Progressive Party in 1912. After the dissolution by Yuan Shikai of the parliament in 1913, it was opposed to Yuan’s monarchical ambition in 1916 and was also opposed to what it regarded as “radicalism” of the Guomindang. Liang Qichao and Tang Hualong were considered the main leaders of the group.

5. Baokan Cidian, p. 82; Fang Hanqi, Zhongguo Jindai Baokan Shi (A history of Chinese modern newspapers and journals) (Shanxi jiaoyu chubanshe, 1981), pp. 757–578; Xu Songrong, Weixinpai Yu Jindai Baokan (The reformers and modern newspapers and journals) (Shanxi guji chubanshe, 1998), pp. 355–356. In October 1921 Ding Wenjiang (Ding Zaijun) told Hu Shi that the Chenbao was subsidized by the Transportation Clique (headed by Cao Rulin and Lu Zongyu), and Hu thought the information was probably true. See Hu Shi Riji Quanbian (A complete collection of Hu Shi’s diary), Vol. 3, p. 264. 6. Chenzhong, 1917/8/17, p. 7. 7. The other three were the Jingbao Fukan, also published in Beijing, and the Juewu (Awakening) of the Minguo Ribao and the Xuedeng (Lamp of Learning) of the Shishi Xinbao, both published in Shanghai. That the Fukan became increasingly influential can be seen in the increasing number of contributors. By April 1920 the Fukan editor had to issue a special notice that no contribution would be returned unless such a request was made by the contributor with his/her name, address, and postage included in the contribution. CB, 1920/4/17, p. 7; 4/30, p. 7. 8. The public functions of newspapers in society (facilitating communication between the ruler and the ruled and generating and reporting public opinion, among others) were recognized and promoted by early Chinese newspapers in the late nineteenth century. See Barbara Mittler, “Domesticating an Alien Medium: Incorporating the Western-style Newspaper into the Chinese Public Sphere,” in Rudolf G. Wagner, Joining the Global Public: World, Image, and City in Early Chinese Newspapers, 1870–1910. pp. 13–45. 9. Chenzhong, 1916/8/15, p. 3. 10. Xu, Chinese Professionals and the Republican State, ch. 6. 11. Fang Hanqi, Zhongguo Jindai Baokan Shi, pp. 757–578; Xu Songrong, Weixinpai Yu Jindai Baokan, pp. 357–358; Xu Taofu, Baozhi Fukan Yu Zhonguo Zhishi Fenzi De Xiandai Zhuanxing (Newspaper supplements and the modern transformation of Chinese intellectuals) (Guilin: Guangxi shifan daxue chubanshe, 2007), p. 33; Maurice Meisner, Li Ta-chao and the Origins of Chinese Communism (Harvard University Press, 1967), p. 30, 33. 12. Fang Hanqi, Zhongguo Jindai Baokan Shi, p. 748. 13. Minguo Renwu Dacidian, p. 1304. 14. Minguo Renwu Dacidian, p. 1051. 15. For the case of Shibao, for example, see Joan Judge, Print and Politics: “Shibao” and the Culture of Reform in Late Qing China (Stanford University Press, 1996); another example is the French/Catholic church-financed Chinese newspaper founded in 1902 by Ying Lianzhi (see Zhou Yu, Dagongbao Shi (A history of L’Impartial), and Hou Jie, Dagongbao Yu Jindai Zhongguo Shehui (L’Impartial and modern Chinese society), ch. 2). 16. Chenbao (CB hereafter), 1918/12/1, p. 7. 17. CB, 1919/2/7, p. 7; 2/8, p. 7; 2/9, p. 7. 18. Arif Dirlik, The Origins of Chinese Communism (Oxford University Press, 1989),

pp. 23–26, 43–52. 19. CB, 1919/2/7, p. 7. 20. In the first several issues of the Xin Qingnian, Chen Duxiu, the editor, wrote in classical Chinese on topics about the necessity to break with the Confucian tradition, and this would change by late 1919 and early 1920. 21. Zhou Zuoren, Zhitang Huixianglu, pp. 426–427. 22. Robert Culp, “Teaching Baihua: Textbook Publishing and the Production of Vernacular Language and a New Literacy Canon in Early Twentieth-Century China,” Twentieth-Century China, 34, 1(Nov. 2008):4–41. 23. CB, 1919/2/18, p. 7. 24. CB, 1919/6/18–20, p. 7. 25. CB, 1919/5/11, p. 7; 5/12. p.7; Xin Qingnian, Vol.4, No.5 (1918/5/15):414–424. 26. CB, 1919/4/1, p. 7. 27. CB, 1919/5/5, p. 2, 7. 28. CB, 1919/5/5, p. 7. 29. CB, 1919/5/7, pp. 6–7. 30. See, for example, CB, 1919/5/28, p. 7. 31. CB, 1919/6/10–17, p. 7. 32. CB, 1920/3/6–5/6, p. 7. Liang’s reflections from his tour of Europe during 1918– 1919 constituted an important turning point in his thinking about history and China’s fate in the modern world. Since much has been written on this point, readers are referred to, e.g., Jerome B. Grieder, Hu Shih and the Chinese Renaissance (1970), 131–135; Xiaobing Tang, Global Space and the Nationalist Discourse of Modernity (1996), 174–188; Merle Goldman and Leo Ou-fan Lee, An Intellectual History of China (2002), 53–62; Edmund Fung, The Intellectual Foundations of Chinese Modernity (2010), 66–67. 33. Liang Qichao left Marseille on January 23, 1920, and arrived in Shanghai on March 5, 1920 (see Ding and Zhao, Liang Qichao Nianpu Changbian, p. 898) and the first installment of “Reflections” appeared in the Chenbao on March 6, 1920. 34. Chenbao Fukan (CF hereafter), 1921/12/31. 35. CF, 1922/12/1. 36. CF, 1922/11/11. 37. I share the view well articulated by Michel Hockx that the New Literature canon did not represent all that was literature in the 1910s-1930s and the literary scene was much richer and more diverse than the canon and was pregnant with many possibilities, which the conventional paradigm would exclude from the history of modern Chinese literature. See Michel Hockx, Questions of Style. To differentiate from the canonized New Literature, I use “new literature” in lower case. 38. CF, 1921/12/4; 12/11. 39. The slow realization by Sun of the literary and intellectual value of “The True Story of Ah Q” would add to what Eva Shan Chou has argued—Lu Xun’s stature as the preeminent writer was not established until five years after the publication of “Diary of a Madman” in 1918 and two years after that of “The True Story of Ah Q,” due to a

delayed digestion and appreciation by readers of his innovative style of writing. See Eva Shan Chou, “Learning to Read Lu Xun, 1918–1923: The Emergence of a Readership,” China Quarterly, No.172 (Dec. 2002):1042–1064. 40. CF, 1922/1/8. On the days when “Ah Q” did not appear, the continuing sections of Bing Xin’s poem were placed under the column heading “Poetry,” and on the days when “Ah Q” appeared (once a week), such as on January 8 and 15, they were under “Literature and Art” after “Ah Q.” 41. For more on the Society for Literature Study and the tri-monthly, see Michel Hockx, Questions of Style, pp. 60–67. 42. “Wenxue Xunkan,” 1923/6/1. 43. The word “tongshu” was difficult for Sun to define because it could mean “accessible” or “low-brow” or both. I translated the word as “accessible” here because I believe that was Sun’s intention. As will be seen, when Wang Tongzhao used the same word, I translated it as “low-brow” because that was what Wang meant. 44. CF, 1922/4/9. 45. CF, 1922/12/6. 46. CF, 1922/8/18. 47. CF, 1923/9/6. 48. CF, 1923/4/10. 49. CF, 1923/7/10. 50. CF, 1923/7/22. 51. CF, 1923/7/18. 52. CF, 1923/7/13; 7/18. 53. CF, 1923/7/22. 54. CF, 1923/7/22. 55. CF, 1922/4/9. 56. CF, 1922/4/9. 57. For a background of Wu Yu’s fate in the May Fourth era, see Kristin Stapleton, “Generational and Cultural Fissures in the May Fourth Movement: Wu Yu (1872– 1949) and the Politics of Family Reform,” in Wing-Kai Chow, et al. eds., Beyond the May Fourth Paradigm (Lexington Books, 2008), pp. 131–148. 58. CF, 1924/4/12. 59. CF, 1924/4/29. 60. CF, 1924/5/2. 61. CF, 1924/5/10; 5/12; 5/20. 62. Kristin Stapleton, “Generational and Cultural Fissures in the May Fourth Movement,” p. 132. 63. CF, 1924/5/7. 64. CF, 1924/5/9. 65. Cheng Houzhi, “Huiyi Wozai Beida De Yiduan Xuesheng Shenghuo” (Reminiscence of my student life at Beijing University), Chen Pingyuan and Xia Xiaohong, eds., Beida Jiushi (Old stories of Beijing University) (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 1998), p. 258. The

other scandal was about Tan Xihong’s second marriage, which was described by some including Cheng as involving rape (see Chapter 6). 66. CF, 1924/5/12. 67. CF, 1924/5/12. 68. CF, 1924/5/15. 69. CF, 1924/5/15. 70. CF, 1924/5/16. 71. CF, 1924/5/30. 72. Michel Hockx, Questions of Style. 73. CF, 1924/5/23. 74. For the reference to Hao Ran, see the debate on boycotting Japanese goods in Chapter 6. 75. For the controversy surrounding Tagore’s visit to China in 1924, see Chapter 2. 76. CF, 1924/5/28. 77. Zhou Zuoren, Zhitang Huixianglu, p. 510; Zhao Xiaqiu, Xu Zhimo Zhuan (A biography of Xu Zhimo) (Zhongguo renmin daxue chubanshe, 1999), p. 181; Zhang Zhongliang, et al., Zhongguo Xinwenxue Tuzhi (A pictorial gazetteer of China’s new literature) (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1997), p. 150. 78. In 1923, for example, besides frequent correspondences, Sun and Lu met in person fifty-nine times—more than once a week on average. During January-early July 1924, they met thirty times, again on average more than once a week; from July 7 to August 12, 1924, they traveled together (with several other people) to Xi’an for Lu Xun to deliver paid lectures at Northwestern University, which was arranged by Sun (see Chapter 4). See Lu Xun Riji, pp. 381–437. On the friendship between Sun and Lu, also see Foster, p. 149; Fuiji, p. 278. 79. CF, 1925/10/1. 80. CF, 1925/10/1. 81. In December 1925 Zhou Zuoren wrote a private letter to Xu Zhimo to correct a translated piece in the Fukan, and Xu published it along with his own response to thank Zhou’s care for the Fukan. He added that he sincerely hoped Zhou Zuoren and others who previously contributed frequently to the Fukan not to break with it because of its temporary shortcomings (CF, 1925/12/21). In a separate letter to Zhou Zuoren dated January 31, 1926, Xu noted that Lu Xun made satiric comments on him and he did not know, and wished to know, why Lu Xun did not like him, so that he could make amends. He hoped Zhou would pass this message to Lu Xun (Yu Kunlin, ed., Zhimo De Xin (Letters of [Xu] Zhimo), p. 243–244). Zhou Zuoren and Lu Xun had broken up for private reasons in mid-1924 and never spoke to one another thereafter. It would be a surprise that Xu did not know about the breakup by early 1926. 82. CF, 1925/10/2. 83. CF, 1925/10/1. 84. For some background information on the launching of the “Poetry” and “Theater,” see Lawrence Wang-chi Wong, “Lions and Tigers in Groups: The Crescent Moon School in Modern Chinese Literary History,” in Kirk Denton and Michel Hockx, eds.,

Literary Societies of Republican China, pp. 283–289. 85. For a study of the use of art in literary journals, newspaper supplements, and books in the first half of the twentieth century, see Yang Yi, et al., Zhongguo Xinwenxue Tuzhi (A pictorial gazetteer of China’s new literature) (Beijing: renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1997). 86. CF, 1926/4/7. 87. See, e.g., “Soviet Union under Red Militarism,” Chenbao, 1925/8/31, p. 4. For the issue of the Chinese Eastern Railway, see Bruce Elleman, “The Soviet Union’s Secret Diplomacy Concerning the Chinese Eastern Railway, 1924–1925,” Journal of Asian Studies, 53, 2 (May 1994):459–486. The term “red imperialism” was not new. As early as 1923 it was used to discredit the Soviet government in Russia. One contributor to the Fukan wrote an article to refute the view then and the argument was similar to Chen Qixiu’s in 1925 discussed below (see CF, 1923/11/9). 88. CF, “Shehui,”1925/10/6. 89. CF, 1925/10/8. 90. CF, 1925/10/8. 91. CF, 1925/10/10. 92. CF, 1925/10/10. 93. CF, 1925/10/22. 94. During 1923–1926 Chen Yi was studying at Sino-French University in Beijing; and he had joined the CCP in 1923. See Minguo Renwu Dacidian, p. 1004; Liu Shufa, Chen Yi Nianpu (Biogrpahic chronicle of Chen Yi) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1995), p. 63–73. 95. CF, 1926/1/21. Chen Yi made a long response to Xu in the Jingbao Fukan (the supplement to the Capital News). In the statement of his political position, Chen called Xu a bourgeois/petty bourgeois individualist who assumed an attitude of teacher to lecture Chen Yi whom Xu did not even personally know (Yu Kunlin, ed., Zhimo De Xin, pp. 193–196). 96. CF, “Shehui,” 1925/10/13. 97. Sun Yat-sen, the founding leader of the Guomindang, had died in March 1925, but his policy of cooperating with Soviet Russia and the Chinese Communist Party was not immediately changed by his successors. For an interpretation of the GMD policies during the nationalist revolution in the 1920s as alternate strategies of “state-building” and “agitation,” see Murdock, 2006. The attack on the Chenbao office would fit into the agitation side of the nationalist movement at the time. 98. Shao Jian, “Chenbao Zonghuo An.” 99. CF, 1925/12/1. 100. For Xu Zhimo’s admiration for Bertrand Russell, see Chapter 2. For more on his affection for Russell and other British writers and the latter’s influences on him, see biographies of Xu Zhimo, such as Zhao Xiaqiu, Xu Zhimo Zhuan; Fang Hui, Xu Zhimo (Shijiazhuang: Hebei jiaoyu chubanshe, 2003); and also Yu Kunlin, ed., Zhimo De Xin.

Chapter 2

Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism, and Colonial Hierarchy Chinese Responses to Russell, Eroshenko, and Tagore To those who intended to revive Chinese cultural tradition, defending the nation and preserving the cultural tradition were the one and same, even though what constituted the tradition or national essence was not without dispute.[1] To the New Culture practitioners, things were even more complicated, and they were by no means of one mind. Single-minded nationalists they were not. As cosmopolitanism emerged out of the traditional notion of a China-centered “great union all under heaven” and came to rest on the sense of China being one of many nations participating in the modern world, it “hinted at a discomfort with nationalism as an end in itself.”[2] Educated Chinese had a wide intellectual interest in foreign works as well as a political desire to find solutions from foreign sources to China’s problems. Underlying Fukan’s editorial orientation and published contents, therefore, was an intellectual-moral paradox—a tension between cosmopolitanism as a cultural longing and nationalism as a political imperative, which manifested itself in a deep ambivalence toward Chinese culture and toward different imported ideologies and Western culture in general. This chapter examines the Fukan’s coverage of three foreigners’ visits to China and Chinese responses to them to illustrate the said paradox. The visitors were British philosopher Bertrand Russell, Russian Esperanto teacher Vasilij Eroshenko, and Indian writer Rabindranath Tagore. They shared a common ground as pacifists, among other things, but they represented different ideologies or intellectual orientations and came from different social status and physical loci in the global hierarchy of colonial order. Their visits in the early 1920s elicited intellectual excitement of different kinds among educated Chinese. What appeared in the Fukan and beyond shows Chinese interactions with foreigners and foreign ideas, revealing the tension between cosmopolitanism and nationalism among educated Chinese. In the meantime, various Chinese groups were keenly aware of, if not always fully articulating, the implications of cultural capital to be gained or lost in their associations or disassociations with these visitors, which influenced the ways they participated in the debates surrounding those visits.

RUSSELL’S PERCEPTION OF CHINESE CULTURE Invited by the Lecture Association in Beijing led by Liang Qichao and Cai Yuanpei, Bertrand Russell visited China in October 1920–July 1921. The invitation for Russell to visit, after John Dewey, seemed natural enough to educated Chinese, since his

reputation as a philosopher and social reformer had long preceded his visit— publications by and about Russell had appeared in Chinese translations.[3] The New Youth edited by Chen Duxiu, for example, began to introduce Russell’s “Principles of Social Reconstruction” in March and April 1920, at the same time Dewey’s lectures in China were translated and published in the journal.[4] Indeed, Xu Zhimo, for one, was so moved by Russell’s works, when he was studying economics at Columbia University, that he abandoned his Ph.D. program and left in September 1920 for England to be a student of the man he called “Voltaire of the twentieth century.”[5] When Xu reached England in mid-October 1920, however, Russell had left for China, after having been fired by Trinity College.[6] Russell’s arrival in Shanghai on October 11, 1920, set off a “Russell craze” among educated Chinese. The New Youth devoted much space in two consecutive issues to introductions and discussions of Russell’s ideas in October and November 1920, and commentaries on Russell continued in subsequent issues.[7] Accompanied by Zhao Yuanren and Fu Tong, two Beida professors who served as interpreters, Russell traveled from Shanghai to Hangzhou, Nanjing, Changsha, and Beijing. He gave eighteen lectures on five topics—“The Problem of Philosophy,” “The Analysis of Mind,” “The Analysis of Matter,” “On Social Structure,” and “Mathematical Logic”— and would have given more if he had not been incapacitated by a serious illness in March-July 1921. During his stay in China, Beida students formed a “Russell Study Society” and published a “Russell Monthly.” Russell’s five lectures “On Social Structure” were translated and published as a book by the Chenbao office in April 1922, available for mail order.[8] Russell was “hot” in China partly because Chinese followers of various Western theories and ideologies hoped Russell would lend support to their respective causes. In the end, however, Russell hardly satisfied any of them due to a combination of circumstances, but mainly the misplaced Chinese expectations.[9] After Russell departed from China in July 1921, he continued to write about China, and Chinese intellectuals continued to translate his writings. In December 1921 Russell published “Some Traits in the Chinese Character” in the Atlantic Monthly, and Hu Yuzhi (1896–1986), a journalist and Esperanto enthusiast, translated and published it in the January 1922 issue of the Dongfang Zazhi (Eastern Miscellany).[10] Most of Russell’s points were repeated in his other writings on China discussed below, but one point is worth highlighting here. In Russell’s view, “[The Chinese] think, not in decades, but in centuries. They have been conquered before, first by the Tartars and then by the Manchus. But in both cases they absorbed their conquerors. Chinese civilization persisted, unchanged; and after a few generations the invaders became more Chinese than their subjects.” Russell further opined that “China is much less a political entity than a civilization—the only one that has survived from ancient times. Since the days of Confucius, the Egyptian, Babylonian, Persian, Macedonian, and Roman empires have perished; but China has persisted through a continuous evolution.”[11] What is striking here is that Liang Qichao said almost exactly the same

thing when he discussed Chinese national character to a British audience at the Oriental School of Language in London in 1919 (see Introduction). Liang considered Chinese national character in positive terms because to him, “[t]he first characteristic of the Chinese people” was “their adaptability.” His explanation of the term was essentially about the ability of Chinese civilization to evolve through ages. “In this respect I think the Chinese are unique, for though we are by no means the only people possessing an ancient civilization, we are the only people who still retain the essential features of that civilization. The modern Egyptians, Arabs or Greeks can hardly claim that they are the true heirs of their respective civilizations, and we do not regard, for example, the Italians as Romans, but there is no mistake about the Chinese.”[12] It is intriguing to ponder how the assimilation thesis about Chinese civilization was circulated among or bounced back and forth between Western savants such as Russell and Chinese intellectuals such as Liang Qichao and Hu Shi (Chapter 5). In any case, Russell was, for the most part, holding a positive view of China and Chinese culture. Also in December 1921 The Nation and the Athenaeum of London published in three consecutive issues Russell’s “Sketches of Modern China.”[13] In March 1922 a translation of the article appeared in the Fukan.[14] The article once again conveyed Russell’s favorable, and Orientalist, impression of China and the Chinese, which was reinforced by and in contrast to his disappointment with Western civilization that brought forth World War I. Under three headings, “The Feast and the Eclipse,” “Chinese Ethics,” and “Chinese Amusements,” Russell praised China for being a land largely uncontaminated by industrialism and the Chinese for being carefree, childlike. The Chinese are more fond of laughter than any other nation with which I am acquainted. Every little incident amuses them, and their talk is almost always humorous. They have neither the grim determination to succeed which characterizes the Anglo-Saxon, nor the tragic self-importance of the Slav. [. . .] The absence of self-feeling produces an absence of pomposity; Meredith’s Egoist would be impossible in China. The Chinese, of course, are selfish, like other people, but their selfishness is instinctive, as in children and animals, not clothed in fine phrases as ours is. I doubt whether psycho-analysis would find much material among them. There is in Chinese no word for “persecution;” I forgot to ask whether there was any word for “prig”, but I doubt it. Barring Confucius himself, I cannot think of any Chinaman, either in history or among my acquaintance, who could be described as a prig [italics added]. The result of all this is a liberation of the impulses to play and enjoyment which makes Chinese life unbelievably restful and delightful after the solemn cruelties of the West.[15] Not insignificantly, the Chinese translation that appeared in the Fukan omitted those words italicized in the above quote.[16] To be sure, the translation was very liberal to begin with, which was common at that time (Chapter 3). But dropping a phrase and three complete sentences could not have been anything but a deliberate

choice by the translator. A possible explanation for the decision is that the translator, pen-named “Chi Fu,” did not feel comfortable to translate those words to be read by educated Chinese. To say that the Chinese were like “children and animals” would not be flattering to Chinese readers, and to say that there were no such words as “prig” and “persecution” in Chinese language would not be accurate. For Russell, though intending to praise, even Chinese selfishness was less sophisticated than Westerners’. The supposed absence of such words as “prig” and “persecution” served to highlight the incommensurability of Chinese and English languages and therefore the difference between Chinese and Western cultures. Relating his experience in Changsha, the capital of Hunan province, Russell said that the former corrupt provincial governor “had done far less harm than is done by the `honest’ governments of the Great Powers. The Chinese government does some harm to its own people, but none to anybody else; from an international point of view, it is the best government in the world, because it is the most inefficient.”[17] This point is significant in that Russell expressed his displeasure with modernity and industrialization where more efficient governments did more harm to the people, the natural environment, and other countries, which was a sharp insight in its own right. Reinforcing his appreciation of the “uncontaminated” natural world, Russell talked with admiration about Chinese paintings and the beauty of Chinese landscape that was being threatened by modern industry and Western presence. He also noted with disapproval Chinese superstitions, the Chinese family system, and the oppression of Chinese women. In his view, universal education was the key to overcoming China’s problems, and educated Chinese, not Christian missionaries, would be able to accomplish the task.[18] Chi Fu added his own reflection at the end of his translation. Russell praised the Chinese government as the best in the world because he saw the peaceful scene in China after witnessing WWI among ambitious nations in Europe. But the Chinese, following the doctrine of the golden mean, lacked enterprising spirit and indomitable will. “Now Western culture comes to China everyday. We have invited many famous people to lecture in China.” To change China, however, the Chinese had to do it themselves. “Even if [foreigners] have ideas about reforming China, these are just ideas. They cannot carry out reform for us. One who is not familiar with the history, customs, and human relationships [of China] may not have ideas that are feasible [in China]. Mr. Russell understands that, and that is why he does not approve of foreigners trying to reform China.”[19] The opinion about foreigners’ inability to change China may be read against the context of Chinese disappointment with Russell’s visit. [20] It may also be regarded as an attempt to assert Chinese agency in the face of “Western culture [coming] to China everyday” and “famous people [lecturing] in China.” In September 1922 Russell’s book resulting from his China trip, The Problem of China, was published in England. Within two months the Fukan began to publish select chapters of the book in translation. The first to appear was Chapter 13 on

China’s higher education.[21] Other chapters (Chapter 4 “Modern China,” Chapter 1 “Questions,” and Chapter 11 “Chinese and Western Civilization Contrasted”) appeared in installments in November 1922.[22] Sun Fuyuan, the Fukan editor, added a commentary when the first installment was published. Sun noted that Russell’s book “was mailed from London to reach here recently.” It could have been none other than Russell himself who sent the book to his Chinese friends. In other words, Russell was interested in maintaining an intellectual bond and certain personal ties with educated Chinese. Significantly, Sun was able to put into perspective Russell’s praise of Chinese national character. National characters of various peoples naturally have merits and defects at the same time. [. . .] But Russell, using the opportunity of praising the Chinese, criticized the Britons severely. Nowadays most Chinese are mentally unstable, ecstatic at praise and enraged at criticism. Such temperament is preserved from children and barbarians, because [Chinese] national character has not had opportunity to develop and grow due to thousands years of political turmoil. Russell’s attitude of being “heavy in criticizing self and light in criticizing others,” therefore, is exactly the medicine we need. At another and the most important level, it is not that we have not seen a few Westerners, such as [John O. P.] Bland and his like, praising China. But they only praise China’s old personalities and old systems. Just as Russell says, their praise contains a malicious motive to make us sacrifice modern life and preserve the bizarre and the ancient for them to amuse and play with. That is why they like us to have emperor, like us to have queue, like us to have bound feet, like us to be confined in the cage of old morals to suffer, with they standing outside the cage and shouting bravo. While Russell praises a few merits of our inherent national character, most of which I think are gone, he pays special attention to our new movement. Whether Chinese nation has hope for rejuvenation depends on whether the new movement succeeds.[23] Thus Sun Fuyuan offered a cool-headed assessment, from a comparative perspective, of Russell’s attitude toward Chinese culture and Chinese national character. Like Lu Xun, Sun obviously harbored a deep suspicion of those Westerners who praised the backward aspects of Chinese culture as outlandish, exotic objects. He saw Russell as different. For one thing, Sun used almost the same words as Russell did when Sun considered Chinese temperament as primitive, “preserved from children and barbarians.” He was critical of Chinese national character that failed to develop and mature. Nevertheless, behind Sun’s critique was his underlying concern about China’s national rejuvenation with “the new movement.” It would seem that Sun (and Chi Fu) was trying to use Russell’s authority to advance the New Culture movement. On December 3 a review of The Problem of China by Xu Zhimo was published in the Fukan. It was fitting that Xu wrote the review. When Russell was in China, Xu

was at London School of Economics for half a year and then at Cambridge as a nonmatriculated student. In the absence of Russell, he made many other friends in the British intellectual circles. They included G. L. Dickinson, Edward Carpenter, H. G. Wells, Arthur Waley, Laurence Binyon, Katherine Mansfield and her husband John Middleton Murray.[24] It was Dickinson who arranged for Xu to study in King’s College at Cambridge as non-matriculated student.[25] In the meantime Xu followed the news about Russell, and shed tears when he heard the mistaken report that Russell had died in China in the spring of 1921 when the latter fell ill.[26] After Russell returned to England in 1921, Xu managed to learn his address and wrote to Russell asking for a meeting. In late October 1921 he was able to meet face-to-face with the philosopher he had long admired. Afterward he frequently visited Russell’s home and Russell often spoke at the Heretics’ Club at Cambridge, of which Xu was a member. A personal friendship developed between the two men.[27] Before Xu left London for China in August 1922, Russell sent him a telegram from Switzerland asking for a rendezvous in Paris, which failed to take place. Xu did receive a copy of The Problem of China Russell mailed him. Russell asked Xu to spread his ideas in China and Xu promised to write a review of the book.[28] One month after his return to China, Xu delivered his promise. This book by Russell has really established a milestone in the course of ChineseWestern cultural exchanges and convergence. He is a man who truly understands and loves Chinese culture. [. . .] Some people here may say that [Russell] is reacting to European civilization and his admiration of China is emotional, exaggerating everything beyond facts; that he cannot understand China since he stayed here for such a short period of time. Yes, he is reacting; but what he is disgusted with is not all things European, which would be captious, but the evils produced by industrial civilization and capitalist system. His admiration of China is not due to China being the opposite of Europe, but is a real faith resulting from a combination of penetrating reason, sincere feelings, and awareness and recognition of the life itself behind all civilizations and cultures. I dare to say this because I myself have been there. I too used to doubt whether he was reacting emotionally, using the East to let out his own frustration [with the West]. But in contrast to the life of the Indians and the Chinese I have seen during and after my return journey this time, I see the hypocrisy, the indecency, and the precariousness of life in Europe and America, and I cannot but believe the sincerity of Russell’s feelings. We must never think we naturally have the correct view of China simply because we were born and are living in China.[29] Here Xu Zhimo, with his own transnational experience, assumed a position of authenticating the view of Russell about the East and the West and appreciated Russell’s moral defense of Chinese cultural legacy. For Xu, Russell was not reacting

from a frustration with Western civilization or regarding China as an opposite to the West to praise Chinese culture, but from his “recognition of the life itself behind all civilizations and cultures”—a cosmopolitan perspective, with which Xu could identify. It is from that perspective that Xu warned against the view that the Chinese knew China best; and he may not be blamed for being insensitive to the cultural power relations between the West as the subject who knows and China and the Chinese as the object known or to be known. Suggestive of a shift of his epistemological position, however, Xu observed that Russell’s concern about China possibly going toward militarism was unfounded and that Russell did not fully grasp Chinese culture and Chinese life, for he mistakenly attributed China’s virtues to Daoism, while the peaceful, easy-going temperament of the Chinese actually came from Confucianism. [30] In spite of himself, therefore, Xu Zhimo was showing that he knew China better than Russell did after all—whether Xu’s view on Confucianism and Daoism was valid is beside the point. Russell’s voice gradually faded from Chinese public discourse by 1924. But Xu Zhimo personally remained an admirer of Russell. In July 1925, during his tour of Europe, Xu visited Russell again and stayed at his home for two days. He later recalled that listening to Russell talking was like watching German fireworks—various dazzling wonders exploding inconceivably in the air, one breeding another, one color turning into another.[31] It was after his 1925 trip to Europe that Xu assumed the editorship of the Fukan, starting October 1, 1925. On August 6, 1926, the Fukan carried a translation of Russell’s “Today’s China.” In this article Russell continued to speak for China and advised Western Powers to stop their oppression of China under unequal treaties. He urged the British government to lead the way in negotiating a reduction of foreign privileges in China. “In many respects the Chinese deserve the title of the most civilized nation in the world. If we insist on teaching them lessons of being barbaric and cruel, that would be our eternal shame.”[32] Although this was written in the aftermath of the May Thirtieth movement, as far as Russell was concerned, he was not just reacting to the recent event. His sympathy with China and his criticism of Western and Japanese imperialism was consistent and public, which made him a thorn in the eyes of the British government.[33] Russell’s translated writings in the Fukan almost always spoke of various issues (war and peace, industrialism and education) in terms of civilizational differences and of barbaric versus civilized behavior. In this framework China was cast as civilized but weak, in need of being protected from imperialism. That was pleasing to Chinese nationalists, but not to those who saw the root of China’s weakness in the very Chinese culture that Russell praised. Lu Xun, for one, was not impressed with Russell’s perception of Chinese culture and Chinese national character. Writing in 1925 and repeating the message of “The Diary of the Mad Man,” he spoke of “socalled Chinese civilization” as nothing but a banquet arranged for the rich to enjoy human flesh and “so-called China” as nothing but the kitchen for such a banquet.

Foreigners who did not know this and praised Chinese civilization were forgivable. But there are two more types. One, those who regard the Chinese as inferior race deserving to remain so and therefore deliberately praise the old things of China. Two, those who want peoples to be different so as to increase their interest of travel, [such as] seeing queue in China, wooden sandals in Japan, bamboo hat in Korea; if apparels are the same [everywhere], it would be no fun, and therefore [they] oppose Europeanization of Asia. These are all despicable. As for Russell who praised the Chinese because he saw sedan carriers smiling around the West Lake, perhaps he meant something else. But if the sedan carriers were able not to smile to the sedan passenger, China would have long ago ceased to be what China is today.”[34] As noted earlier, Sun Fuyuan did not see Russell as one of those foreigners who wanted to keep Chinese tradition as antique artifacts. Lu Xun did not seem entirely convinced of Russell’s innocence, though he did not outright accuse him of guilt either. Quite obviously, though, Lu Xu’s assessment of Chinese national character and Chinese culture differed from Russell’s.[35] The fact that Lu Xun felt compelled to react to Russell’s comments speaks to the very cultural power relationship that existed between China and the West—it mattered to Lu Xun, and Chinese audience in general, whether or not an influential Westerner such as Russell would praise Chinese culture that Lu Xun was criticizing. Zhou Zuoren, younger brother of Lu Xun (a.k.a. Zhou Shuren), shared the latter’s attitude toward Russell’s praise of Chinese culture. Writing in 1924, Zhou translated and quoted a passage from Havelock Ellis’s The Dance of Life published in 1923: The quality of play in the Chinese character and Chinese civilization has impressed alike those who have seen China from afar and by actual contact. It used to be said that the Chinese had invented gunpowder long before Europeans and done nothing with it but make fireworks. That seemed to the whole Western world a terrible blindness to the valuable uses of gunpowder, and it is only of late years that a European commentator has ventured to remark that “the proper use of gunpowder is obviously to make fireworks, which may be very beautiful things, not to kill men.” Certainly the Chinese, at all events, appreciate to the full this proper use of gunpowder. “One of the most obvious characteristics of the Chinese is their love of fireworks,” we are told. The gravest people and the most intellectual occupy themselves with fireworks, and if the works of Bergson, in which pyrotechnical allusions are so frequent, are ever translated into Chinese, one can well believe that China will produce enthusiastic Bergsonians.[36] Zhou opined that he admired Ellis’s ideas and agreed with his views on life and art discussed in the book, but he disagreed with what was quoted above. “Generally speaking, the Chinese do not believe the words of ‘barbarians,’ except those praising

China, which are taken as true. Yet, I can trust all other words [of foreigners], but find those praising China, one of whom for example is Russell, unreliable because there are barriers [between Chinese culture and foreigners].”[37] In fact, in the same paragraph Zhou quoted, Ellis cited Russell’s trip to China and his writings about China and quoted approvingly his comment on the simple, childlike temperament of the Chinese (besides citing Marco Polo, Galeotto Perera, Gaspar de Cruz, E. H. Parker, Arthur H. Smith, Eugène Simon, E. Hovelague, Alexandra David, G. Lowes Dickinson, and an anonymous “Resident in Peking,” all of whom wrote about China and Chinese culture).[38] Zhou simply did not bother to mention these and to repeat what Russell had to say about China. Given such sentiments as Zhou brothers’, it is not surprising that along with Russell’s more positive evaluation, a counter-voice from a foreigner who put Chinese culture in negative light emerged in the pages of the Fukan, in part thanks to Zhou brothers.

EROSHENKO’S CRITICISM OF CHINESE CULTURE One of the foreigners who visited China in the 1920s was a Russian known as “Ailuo Xianke” to the Chinese, whose career was obscure to most Westerners then and remains so today.[39] Yet, his experience in China and his presence in the pages of the Fukan, simultaneous with that of Russell, reveal another dimension of the politics of cultural encounters between China and the West. Vasilij Eroshenko was born on January 12, 1890, into a well-to-do family in a small town in southern Russia. Blind due to the measles at the age of four, he received a good education nevertheless and was musically talented with voice and violin. During his years at the school for the blind in Moscow, he learned Esperanto and became fluent in that language. After having learned English during a severalmonths stay in England in 1912, he also learned Japanese and traveled to Japan in 1914. He went to Thailand in July 1916 and to Burma in January 1917 hoping to work for blind children. That year he arrived in India, but in 1919 he was expelled back to Japan by the British authorities in India for being an anarchist. Because of his association with Japanese socialists, some of whom happened to be Esperanto enthusiasts, he was arrested and deported by the Japanese government to Vladivostok in May 1921. The city was in the hands of “White Russians,” and his hometown was deep inside the Soviet-controlled area. Unable to go home, nor back to Japan, he set off for China. He first arrived in Harbin in Manchuria and then went south to reach Shanghai in October 1921.[40] He somehow got in touch with Hu Yuzhi, an Esperanto enthusiast at the time. Presumably, Lu Xun had informed Hu of Eroshenko’s arrival because Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren had received letters from their Japanese friends asking Zhou brothers to take care of Eroshenko.[41] During the next four months Eroshenko took part in social activities and gave speeches in Shanghai. [42] With the publicity given by print media including the Fukan, he was quickly turned from practically a refugee into an intellectual celebrity in China.

Eroshenko’s experience speaks to several points. First, whether or not he was an anarchist, he apparently cared about, and tried to work for, the unprivileged and the unfortunate. Second, the authorities in different countries associated Esperanto with anarchism and socialism, whether or not individual Esperanto enthusiasts were actually believers of anarchism and socialism. Third, personal and institutional networks among people of different countries (the Japanese connection in this case) were essential to the transnational circulation of ideas and persons, and such networks were implicated in the cultural power relations that prevailed at the time on one hand and fostered a cosmopolitan vision and spirit on the other. Fourth, Eroshenko was unknown in China before his “discovery” by Lu Xun, while Russell was well known long before his trip to China, because they were of different social status in the Western intellectual establishment and of different national status in the colonial world order. Lu Xun’s promotion of Eroshenko may be regarded as a move, conscious or not, to counter the influence in China of Russell and other wellestablished Western intellectuals. To those educated Chinese who embraced Eroshenko, he symbolized something they held dear. On October 20, 1921, the Fukan carried an article by Hu Yuzhi that was originally published in the Juewu (Awakening,), the supplement to the Guomin Ribao in Shanghai. Giving a summary account of Eroshenko’s life, Hu had the following to say: Since Eroshenko was deported by the Japanese government, some people might regard him as a “propagandist” or some kind of “violent element.” In fact Mr. Eroshenko is just a writer of children’s fairy tales. What he has is only a child’s innocent heart. As Mr. Lu Xun said, “He is a dream, purely white, having a big heart.” We are certainly wrong to guess [his intention] with narrow political, social . . . all kinds of biases. Those of us who are confined within various “walls” will be embarrassed to death when we face this poet of the “world” and “humankind.” [Eroshenko said that he was not allowed to stay in Japan and India because he was suspected to be a communist, and that he was not allowed to return to his home in Russia because he was not a communist.] Mr. Eroshenko is a person of the world, a person of humankind. These days, however, there are only countries, provinces, boundaries . . . not the “world.” There are only party members, church members . . . not “humankind.” As big as the earth is, therefore, there is no room for the blind poet. [. . .] We are familiar with the shining color Mr. Eroshenko exhibited on the Japanese literary scene. We have greater hope that he will bring about some splendid flowers of art in this barren land of China.[43] These lines evoke a cosmopolitan longing for a world transcending boundaries, provinces, and countries and belonging to humankind. The flowers of art to be grown in China ought to have such a quality, as the land was barren because people were confined by all kinds of barriers or “walls”—political, social, religious, and

geographical. The cosmopolitan longing echoed the views expressed by Li Dazhao, Dai Chuanxian, Zhou Guangxu, and Wang Guangqi (Introduction) that constituted a particular strand in the Chinese intellectual scene, informed by both a reinterpreted (by Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao) traditional Chinese cosmos and an anarchist vision of utopian world imported from the West.[44] The longing found resonance in what the Chinese hosts believed Eroshenko represented—a transnational, multilingual intellectual who was from the West (as a Caucasian, even if Russia’s “Western” identity was ambiguous) but not of the West—who was of the world and humankind. Thus something of an “Eroshenko craze” in print media ensued, no less than the “Russell craze.” On October 22, 1921, an “Eroshenko Special Issue” of the Fukan appeared, not surprisingly, given the close relationship between Sun Fuyuan and Lu Xun. It started with a translated Japanese report on Eroshenko’s one-month stay in Harbin and his departure from the city. It was followed by Lu Xun’s translation of Eroshenko’s “Dream of a Spring Night” originally written in Japanese. In “the translator’s notes,” Lu Xun told readers that he had also translated Eroshenko’s “On the Pond” published in the Chenbao a month ago, and that both were the richest in poetic taste. “The author was said to have dangerous thoughts. But after reading [the Dream of a Spring Night], one feels that he has nothing but very peaceful, tolerant, almost conciliatory thoughts.”[45] Thus Lu Xun emphasized that he was fond of Eroshenko’s writings for their poetic quality, not for any political message. In November 1921, the Fukan carried Lu Xun’s translation of Eroshenko’s fable “Narrow Cage” that had first appeared in the New Youth in August.[46] From the perspective of a dying tiger, the author criticized conditions he saw in India, such as worship of stone idols, the practice of sati, and Rajahs who kept harems. He concluded that human beings were “despicable slaves” “with idiotic faces” in a mental cage. At the end of the translated piece, Lu Xun appended his comments as follows. Only after Japan expelled a Russian blind poet on May 28, 1921, and Japanese newspapers had a lot of commentaries thereof, did I notice this wandering blind poet Vasilij Eroshenko. But Eroshenko is not a world famous poet, and I do not know much about his career. What I know is that he is over thirty years old; once was in India and was expelled by the British officials for having anarchist tendency. So he went to Japan and entered a school for the blind and the deaf there. Then he was expelled by the Japanese officials for being a suspect of spreading dangerous thoughts. Japan and Britain are allies, having brotherly relationship. Since [Eroshenko] was expelled by Britain, he naturally had to be expelled by Japan. But this time insults and beating were added. Like all people who get beating would always leave behind blood or something, Eroshenko too has left behind something—the collections of his creative work. One is “Song before the Dawn,” and the other “Last Sigh.”

The first has been published now. It has fourteen pieces, all of which are fables he wrote for the Japanese to read. Judging from all these works, he is not interested in politics or economics, nor is harboring any smell of dangerous thoughts; he only has an innocent but fine and pure heart; boundaries of the human world cannot limit his dream and fancy. That is why he often expresses what he felt about Japan in very emotional words. His Russian type spirit of vast prairies is not suitable in Japan, and naturally he would get insult and beating in return, which he did not expect. This is enough to see that he has only an innocent but pure heart. Closing the book, I am deeply grateful that among human beings there is such a person and such a work that still have the heart of a newly born child [italics added].[47] Like Hu Yuzhi, Lu Xun believed that Eroshenko transcended national boundaries of the human world. The heart of a newly born child was a heart that did not know boundaries and barriers of nation, race, religion, and culture. When a person with such a heart made criticism, he did so without regard to the sensitivities and sentiments that those boundaries produced.[48] After the second volume of Eroshenko’s fables, “Last Sigh,” was published in Japan in December 1921, Lu Xun translated one of the three pieces in that volume and published it in the Dongfang Zazhi in January 1922.[49] After Eroshenko met Lu Xun in Beijing in early 1922 (see below), he asked Lu Xun to translate his three-act play, “The Peach-Colored Cloud,” as soon as possible because it was his best work. After four months of hesitation for fear of being unable to reproduce the beauty of the original in Japanese, Lu Xun did the translation and published it in the Fukan in MayJune 1922.[50] Prefacing the play itself, Lu Xun translated two essays written by Eroshenko’s Japanese friends—Akita Ujaku and Eguchi Kan. The one by Akita was a reflection upon reading “The Peach-Colored Cloud” and the one by Eguchi was a sentimental reminiscence of Eroshenko that originally served as the preface to the collection, “Last Sigh.” In the latter Eroshenko was remembered as a warm, charming, and talented person, physically abused by the Japanese police when being deported from Japan. “Eroshenko is an anarchist, a cosmopolitan, a poet, a musician, and at the same time a writer of fables. Yet, the world he lives in is an entirely unreal, but beautiful, futuristic world, a utopia, a free land, and a world close to fairy tales and poems. His anarchism and cosmopolitanism are nothing but the products of that beautiful, poetic world.”[51] This was a Japanese characterization of Eroshenko, and Lu Xun chose to translate it as an introduction to his translation of “The PeachColored Cloud.” Two years later, Lu Xun would explain that he translated the essay by Eguchi and “The Peach-Colored Cloud” because he wanted to disseminate the painful cries of the mistreated and to arouse his countrymen’s indignation and hatred for the powerful and ruthless.[52] Here neither the mistreated nor the powerful and ruthless had nationalities, but were universalized categories found in the world.

During Eroshenko’s stay in Shanghai (October 1921–February 1922), the Fukan would often republish his writings and speeches from the Shanghai press. An interesting piece appeared on November 21, 1921, which Eroshenko wrote for the Juewu in Esperanto and Hu Yuzhi translated. It recalled Eroshenko’s experience in the school for the blind in Moscow where racist views were routinely taught. In one episode, the Qing high official Li Hongzhang (1823–1901) visited the school. Eroshenko and a classmate were able to touch Li’s hands and have a dialogue with him. He and his classmate concluded afterward that the Asian man Li Hongzhang was friendlier and more civilized than white men in the school and even his hands were smoother than their schoolmaster’s. When their teacher overheard them, he withheld their dinner until they recited numerous bizarre, uncivilized habits of Li Hongzhang, representing the Chinese in general, that the teacher had taught them.[53] Of course this was a political fable, with which Eroshenko criticized racism. That it was translated and published in several newspaper supplements indicated Chinese appreciation of his stance. Contrary to Lu Xun’s claim, however, Eroshenko was not politically disinterested, even though he did not always express his political views in his literary writings. On November 29 and 30, 1921, the Fukan reprinted a speech by Eroshenko at the Association for Literature Studies in Shanghai that was initially published in the Xuedeng, the supplement to the Shishi Xinbao. Talking about international relations in East Asia, he observed that Japan’s aggression in Korea and China had sowed the seeds of hatred and resentment and that a huge fight was coming between Japan and other East Asian countries (his view proved to be prophetic). Pessimistic about world peace, he condemned nineteenth-century Europe for invading and looting weak countries internationally and robbing laboring classes domestically. Turning to the issue of China, Eroshenko said that he knew little of China’s history, philosophy, new literature, or current conditions, but that he knew a little bit about China’s difficulty and sorrow. “The people of ancient China built the Great Wall to protect China against northern barbarian enemies. Folks, what kind of wall will you build now to resist civilized friends encroaching upon you from all sides?” Here the contrast between “barbarian enemies” and “civilized friends” was intentional. Instead of asking “where to go” and “what to do,” which were difficult to answer, opined Eroshenko, one should ask “where we have arrived” and “what we should not do.” WWI was the answer to the first question, and the answer to the second one was to correct past mistakes and compensate for the crimes committed by politicians and government leaders to neighboring countries or certain classes within their own countries.[54] Eroshenko sounded very much like Russell in his indictment of Western imperialism and capitalism. In this regard his international perspective led him to voice sentiments that echoed Chinese nationalist sentiment, even though he would not find Chinese culture praiseworthy. In February 1922 Eroshenko left Shanghai for Beijing, accompanied by Zheng Zhenduo (1898–1958) and Ye Shengtao (1898–1988), two writers. He was invited by Cai Yuanpei to teach Esperanto and literature at Beida for 200 yuan a month—a high-

paying position.[55] On February 23, he was taken to the home of Zhou Zuoren and Lu Xun where he would stay for more than four months. According to Zhou Zuoren, it was Cai Yuanpei’s idea to arrange Eroshenko to stay in their home, because they could communicate with Eroshenko in Japanese.[56] Eroshenko must have known that Lu Xun had translated his works; and whether he knew or not, it was at the Zhou brothers’ urging that Cai Yuanpei invited Eroshenko to teach at Beida.[57] During his stay at the Zhou’s home, Eroshenko developed a relationship with the Zhou brothers that grew from intellectual affinity to personal friendship. According to Zhou, they became quite informal with each other at home.[58] The medium of their communication was indeed Japanese, as Eroshenko did not try to learn Chinese language despite his initial expression of interest.[59] While a teacher of Esperanto and Russian literature at Beida, Eroshenko made public appearances on various occasions in Beijing, apparently arranged or facilitated by the Zhou brothers. Three Beida students officially served as Eroshenko’s assistants and interpreters.[60] Hu Shi, a well-known Beida professor, interpreted for Eroshenko at least once—his speech on “What Esperanto Is.”[61] Zhou Zuoren interpreted for him on several occasions. Through the pens of the Zhou brothers and the editorial hands of Sun Fuyuan, his activities and writings were fully covered in the Fukan.[62] One of the running themes in Eroshenko’s speeches in Beijing was a call for a peaceful, nation-less world where Esperanto would be the universal language. In one speech he declared that “my country is the world, my nation is humankind, and my beloved national language is Esperanto.”[63] He asserted that students of Esperanto were humanitarians and pacifists who opposed all wars, violence, and oppressions. It was erroneous to equate Esperanto with socialism, communism, and anarchism, he said. The language itself was neutral, belonging to all human beings.[64] He argued that it was capitalists, imperialists, and nationalists, not socialists, communists, and anarchists, who led humankind to horrible wars and unprecedented human destruction. He indicted England, the United States, France, Germany, Russia, and Japan for imperialism, colonialism, and militarism. He found the only way for humankind to save itself in a grand unity and quoted Marx—”Unite, workers of the world”—to make the point.[65] Although Eroshenko refused to be labeled as socialist, anarchist, and communist, his political views were obviously influenced by these ideologies. His criticism of imperialism, colonialism, and militarism did not seem to be out of place in the Chinese discursive context, since Li Dazhao and others also expressed such views in the Fukan, not to mention other publications. And his appeal for a cosmopolitan world of peace and equality struck a chord among many educated Chinese. A second theme in Eroshenko’s speeches was his view of China. Joining the discussion of what the “intellectual class” (zhishi jieji) could do for China, which had been under way for some time among educated Chinese, Eroshenko delivered a

speech on “The Mission of the Intellectual Class” on March 3, 1922.[66] Expressing his disappointment with educated Chinese, he criticized Chinese students, teachers, writers, socialists, and anarchists in Shanghai for a lack of the spirit of self-sacrifice. They had all of the vices but none of the virtues of the Russian intelligentsia. They sought material wealth, entertainment, sensual pleasure, but had no heart for true beauty, unable to appreciate fine music, dance, and theater, ignorant of paintings and literature, while the Russian intelligentsia could be proud of all these things. He called on educated Chinese to provide light for the people. Otherwise, under domestic warlordism and foreign imperialism, four hundred million Chinese in the darkness, driven by base desires, might degenerate into something like the yellow peril that the former German emperor predicted.[67] Here one gets a taste of what Lu Xun said of Eroshenko’s style in expressing what he felt with strong words, undiplomatically. If Eroshenko’s sweeping criticism of Chinese intellectuals did not cause a public backlash at this point, his later sharp remarks would. After a trip to Finland and Russia in July-October 1922, Eroshenko began to lecture in Esperanto, interpreted by Zhou Zuoren, on Russian literature at Beida, and his lectures were published in the Fukan.[68] He finished introducing a play by Russian dramatist Leonid Andrejev, but cancelled the remaining lectures in late January 1923, because he sensed a lack of interest—not many students attended his lectures, according to Zhou Zhuren.[69] To what degree the cold reception of his lectures affected his mood is not known, but it might have played a role in how he evaluated Chinese understandings of theater and Chinese cultural milieu in general. His negative view of both touched off a controversy in early 1923.[70] At the Beida 25th anniversary celebration on December 17, 1922, students who were members of the Beida Theater Experiment Society performed Leo Tolstoy’s play, “Power of Darkness.” Eroshenko attended the performance for a short while and left before it was over, according to one of the student performers.[71] On January 6, 1923, the Fukan carried Eroshenko’s comments, translated by Lu Xun, on the performance and Chinese theater (xiju) in general. Eroshenko roundly denounced traditional Chinese theater (jiuxi), especially the “barbaric custom” that prevented women from performing on the stage— he was unaware that at least one traditional Chinese theater variety, the Zhejiang Theater (yueju), was performed by all female troupes, even though it was also a form of sexual segregation. He took Chinese students, male and female, to the task for failing to challenge that “old, rotten tradition.” “There is no good theater in China. The so-called traditional theater is nothing more than boisterous wine tavern. How dreary is a country when it does not have theater. This is what I have felt most strongly since I arrived in China.” He sharply criticized the Beida students’ performance he attended. First, the performance was bad; student actors did not try to represent the characters, but only imitated traditional theater performers (youling) in the way they spoke, cried, smiled, and moved. Second, there were no women, only male students playing female characters, “like monkeys imitating human beings.” Third, the setting where the

performance took place did not give rise to a theater atmosphere, but very much like a market selling fish, meat, and vegetables. Toward the end of his commentary, he spoke well of a performance of Shakespeare’s “Much Ado about Nothing” by students of Yen-ching Women’s College as “an exception,” even though female students played male characters there.[72] Upset by Eroshenko’s harsh criticism, Wei Jiangong (1901–1980), a Beida student and a future faculty, who participated in the said performance, wrote a rebuttal in the Fukan. He acknowledged the failings of the performance, due to the short time to prepare and a lack of support from female students to participate, but defended their efforts and intentions. Inexcusably, however, Wei used Eroshenko’s physical disability to question his ability to judge the performance and did so in a sarcastic way. The title of his rebuttal is “Dare Not Follow [You] Blindly.” References to “seeing” theater (kanxi) (in quotation marks) were all over the article.[73] Three days later, another student involved in the performance also wrote in the Fukan complaining about Eroshenko’s comments and questioning how, “using ears for eyes,” Eroshenko was able to tell Beida students’ bad performance from the Yen-ching students’ good one. He concluded that the “blind poet and world literature master” had learned for the first time “the oriental style of verbally abusing people (dongfang shi maren).”[74] Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren did not tolerate such attacks on Eroshenko, now their personal friend and guest. In the January 16 issue of the Fukan, Zhou Zuoren and two other contributors already briefly responded to Wei Jiangong, pointing out that he had lost his humanity in abusing Eroshenko. The next day Lu Xu and Zhou Zuoren elaborated in longer essays. Lu Xun stated that he did not write, as some people suspected, but only translated Eroshenko’s comments, and he did not add his own words in the translation either.[75] He further stated that he did not choose to translate the comments, as Wei Jiangong implied. Since Eroshenko’s arrival in China, every piece by Eroshenko that he translated was done at the author’s request. He knew that Eroshenko’s comments would produce bad feelings, but did not try to dissuade Eroshenko as the latter was candid and did not know how to flatter. “Actually, I had told him the story that because Russell praised China in England, his doorsteps were almost worn down by overseas Chinese students [visiting him].”[76] The saying that Russell’s doorsteps were worn down by visiting Chinese students was from Xu Zhimo’s review of Russell’s The Problem of China.[77] As noted earlier, Lu Xun was not as impressed with Russell as Xu Zhimo was. Rather than joining the “Russell craze,” Lu Xun was more interested in raising some buzz about someone like Eroshenko who “was not a world famous poet,” nor a fan of Chinese culture. Wei Jiangong’s personal attack on Eroshenko made him vulnerable to Lu Xun’s returning punch. Lu Xun said that even a clown of traditional theater would not be so shallow as to laugh at other people’s physical disabilities. “It is particularly miserable, shameful, and terrible [for Wei] to believe that he was devoted to art. How can art that is squeezed from such a shallow heart match even a traditional theater performer

(youling)? One would rather have none of it.”[78] More dispassionately, Zhou Zuoren recalled the cruelty with which Eroshenko was physically abused in the hands of the Japanese police. “I hope people will neither treat Eroshenko as a super hero, nor subject him to personal attacks. You may take him as an [intellectual] enemy, but you should treat him as a human being, not abandon the propriety with which the disabled people are to be treated in a humane world.”[79] Eroshenko later expressed sorry for unintentionally offending young Chinese engaged in new theater;[80] yet his sharp criticism of Chinese culture continued unabated. In a speech to the National Language Society of the Beijing Higher Normal College, he denounced Chinese culture as rotten, even though it had once been great. Whatever flattery Dr. Russell has offered about Chinese culture, I remain convinced that Chinese culture and all its old morals and old mentalities are the most pitiful intellectual bankruptcy. Some people may think I hurt [Chinese] national pride and the people’s feelings, but what are the so-called national pride and the people’s feelings? This is a dated, most rotten concept, a concept most harmful to the development and the future of China. He argued that one had nothing to do with what happened in the past that produced the present as a result and therefore nothing to be proud or ashamed of. One was only responsible for the future that would be the result of the present.[81] Here he was expressing something close to nihilism and existentialism. The reference to Russell suggests that Lu Xun did have conversations with him about Russell, with whose assessment of Chinese culture they both disagreed. One wonders to what degree Lu Xun influenced Eroshenko’s view, since Eroshenko had admitted to his very limited knowledge of Chinese culture. Eroshenko’s and Lu Xun’s view alerts one to the issue of cultural power relations and Chinese implication in them. For educated Chinese in the New Culture era, the issue they had to wrestle with was how to treat Chinese culture while defending Chinese nation. For Eroshenko, the logic would be that Chinese nation and culture were not worth cherishing because a nation-less world and a world culture should be the future of humankind. Yet, while criticizing capitalism and Western governments’ policies, he cherished Russian literature, theater, music, and visual arts, and scolded educated Chinese for lacking tastes in all these. Ironically, this reminds us of Zhou Guangxu’s view that advanced nations had more responsibility to promote a world culture (Introduction). Thus, although sharing with Russell a disapproval of imperialism and capitalism, Eroshenko, coming from a different locus (and personal experience) in the colonial world order, would reach a position of dismissing Chinese culture and reinforcing the cultural power of the West. For Lu Xun, dismissing Chinese culture was not a loss to China and praising Chinese culture not a blessing, and that was why he would promote Eroshenko in the first place. With a different agenda, therefore, Lu Xun unwittingly participated in reinforcing and legitimating the cultural power of the

West. By late March 1923 when Eroshenko launched another attack on China’s tradition, his argument seemed old and tired, arousing little interest among educated Chinese.[82] On April 16, 1923, two months ahead of his original schedule, Eroshenko left China for good.[83] His departure was an event that, in Zhou Zuoren’s words, “probably already has little meaning to today’s young people,” and was unnecessary to report, even though Zhou wrote a farewell piece in the Fukan.[84]

TAGORE’S IDEA OF THE SPIRITUAL EAST The Lecture Association had been responsible for inviting John Dewey, Bertrand Russell, and Hans Driesch (a German philosopher) to visit China. After Xu Zhimo returned to China in 1922, he too was enthusiastic about bringing foreign scholars and writers to China, especially those he personally knew and admired.[85] In early spring 1923, L. K. Elmhirst, personal secretary for Rabindranath Tagore, arrived in Beijing and told Xu Zhimo and Qu Shiying that Tagore would like to visit China.[86] The news delighted Xu, who immediately worked with the Lecture Association to invite Tagore. The initial plan was for Tagore to visit China in October 1923, but illness and hesitation caused him to postpone the trip to April 1924. Although the Xinchao introduced Tagore to educated Chinese as early as 1919, now a new wave of “Tagore craze” arrived. Tagore enthusiasts in China translated several of his works into Chinese, including Gitanjali (Song of Offerings), Stray Birds, The Crescent Moon, The Gardener (all by Zheng Zhenduo), The Cycle of the Spring (by Qu Shiying), and The Post Office (by Qu Shiying and Deng Yancun).[87] On April 12, 1924, Tagore and his group arrived in Shanghai from Japan to a hero’s welcome. Among Chinese hosts who met Tagore at the dock were Xu Zhimo, Qu Zhiying, Zheng Zhenduo, and Zhang Junmai (1887–1969), who studied in Germany and served as the interpreter for Hans Driesch at the time. Representatives from the Association for Literature Studies, the Jiangsu Provincial Education Association, and several Shanghai newspapers were present; so were Japanese journalists and some Indians living in Shanghai.[88] On April 13 the Chinese hosts took Tagore on a tour of Shanghai’s Longhua Buddhist Temple and then to a tea party at Zhang Junmai’s home. Next day they made a sightseeing trip to Hangzhou for two days before returning to Shanghai and boarding a northbound train. Tagore stopped at Nanjing and Jinan, giving speeches there, and finally reached Beijing on April 23. A crowd of three hundred was at the train station meeting him amidst the sound of firecrackers. Among the crowd were Liang Qichao, Cai Yuanpei, Hu Shi, Jiang Menglin, Liang Shuming, Gu Hongming, Xiong Xiling, and Fan Yuanlian.[89] As well known, Liang Qichao was a political and cultural reformer who had come to advocate a synthesis of Chinese and Western cultures with a rediscovered appreciation of Chinese cultural legacies, while Hu Shi remained a determined champion of reforming Chinese mind with Western ideas but

did not dismiss Chinese heritage out of hand. Gu Hongming, a classically trained scholar who learned six European languages while studying in England, France and Germany, was a defender of Chinese tradition and a sharp critic of Western culture. Jiang Menglin, a Harvard Ph.D. and acting chancellor of Beida, and Cai Yuanpei, the former chancellor of Beida, were educational reformers promoting both Western and Chinese learning. Xiong Xiling, a Qing scholar-official and a charity organizer at the time, and Fan Yuanlian, another Qing scholar-official and the head of Beijing Higher Normal University at the time, were active in educational and cultural affairs. Evidently, Tagore was an attraction to Chinese intellectuals of different politicalintellectual orientations and agendas. The common denominator of these individuals that would explain the attraction, besides Tagore being a Nobel laureate, was a shared belief that reforming Chinese mind was the prerequisite for reforming Chinese society and Tagore would be able to contribute to that larger project in some way. Tagore celebrated his 64th birthday in Beijing at a party thrown by his Chinese hosts on May 8, 1924. Lu Xun was present, though not prominent. Hu Shi presided over the party, and Liang Qichao presented Tagore a big personal seal on which his Chinese name chosen by Liang, “Zhu Zhendan,” was inscribed. Xu Zhimo and Lin Huiyin (who was an object of Xu Zhimo’s affection but was to become Liang Qichao’s daughter-in-law) were among those performing Tagore’s play, “Chitra,” in English.[90] That they chose to perform the play in English was for the benefit of Tagore who did not know Chinese language, but was also an indication of their cosmopolitanism. Tagore planned to give seven lectures in Beijing, but canceled the rest after four lectures, due to Chinese criticism of his views from certain quarters. As it happened, on several occasions where Tagore delivered his lectures, some students passed around handbills criticizing him and calling him to go home.[91] He traveled to Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province, and Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, before leaving Shanghai on May 30 for Japan. Xu Zhimo who served as Tagore’s interpreter all those days accompanied him to Japan and then from Japan to Hong Kong on Tagore’s return journey.[92] The unexpected fiasco that Tagore’s visit turned out to be did not sway Xu from his admiration for the poet. Xu would again receive Tagore as a private guest at his home in Shanghai in 1927 and 1930 and travel to India to see Tagore in 1928.[93] Tagore was very much moved by Xu’s friendship and gave Xu an Indian name, “Soo Sim.”[94] Why was Tagore invited to China in the first place? Tagore gave his own perception by telling his Chinese hosts that they welcomed him because they “[wanted] to hear someone speak who [was] of Asia.” “You are glad that I have come to you as, in a sense, representing Asia. I feel myself that Asia has been waiting and is still waiting to find her voice.”[95] Tagore might have thought of himself as a champion of Asia, but that was hardly why the Chinese hosts invited him. As an Asian, Tagore was invited, following Western scholars such as John Dewey, Bertrand Russell, and Hans Driesch (and Albert Einstein whose visit did not materialize), because he was a “world famous poet,” a “poet saint (shisheng),” as he was called

by some Chinese. He was “world” famous because he was a Nobel Laureate, that is, he was certified, so to speak, by the Western intellectual elites. Equally essential is that his writings were in English or translated into English from Bengali so that Western and Chinese intellectuals were able to access them.[96] This is how a writer from India, a colony of the British Empire, could be an attraction to educated Chinese in the first place. Yet, the very reason for Tagore to be famous while being a colonial subject cast a shadow over his visit to China, and educated Chinese of different intellectual and political persuasions reacted differently. Some would choose to focus on his status as a world famous poet, others would hope for him to speak as a philosopher, and still others would question his position on Indian independence and his views about the spiritual East versus the material West, thus making quite a media event.[97] On July 1, 1923, in anticipation of Tagore’s arrival, Qu Shiying wrote in the Fukan eulogizing Tagore. “When we read his poems, we are deeply moved by his great character, warm love, transcendental ideas, and his pure spirit like that of a child. Language is really inadequate to express how our souls are stirred.” Tagore’s poems would console one’s pain and reduce one’s frustration, said Qu, and one could feel the softness, lightness, and greatness in his poems. Yet, “what I just said are only words in a language. Tagore’s excellence must be understood beyond language and must be understood with your humanity!”[98] Here the longing for literary writings that would transcend linguistic, cultural, and national boundaries came through again, and was reinforced by what Qu felt to be the inadequacy of his language. On another occasion Qu Shiying spoke on Tagore’s ideas and poems. Qu said that Tagore represented Indian thought, not Eastern thought, since Chinese thought was different from Indian thought while both were Eastern—Tagore’s thought came from the Brahman tradition and the essence of his thought was about unification of human and nature (conveniently, Qu forgot about Daoism in China). Tagore was a pantheist, Qu continued. He believed art was human expression of one’s feelings about the universe. Politically, Tagore was opposed to nationalism because it divided people. He criticized Western civilization based on mechanical principles (jixie zhuyi), but approved science. He promoted education based on philosophy, poetry, and action, as “education of personality.” As for Tagore’s poems, “one would have to be on his knees and pray” upon encountering the rich feelings in Tagore’s Gitanjali. In Qu’s opinion, Tagore had already exerted great influence on the Chinese literary scene—writers such as Wang Tongzhao and Bing Xin were influenced by his ideas and poetic style respectively.[99] This was one of the more comprehensive, albeit brief, summary of Tagore’s philosophical viewpoints and literary achievements. On April 20, 1924, when Tagore was on his way to Beijing, there appear a speech on Tagore by Jian Youwen (1896–1978), who had a master’s degree in religion from University of Chicago and was teaching at Yen-ching University at the time. In his account, Tagore’s ideas and “Indian national spirit,” presumably referring to Hinduism, were boiled down to a negative attitude toward life and an inclination for

abstract meditation (xuanxiang), which, according to Jian, resulted from the natural environment and caste system of India. “Understanding the historical reasons, we cannot but sympathize with Tagore’s philosophical thought and his social reform movement.”[100] Empirically inaccurate, this speech seems to have been an apology for Tagore’s philosophy and political ideas, as Chinese criticisms of those ideas had been voiced. On May 3, 1924, the Fukan published Liang Qichao’s speech, “The Kinship between Indian and Chinese Cultures,” delivered at the Beijing Higher Normal University a week earlier. Liang compared India and China to brothers, India being the elder. Gentlemen, did we not have many so-called “civilized nations” come here in recent times? They came because they wanted our land! They came because they wanted our money! They came with blood stained cannon balls as their first gift! They came with commodities produced in machine factories—machines that deprived their good citizens of jobs—to suck up our blood! The past association between our two brothers [India and China] was not like this. We sought universal truths. We felt it necessary to cooperate for a cause that humankind was supposed to undertake. We Chinese especially felt it necessary to be guided by the elder brother Indians. Neither of us had the slightest selfish motives.[101] Thus Liang represented Tagore’s visit as part of the search for universal truths for humankind—a cosmopolitan endeavor. Imperialist powers were mentioned not for nationalist agitation, but to contrast with Tagore’s lofty goals. Nonetheless the trope, “civilized,” was again employed in criticizing the West and highlighting the value of “Eastern civilization.” In Liang’s view, India gave China two important gifts through Buddhist scriptures —teachings of absolute freedom and absolute love. Absolute freedom referred to “a fundamental spiritual freedom unfettered by inherited customs and contemporary ideologies, a spiritual freedom unburdened by material life. In sum, it is not a freedom liberated by restricting and oppressing others, but liberated from oneself.” Absolute love referred to “a pure love of all people without jealousy, envy, impatience, hatred, and quarrel, a sincere love of the stupid and the wicked with compassion and sympathy, an absolute love recognizing oneself as inseparable from other lives.”[102] Such, then, was the core of Eastern civilization that Tagore was promoting, as Liang understood it.[103] Along this line of positive evaluation of Tagore, one contributor to the Fukan praised Tagore to the point of worship, saying that Tagore’s thought was a lifesaving panacea, while nationalism and doctrine of aggression were suicidal theories.[104] Similarly, another article by Ling Shuhua (1900–1990), a student at Yen-ching University and a future novelist, described how she met Tagore in person and was left awe-struck—the account sounded, and was perhaps meant to be, very much like a

religious experience.[105] Importantly, since it is through the English versions and Chinese translations thereof that educated Chinese learned about Tagore’s poems, what they appreciated about his works was also what Tagore intended for the British to appreciate. As Mahasweta Sengupta pointed out, the British appreciation of Tagore and his Gitanjali was primarily that of a mystic or saint or sage from the exotic lands of the East who brought the message of wisdom, peace, and spirituality, to strife-torn Europe—“this is the only way in which the colonizer was prepared to deal with the colonized, the only possible ground for admitting one from the subject race, who is accepted because he represents the wisdom and exoticism of the ‘other’ world.”[106] As we have seen, the praises heaped on Tagore and his writings by educated Chinese were exactly the mirror images of what the British commended Tagore for, of which the Chinese commentators may or may not have been aware. This is quite an indication of the power relationship, and its cultural dimension, between the colonial metropolis and the peripheries. All did not go well for Tagore and his Chinese hosts, however. What Tagore signified or should have signified to the Chinese was inextricably complicated by the fact that Tagore was from India, a colonized Asian country. As Rebecca Karl has observed, India had long been cited in Chinese public discourse since the turn of the twentieth century as an object lesson of how not to allow cultural inertia to turn the Chinese into slaves who lost their country. “Indians became the quintessential ‘lost people’ (wangguo zhimin), and, along with the Poles, were metaphorically evoked—in the oft-repeated phrases ‘Indian and Polish slaves’ or ‘Indian Polish horse-and-cow slaves’—as terror-filled examples of a threatened Chinese fate.”[107] Such references continued into the 1910s and 1920s. And Tagore was not known for seeking Indian independence but for being a literary figure recognized by the Western, primarily the British, intellectual elites. What this meant politically and intellectually was not lost on many educated Chinese. The attempt on the part of the Chinese hosts who invited Tagore at portraying and celebrating him only as a poet saint and a philosopher did not succeed in evading the issues of Tagore’s perceived acceptance of the British rule over his country and what that would mean to China’s situation. As early as 1922 when Lu Xun was introducing Eroshenko’s “Narrow Cage” to Fukan readers, he made a comparison between Eroshenko and Tagore: “[Eroshenko] himself said this piece was written in blood and tears. [. . .] I love this innocent Russian blind poet Eroshenko, who attacks sati in other countries, really far more than I love the Nobel Prize recipient, Indian poet saint Tagore, who is devoted to praising the sati of his country.”[108] Of course, here “sati” stood for “traditional practices” in general. Lu Xun chose to keep silent during Tagore’s stay in China. Only after the latter’s departure, did Lu Xun note in an essay that Tagore’s visit to China was like opening a big bottle of perfume that overwhelmed some gentlemen with literary air (wenqi) and mystic air (xuanqi). In contrast to Tagore’s Chinese admirers who described his appearance as saintlike, Lu Xun said he once saw a picture of

Tagore who looked almost like a hoodlum.[109] Among other critics, Guo Moruo (1892–1978) and Shen Yanbing (a.k.a. Mao Dun, 1896–1981), two well-known writers, expressed disapproval of Tagore’s harping on Eastern spiritual civilization and doubted that he would be able to make positive contribution to China’s well-being.[110] Guo connected Tagore’s visit with those by Dewey, Russell, and Driesch, comparing them to “temple fairs” (shenhui)—a word Lu Xun also used in referring to Tagore’s visit, implying both a worshipping atmosphere and a great fanfare without substance. Guo questioned the purpose of inviting Tagore to visit. He said pointedly that “of course we cannot say that we invite Tagore to come because he is an oriental poet and we do so out of private sentiment of local patriotism; let alone to say that we invite him because he won Nobel Prize and is a British Knight, a world poet, and a preacher applauded in Western Europe in recent times, and we do so out of an impulse of admiring fame.” Admitting to his own belief in historical materialism, Guo observed that before the economic system was altered in the world, Tagore’s messages about “realization of nirvana, self dignity, and gospel of love” could only be morphine and coconut-wine for propertied and leisured classes, and poisons and shackles for the laboring classes.[111] Articles in other journals and newspapers also criticized Tagore’s views. One of those journals was the Zhengzhi Shenghuo (the Political Life Weekly), published by CCP and GMD members in Beijing.[112] In an open letter to Tagore published in its inaugural issue on April 30, 1924, the editors expressed respect for the poet, but argued that both India and China faced the task of national independence from imperialist powers—India as a colony of Britain and China as a joint colony (gonggong zhimindi) of Britain, the United States, France, Japan, and others—and only scientific knowledge, not mysticism, could guide their nationalist movements. “Naturally, some people have great pleasure from reading your poems and others feel your forest philosophy can help escape sufferings in this world. But that is something for people who have meals to eat or people who already have a full stomach, not for average people. Perhaps some would read your works while riding a rickshaw—when he is enjoying the pleasure from reading your works, the rickshaw-puller running and sweating in front of him would not be able to share the pleasure.” The letter asserted that some Chinese appointed themselves as preservers of oriental culture and hope to use the fame of Tagore to expand their own influence (a reference to cultural capital), but the kind of “oriental culture” they promoted would only block the people from fighting against their biggest enemy—foreign imperialism.[113] Wu Zhihui (1865– 1963), a one-time anarchist and future Guomindang theorist, wrote in the same issue, telling Tagore not to sell the Chinese his prescription that had already poisoned India to death.[114] Another CCP publication, the Xiangdao (Guide), carried Qu Qiubai’s (1899–1935) article, “Tagore’s Concept of Nation and the East,” and Chen Duxiu’s (1879–1942) short commentaries, dismissing Tagore’s philosophy, his political ideas, and even his personal character.[115] Besides the said publications that had limited audiences, the widely circulated

Fukan had its share of writings criticizing Tagore. Pu Boying, under pen-name “Zhi Shui,” laughed at what Tagore and those Chinese around him were promoting. “We need not love or hate, and criticize, Tagore and those who admire him; just let him dream the sweet dream of ‘absolute love and absolute freedom.’ But we must not take their ‘playing for fun’ words—spirit triumphs over matter—as the truth to ruin our future and harm our society until it is too late to regret.” He opined that the theory of spirit triumphing over matter was of anti-science and anti-human life.[116] As Tagore and his ideas became highly controversial, Xu Zhimo felt compelled to defend Tagore, now his personal friend and guest. In a speech preceding Tagore’s fourth and last lecture on May 18, 1924, Xu described Tagore’s experience in China as a well-meaning friend being snubbed—“We as hosts feel deeply sorry.” Xu informed the audience that physically tired and emotionally hurt, Tagore had canceled all remaining activities and would leave China in one or two weeks. Very quickly, his defense of Tagore became a counterattack on Tagore’s detractors and an emotional eulogy of Tagore. They say he is conservative and stubborn. Can we believe that? They say his ideas are “too late” [for the time] and “out of date.” Can we believe that? He himself cannot believe that, really can’t. He said this must have been the irony of a humorist. The criticism he has encountered all his life is that [his ideas are] too new, too ahead of time, too progressive, too radical, too revolutionary, and too idealistic. His career of sixty years is one of ceaseless struggle and charging forward. But they say he is conservative, too late, and too old. The targets he struggles against are radicalism (baolie zhuyi), capitalism, imperialism, militarism, and materialism that kill souls; what he advocates are creative life, spiritual freedom, international peace, educational reform, and realization of universal love. But they say he is a spy for imperialism, a helper for capitalism, a refugee from his enslaved nation, and a mad man promoting foot binding! Filth is in the heart of our politicians and mobs and has nothing to do with our poet. Confusion is in the mind of our fake scholars and literary men and has no relationship with our poet.[117] This was typical of Xu Zhimo, and he was talking from his heart. Xu’s cosmopolitanism was well known. His academic stints in America and England shaped to a large degree his worldview and literary taste to appreciate literature and art of Western countries (and a penchant to show off such), which seems to have underpinned his cosmopolitan view. In 1923, for instance, writing in the Fukan to argue for deep study and true understanding of Shakespeare, Xu said: Although it is difficult for us to realize internationalism (guoji zhuyi) in politics or economics, literature and fine art are always the common enterprise of humankind, and there is no question about the international nature of literature and art. Human beings are human beings after all, and humanity is humanity after

all; differences in systems, languages, and social customs cannot blind us to the common principles of humankind. That is why Shakespeare is not only the Britons’, nor Molière only the Frenchmen’s, but they are also shared by all peoples and nations. If the Britons and Americans are studying [Tang poets] Li Bai and Bai Juyi right now, and we never seriously study Shakespeare and Milton, are we not willingly to be shortchanged?[118] That Tagore was praised by the intellectual elites of India’s colonial master, therefore, was never a problem for Xu Zhimo. He simply admired and respected the poet and felt an intellectual affinity with and personal affection for him. When Xu informed Chenbao readers in October 1923 that Tagore would postpone his visit to the spring of 1924 due to health reasons, he argued with excitement that the delay gave those who admired Tagore more time to study the poet thoroughly so as to better understand his ideas and artistry. “This is an absolutely wonderful opportunity, for it is not an easy and casual thing for him to pay a visit to China, and his mission cannot be replaced by any other person in the world. Now we have this precious opportunity where we can learn from his character of great harmonious beauty and grasp the awakened spirit and the developmental direction of a great nation; only doing such can we deserve the sincerity with which he loves and respects us and the great enthusiasm with which he makes a long journey at an advanced age.”[119] Thus, rather easily Xu equated Tagore the great poet with India the great nation, which contradicted the prevailing notion among educated Chinese that India was a Britishruled colony and Indians were slaves who lost their country. Ironically, it is Xu who warned that by studying Tagore thoroughly the Chinese hosts could avoid the shallow habit of making a temple fair (yinshenhui) out of his visit.[120] Yet, in the end Lu Xun, Guo Moruo, and others still regarded Tagore’s visit as no more than a temple fair, despite Xu’s best efforts. Struck by Tagore’s cosmopolitan mind and his poetic style, Xu Zhimo and Qu Shiying were, first and foremost, interested in aesthetics instead of politics. They chose to sidestep Tagore’s view on Eastern spiritualism and ignore the political implications of Tagore’s ideas in a colonial country like India and a semi-colonial country like China. Nevertheless, their silence on such issues spoke volumes about their political position, which included a loathing against political radicalism and direct action of any sort including revolution, and a project of cultural change leading to social-political reforms in China and a great union in the world. To the nationalistminded Chinese, however, Tagore’s condemnation of industrialism and praise of “Eastern civilization” would only serve to shore up China’s backwardness and delay China’s social change and modernization. In short, Tagore’s view on the spiritual East and the material West was at odds with Chinese nationalist agenda and did not sell to educated Chinese who were deeply ambivalent about Chinese culture versus Western culture. There were other voices in the pages of the Fukan. One contributor pen-named “Ji Ren” was not a Tagore enthusiast, but saw no reason to be worried about

Tagore’s influence even if he was a so-called “ghost of mysticism.”[121] Lu Maode, a student at Qinghua University, defended Tagore in another way: Tagore did not tell people to reject material civilization completely, but only pointed out the weakness of material civilization and the importance of spiritual civilization. “Couple of years ago the Englishman [Bertrand] Russell was in Beijing. [He] too criticized frequently the weakness of Western civilization and praised the merits of Eastern civilization. Now people did not oppose Russell but oppose Tagore. Perhaps this is the so-called ‘snobbish opinion’?”[122] As we have seen earlier, Russell’s opinion did not go unchallenged either, but it is true that it was much less criticized than Tagore’s was. Jiang Shaoyuan of Beida offered a more reasoned discussion of why Tagore stressed social reform and spiritual revival in India instead of Indian independence. In his view, both Tagore’s admirers and detractors failed to understand the real Tagore. Based on his reading of Tagore’s writings in English, Jiang pointed out the following: First, Tagore loved India and loved freedom. Second, he did not think independence was the most important task for India because he thought the British provided the best government and because he did not believe in nationalism. Third, Tagore believed that India fell under the British rule due to the weakness of Indians themselves, and the way for India to gain freedom was for Indians to reform themselves and gain spiritual freedom first. Jiang quoted Tagore in English as follows: And when in India we shall assimilate in our life what is permanent in Western civilization, we shall be in the position to bring about a reconciliation of those two great worlds. Then will come to an end the one-sided dominance which is galling. What is more, we have to recognize that the history of India does not belong to one particular race, but it is the history of a process of creation to which various races of the world contributed—the Dravidians and the Aryans, the ancient Greeks and the Persians, the Muhammedans of the West and those of Central Asia. Now that at last has come the turn of the English to bring to it the tribute of their life, we neither have the right nor the power to exclude them from their work of fulfilling their destiny of India.[123] While profoundly cosmopolitan and pan-humanist in a sense, this view ignored the reality of the British colonial oppressions and exploitations of Indians, or for that matter the oppressions that had occurred during various historical periods Tagore mentioned, for inequality or injustice within a people or group did not justify or cancel out that people or group’s subjugation by an outside power. A recent historical study by Louise B. Williams has pointed out that Tagore was a cosmopolitan nationalist in that he disagreed with the anti-colonial Indian nationalists who imitated the British way of thinking and acting (and the same for William B. Yeats in the case of Ireland).[124] Historically speaking, however, the kind of intellectual nuances emphasized by Louise B. Williams would not have been easily appreciated by Chinese nationalists in the 1920s. In any case, such a statement from Tagore as Jiang quoted would not endear Tagore to Chinese nationalists who could easily see a close comparison between

India and China. Indeed, Jiang noted, “if Tagore were Chinese, he would have said that as long as the entrance fee of twelve copper coins at the [Beijing] Central Park was not abolished, we could not demand the foreign park at the Bund [of Shanghai] to abolish the ban—‘No dogs and Chinese are allowed’.”[125] Jiang Shaoyuan’s representation of Tagore’s ideas only convinced some Chinese that Tagore deserved little respect. Lin Yutang, another Beida professor not known to be politically radical, under the pen-name “Dong Jun,” responded to Jiang by comparing Tagore’s attitude toward the British authorities to Goethe’s attitude toward Napoleon conquering German states. “I do not mean to put down Tagore. Yet, I cannot but feel Tagore’s theory of spiritual revival really stinks of psychiatric therapy.” Tagore perhaps would not admit to it, but that was something of which it was most difficult for him to be aware. “Just think: When people are talking about how to make India an independent and strong nation, Tagore does not talk about military resistance, or non-cooperation, or constitutional revolution; he talks instead about ‘harmony with the universe’ and ‘seeing god everywhere’ as the foundation of saving his nation. Is it not humorous?”[126] On the other hand, Jiang Shaoyuan continued to defend Tagore and considered Tagore primarily not a poet, but a religious figure like Jesus.[127] In response, Lin Yutang further offered his analysis of Tagore’s philosophical and political positions by situating them in the context where Tagore was honored by the British, which made it awkward for him to advocate Indian independence in front of his patrons. In order to justify to his compatriots his political position not in favor of independence, he resorted to spiritualism and made such arguments as India did not need independence, Indians were not qualified to be independent, the constitutional movement was begging, and a bloody revolution was criminal. Lin explicitly applied Tagore’s logic to China’s situation. “It is true that the British government is one of the best governments, but this is not for Tagore to say. According to [his logic], we could agree that Great Britain should come to manage China. It is so preciously rare that the British should have had such an excellent defender among a colonized people.” It was also not far from truth that Indians were not ready for independence, “but again this is not for Tagore to say. In the case of China, we do not have qualifications for democracy, and today’s [Chinese] government is not a democratic government; yet, if we never dare to move toward democracy and never dare to raise the sign of ‘Republic,’ how can the day arrive when a government truly based on the people’s choice is realized.”[128] This was a powerful argument, to which Jiang Shaoyuan did not respond. In another article Lin Yutang argued that Tagore did not support Indian nationalist revolution because he lived well under the British rule and did not feel it necessary to have a revolution. Lin quoted six passages in Chinese translation from George Bernard Shaw’s writings that criticized the British rule in Ireland to counter Tagore’s praise of the British rule in India. “The British treatment of Indians would by no means be better than their treatment of the Irish. The motive of the British conquest of India

would not be nobler than that of their conquest of Ireland.” Finally, Lin did not think Tagore could compare with Jesus, even though Lin himself was not satisfied with Jesus in several respects (which he did not specify).[129] In the end, both Chinese admirers and detractors of Tagore overestimated his influence. Zhou Zuoren already pointed out in May 1924 that as hosts the Chinese should properly treat Tagore as a guest, but should not use him to sell mysticism (xuanxue); those who embraced science and opposed Tagore might be commended for their high purpose, but they acted with hypersensitivity. “We oppose the use of [Tagore]’s name to sell mysticism only because such a method was despicable, not because we believe it would succeed in mystifying China (xuanhua zhongguo).”[130] This proved to be a fair assessment of Tagore’s impact in China. Surveying the intellectual scene in China in June 1924, Zhou Zuoren had the following to say. “Anti-Christian critics are still worshippers, just as anti-Confucian critics are still a type of Confucians. Such examples are many: The recent movement against Tagore is also a case in point. [The critics of Tagore] self-righteously believe in scientific thinking and Westernization, but lack a spirit of skepticism and tolerance, essentially in continuing the oriental style of attacking heresy: If there are most poisonous elements in oriental culture, this kind of despotic fanaticism must be one of them.”[131] Zhou had his point, which was incisive in its own right. Yet, Zhou did not seem to have shared a sense of urgency for a nationalist agenda that Tagore’s critics felt, while it was that agenda and the felt urgency that drove Chinese criticisms of Tagore. As the discourse of and about Russell, Eroshenko, and Tagore shows, the three men all ended their visits to China on a sour note to a varying degree. They shared a common ground of criticizing industrialism, capitalism, imperialism, revolution, and war. Russell and Tagore affirmed the construct and the value of “Chinese” or “Eastern” civilization in contrast to “Western” civilization, while Eroshenko disparaged Chinese culture even after his travel and residence in Asian countries. Different assessments of Chinese culture by the three men stemmed at least in part from their different positions and locations in the colonial world order and cultural power relations. Russell was a political dissident against British government policies, but he was also a well-established intellectual in the West and therefore the world. When he praised Chinese culture, it mattered. People like Sun Fuyuan and Xu Zhimo were heartened as they saw it as sincere appreciation, and Lu Xun was wary as he saw it as of dubious intention and effect. Eroshenko was a socialist-anarchist disgusted with imperialism and capitalism, but also a Russian proud of his cultural heritage. Both his cosmopolitan outlook and his pride in Russian culture led him to dismiss Chinese culture, which coincided with the view of Chinese critics of Chinese tradition such as Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren. Tagore was an Indian but a celebrity certified by the Western intellectual establishment. Those Chinese who wanted to welcome him solely as a literary figure found it impossible to do so because as a

colonial subject he was expected to speak against imperialism and colonialism yet he disappointed most Chinese audience. To nationalist-minded Chinese intellectuals, Tagore’s identity as an Indian deprived him of the luxury of preaching the so-called Eastern spiritual civilization and absolute love at the expense of modernization and national independence, whereas Russell was supposedly in a position to praise Chinese culture if he meant well. The reason for the different receptions of Tagore and Russell who were both positive toward Chinese culture, therefore, was that India as a colony could and did compare to China under the dominance of multiple powers, and Britain did not. For the same reason, Eroshenko could indulge in advocating a nation-less world and renouncing revolution and capitalism in the same breath without sounding treacherous even if utopian. A postcolonial analysis may consider Tagore’s view about superiority of Eastern civilization as anti-colonial cultural nationalism that was not borrowed from Enlightenment, and the same may be said of Liang Qichao’s effort to emphasize the kinship between Indian and Chinese cultures;[132] but such a perspective was difficult for many educated Chinese to adopt in the 1920s. Chinese audience listened to these foreigners through the prism of the speakers’ respective national identities even when they spoke as self-conscious cosmopolitans. The varied Chinese reactions to the three men and their ideas revealed complex politics of China-West encounters among educated Chinese and the tension between cosmopolitanism and nationalism in Chinese minds. Educated Chinese who would take China’s nationalist struggle against imperialism and warlordism as the priority were divided by their differences on whether Chinese culture or Eastern civilization was the root cause of China’s weakness or a resource of its strength. Both were further divided from those who would consider cultural movement toward a cosmopolitan world as the priority and regard nationalism as a necessary (or unnecessary) evil. As the following chapters will show, this tension, and the attendant ambivalence toward Chinese tradition and Western culture, ran through all genres of writing in the Fukan and beyond.

NOTES 1. Lydia Liu, Translingual Practices, 239–256; Goldman and Lee, An Intellectual History of Modern China, 41–52. 2. Arif Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution, 56. 3. Schwarcz, The Chinese Enlightenment, 71; Rempel, The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, Vol.15, lii; Suzanne P. Ogden, “The Sage in the Inkpot: Bertrand Russell and China’s Social Reconstruction in the 1920s,” Modern Asian Studies, 16, 4 (1982):529–600. For Dewey’s visit, see Barry Keenan, The Dewey Experiment in China. 4. Xin Qingnian, Mar. 1920; April 1920. 5. CF, 1926/1/16. 6. Zhao Xiaqiu, Xu Zhimo Zhuan, 17–18; Chen Congzhou, Xu Zhimo Nianpu, p. 17– 18; CF, 1926/1/16.

7. Xin Qingnian, Oct. 1920; Nov.1920. 8. See the advertisement in CF, 1922/4/3. 9. Rempel, liii-lv; Ogden, “The Sage in the Inkpot.” 10. Bertrand Russell, “Some Traits in the Chinese Character,” The Atlantic Monthly, 64, 12 (Dec. 1921):pp. 71–77; Dongfang Zazhi, 19, 1 (Jan. 1922):21–33. 11. Bertrand Russell, “Some Traits in the Chinese Character,” The Atlantic Monthly, 64, 12:775; Dongfang Zazhi, 19, 1:28. 12. “A Chinese on Chinese,” North China Herald, Sept. 6, 1919, p. 637. 13. Rempel, 301–311. 14. CF, 1922/3/19–3/22. In January 1922 the Dongfang Zazhi (Eastern Miscellany) already carried Russell’s article on Chinese national character published in the December 1921 issue of the Atlantic Monthly and translated by Hu Yuzhi. See Dongfang Zazhi, Vol.19, No.1 (January 1922):21–33. 15. Rempel, 304–305. 16. CF, 1922/3/19. 17. Rempel, 302; CF, 1922/3/19. 18. Rempel, 304; CF, 1922/3/19. 19. CF, 1922/3/22. 20. See Ogden. 21. CF, 1922/11/11–11/12. 22. CF, 1922/11/17–11/26. According to Lydia Liu, Russell published an article on Chinese national character (later a chapter in The Problem of China) in the Atlantic Monthly in December 1921, and it was translated into Chinese and published in the Dongfang Zazhi in 1922. She said incorrectly that it was the only chapter of Russell’s book translated into Chinese at that time. See Liu, Translingual Practices, 46–47. 23. CF, 1922/11/11. 24. Zhao, 23–30. 25. CF, 1926/1/16. 26. CF, 1926/1/16. 27. Zhao Xiaqiu. Xu Zhimo Zhuan (A biography of Xu Zhimo), 20. 28. CF, 1922/12/3. 29. CF, 1922/12/3. 30. CF, 1922/12/3. 31. CF, 1926/5/10. 32. CF, 1926/8/6. 33. Ogden, 572. 34. Lu Xun Quanji, 1938, V.1, p. 201. 35. For an analytical study that contextualizes the national character discourse in China, see Long-kee Sun, Chinese National Character: From Nationhood to Individuality, 2002. 36. This passage is quoted from the original, Havelock Ellis, The Dance of Life (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1923), pp. 22–23. 37. CF, 1924/2/14.

38. See Havelock Ellis, The Dance of Life, 19–33. 39. An on-line subject search for “Eroshenko” in the catalog of the Library of Congress turned up only two books, written by a Russian scholar and a Japanese scholar respectively. 40. CF, 1921/10/20; DZ, Vol.18, No.22 (Nov. 25, 1922):89; Fuiji Shozo. Eroshenko no Toshi Monogatari: 1920 Nendai Tokyo, Shanghai, Beken (Eroshenko’s urban story: Tokyo, Shanghai, and Bejing, the 1920s) (Tokyo: Misuzhu Shobo, 1989), pp. 2–4. 41. This is according to Hu Yuzhi’s memory. Fuiji Shozo found that Lu Xun’s dairy did not mention any correspondence about Eroshenko before receiving Hu’s letter about the matter on November 4, 1921. (Fuiji, 72–74). 42. Fuiji, p. 74. 43. CF, 1921/10/20. 44. Dirlik, 50–63; Goldman and Lee, 14–31. 45. CF, 1921/10/22. 46. Xin Qingnian, Aug. 1921; CF, 1921/11/23–11/26. 47. CF, 1921/11/26. 48. During November 1921–April 1922, the Dongfang Zazhi was another venue where Lu Xun and others published translations of Eroshenko’s writings. See Dongfang Zazhi (DZ), Vol. 18, No. 22 (1921/11/25):89–97; Vol. 19, No. 2 (1922/1/25):116–122; Vol. 19, No.3 (1922/2/1):103–116; Vol. 19, No.4 (1922/2/25):99–115; Vol. 19, No. 5 (1922/3/10):105–115; Vol. 19, No.7 (1922/4/10):97–106; Vol. 19, No. 15 (1922/8/10):122. 49. DZ, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Jan.25, 1922):117–122. 50. CF, 1922/5/13–6/25. 51. CF, 1922/5/14. 52. Lu Xun Quanji, 1938, V. 1, p. 208. 53. CF, 1921/11/21. 54. CF, 1921/11/29; 11/30. 55. Fuiji, 100. According to Li Shuhua who taught at the Beida in the 1920s, the monthly salary for professors was 240–280 yuan, and one could live quite well with 100 yuan a month. See Li Shuhua, “Qinian Beida” (Seven years at Beijing University), in Beida Jiushi, p. 99. 56. Zhou Zuoren, Zhitang Huixiang Lu, 470–471; Fuiji, 93–95; Qian, 269–270. 57. Qian Liqun, Zhou Zuoren Zhuan (A biography of Zhou Zuoren) (Beijing: Shiyue wenyi chubanshe, 1990), p. 269. 58. CF, 1922/11/7. 59. Fuiji, 102. 60. Fuiji, 120–124. 61. Hu Shi Riji, Vol. 3, pp. 569–570. Hu Shi met Eroshenko twice at Lu Xun’s and Zhou Zuoren’s home where Eroshenko was staying. See Hu Shi Riji, Vol. 3, pp. 565, 569. 62. For example, CF, 1922/4/2; 5/18; 6/11; 12/1. 63. CF, 1922/12/11.

64. CF, 1922/3/25. The exaltation of Esperanto as a universal language would not impress Zhang Binglin since Esperanto was based on European languages (see Liu, Translingual Practices, 245). 65. CF, 1922/4/4. 66. Hu Shi attended this event, and he considered Eroshenko’s speech superficial at some points and moving at others. See Hu Shi Riji, Vol. 3, p. 568. 67. CF, 1922/3/6; 3/7. 68. CF, 1922/12/9–10; 12/27 -1923/1/26. 69. CF, 1923/4/21. 70. Or, as Fuiji sees it, he cut short his lectures because of the controversy. Fuiji, pp. 182–183. 71. CF, 1923/1/13. 72. CF, 1923/1/6. 73. CF, 1923/1/13. 74. CF, 1923/1/16. 75. Lu Xun did not dismiss amateur theater performances by students. In fact more than once he went to watch such performances, including those by students of the Theatre Specialized School in 1923 and by students of the Women’s Higher Normal School in 1925. See Lu Xun Riji, pp. 404, 462, 463. 76. CF, 1923/1/17. 77. CF, 1922/12/3. 78. CF, 1923/1/17. In his parsimonious diary, Lu Xun noted on January 14, 1923, “sent [Sun] Fuyuan a piece to rebuke Wei Jiangong.” See Lu Xun Riji, p. 382. 79. CF, 1923/1/17. 80. CF, 1923/4/1. 81. CF, 1923/1/29. 82. CF, 1923/4/1. 83. Lu Xun Riji, p. 388. 84. CF, 1923/4/21. 85. Xu asked Liang and Cai to invite, on behalf of the Lecture Association, G. L. Dickinson to visit China, but the latter was unable to oblige. 86. Stephen N. Hay, Asian Ideas of East and West: Tagore and His Critics in Japan, China, and India (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970), 142–143; Zhao, 125. 87. Zhao, 127–128. 88. Hay, 148–149; Zhao, 128; CF, 1924/4/19. 89. Hay, 153–156; Zhao, 130. 90. Hay, 166–167; Zhao, 129–133. According to Lu Xun’s diary, he went with Sun Fuyuan in the afternoon to the Central Park “to have tea” and then at eight o’clock in the evening they went to the Union School to watch the performance of “Chitra” in celebration of Tagore’s sixty-fourth birthday. Lu Xun Ruji, p. 426. 91. Hay, 162–163, 169–171. 92. Hay, 179–185; Zhao, 136–138.

93. See Zhao, 144–147. According to Hay, Tagore visited Shanghai privately for the last time in 1929, which differs from Zhao’s account. See Hay, 323. 94. Chen Congzhou, Xu Zhimo Nianpu (a biographic chronicle of Xu Zhimo), 39. Tagore said in his farewell speech that he was filled with “a feeling of love, especially for those persons with whom I have come into close touch. This personal touch is not an easy thing to obtain.” He must have had Xu Zhimo in mind. See Tagore, Talks in China (1924), p. 79. 95. Tagore, 106, note for IV, a. The words quoted here were in the 1924 edition of Tagore’s Talks in China, but were deleted from the 1925 edition. 96. When Tagore translated, or rather, rewrote his Gitanjali in English, for which he won the Nobel Prize in 1913, he consciously tailored it to the aesthetics and poetics of the Victorian literature, eliding the cultural characteristics of Bengali devotional poems as both love poems and religious poems in order to enter the culture of the British society. “He fits perfectly into the stereotypical role of that was familiar to the colonizer, a voice that not only spoke of the peace and tranquility of a distant world, but also offered an escape from the materialisms of the contemporary Western world.” See Mahasweta Sengupta, “Translation, Colonialism and Poetics: Rabindranath Tagore in Two Worlds,” in Susan Bassnett and André Lefevere, eds., Translation, History and Culture (London: Pinter Publishers, 1990), pp. 56–63. 97. For a detailed account of Tagore’s visit to China and the controversy it brought about, see Stephen N. Hay, Asian Ideas of East and West (Harvard UP, 1970). 98. CF, 1923/7/1. 99. CF, 1923/9/1. 100. CF, 1924/4/20. 101. CF, 1924/5/3. 102. Liang’s last sentence here reflected his reading of Confucius at the time. See Chapter 6. 103. CF, 1924/5/3. 104. CF, 1924/5/7, 9, 10. 105. CF, 1924/5/12. 106. Mahasweta Sengupta, “Translation, Colonialism and Poetics,” pp. 59–61. 107. Rebecca Karl, Staging the World: Chinese Nationalism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (Duke University Press, 2002), pp. 159–163. 108. CF, 1922/11/26. 109. Lu Xun Quanji, 1938, V. 1, p. 174. 110. Hay, 200–204. 111. CZ, No.23, 1923/10/10, pp. 1–6. 112. CF, 1924/5/18; ZBC, 121–122. 113. Zhengzhi Shenghuo, No.1 (April 30, 1924):1. 114. Zhengzhi Shenghuo, No.1 (April 30, 1924):2–3. 115. Xiangdao, 1924/4/16; 4/23; 5/7; 5/28; 6/4. 116. CF, 1924/5/15. 117. CF, 1924/5/19.

118. CF, 1923/4/12. 119. Chenbao, 1923/10/28, p. 6. 120. Chenbao, 1923/10/28, p. 6; Yu Kunlin, ed., Zhimo De Xin, ([Xu] Zhimo’s letters), pp. 188–190. 121. CF, 1924/5/19. 122. CF, 1924/6/3; Hay, 232–233. 123. CF, 1924/5/18. 124. See Louise Blakeney Williams, “Overcoming the ‘Contagen of Mimicry’: The Cosmopolitan Nationalism and Modernist History of Rabindranath Tagore and W. B. Yeats,” American Historical Review, Vol. 112, No. 2 (2007):69–100. 125. CF, 1924/6/4. Historically, there was no such a sign saying “no dogs and Chinese are allowed” at the Bund Park, but this popular saying, used by both the Chinese and foreigners at that time, did sum up the messages of separate articles in the relevant ordinances issued by Shanghai’s International Settlement authorities and thus became a symbolic reference to the colonial power in China’s treaty-ports. See Robert A. Bickers and Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, “Shanghai’s ‘Dogs and Chinese Not Admitted’ Sign: Legend, History, and Contemporary Symbol,” China Quarterly, No. 142 (June 1995):444–466. 126. CF, 1924/6/16. 127. CF, 1924/7/2. 128. CF, 1924/6/27. 129. CF, 1924/7/15. Lin did not mention it, but he was born into a Chinese Christian family and raised as a Christian. See Wan, Lin Yutang Zhuan (A biography of Lin Yutang). 130. CF, 1924/5/14. 131. CF, 1924/6/20. 132. See Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments, pp. 5–9.

Chapter 3

Individual Cosmopolitans and Cultural Capital Debates on Translation Practices The cosmopolitan character of the Fukan was manifested in the fact that its content depended to a large degree on translated materials, which was part of a larger phenomenon in the early twentieth century. In a 1928 overview of Chinese translations of Western literature, Zeng Xubai (Tsung Hyui-puh, 1895–1994) listed no fewer than 230 original titles from sixteen Western countries and regions, many of which having multiple versions of Chinese translation.[1] By another count, during 1902–1940 no fewer than 5,832 titles of foreign books were translated into Chinese, of which 70 percent were in the humanities and 27 percent were in sciences.[2] Bonnie McDougall, in her book published in 1971, detailed Chinese translation of Western literary theories, which provides another measure of the translation efforts by educated Chinese.[3] In short, in the New Culture era foreign texts of all kinds being translated into Chinese were taken for granted by publishers, editors, translators, writers, and readers alike. The unsettled issue was what was good translation and how to achieve it, a topic frequently debated in print media. Instead of covering the translated materials, therefore, this chapter focuses on how Chinese translators perceived their own roles, and does so at two levels: The first is to situate, rather briefly, Chinese translation practices back then within the history of translation theories; and the second is to explore more closely how Chinese translators practiced translation and how they debated over their own practices. In this inquiry one set of questions are of particular interest: Did Chinese fail to grasp Western ideologies as bodies of thought and therefore fragmented them into bits and pieces, or did they use such works in any way they saw fit to address Chinese concerns at that time, manifesting Chinese agency, within the context of global power relations?[4] If Chinese translation in whatever quality manifested Chinese agency, did such agency come by choice or by default, for example, are translations capable of being faithful to the source text in the first place? Is being faithful to the source text relevant to the issue of what was gained and lost in translation practices, in terms of knowledge and power?[5] Most critically, how did Chinese translators at that time answer these questions? As will be shown, a belief in or a discourse on translatability of foreign texts was the premise with which criticisms of Chinese translations were conducted, which constituted one of many intellectual engagements among educated Chinese, especially regarding a key issue of the time —Chinese language. Translation was important because China was deemed in urgent need of new ideas and scientific knowledge from the West in order to reform and survive in the modern world (a nationalist perspective), and in need of wider

knowledge of world culture in order to participate in the envisioned cosmopolitan world as an alternative to the lived colonial world that was the modern world (a cosmopolitan or anti-colonial perspective). Those involved in the debates and translation practices were also keenly aware of and vying for cultural capital in the rapidly changing intellectual environment, as translation was an individualistic endeavor and translators travailed as individual cosmopolitans.

WHAT IS TRANSLATION? Obviously, this is not the place to rehearse the entire history of translation theory as we know it today. To contextualize and analyze Chinese translation practices and translators’ reflections on what they were doing in the New Culture era, however, it is useful to sketch briefly what the translation theory in the West has offered on some key issues about translation since the early twentieth century. Translation as a literary practice perhaps occurred long before any discussion of it arose. Herodotus probably translated non-Greek materials in his writing of the Greek-Persian Wars, for example. On the other hand, the production of the Septuagint is usually considered the first translation project in the West.[6] Conscious reflections on translation practice in the West did not take place until the Roman era when orators and grammarians discussed functions of translating Greek materials in the service of Roman social and cultural needs or the needs of using Latin more effectively. Thus an early division is discernable between “sense for sense translation,” which placed more emphasis on what was meant in the source text than on how to render it in target language, and “word for word translation,” which gave priority to faithfulness to the source language in using target language—the two approaches advocated by orators such as Cicero and grammarians respectively.[7] The dichotomy between “sense for sense” approach and “word for word” approach— what would be known in early-twentieth-century China as “free translation” (yiyi, lit. meaning translation) and “literal translation” (zhiyi, lit. direct translation)—continued into the early modern era, crystallizing in the French-British practice of the former in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the German practice of the latter in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; and the German practice was partly driven by a nationalist motivation to defend German language and literature in the face of French cultural and political dominance in German-speaking lands.[8] According to Lawrence Venuti, during the 1900s–1930s the translation theory continued to develop along the two lines identified above. In the 1920s Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) put forward the idea of an “afterlife” of the foreign text, which referred to the translated text. In his view the differences between source language and target language would ultimately contribute to a pure language and a linguistic harmony. In the process target language would be transformed by language usages that foreignize translated text.[9] This position points to an epistemological and technical dimension of the Europeanized and Japanized Chinese translations in earlytwentieth-century China, beyond the social dimension of Chinese translators seeking

cultural power (see below). Chinese translation practices examined here took place during the 1920s, and Chinese debates over translation practices largely paralleled the two opposing approaches in Western translation theory of the same time period, while they were also informed by the history of Chinese translation of Buddhist scriptures dating back to the eighth century. A more fundamental, and enduring, question came up in the 1940s and after, for example, whether a foreign text was translatable at all.[10] This issue would be further complicated by the debate among linguists of structuralist and poststructuralist perspectives over the question of what language is—both source and target languages—as far as translation is concerned. All the subsequent developments in the translation theory to date have been essentially varied answers to this central question. A more recent trend is to try to move beyond the issue of translatability by arguing that in translation fidelity to a source language is impossible and unnecessary, since translation is interpreting, just as reading is interpreting, and that translating poetry is essentially rewriting poetry in target language and legitimately so.[11] Along with this intellectual trend regarding language and translation, translation studies has made its “cultural turn” and “power turn” since the late 1980s and 1990s, just as other academic disciplines did, with inquiries increasingly directed at the issue of translation and power—“translation” in various forms and “power” in multiple dimensions and manifestations.[12] In short, a prevailing consensus seems to have been reached in translation studies on these issues, which may be summarized by the following quotes: [W]ith the demise of the notion of equivalence as sameness and recognition of the fact that literary conventions change continuously, the old evaluative norms of ‘good’ and ‘bad,’ ‘faithful’ and ‘unfaithful’ translations are also disappearing. Instead of debating the accuracy of a translation based on linguistic criteria, translators and translation scholars (who hopefully are one and the same) are tending to consider the relative function of the text each in its two contexts.[13] [O]nly if we conceive of language as a surface element, ready to collapse into meanings that could take a commanding role and, moreover, be fixed in some univocal way, could translation be a simple “carrying across” of concepts from one signifying system to another. The very impossibility of such a feat, long recognized in the history of translation studies, argues for the need to envision language in the more complicated fashion common to twentieth-century theorists. [. . .] If language is not a simple nomenclature for pre-established and universally recognized ‘meanings,’ as most contemporary language philosophers agree, translation can never be a complete or transparent transferal of semantic content. Yet even in its imperfect, or simply creative negotiations of difference translation provides a necessary linguistic supplement that bridges cultural chasms and allows for intellectual passage and exchange.[14] As for translation of literature, especially of poetry, an understanding has been

reached that translation is not simply a transfer of information and therefore the issue of fidelity is quite beside the point. As Barnstone wrote, in contrast to a literal or technical translation, “in the instance of a free version, such as an imitation, the translation is metalingual: that is, it conveys self-consciously its own formal and aesthetic means. The imitation’s purpose is not primarily to transfer information but rather to reinvent the formal qualities of the message, to re-create dramatically the signifier itself. [. . .] In free translation of poetry, then, the signifieds of the source language are perceived as words, not as proxies for the denotated objects or outbursts of emotion, to use Jacobson’s words. The resultant translation, if it is to become a true poem in the receptor language, must be primarily a transposition of signs rather than of objects (meanings): hence the poetry, hence the radical departure from the source text.”[15] It is in light of the development of translation theory summarized thus far that Chinese translation practices and debates over them in the New Culture era can be better illuminated. Anticipating a main point of this chapter, it may be stated that most Chinese translators in the 1920s did not doubt the possibility of translating a foreign text of whatever genre, and they were concerned about and divided over how to do it better. [16] Most educated Chinese examined here did not move beyond a positivist position, as far as translation was concerned, where they sought to grasp the presumed true meaning of the source text and to reproduce it accurately in Chinese language; what would mean “accurate” was under debate, however. Such a mentality could be cited as evidence that Chinese were “lagging behind” Western intellectual trends, picking up what was going out of fashion in the West as the fad in China, a situation conditioned by the reality of Western dominance in such cultural transactions. On the other hand, several additional points must be made to explain the mentality. First of all, the Chinese adherence to faithfulness to the source text in translation was due as much to the tradition of Chinese translation as to Western practices, since the tripartite goal in translation of being faithful to the source text (xin), comprehensible to readers (da), and elegant in the target language (ya) formulated by the reformer-translator Yan Fu (1854–1921) at the turn of the twentieth century was actually a reworking of the way Chinese translated Buddhist scriptures dating back to the Tang dynasty.[17] Secondly, the belief/discourse was by logic a prerequisite for establishing norms, rules, and standards in translation with which to judge and critique translated texts; in other words, it was a prerequisite for contesting cultural capital and exercising power in the literary and intellectual fields. Thirdly, educated Chinese were optimistic about or insistent on the translatability of foreign texts into Chinese for far more important political and social reasons than a purely technical one: The belief in or the discourse on the translatability of foreign texts was essential to the prospect of China catching up with the West in being modern on one hand, and to the envisioned cosmopolitan world of universal peace and international equality that was to come on the other hand. A negation of these possibilities would have fundamentally disarmed and demoralized educated Chinese, and perhaps would have shattered their already precarious sense of staying relevant to the future of

China (and the world). The great enthusiasm of Chinese translators to introduce foreign work was driven as much by cosmopolitanism and individualism (to participate in a world culture as individuals) as by nationalism (to strengthen China as a nation). Aesthetics, lyrical poetry, novels, theater, and the like from the West would not modernize China as much as “Mr. Science” and “Mr. Democracy” would, but these “soft” cultural practices were relevant and even essential to a culturally informed (and reformed) China as a member of the cosmopolitan world joining a world culture. This was an assumption shared by educated Chinese examined in this chapter.

TRANSLATION AND CHINESE LANGUAGE The debates over Chinese translation of foreign texts in the 1920s were directly involved in the ongoing struggle over classical Chinese vs. vernacular Chinese, a feature of the New Culture movement. As a New Culture practitioner (translator), Zeng Xubai celebrated triumphantly in an English language journal in 1928: “In discarding the [classical] literary style and adopting the spoken language we had finally found a much easier medium to reproduce the genuine impressions that Western authors intended to produce. As a result of this improvement, the translation of Western literature began to assume a more serious aspect and the luster of Western literature began to shine in its own splendor.”[18] Here Zeng made a questionable claim that Chinese translators already succeeded in conveying the true meaning and splendor of Western literature in vernacular Chinese language. The translations in the Fukan testify to the earlier findings that Chinese translations of Western materials in the 1920s and earlier were unsystematic and random.[19] More critically, the process of vernacular Chinese prevailing over classical Chinese was not as easy and unproblematic as Zeng described. As Elisabeth Kaske’s study shows, the problem of incongruence between written classical Chinese and oral speeches (i.e., dialects and Mandarin) in traditional China was recognized as a problem in the late 1890s, which led to efforts, by prominent scholars from Zhang Binglin, Zhang Zhidong, to Liang Qichao and others, to find ways to deal with it. In Kaske’s analysis, the “literary revolution” of the New Culture era was essentially a language reform that had two dimensions—written and oral.[20] In the early 1920s the fight over classical vs. vernacular Chinese in literary writing and other modes of communication was far from over and became intertwined with the debate over free vs. literal translation. No clear-cut conclusion or consensus was reached on either issue. On the issue of translation and language style, Zhou Zuoren expressed his preference for literal translation with some flexibility at a technical level. In his view the kind of free translation in classical Chinese practiced by Lin Shu (1852–1924) was arbitrary and undisciplined. On the other hand, literal translation ought to meet certain conditions, such as “to preserve the style of the original and express the meaning of the original within the capacity of Chinese language; in other words, to be faithful and comprehensible.” He further explained that literal translation was not translation word for word. “The method of translation that I advocate therefore can be called literal

translation that is faithful and comprehensible, which can also be called free translation (yiyi). As for the kind of translation that arbitrarily changes the meaning of the original, it can only be called irresponsible translation (suiyiyi).”[21] The goal articulated here of translation being faithful, comprehensible, and elegant was predicated on an assumption that it was possible to reveal the true meaning of the source text. The assumption was largely unquestioned (even though Zhou expressed doubts about the translatability of poetry, as we shall see), and the debates were always about how to achieve the goal. According to Gan Zhixian, a Beida graduate and freelance writer, who reviewed in December 1922 the intellectual scene of the previous four years, the trend in Chinese translation practices was indeed to move from free translation practiced by Yan Fu and Lin Shu to literal translation, or at least a mixture of the two, with more emphasis on being faithful while being comprehensible. Gan rejected the assumption that using vernacular Chinese to translate was necessarily literal translation, and using classical Chinese was necessarily free translation just because the latter was what Yan Fu and Lin Shu did, even though the use of classical Chinese in translation was more likely to result in adding extra words not found in the source text.[22] In other words, on a technical ground that classical Chinese was as capable as vernacular of producing literal translation, which seemed preferable or trendy, Gan implied that classical Chinese was still of use and relevance even in the field of translation. A critical question was not only whether vernacular Chinese was more accessible, useful, and “modern” than classical Chinese, but also what kind of vernacular language Chinese writers, translators, and readers would actually end up using. Shu-mei Shih observed that translation in early twentieth-century China was a double translation—from Western and Japanese languages into Chinese and from Chinese vernacular into a more “scientific” and more “modern” language, with a result that the “Europeanized and Japanized (i.e., translated) vernacular might in effect [have been] as alien to the ordinary reader as wenyan.” Shih regarded the phenomenon as a way of providing access to cultural and symbolic capital on the part of such practitioners.[23] This insight may be contextualized with the debates over Chinese translation practices sampled here. Fu Sinian (1896–1950), a New Culture practitioner, broached the issue as early as February 1919. Writing on “How to Make Vernacular Language” in the Xinchao, Fu argued that “since we want to use our national language (guoyu) and [let it] have its place in literature, science, and art, it is naturally inevitable to make national language Europeanized, in view of our ideal.” Ideally, he explained, the vernacular language should have three qualities—1) being logical, it could express scientific thoughts; 2) being philosophical, it could contain the most profound and the most exquisite ideas with a complex structure; and 3) being aesthetic, it could convey human feelings artistically. “These three things have been achieved in Western languages. It is an extremely proper and extremely easy method for us to use Western languages as models to imitate. It may even be said that the ideal vernacular language is a

Europeanized language.”[24] Thus Fu equated vernacular language with national language, and regarded it as a language in the making, instead of one completely made. Fu’s argument had its intrinsic logic, the motivation for cultural capital notwithstanding. Clearly, in his mind European languages were more advanced than Chinese language in either classical or vernacular form and were to be emulated. Such a view may be called cultural self-colonization if you will. On the other hand, from a perspective of the recent translation theory, a target language borrowing from a source language is inevitable and even desirable. For these historical and epistemological reasons, it is understandable that language reformers, or Fu Sinian for one, embraced rather than worried about the prospect of Chinese vernacular language becoming Europeanized. In other words, that the language of the “new literature”—both translations and Chinese originals—tended to be Europeanized and Japanized was partly the conscious efforts to create a new language needed for the new culture (including literature, science, and art), and partly the natural results of adopting neologism to translate Western concepts that had no equivalents in Chinese tradition.[25] Fu Sinian’s statement confirms for us what translation studies scholars have discussed about the functions of translation in cultural politics, such as mediating rivaling ideologies and poetics through conforming the source text to the target culture and enhancing the target language. “Translation forces a language to expand,” Lefevere pointed out, “and that expansion may be welcome as long as it is checked by the linguistic community at large. Translation can also bestow the authority inherent in a ‘language of authority’ (Latin, French, English/Russian) on a text originally written in another language, which lacks that authority.”[26] Of course this refers to such scenarios where a Chinese language work translated into English might enhance its authority. Yet, one could apply Lefevere’s point in reverse: The legitimacy or authority of vernacular Chinese that was being promoted as the language for new literature could be augmented by translations of Western works in the vernacular language that was Europeanized. A concrete case in point, as we shall see, would be the efforts to translate foreign poems, and write Chinese “new poem,” in vernacular language. In addition, Fu’s articulation that vernacular language would take its place in science as well as in literature and art was no idle talk. A recent study reveals how the standardization of Chinese bank accounting terminology in the 1920s-1930s accrued cultural capital and power to owners and managers of Chinese modern banks over those of native banks—a process in which vernacular language as the medium to translate Western accounting terms into a new set of technical vocabularies promoted by modern banks would replace metaphoric phrases based on classical language that native banks had used.[27] It should be no surprise that a similar scenario would play out in the literary field just as in the banking field. Another issue with regard to Chinese language that emerged in translation practices in the 1920s also had social-cultural implications in the political economy of language and power. It was a variation of the problem Kaske has noted which existed

in the late imperial era—the incongruence between written and spoken languages: Some Chinese translators would use Chinese characters, with incorrect pronunciation of Mandarin distorted by their native tongues, to translate person names and place names from foreign languages, with undesirable results. In an article published in 1922, Sun Fuyuan took as an example Zhou Fohai’s (1897–1948) translation of the Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin’s (1842–1921) Mutual Aid to illustrate the problem. Sun’s task was facilitated by a glossary list appended in Zhou’s version of the book. Sun showed that Zhou consistently confused the pronunciations of “l,” “n,” and “r,” which was a phonetic characteristic in several regional dialects in China (for Sun’s experience with it in Shaanxi, see Chapter 4). According to Sun, when Hu Shi (a native of Anhui) and Luo Jialun (a native of Jiangxi) first arrived in Beijing, they too encountered the problem of differentiating “l” and “n,” but they were able to learn and master Mandarin to overcome it. Sun argued that the pronunciation of Mandarin was the standard pronunciation of Chinese language above various dialects (fangyan). Dialects could have their differences and it was pointless to argue which one was correct or incorrect; but measured by Mandarin as the standard, the issue of incorrect pronunciation did arise, and people who wanted to speak and write had to jettison particularistic phonetic traits of their dialects to conform to the Mandarin standard.[28] Thus Sun pointed out an additional factor in mistranslations or alternative translations that abounded at the time. It is worth noting that along with the emergence of spoken drama as a professional pursuit, what Sun Fuyuan advocated here about Mandarin being the standard for the congruence between spoken and written languages (Mandarin and vernacular Chinese) did gradually become the norm in Chinese translation practices in the Republican era, playing a crucial role in consolidating the status of Mandarin as the national language and relegating other spoken languages as regional and local dialects.[29] A third issue about translation and Chinese language was transliteration of foreign names. As varied Chinese names were invented and reinvented for the same foreign people and places, they confused readers. In the above-mentioned article, Sun opined that after certain transliterated names had become customary, they should not be replaced by new names. He questioned the wisdom of Zhou Fohai replacing “” with “” for “Copernicus,” “” with “” for “Jawa (Java),” and “ ” with “” for “Brazil” (the last one being also an example of mispronouncing “r” as “n”).[30] One contributor was especially annoyed by those translators who tried to make foreign names sound and look like Chinese names, which was unnecessary and only baffled readers. For example, “,” which would make people think it was a Chinese name, was used for “Kropotkin” and “” for “Tolstoy”; where “” was already a customary transliteration of Russian writer Nikolai Gogol (1809–1852), “ ” was reinvented, and where “” was in use for Ivan Turgenev (1818–1883), “” [31] was reintroduced. Just as the issue of standard pronunciation of Mandarin over phonetic traits of dialects, standard transliteration of foreign names called for by the contributor would prevail gradually in Chinese translation practices on the mainland,

but was not universally adopted.[32] Such conscious choices as making foreign names look and sound foreign or Chinese, or for that matter, making vernacular language Europeanized and Japanized, provide an instructive case for consideration of such issues as translators seeing multiplicity of meanings of a text, suppressing or revealing such multiplicity in translation, domesticating or “othering” foreign texts (concepts and names), and so on.[33] While concerns or sensibilities arising from poststructuralist theories were not directly relevant to Chinese translators in the 1920s, the spirit of the New Culture movement was similar in that its practitioners did intend to disrupt the linguistic-cultural status quo and introduce new ways of thinking, writing, and reading. In making foreign names look and sound foreign and therefore the language “new,” the translator advertised the translated material (and himself) as representing a new and more advanced culture.

IS POETRY TRANSLATABLE? Translating poetry was recognized as one of the most difficult tasks in translation. Not surprisingly, poetry translation became a hotly debated issue, bundled with those of vernacular language use and “new poetry” written in that language, both being considered vitally important to the “new literature” and the New Culture movement in general. The question of whether poetry could be translated was raised by Fu Donghua (1893–1971). Fu graduated from Shanghai Nanyang Public School in 1912. Before becoming a translator at the China Book Company, he taught English at schools and colleges in 1916–1924, during which time he published a number of translated works. [34] In May 1922, Fu began to introduce modern British poetry written since 1875. He felt it necessary to justify why he was able to translate poetry, thus offering his theory of poetry translation. He quoted a statement, “poetry is not translatable,” from Some Principles of Literary Criticism (published in 1899) by C. T. Winchester (1847–1920), and disagreed with that view. He believed it was difficult but not absolutely impossible to translate poetry. As styles of languages and literary preferences of different peoples became increasingly closer to one another, the possibility would grow. In other words, Fu envisioned a convergence of languages and literary tastes of different peoples—a cosmopolitan worldview or an awareness of the effect of globalization. The next question was how to translate poetry. Fu put forward several principles: First, the words expressing a mood should not be added or omitted so that the translation would elicit the same kind and amount of mood in readers as the original. Second, the tone, rhyme, and form of a poem should be kept completely intact in translation. Fu then discussed how he tried to meet those standards. First of all, his main goal was to convey the meaning and mood of the original; as for words and grammar, he would allow for some changes when necessary. His line of thinking was in tune with the translation theory about traductio (instead of translatio)—“a matter of relative weight of two cultures carry in the mind of the translator.”[35] Fu gave an

example of what he meant: “The day begins to droop— Its course is done. But nothing tells the place Of the setting sun.”

Fu’s translation:

He explained that the poem described the dusk in winter where it was getting dark but the setting sun was not visible. The translation expressed that; if the second half of the poem was translated word for word, it would not make sense in Chinese. With the main goal in mind, he would then decide on the style of Chinese language, in accordance with the style of the original. If the original was more colloquial, he would use colloquial Chinese (koutou de yuti); if the original was more formal, he would use formal Chinese (yuti de wenzi), so that in the above example, plain and simple classical Chinese (qianjin de wenyan) was the most appropriate. Clearly, Fu used careful wording to legitimize the use of classical Chinese in translating poetry. Moreover, Fu noted, the format would also depend on the original. If the original was “ballad meter” with four lines for each stanza and three foot for each line, he would use five-word and four-line classical format (wulü) in Chinese. He doubted that the style of a translator would replace that of original authors, but he would wait for readers to judge the results of his efforts.[36] Such is Fu’s relatively comprehensive argument for the possibility of translating poetry. The Creation Weekly, from the Creation Society, a literary group made up of people who studied in Japan, weighed in on the issue. Cheng Fangwu (1897–1984), who studied in Japan during 1910–1921, too believed it was possible to translate poetry. For Cheng, the key was that a translated poem should remain a poem— translating a poem word for word and line for line would not result in a translated poem, but translated words. An ideal translated poem should remain as much a poem as the original, express its mood, convey its content, and keep its format. Whether such a translation was possible would depend on the ability and efforts of the translator. Thus Cheng changed the question from whether poetry could be translated (it was affirmative to him) to who was qualified to do it. Cheng differentiated two approaches to translating poetry: One was the “expressive method” and the other, the “[composite] method.” The first method required the translator to capture the life of the original with sharp receptive and perceptive abilities and then reproduce it in the target language, in the same way a poet was inspired to sing out a poem. The method demanded a great deal of the translator, who should be as great as the author of the original poem and enter the poet’s mind and become one with the latter until the boiling emotion would burst out

with all heat and purity. “This method has the spirit of creative writing, and therefore the translator always tries to express, not confining himself to the content and format of the original.” Cheng gave examples of the “expressive method” that included his own translations. One example was a poem written in French by Paul Verlaine (1844– 1896) and translated into German by Richard Dehmel (1863–1920), which was accompanied by two Chinese versions rendered by Guo Moruo, a leading member of the Creation Society, and Cheng himself. The example did help make his point and thus is worth quoting as follows: Paul Verlaine’ original: “La lune blanche Luit dans les bois; De chaque branche Part une voix Sous la ramée... Oh bien-aimée! L’étang réfelète, Profond mirroir, La silhouette Du saule noir Où le vent pleuse... Rêvons, c’est l’heure, Un vaste et tender Apaisement Semble descendre Du firmament Que l’ascrie irise... C’est l’heure exquise.”

Richard Dehmel’s translation: “Weich kueszt die Zweige Der weisze Mond. Ein Fluestern wohnt Im Laub, als neige, Als schweige sich der Haiu zur Ruh: Geliebte du— Dear Weiher ruht, und Die weikie schimemert. Ihr Schartten flimmert In serner Flut, und Der Wind weint in den Baeumen: Wir traeumen—traeumen— Die Weiten leuchten Beruhigung. Die Niederung Hebt bleich den feuchten Schelier hin sum Himmelssaum: O hin—O Traum—”

Guo Moruo’s translation:

Cheng Fangwu’s translation:

[37]

Cheng argued that although Dehmel’s translation was different from the original, it was by itself a good poem and expressed the sentiment of the original, and that is why it could be called a famous translation of Verlaine’s poem. As for the “composite method,” Cheng explained, it was to preserve the relationship between the content structure and the phonetics and rhyme in the original, and to try at the same time to reproduce its sentiment. “The key to this method is to reproduce the content relationship and phonetic relationship of the original poem and to compose its sentiment. The translator must master the content relationship in every word as well as its phonetic relationship before finding the words of the same content in the target language and make them retain the same phonetic

relationship.” The expressive method, concluded Cheng, was to project what the translator understood to be the essence of the original, without concerning about the word order in the original, whereas the composite method could get closer to the content of the original but could not freely express its sentiment. Thus Cheng’s argument was essentially a rehashing of free translation (as expressive method) vs. literal translation (as composite method) applied to poetry translation. Cheng’s final argument is noteworthy. “Human beings’ sentimental lives are about the same, and the sentiment expressed in one language can be expressed in another, but not necessarily in the same form. […] The richest expressions of a language can be seen in poetry. Our language is very rich, but because of rigid composition, its expressions are not very rich. One objective of our new literature movement [emphasis added] is to make our expressions richer. If we can translate many good poems from foreign countries, it can make our expressions richer, and at the same time make us understand how to expand our expressive means. I wish our translators not confine themselves to dictionaries only, because translating poetry is exactly part of our enormous and difficult enterprise [i.e., the new literature movement].”[38] By saying “our new literature movement,” Cheng claimed for the Creation Society the ownership of the movement; and the claim was reinforced by his including poetry translation as part of the movement and by theorizing on how to do it. The efforts to lay claims to the new literature movement were seen in the poetry translation and frequent critiques of poetry translations by others in the Creation Weekly. For instance, under a pen-name “Zhang Bofu,” Zhang Menglin, writing from Nagoya, Japan, criticized the translation by Zi Yan of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “Raven” that had been published in the Lamp of Learning. Zhang disagreed with Zi Yan that Poe was the “only American poet of significance,” but his focus was to correct mistranslations by Zi Yan.[39] On June 20, 1924, Yu Dafu (1896–1945), a Creation Society member, published a piece on poetry translation. “Translation is more difficult than creative writing. Translating colorful and euphonious lyrical poetry is even more difficult than translating popular science books and other literary works.” To the “golden rules” of translation or what Yu called the external conditions—faithful, comprehensible, and elegant, he added three internal qualities of translators: learning (xue), thinking (si), and grasping (de). What prompted Yu to write his article was a translation of the British poet Ernest Dowson’s “Beata Solitudo.” The translator, Wang Tongzhao (1897–1957), was a founding member of the Association for Literary Studies. His translation appeared in the Literature Tri-Monthly (wenxue xunkan) of the Fukan. Yu used the errors in Wang’s translation to demonstrate why learning, thinking, and grasping were important; and he emphasized that he was not singling out Wang for ad hominem attacks. “Learning” was not just the ability to read a foreign language, but a thorough study of a work. “One can also translate Lord Byron. When it is his one-hundred-year anniversary like now, to publish one or two special issues is not too many.” Yet, to introduce Byron, one at least should study British society of his time, read the most

important of his works, if not all his works, and collect his diary, letters, and his contemporaries’ comments on his works. Only based on such research, could one begin to translate some of his poems. Here the reference to Byron was not accidental. As Yu noted, for the Byron’s anniversary, the Literature Tri-Monthly had published a “Byron Special Issue” in April 1924. His comment was regarded as a swipe at the ALS. As for “thinking,” Yu continued, if one tried to convey the ideas and beautiful words of a foreigner to the Chinese, resorting to a dictionary alone would not do. “Since the original author spent years of sweat and blood to give his thought a form, if we want to convey his thought, we should at least put ourselves in his shoes and think along with him from the beginning to the end so that we are worthy of the author.” Translating any foreign work without making such efforts, one would not only deceive Chinese readers, but also insult the original author. “Grasping” meant that the translator should have a complete understanding of the spirit of the original author before undertaking translation. “The understanding is not obtained through learning foreign languages. A Briton may not understand Byron, and a Russian may not grasp Tolstoy. The translator is a foreigner, for whom to understand the spirit of the original author far across time and space is not easy, yet our hope is to achieve that goal one way or another.” This was a tall order, Yu admitted, but the minimum was for the translator to grasp the meaning of an original text before translating it.[40] Yu’s piece was a well-reasoned argument for the possibility of good poetry translation and how to achieve it, but he also entered an ongoing polemics with the ALS (see below). The enthusiasm for translating Western poetry continued unabated, along with critiques thereof. On December 25, 1924, the Literature Tri-Monthly published a translation of the French poet Charles Baudelaire’s (1821–1867) “Une Charogne” by Jin Mancheng (1900–1971) from the French original, meant to be a correction of Xu Zhimo’s rendering from an English version that had appeared in the literary journal Yu Si (Shreds of words). In his editorial note Wang Tongzhao repeated that it was especially difficult to translate poetry from Western languages into Chinese, but that one should not abandon the efforts.[41] Within a month the Literature Tri-Monthly published another version of the same poem, by Zhang Renquan (1906–?), a student at the Franco-Chinese University in Beijing. Zhang too affirmed the possibility of poetry translation.[42] In February 1925, responding to a contributor, Wang Tongzhao commented that the debates over translatability of poetry had led to no resolution, and that fewer and fewer good poems (and even fewer translated poems) had appeared of late, simply proving that translating poetry was difficult as it required both thorough understanding of foreign poetry and good command of Chinese language. Wang opined that Xu Zhimo’s and Guo Moruo’s translations of poetry were good, because Xu and Guo were poets themselves. Wang was able to praise Guo Moruo, the supposed rival of the ALS, partly because the two groups had reconciled by then, and partly because Guo’s reputation as a creative writer and poet had been established while the Creation Society was not thriving as a group anymore in 1924, a

sign of which was the demise of the Creation Weekly and the Creation Quarterly in the spring that year.[43] The commentaries from Cheng Fangwu, Yu Dafu, Wang Tongzhao, and others, as a discourse on translation, were underpinned by a quest for a thorough understanding of the source text in order to reproduce it in the target language. The quest may not be dismissed from a post-structuralist perspective as a naïve belief in a fixed meaning in a text, but be regarded as an intellectual endeavor to learn from and participate in foreign cultures, for example, an expression of Chinese cosmopolitanism as well as that of politics of language and power. What they were advocating was one of the two translation practices Andre Lefevere and Susan Bassnett characterized—“the translator regards the task at hand as that of rising to the level of source text and its author,” as opposed to the other—“translator regards the target culture as greater and effectively colonizes the source text.”[44] Even from a poststructuralist perspective, unconscious mistranslation (as opposed to conscious choice) due to ignorance of grammar or vocabulary or culture or other relevant knowledge of the source text could not be taken seriously as an alternative interpretation of the source text.[45] On such a ground the critiques of bad translations were valid in their own right.[46] Moreover, what Yu Dafu articulated about “studying,” “thinking,” and “grasping” was actually about the inseparable relationship between cultural translation and linguistic translation that translation studies scholars today take for granted. What is complicated and interesting is how Chinese translators and critics would evaluate translated texts as good translations (meaning well received in the context of Chinese culture), when Chinese culture itself (including the very language used in translation) was changing, and was changing in no small part due to the introduction of foreign texts and their contexts (foreign cultures) through translations.

POETRY TRANSLATION AND VERNACULAR POETRY In the commentary cited above, Wang Tongzhao touched upon an important issue bearing on the future of vernacular Chinese. “It is worth thinking long and hard whether it is appropriate to use the currently fashionable long and short lines without rhymes to translate poetry.”[47] This comment pointed to the critical issue of whether the so-called “new poetry” (xinshi) was poetry at all; if not, whether it was legitimate to translate foreign poetry that had rhymes and rhythms into a Chinese form that did not have them. To appreciate the issue, one is reminded that in the early- to mid-1920s the debate over the merits and defects of classical poetry and of the new poetry that appeared with the New Culture movement was still raging. The journal Xueheng (Critical review ), a scholarly journal based in Nanjing, for instance, published all its articles in classical Chinese into the 1930s. Strong arguments were made in the journal that the quality of literature could not be judged good and bad and differentiated between new and old by whether vernacular language was used

(Chapter 5).[48] More to the point, an unresolved issue was whether rhyme-less, rhythm-less lines written in vernacular Chinese could be regarded as poetry at all. In 1917 Liu Yazi (1887–1958), a poet and political activist, criticized Hu Shi’s poems written in vernacular Chinese by saying that as prose and poetry were two different things, vernacular prose (baihuawen) was acceptable, but vernacular poetry (baihuashi) was not.[49] In his lectures on national learning delivered in 1922, Zhang Binglin (1869–1936), a scholar of Chinese classics, defined poetry as rhymed writing and regarded vernacular poetry as a degeneration of Chinese poetry.[50] Cao Juren, who took notes of Zhang’s lectures (the notes were published as a book), rejected Zhang’s position by arguing that what made a piece of writing a poem was its content, not its form, be it rhymed or not.[51] Cao’s argument was similar to that in the Xueheng noted above, but for the opposite purpose. So the issue was boiled down to whether poetry (and literature) was defined by form or content or both. In that context, Yu Dafu discussed what poetry was. Citing Chinese classics such as the Classic of Books and the Book of Rites, and Western authors such as William Wordsworth (1770–1850), Ralph W. Emerson (1803–1882), Robert Browning (1812– 1889), Leigh Hunt (1784–1859), and C. M. Gayley (a professor of English Literature at UC Berkeley), Yu defined poetry as a genre in terms of both content and form. In content poetry was defined by expressions of emotions, feelings, aspirations, etc. and in form it was full of rhymes and rhythms. He argued that the musicality of poetry was not an externally imposed rule, but was a direct expression of internal feelings. Of all phenomena in the universe—all beautiful and lively things—almost none is not governed by this melody and rhythm. Sound of wind and rain, cycles of the sun and the moon, alternation of four seasons, steps of pedestrians, squeaks of tables and chairs, our breath and pulse, changes from young to old and from birth to death, all are rhythmic movements in a broad sense. When the rhythm is slow, it is like light cast by the setting autumn sun over the sea, and the mood is tranquil and sobering. When the rhythm is fast, it is like tens of thousands of soldiers and horses storming toward their targets, and the mood is enthusiastic and inspiring. So when love is consummated, or war is won, or life and death is hung in balance, or one is lonely in a sleepless long night, or looking into distance from a height with bursting thoughts, the feelings in heart come out as poetry. Although the rhythm is either relaxing or pressing, tone is either short or long, depending on various circumstances, it is certain that rise and fall within a range and high and low around an appropriate point will never go beyond the confine of the melody and rhythm.[52] Clearly, while Yu Dafu cannot be considered a defender of tradition against new literature, his view here was an eloquent critique of certain varieties of the “new poetry” that had no rhymes and rhythms, and by extension the similar kind of translations of foreign poetry. Xu Zhimo may be considered a promoter and practitioner of new poetry and of

poetry translation in the style of new poetry. In March 1924 he issued a call for translation of several English poems he selected. Xu eulogized the beauty of lyrical poetry and quoted, from an English source he did not name, that “poetry is the imprint left by the happiest and noblest moment experienced by the noblest and happiest heart.” He declared that “in the highest realm, religion, philosophy, and literature are the same, just as in the poet’s most transcendental imaginary, beauty, truth, and goodness cannot be separated anymore.” Significantly, Xu was not talking about any lyrical poetry in general or Chinese poetry in particular, but British lyrical poetry, for he mentioned as the best examples William Wordsworth (1770–1850), Percy Bysshe Shelly (1792–1822), Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892), Walter Savage Landor (1775– 1864), and the poems he selected were by Wordsworth, Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894), William Butler Yeats (1865–1939), William H. Davis (1871–1940), and William Ernest Henley (1849–1903). Xu stated his motivation for the project: What he had in mind was an enterprise of translating foreign poetry into Chinese new poetry (xinshi). “What we expect [to achieve] is that from serious translation we study the possibility of Chinese language, after it is liberated, to express exquisite ideas, regulated tones and syllables; study what kind of resilience, flexibility, and general adaptability this newly discovered tool of communication has; and [study] how [the vernacular language] differs from our old way [of writing] and, if it is superior, how and why.”[53] So instead of seeing new poetry as an improper Chinese form to translate foreign poetry, Xu was trying to expand the capacity of vernacular Chinese and develop a literary form (new poetry in the vernacular) through translating foreign poetry into the language. Xu Zhimo’s goal proved to be too ambitious to be achievable. According to Lin Yutang, Xu told him two months later that none of the contributed translations in response to his call was any good.[54] There appears to have been a gap between the intellectual world and language skills of Xu Zhimo (and others like Guo Moruo and Hu Shi) and those of average educated Chinese including the Fukan readers and contributors. Not surprisingly, like Yu Dafu, Xu Zhimo came to feel dissatisfied with state of the art in translating foreign poetry and in creating new poetry. In December 1924 Xu issued another call in the journal Xiandai Pinglun (Contemporary Review), for translating four lines from a poem by Goethe. Ten months later, after he became the Fukan editor, Xu published seven versions of the translation including Hu Shi’s, Guo Moruo’s, and his own three renderings. After discussing the merits and defects in all these versions, Xu made his point: [It is] not easy, really not easy! Only four lines, [but] words should be natural, simple, and familiar, while the meaning should be profound, far-reaching, and solid. [. . .] Thus we can see a very simple principle, that is, poetry, whether Chinese or Western, whether classical or vernacular, is never an easy thing [to do]. Do you not agree that translating poetry is difficult? Furthermore, is it not even more difficult to compose poetry? [. . .] In recent years it is fashionable to

write new poems. Everyone is writing poems. One writes poems when seeing the moon, when touring a garden, when telling a story—if one has a kiss, then it is even more necessary to write a poem. The manuscripts that I have received are almost nothing else but “new poetry.” A friend told me “you deserve it! All this is caused by you [promoting new poetry].” This has turned into a disaster, a disaster of vernacular poetry. Will there be a day when the disaster disappears? One way [for it to happen] is to teach those young people who are enthusiastic about creative writing that it is difficult. I mention the translation of these four lines [by Goethe] because I want those students to know that translation is difficult and creative writing is even less easy.[55] This comment was important, for it tells us that Xu Zhimo, one of the most active writers of new poems, was not optimistic about the genre becoming widely practiced and successful. Also important was Xu’s message to “students” and “young people” that either writing poetry or translating poetry was difficult. This message, and indeed the whole discussion about the difficulty of translating poetry, served to highlight the fact that in early twentieth-century China writing and translating poetry remained an elite activity fitting only for the cultured few, not including even college students, no matter how enthusiastically the new literature practitioners wished to bring literature to the masses through the vernacular language and to reform society thereby.[56] Nevertheless, Xu Zhimo, Guo Moruo, Yu Dafu, and others could imagine that they were participating in a world culture and trying to make more and more Chinese do so as well. Finally, while most educated Chinese who spoke on the issue held that translating poetry was possible, Zhou Zuoren for one doubted that poetry could be translated in its entirety (Zhou rarely, if ever, criticized other people’s translations). Back in 1918 Zhou Zuoren commented on poetry translation on the occasion of his translating an ancient Greek poem for the New Youth. In a short “Apologia” prefacing his translation, Zhou said that a translated poem was supposed to be more awkward than the original and to be un-Chinese in intonation; and because the original was a colloquial poem, he did not try to render it into Chinese classical format of five or seven words per line but made it into his free verse (ziyou shi)—without rhythm and rhyme. He noted that the above was his thinking at that point and it might change if he or other people came up with better methods or ideas in the future.[57] By 1924 Zhou had arrived at a clearer position on poetry translation. He translated and published in the Fukan a few ancient Greek poems. In a brief introduction, Zhou stated the following: “Poetry cannot be translated; only the original is poetry, and other [versions] are all explanations like a tutor explaining the Tang poetry! That is why my translation of these ‘Greek poems’ is actually using prose to ‘convey the message,’ but only because the originals are poems, [the translation] is sometimes written in separate lines: What is written in separate lines is not necessarily poetry—this is what I want to make clear at the outset.”[58] Amidst all the debates about poetry translation and vernacular poems, Zhou in effect denied the possibility of translating

poetry as poetry, by declaring that his own translation was only an explanation of the source text. His last sentence could be taken as disapproval of the kind of new poetry written in vernacular without rhyme and rhythm.

TRANSLATION AND GROUP POLEMICS As noted earlier, the Creation Society was aggressively engaging in polemics with members of the ALS and others in the debates on translation. The polemics reflected both the issues inherent in Chinese translation practices at that time and a contestation for cultural capital on the literary scene among educated Chinese who were politically marginalized. The point here is that Chinese cosmopolitan agenda in the 1920s was often pursued as individualist endeavor, doing so via small groupings as vehicles notwithstanding; individualism went along perfectly well with cosmopolitanism among those involved. In the August 1922 issue of the Creation Quarterly, Yu Dafu wrote a short piece on state of the art in Chinese translation, and it set off a heated polemics in print media. What prompted Yu’s comment was a Chinese version of a book by Rudolf Eucken (1846–1926), a German philosopher and Nobel laureate. The book (published by the China Book Company) was translated by Yu Jiaju (1898–1972), a teacher at Henan Normal University who would soon go to England to study.[59] The translation was from an English edition, not the German original, which was the first issue Yu Dafu raised: “this book on the meaning and value of human life is written in German, and German is not a language that no one studies. If the translator intends to introduce philosophy, why did he not study German for one or two years first? Moreover, Eucken’s work is not difficult to understand, and even a literal translation (zhiyi) would not be a difficult thing to do.” Yu made a point of buying an English edition of Eucken’s book published in 1907. Yu took the first paragraph in the book to illustrate that Yu Jiaju’s Chinese translation was full of errors. “No one knows how many such mistranslations are around in today’s China, and it is a pity that innocent young men and women are being deceived by those who do translations.”[60] Yu commented on several issues: The alienation and marginalization of educated Chinese from political affairs, which led to the popularity of literary production and consumption as a way of life; literal translation that was considered more rigorous vs. free translation that was deemed shoddy; and translation based on translated versions instead of original works. On the issue of the appeal of literary market to educated Chinese, Yu Dafu’s diagnosis was correct to a degree. To understand the pecuniary motives of translators, it is useful to learn how much a translator could earn for his work. When Zhou Zuoren and Lu Xun translated works for the Library of Contemporary Novels and the Collection of Contemporary Japanese Novels published by the Commercial Press in 1921, the rate was five yuan per one thousand characters, which Zhou said was at the high end, whereas a year earlier another work was sold for only two yuan per one thousand characters. The highest rate Zhou Zuoren obtained was ten yuan per one thousand characters for his translation of

Greek works, which earned him four hundred yuan, enough for him to buy a piece of land for a family cemetery in Shaoxing.[61] Hu Shi noted the same rate (10 yuan per 1000 characters) for his translation work for the Commercial Press in 1922.[62] Of course, Zhou and Hu received the rate because they were Beida professors; and income from translation was supplementary to their regular salaries, a far cry from the condition of those living off writing, such as Yu Dafu.[63] Yet, how would Yu Dafu differentiate himself and members of the Creation Society from the literary scene he disparaged, since they too were selling their works including translations on the same literary market? The Creation group assumed a position as the arbitrator of the literary scene or were trying to accrue their own cultural capital by challenging the existing cultural and literary norms.[64] As might be expected, Yu’s attitude touched some nerves. In response to Yu Dafu’s comment, Hu Shi wrote a short piece in the Endeavor Weekly on September 17, 1922. Hu regarded Yu Dafu’s criticism as harsh and unfair attacks on Yu Jiaju and pointed errors in Yu Dafu’s correction of Yu Jiaju’s translation. In return, Guo Moruo, the editor of the Creation Quarterly, defended Yu Dafu. Guo argued that Hu Shi distorted Yu Dafu’s review of the Chinese literary scene by calling it a personal attack on Yu Jiaju whom Yu Dafu actually did not even name in his comment, and that Hu Shi’s correction to Yu Dafu’s correction was full of errors. Furthermore, Guo showed that the English edition was not a faithful translation of the German original to begin with (so Yu Jiaju was to be blamed for using the English edition). Guo said: “From this we can see that translation is a difficult job and translated works are not reliable. Whether the motivation to do translation is to ‘feed the mouth’ or to ‘introduce ideas’ [Hu Shi’s words], the precondition is to understand the original. Without understanding the original, one should not just translate works at will in order to feed the mouth, nor will one be able to translate to introduce ideas.”[65] Cheng Fangwu was more vindictive against Hu Shi. In his view, Hu accused Yu Dafu of verbally abusing people (maren), but Hu himself actually abused Yu and ignored Yu’s general assessment of translation, thus lacking an appropriate “attitude of a scholar.” Cheng opined that the English version of Eucken’s work and the Chinese versions by Yu Jiaju, Yu Dafu, and Hu Shi were all incorrect against the German original. He offered his translation from the German edition to correct Hu Shi’s translation in particular.[66] The matter would not end there, however. Writing in the Lamp of Learning (the supplement to the Shishi Xinbao) a certain Ge Letian also questioned Hu Shi’s translation and offered his version. Zhang Dongsun, the editor of the Shishi Xinbao, added an editorial note to Ge’s piece by offering yet another rendering of the paragraph in question. In response to all this fuss over the translation of a single paragraph from Eucken’s book, Wu Zhihui published a long article in the Lamp of Learning, which the Fukan also carried, calling for a movement to replace literal translation with annotated translation (zhuyi) as a solution to unreliable translations. He noted that it was not just Chinese translations that were unreliable, but that

translations between European languages (French, German, English, etc.) were problematic too, as he and his friend Zhou Gensheng (1889–1971) had discovered. [67] As far as conveying the message of a translated work was concerned, in Wu’s view, summary translation (zhaiyi) was the best, free translation was the second, and literal translation was the worst. As a remedy to mistranslations, Wu proposed that original foreign texts be printed along with literal translation and annotation.[68] Strictly speaking, what Wu proposed was not translation, since he was only concerned with conveying the message of a foreign text, not reproducing the source text including literary style and intellectual concepts. Guo Moruo strongly disagreed with the idea. He found Wu’s arguments for annotated translation illogical: If errors were to be easily spotted by the reader in the original (put side by side with the summary translation), then the reader must know the language and would not need annotation; and if the translator would need to do annotation to find his own errors, then he was not qualified to translate at all. Guo stated his standards of a translator: 1) Rich knowledge of the foreign language, 2) full understanding of the source text, and 3) thorough research on the author of the source text, and 4) ability to command his native language. Such a translator’s work was similar to creative writing (this view is similar to today’s translation theory). If books translated by such translators were still not easy to comprehend, it was the reader who was not equipped to read such books. Guo made further comments on the translation circles that Yu Dafu had criticized: “If we go on like this, our China’s translation circles can only be a pool of muddy water forever and our China’s New Culture can only be a pool of muddy water forever.” The connection he made between good translation and the future of the New Culture movement was again an assertion of the ownership of the movement. Because Hu Shi and Zhang Dongsun accused Yu Dafu of verbally abusing people, Guo Moruo aimed his fire at them specifically. Guo said that he and Yu Dafu wanted to advocate a sense of social responsibility at the time of shoddy translations flooding in China; but “the super intelligent Professor Hu” and “the super virtuous Editor Zhang,” while claiming that they wanted to reform society, would not tolerate criticisms containing occasional fierce words. Quoting Hu Shi’s words in the April 1 issue of the Endeavor Weekly that he (Hu) “had no time to discuss translation with those who did not know English and who thought they knew what they did not know,” Guo launched a sharp rebuke: You Great Professor Hu at Beijing University: While your English is good, you have made a mirror to reflect your true shape! You should know that English is not something you returned students from America can monopolize. Do you mean that only people like you who studied in America can know English? You should know that not everyone born in America necessarily knows English, because speaking English orally and reading profound written works are two different things. If you say other people do not know English and are therefore not qualified to discuss with you, you should at least point out where and how

others do not know English, which would be fitting to your status as one who knows English. If you really do not have time, then do not say anything to defend the shortcomings [of the translation circles]. I advise that you not try to crush people with your fame, with your title of Beida professor, with your qualification of a returned student from America; you should know that such stuff is just like smoke and cloud that cannot crush people; to crush people, one can only invite Mr. “Truth” and Mr. “Justice!”[69] These words betrayed Guo’s frustration and resentment against what he perceived to be the arrogance of those who possessed cultural capital by virtue of having studied in America or England and holding positions of professors. His fierce attack against Hu Shi clouded his otherwise sound suggestions on how to do good translation. Turning to Zhang Dongsun, Guo said that being criticized was not a shameful thing and criticizing others’ mistakes was not an arrogant act either. “Because last time I criticized Hu Shi’s alternative translation, Zhang Dongsun went so far as to say that I was ‘assaulting.’ If in the Chinese mind criticism is considered assault, then it is no wonder the Chinese are accustomed to being evasive on all sides, being on the good side at every turn, being vague and ambiguous, and ending everything by doing nothing.” In his view, Zhang’s comment on Hu’s translation and his (Guo’s) translation amounted to currying favor with “great professor Hu” by accusing him (Guo) of smearing Hu. “Although I am stupid, I can tell your subtle way of abusing people. I advise that you maintain fairness and not bend before fame! You great editors are manning sails and rudders for the country’s popular custom and scholars’ character. You should uphold virtue and morality and have higher standing point; resorting to trickery and currying favor are not becoming of great moral leaders!”[70] Guo was aware that as the editor of the Shishi Xinbao, a large daily newspaper, Zhang Dongsun held much more influence or discursive power than Guo himself as the editor of a small literary journal. The members of the Creation Society assumed a position of judge of the Chinese literary scene to criticize in order to be taken seriously, and they were perceived as such by those who had been active in the literary and intellectual circles since the mid to late 1910s, such as Hu Shi and Zhang Dongsun. It did not help the matter that the Creation group studied in Japan, whereas Hu and others studied in America and Europe, and therefore, Hu did not think highly of those who studied in Japan but wanted to discuss translation of English works. Guo Moruo was incensed by Hu Shi’s dismissive attitude, precisely because those who studied in Japan, such as Guo Moruo, Yu Dafu, Cheng Fangwu, and others (including Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren), also learned English and other European languages. It is no idle point that more than once Guo Moruo made a distinction between speaking English and reading, understanding, and translating English works. In fact, Guo Moruo and others who studied in Japan were culturally cosmopolitan and linguistically versatile more than returned students who studied in English-speaking countries, which was probably

in part why the Creation group was self-confident in challenging the prevailing norms of the literary scene where Hu Shi and others were influential prior to the arrival of the Creation group. After Guo Moruo’s heavily loaded broadside against Hu Shi and Zhang Dongsun was published, Hu Shi wrote a private letter dated May 15, 1923, to Guo Moruo and Yu Dafu, explaining that he did not have any malicious intent in his comment on Yu Dafu’s criticism of bad translations. “As for the issue of translating books, I would still advise you have more an attitude of research and less of unleashing anger. With regard to English, I have spent several decades of hard work and so far only feel it is difficult, not see it is easy. I sincerely hope you will forgive me for saying the sentence about ‘not knowing English,’ and treating it as an overheated word from a true friend with good intentions. If you do not like this awkward word, I am willing to use this letter to apologize to you.” Guo Moruo and Yu Dafu each returned a polite letter to Hu Shi, expressing their agreement that they should all put aside petty personal fight and work toward promoting the new literature.[71] Thus the Creation group’s strategy worked, as it were—through this polemic Guo Moruo and Yu Dafu were recognized by Hu Shi, at least privately, as worthy opponents; and Guo and Yu did not forget to remind Hu Shi that they were worthy participants in the new literature movement.[72] That Hu Shi perceived the Creation group to be “unleashing anger” was not without reason, as the latter constantly attacked others for bad translation. Cheng Fangwu laughed at the misreading and resulting mistranslation of the word “atheism” in the journal Xiaoshuo yuebao (Short Story Monthly).[73] Cheng sharply criticized Zhang Dongsun’s translation of Matter and Memory by Henri Bergson (1859–1941). [74] With an English version and a French version to compare with Zhang’s Chinese version, Cheng went over eight pages to discover ten errors—in his words, “Zhang was making nonsense (hunao).”[75] Guo Moruo was relentless to follow up on Cheng’s critique of Zhang Dongsun by asking Zhang either to apologize to readers for his errors or defend his translation, since Zhang did not directly respond to Cheng Fangwu, but vaguely wrote in the Shishi Xinbao that translation did not have fixed standards and translation was not such a great enterprise. Guo countered that literary styles of translation did not have standards but whether or not the translation of an original text was correct did have standards. Guo called Zhang incapable of admitting to his own errors and an incurable person.[76] This was just one of many instances where the Creation group played a self-appointed role of translation police who discovered horror on China’s literary scene.[77] The Creation group’s stance was such that in one of the debates on a particular translation, Zhou Zuoren entered under a pen-name, and mildly told the group not to be too harsh on others by saying that all writers should be self-critical.[78] Looking back in 1932, Guo Moruo defended the Creation Society’s aggressive stance in 1921–1922 this way: Whereas in the earlier phase [of the literary revolution] Hu [Shi], Liu [Bannong],

Qian [Xuantong], and Zhou [Zuoren] were mainly oriented toward attacking the old literature, in this [second] phase Guo [Moruo], Yu [Dafu], Cheng [Fangwu], and Zhang [Ziping] were mainly oriented toward constructing the new literature, and the spirit of their movement can be seen in the fact that they used “creation” as their banner. Moreover, they had an attitude of cleaning up their own camp, since the old literature that had already been beaten did not need their strike. The targets they attacked were opportunists in the so-called new camp, their crudely-made products, and their opportunistic, crude translations. This was a necessary process for constructing the new literature, establishing its value, and elevating its status. When those opportunist literary writers or scribes were selfcongratulating and seeing no opponents in sight, suddenly a new force arose from within the camp to clean the camp’s own troops, causing wide controversies. Thus the members of the Creation Society became heretics. They first confronted Hu Shi, then the Association for Literature Studies, and then Zhou Zuoren and the Shreds of Word group; and on the side they also quarreled with Liang [Qichao], Zhang Dongsun, and Zhang [Shizhao], ending up being an isolated force in society.[79] This retrospective narrative is largely factual. It unwittingly captures the strategy of the Creation group to distinguish itself by criticizing or attacking individuals and groups engaging in “new literature” and thus claiming the ownership of the movement. It is instructive to note here how Xu Zhimo came under the crossfire between the ALS and the Creation Society. In 1923 Xu published a piece in the Endeavor Weekly, “Fake Poems, Bad Poems, and Form-Imitating Poems.” Because he cited as bad examples from works by writers in both camps, he came under fire from both. For the ire on the part of the Creation group, Cheng Fangwu’s open letter to Xu may be quoted: Brother Zhimo, while making false maneuver around us, you shot sneaky arrows at us! I never thought a person’s hypocrisy could go to such a degree! From your article, I know your intention was to attack that one line of poem of [Guo] Moruo’s, to smear his personal character.[. . .] What I hate most is a fake person, and I am never courteous toward a fake person, so this time I expose your hypocrisy here without courtesy, to make all people in the world to know who is hypocritical and who is a fake person. I sincerely advise you to be less hypocritical from now on. Success is not such an important thing. [80] In response Xu issued a statement. Having just returned to the country in late 1922, said Xu, he was unaware of the politics on the literary scene until recently and he was saddened by the needless divide between the ALS and the Creation Society. “To this day I still loudly deny that shameful, base partisan smell, petty party bias [English in the original], will have opportunity to invade the noble, pure hearts of artists.” He stated that he did not belong to any group or society or party and his

contributions to various publications were not meant to represent any association or organization. When he critiqued a piece of work (such as a line of poem by Guo Moruo), by logic he was not criticizing the author as a person or all his works. He said he was an “idealist” as some people said of him. “Actually, I wish to take this opportunity to use my limited warm heart that loves art and friendship to touch all the gentlemen who have angry feelings yet to dissipate, or who have the habit of attacking people with whom they disagree, but who all have the same great enthusiasm to build the New Culture.”[81] As seen elsewhere in this book, although Xu Zhimo was individualistic to such a degree that he was indeed not active in forming or joining a small clique, he was by no means above controversies, often due to his selfimportance and his contempt for people whom he considered of inferior abilities. It is conceivable that what Xu did to the ALS and the Creation group was exactly what the Creation group did to the ALS, that is, newly returning from abroad, Xu tried to establish himself by criticizing the established literary figures in both camps, which was Cheng Fangwu’s perception, as reflected in his comment about success being not important.

TRANSLATION AND INDIVIDUAL POLEMICS As Xu Zhimo’s case suggests, individualistic endeavor as a cosmopolitan was not always carried on through groups. Besides polemics between groups, similar polemics also took place among individuals. A consideration of such cases adds another layer of texture to the intellectual life at that time. Chen Dabei’s translation of Loyalties by British playwright John Galsworthy (1867–1933) appeared in the Fukan in August 1923. Zhu Wonong wrote to the editor Sun Fuyuan to point out three errors in Chen’s translation. As it turned out, Chen did not know the word “bridge” meant a card game and “bookie” meant the bookmaker— one who set odds in betting on horse racing—so that Chen translated “bridge” as a structure over a river (qiao) and “bookie” as a bookseller (shufan). The third word, “intuition,” was not mistranslated, but Chen’s rendering of the sentence was so awkward that Zhu thought it was an error. Zhu noted in this letter that he did not intend to pick on Chen’s translation and only tried to help. “We young people in the literary circles should help one another to avoid mistakes, which does not mean that one comes out to criticize because his knowledge of English is better than another’s.” Zhu asked Sun and Chen to decide whether to publish his letter. The latter decided to publish it and thank Zhu for his constructive criticism.[82] The above is worth mentioning, because it made a contrast with the way Chen Yuan (1896–1973) criticized the same translation Chen Dabei did of Loyalties. Chen Yuan obtained Ph.D. in economics from University of London after spending ten years in England (1912–1922), and became professor and chair of the English Department at Beida. Armed with such credentials, Chen Yuan took it upon himself to criticize Chen Dabei’s translation under the pen-name “Xiying” (he would be better known as Chen Xiying). He felt a need to advertise his credentials, and prefaced his long article

with a résumé of his experience as a cosmopolitan connoisseur of European literature and art: He had read Galsworthy’s plays and seen his The Skin Game on stage. In 1922 he planned to see all of Galsworthy’s plays scheduled to be performed at the Court Theater in London. “Unfortunately, I was touring Bavaria to visit the home of Goethe, entering Saxon Switzerland to observe the wonder of snowy mountain peaks, listening to the music of Wagner, seeing stage performances of [Henrik] Ibsen and [Gerhar] Hauptmann,” thus missing the scheduled performances. He was able to catch a performance of Loyalties at the St. Martin’s Theater after returning to London.[83] Thus, Chen Yuan made a very deliberate display of his familiarity with European society and culture to validate his criticism of Chen Dabei’s work. The substance of Chen Yuan’s criticism would stand scrutiny in that he did correct the errors made by Chen Dabei. Having found as many as 250 errors, Chen Yuan commented on about one hundred of them, with the English original quoted along with Chen Dabei’s rendering. In Chen Yuan’s judgment, Chen Dabei did not understand many English idioms; he failed to appreciate the nuances of the words and phrases in dialogues because he did not grasp the mood, attitude, and sensitivity of the characters associated with their social status; and he missed the overall theme of the play. The last was reflected in Chen Dabei’s translation of the dialogues as well as the title of the play, which Chen Dabei rendered as “loyal friends,” whereas the theme was about conflicting loyalties of the protagonists to their social and ethnic identities and moral values.[84] All this is not surprising, since Chen Dabei had never been to England or any English-speaking country—he probably taught himself English beyond whatever elementary level of the language he might have learned in school.[85] Yet, in his article Chen Yuan mercilessly belittled Chen Dabei at every turn and in a condescending and sarcastic way. He seems to have intended to demolish what he considered the undeserved reputation of a fake hero. Chen Dabei had been regarded “a major authority on new theater” (xinju dajia) and Sun Fuyuan had called him “the leader of the new [theater] movement” (xin yundong lingxiu)—Chen Yuan repeatedly quoted and laughed at the two terms. He also quoted Chen Dabei’s explanation of why he was translating Western plays—he was trying to cope with the demand for play scripts from amateur theater activists, and it was Yu Shangyuan who asked him to translate Galsworthy’s work.[86] Chen Yuan said that Chen Dabei’s mistranslation of Galsworthy’s play would not help the new theater movement since no one would be able to perform his mistranslated script, and if performed, no one would be able to understand it.[87] Ironically, Chen Dabei had once criticized poor Chinese translations of foreign plays, and now Chen Yuan enjoyed the irony. “We have nothing more to say about this translated script that has so many errors. Who am I to be qualified to teach such a great figure (da renwu) as Mr. Chen [Dabei]? And who else is qualified to teach him? It is better to let him teach himself!”[88] After letting Chen Dabei teach himself by quoting his words, however, Chen Yuan proceeded to teach him further lessons anyway. “Actually, Chen Dabei should have just remained as ‘a major authority on

new theater’; and why should he have to do such a thing [as translation] outside his expertise?” Mentioning Chen Dabei’s version of Loyalties to be soon published as a book and his translation of Man of Property by Galsworthy being serialized in the Fukan, Chen Yuan said that if a little person (xiao renwu) was allowed to provide sincere advice to the great figure, he would persuade Chen Dabei to suspend Man of Property in the Fukan and delay the publication of Loyalties as a book so that he could have them checked by his friends who knew English—to do so was Chen Dabei’s responsibility to Galsworthy and to readers of the Fukan.[89] In fact, Chen Dabei’s translation of Man of Property debuted in the Fukan on September 10, 1923, and by September 23 it advanced to the second act; but the rest of the play never appeared thereafter, while Chen Yuan’s critique was published on September 27–30. One surmises that either Sun Fuyuan or Chen Dabei or both decided to take Chen Yuan’s advice, and that the initial decision to suspend Man of Property must have been Sun’s when he received Chen Yuan’s article around September 23. Chen Yuan’s credentials and his points seemed unassailable, but his critique appeared harsh and mean-spirited, which did not go unchallenged. On October 2, one contributor noted that Chen Yuan took great pleasure in verbally abusing Chen Dabei, and posed a query to Chen Yuan on one of his alternative translations to correct Chen Dabei’s.[90] Chen Yuan chose not to respond. By October 24, another contributor pen-named Xue Zhuang came forward to challenge Chen Yuan as well. Because Chen Dabei made mistakes in translation, he was abused by Chen Yuan— like being showered with dog’s blood from head down. Although Chen Yuan’s way of abusing people was unbecoming of a scholar, “we dare not make complaints on behalf of Mr. Chen Dabei, because we know Mr. Xiying—Chen Yuan is a real ‘great figure,’ Professor and Acting Chair of the English Department of National Beijing University.” Xue Zhuang noted Chen’s silence after the first contributor’s query and hoped Chen would respond to his own query. “I am a layperson to English with very dim wit; Mr. Xiying is all-knowing God in [matters of] English and a grand master at the institution of highest education in the country, with the right to verbally abuse any and all people and the duty to direct any and all people.” His own query was why Chen Xiying translated “By Jove” into “ma de.”[91] The query was trivial, and the point of writing the piece was to return the same kind of verbal abuse back to Chen Yuan. Such exchanges of sarcasm caused discomfort among some readers who commented on the culture of verbal abuse that was plaguing print media. Pen-named Bo Huang, Tang Yue (1891–1987), an American educated professor of psychology at Beida, analyzed verbal abuse in literary criticism as motivated by the following: One was a superiority complex on the part of some authors that led to their desire to show they are above others and to humiliate others; and the other was a revenge mentality on the part of some authors to retaliate against people who criticized them or somehow hindered their career or interest before. Tang called for an ethics of criticism: 1) be on the issue in question, not on irrelevant issues; 2) be on the work, not on the author; 3) point out errors and offer corrections, not make commentaries, associations, and inferences; 4) be consultative, not arbitrary, especially on

ambiguous issues; and 5) contain encouragement, not insult and sarcasm.[92] Zhou Zuoren agreed with Tang Yue, and he opined that the Fukan editor should exercise his judgment and authority to delete insults and sarcasms in to-be-published works.[93] Chinese translation practices and debates over them in the 1920s may be understood in the larger historical context where the relationship between Chinese tradition and Western culture remained an unsettled issue. They reveal a unique dimension of the China-West cultural encounter and its intellectual and epistemological consequences. Politically marginalized, many educated Chinese wanted to engage in translation because of their perception of Western culture as a model for the nation—a nationalistic agenda and/or because of their personal aspirations to being able to directly participate in a world culture as individual cosmopolitans—a cosmopolitan and individualistic agenda. These motivations required, or rather dictated, their belief in the translatability of foreign texts of any genre. They would often reproduce translations of the same source texts, supposedly to get closer and closer to the true meaning and true beauty, with an eye on gaining cultural capital for one or the other said agenda. The underlying assumption was that only one version of translation would be correct or the closest to being correct—the most faithful to a foreign text, the most comprehensible to Chinese readers, and the most elegant in Chinese language. The belief and discourse drove Chinese translators to attempt at that elusive goal and in the process produced many different renderings of the same source texts and many debates on how to do it right. Since Chinese language (classical vs. vernacular) and Chinese culture (old vs. new) were changing amidst conflicts, in part due to the very introduction of foreign concepts and neologisms for them, the standards to evaluate translated texts themselves were constantly contested. Such debates could and did occur in other historical contexts; it is the issue of making vernacular Chinese the language of translated texts, and Mandarin the national spoken language, that informed the specificity of these debates in China’s New Culture era. By the same token, group or individual polemics and rivalries would have happened anyway; and it is the specific agenda of creating a “new literature” including “new poetry” through borrowing from foreign sources and translating them in vernacular Chinese that defined the debates on translation at the time. As such, Chinese translation practices and the debates over them constituted an important arena where cosmopolitanism, nationalism, and individualism interacted, with wide and far-reaching epistemological, cultural, and social implications.

NOTES

The Chenbao Fukan Monthly Edition Cover Page, January 1924

The Chenbao Fukan Monthly Edition Cover Page, June, 1925

The Chenbao Fukan Daily Cover Page, October 1, 1925

The Chenbao Fukan Daily Cover Page, January 6, 1926

The Chenbao Fukan Daily Cover Page, Society Special, July 6, 1926

The Chenbao Fukan Daily Cover Page, Theater Special, July 29, 1926

The Chenbao Fukan Daily Cover Page, January 6, 1927

1. Tsung Hyui-puh, “Chinese Translations of Western Literature,” The Chinese Social and Political Science Review, Vol. 12, No.3 (July 1928):369–378. 2. Tsen-hsuin Tsien, “Western Impact on China through Translation,” The Far Eastern Quarterly, 13, 2 (May 1954):326–327. 3. Bonnie McDougall, The Introduction of Western Literary Theories into Modern China (Tokyo: Center for East Asian Cultural Studies, 1971). 4. See Shu-mei Shih, The Lure of the Modern, pp. 131–136. 5. Willis Barnstone preferred to use “receptor language” instead of “target language” “as a less belligerent metaphor for language transposition.” (Barnstone, 1993, 228). Lydia Liu has also used “guest language” and “host language” to replace “source language” and “target language” on the ground that “source” suggests authenticity, origin, influence, and “target” implies a distance to be crossed—a teleological goal (see Translingual Practices: Literature, National Culture, and Translated Modernity —China, 1900–1937 (Stanford University Press, 1995, p. 27). The point is well taken, but I continued to use “source language/text/culture” and “target language/text/culture” just to be consistent with most translation studies works I am

citing. It is clear that in recent works translation studies scholars have used these terms well beyond and in contrary to what the terms used to imply or suggest. 6. Andre Lefevere, “Translation: Its Genealogy in the West,” in Susan Bassnett and Andre Lefevere, eds., Translation, History and Culture (London: Pinter Publishers, 1990), pp. 14–15. 7. Lawrence Venuti, The Translation Studies Reader, pp. 13–14. 8. Lawrence Venuti, The Translation Studies Reader, p. 19. 9. Lawrence Venuti, The Translation Studies Reader, pp. 71–74. 10. Lawrence Venuti, The Translation Studies Reader, pp. 111–114. 11. See, for example, Willis Barnstone, The Poetics of Translation: History, Theory, Practice (Yale UP, 1993); Barbara Folkart, Second Finding: A Poetics of Translation (University of Ottawa Press, 2007). 12. See Susan Bassnett and André Lefevere, eds., Translation, History and Culture (London: Printer Publishers, 1990); Maria Tymoczko and Edwin Gentzler, eds., Translation and Power (University of Massachusetts Press, 2002). 13. André Lefevere and Susan Bassnett, “Introduction: Proust’s Grandmother and the Thousand and One Nights: The ‘Cultural Turn’ in Translation Studies,” in Susan Bassnett and André Lefevere, eds., Translation, History and Culture, p. 12. 14. Sandra Bermann, “Introduction,” in Sandra Bermann and Michael Wood, eds., Nation, Language, and the Ethics of Translation (Princeton University Press, 2005). p. 5. 15. Willis Barnstone, The Poetics of Translation. p. 229. 16. According to Lydia Liu, while discussing the racial and cultural identity of the Chinese, Zhang Binglin reached an insight that “the inability to translate one language completely into another says nothing about the superiority of the one or the barbarity of the other; rather, it shows the intransigence of their irreducible differences. Using the Chinese translation of Byron’s poetry as an example, he argued that a poem considered beautiful by the standards of one language may be judged thoroughly insipid by those of another” (Lydia Liu, Translingual Practice, pp. 245–246). The assumption behind Zhang’s view that translation was impossible was not a prevailing one in the 1920s, however. 17. Lin Kenan, “Translation as a Catalyst for Social Change in China,” in Maria Tymoczko and Edwin Centzler, eds., Translation and Power. Boston, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2002. pp. 160–183. 18. Tsung Hyui-puh, “Chinese Translations of Western Literature,” p. 371. 19. Also see Maurice Meisner, Li Ta-chao and the Origins of Chinese Marxism, pp. 20–21; Arif Dirlik, The Origins of Chinese Communism. 20. Elisabeth Kaske, The Politics of Language in Chinese Education, 1895–1919 (Brill, 2008). 21. CF, 1922/3/29. 22. CF, 1922/12/2. 23. Shu-mei Shih, The Lure of the Modern, p. 71. 24. Fu Sinian, “How to Make Vernacular Language” (), Xinchao, Vol.1, No.2 (Feb.

1919):177–183. 25. On neologism, see Lydia Liu, Translingual Practice. 26. Andre Lefevere, “Translation: Its Genealogy in the West,” in Susan Bassnett and Andre Lefevere, eds., Translation, History and Culture, p. 24. 27. Xu, Y. and X. Xu, “Social Actors, Cultural Capital, and the State: The Standardization of Bank Accounting Classification and Terminology in Early-TwentiethCentury China,” Accounting, Organization and Society (London: Elsevier, Ltd.), Vol. 33, No.1 (January 2008): 73–102. 28. CF, 1922/5/3. 29. For a discussion on the use of national language and Chinese spoken drama, see Xiaoqun Xu, “Professional Theater and Urban Culture: the Emergence of Chinese Spoken Drama in the 1920s-1930s,” in Wu Ren-shu, Paul, Katz, and Lin Mei-li, eds., The City and Chinese Modernity (Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, 2010), 297–325. 30. CF, 1922/5/3. 31. CF, 1922/11/4. 32. It is after 1949 that the Chinese rendering of foreign names in the PRC followed the spirit of standardizing transliteration and making foreign names sound and look obviously foreign. In the mass media in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and overseas Chinese communities, however, the opposite was true, until recent decades during which a convergence of the two practices seems to have been taking place. 33. According to Edwin Gentzler, for example, Lawrence Venuti, for the sake of combating the marginalization of translators in service to the power of legal, educational, and literary institutions, advocated a strategy of “abusive fidelity”—“‘faithful’ to the tone and tenor of the source text, but ‘abusive’ to the literary norms of the target culture, therefore allowing more elements of the foreign culture to enter the target culture.” Venuti neglected the nuance in the original French word “abuser” he borrowed from French writer Philip Lewis that had connotation of “ab-use —un-usual, non-normative, mis-leading, de-familiar.” See Edwin Gentzler, “Translation, Poststructuralism, and Power,” in Maria Tymoczko and Edwin Gentzler, eds., Translation and Power, p. 201. 34. Zhongguo Xiandai Wenxue Cidian, p. 58. 35. Andre Lefevere, “Translation: Its Genealogy in the West,” in Susan Bassnett and Andre Lefevere, eds., Translation, History and Culture, p. 19. Lefevere quoted Nicholas Perrot d’Ablancourt (1709) describing traductio: “I do not always stick to the author’s words, nor even to his thoughts. I keep the effect he wanted to reach in mind, and then I arrange matters according to the fashion of our time.” (p. 19). 36. CF, 1922/5/2. 37. CZ, 1923/9/9. 38. CZ, 1923/9/9. 39. CZ, 1924/1/13; 1/20. 40. CF, 1924/6/29. 41. CF, 1924/12/25, “Wenxue Xunkan,” No. 57., 1–2.

42. CF, 1925/1/15, “Wenxue Xunkan,” No. 59, 1–2. 43. To an inquiry about whether the Creation Weekly or Quarterly would be revived, Guo Moruo responded no, in May 1925, citing financial problems and family responsibilities of his group (CF, 1925/5/12, 6–7). But a more truthful picture of the internal conflict within the Creation group from 1924 onward was revealed in a retrospective book—Huang Renying, ed., Chuangzhao She Lun (On the Creation Society) (Shanghai: Guanghua shuju, 1932). As for the reconciliation between the Creation group and the ALS group, Hu Shi made an informative observation. Hu attended a dinner in Zheng Zhengduo’s home on October 18, 1923, and Gao Mengdan, Xu Zhimo, and Guo Moruo were present. “This was perhaps the dinner where the Creation Society and the Association for Literature Studies ‘buried their axes’” (Hu Shi Riji Quanbian, Vol. 4, p. 78). 44. André Lefevere and Susan Bassett, “Introduction: Proust’s Grandmother and the Thousand and One Nights: The ‘Cultural Turn’ in Translation Studies,” in Susan Bassnett and André Lefevere, eds., Translation, History and Culture, p. 11. 45. An example of Chinese translators making conscious and deliberate choices not to be faithful to a source text was the omission of some sentences in translating Bertrand Russell’s writing on China (Chapter 2). 46. In recent scholarships in translation studies, it is common to regard translation as writing and re-creating endeavor in its own right and thus move beyond the issues of fidelity and translatability. Yet, the prerequisite of understanding the source language for translation is not abandoned. Barbara Folkart, for example, sharply dismisses the so-called “foreignizing” in translation that is actually resulted from bad command of a source language. “‘Foreignizing,’ in a word, seems to hold an immense appeal for people whose command of the source language does not allow them to distinguish between what is routine and what is intentional, what is idiome and what is énoncé, between the given and the constructed. [. . .] Clearly, when you are not even on top of the raw materials, there is simply no way you can understand, let alone re-enact, what the writer—the faber—has done with that raw material.” (Folkart, 2007, 311– 312). 47. CF, 1925/2/25. 48. For example, see Wu Fangji, “Zailun Wuren Yanzhong Zhi Xinjiu Wenxue Guan” (Second treatise on the view of old and new literature from my perspective), Xueheng, No.21 (September 1923):1–29. 49. Elisabeth Kaske, The Politics of Language, p. 455. 50. Zhang Taiyan, Guoxue Gailun (A general treatise on national learning) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1997), p. 57, 66. 51. Ibid., pp. 75–76. 52. CF, 1925/5/20, “Yilin Xunkan,” No.5, pp. 1–2. 53. CF, 1924/3/22. 54. CF, 1924/5/23. 55. CF, 1925/10/8. 56. Even some of the writers who promoted vernacular poems were not regarded

poets. As one scholar of modern Chinese literature noted, “not one in that early group [Crescent Moon Society], with the exception of Xu [Zhimo] himself, could be regarded as a poet—even Hu Shi, who had written some of the earliest vernacular poems during the May-Fourth period, was generally not considered a poet” (Lawrence Wang-chi Wong, “Lions and Tigers in Groups: The Crescent Moon School in Modern Chinese Literary History,” in Kirk Denton and Michel Hockx, eds., Literary Societies of Republican China, p. 284). 57. Zhou Zuoren, “Gushi Jinyi (Today’s translation of an ancient poem),” Xin Qingnian, 4, 2 (Feb. 1918):123. Michel Hockx has pointed out that Zhou’s comments would apply to new poems experimented by the Xin Qingnian writers (Questions of Style, pp. 182–183). 58. CF, 1924/5/25. 59. Yu Jiaju went to England to study in early 1922. He was a member of the Association of Young China both before and after he went abroad. His translation was apparently done before his departure for England. According to the March 1923 issue of the Young China magazine, Yu’s address was in London. See Shaonian Zhongguo, Vol. 3, No.4 (Jan. 1922):49; Vol. 4, No.1 (March 1923): Fulu (appendix). 60. Chuangzhao Jikan (CJ) 1, 2 (1922/8/25), “Commentaries,” 45–49. 61. Zhou Zuoren, Zhitang Huixiang Lu, pp. 565–566, 568. 62. Hu Shi Riji Quanbian, Vol. 3, p. 380. 63. A further example: Speaking on behalf of his son, Liang Sicheng, and others who translated Outline of History by H. G. Wells for the Commercial Press in 1923, Liang Qichao asked for a rate of four yuan per one thousand characters; if he had edited the text, he would have asked for six yuan per one thousand characters. See Liang Qichao Nianpu Changbian, p. 991. 64. See Michel Hockx, Questions of Style. 65. CJ, 1, 3 (1922/11/25), “Commentaries,” 1–8. 66. CJ, 1, 3 (1922/11/25), “Commentaries,” 13–27. 67. Zhou Gengsheng had studied in Japan, England, and France, with a doctoral degree in law from University of Paris, and he was a professor of political science at Beida at the time. 68. CF, 1923/4/6–4/7; 4/9–4/12. 69. CJ, 1923/7/1. 70. CJ, 1923/7/1. 71. Hu Shi Wenji (Collections of Hu Shi), Vol. 2 (Diary and Letters) (Beijing: Yanshan Chubanshe, 1995), pp. 250–254. 72. Hu Shi paid a visit to Guo Morou, Yu Dafu, and Cheng Fangwu on May 25, 1923, and thus “ended a small case of brush and ink.” Guo, Yu, and Cheng paid a return visit two days later. When Hu Shi was in Shanghai again in October 1923, along with Xu Zhimo and Zhu Jingnong, he paid a visit to Guo Moruo at his home, and noted that Guo’s life seemed to be hard. Two days later, Guo retuned a visit to Hu Shi, and invited Hu to a dinner where Xu Zhimo, Tian Han, Cheng Fangwu, and a few others were present. Hu noted in his diary that Guo was offering drinks earnestly, and

because it was the first time they had dinner together “after they reconciled with me,” Hu decided to drink alcohol against his own rule of no drinking; and they all got quite drunk, including Guo Moruo—to the point that when Hu said he had read Guo’s poem, “the Goddess,” for five days in order to write a critique, Guo was so pleased that he hugged and kissed Hu. Another two days later, Hu Shi and Xu Zhimo invited Guo Moruo, Cheng Fangwu, the Tian Han couple, and the Ren Yongshu couple to a dinner (Hu Shi Riji Quanji, Vol. 4, pp. 19–20, 71–72, p. 75). 73. CJ, 1923/7/1, 16–20. 74. CJ, 1923/7/1, 21–22. 75. CJ, 1923/7/1, 23–25. 76. Chuanzhao Zhoubao (CZ), 1923/7/14, 14–15. 77. For other critiques by the Creation group of translations, see CZ, 1923/11/25, 11– 15; 1923/12/2, 6–11; 1924/3/28, 10–14; 1924/4/19, 11–16; 4/27, 11–15. 78. CF, 1923/12/16. 79. See Guo Moruo, “Chuangzhao Shede Ziwo Pipan (A self-criticism of the Creation Society),” in Huang Renying, ed., Chuangzhao She Lun (On the Creation Society) (Shanghai: Guanghua shuju, 1932), p. 74. The book contains further exchanges of sharp words between Guo Moruo and Lu Xun about the nature of the debates on translation launched by the Creation group ten years earlier. 80. CZ, 1923/6/3, 15. 81. CF, 1923/6/10. 82. CF, 1923/8/18. 83. CF, 1923/9/27. 84. CF, 1923/9/27–30. 85. For more on Chen Dabei, see Xu, “Professional Theater and Urban Culture.” 86. CF, 1923/8/20. 87. CF, 1923/9/30. 88. CF, 1923/9/30. 89. CF, 1923/9/30. 90. The original was “They all stick together; why shouldn’t we? It’s in the blood. Open your jugular, and see if you haven’t got it.” Chen Yuan did a literal translation and rendered the last sentence as: “, ” (Open your main blood vessel whether you have gotten blood)—the sentence did not make sense in Chinese, not to mention the fact that “it” at end of the sentence in the original did not mean “blood.” For Chen’s translation, see CF, 1923/9/28, 4; the contributor’s query, 1923/10/2, 4. 91. CF, 1923/10/24. 92. CF, 1923/10/25. 93. CF, 1923/11/2. The polemic ended after five weeks, with Chen Yuan and Chen Dabei each gave a short last word (CF, 1923/10/28; 11/4).

Chapter 4

Placing China in the World of Colonial Hierarchy Chinese Travelogues in the 1920s From its inception in 1918 the Fukan featured a column headlined “Travelogues” (youji). During 1921–1924 when Sun Fuyuan was the editor, more than forty travelogues appeared and each serialized for days or even weeks, making the column nearly a daily feature. After Sun departed in October 1924, the Fukan dropped the column, but travelogues continued to appear, with less frequency. Travelogues were featured in the Fukan because the genre had a long history in China, despite the relatively recent usage of the term youji.[1] The travelogues of the imperial era were composed by scholars and officials; as products of an elite activity, they were not written for mass consumption when they were written, and they were mostly about landscapes and geography. In the late nineteenth century, Chinese travelers began to visit Western countries (and Japan) and wrote down their observations as private diaries or official reports—again not intended for public consumption.[2] Such contacts with the West, however, would inevitably influence the Chinese conception of the world, as manifested in the Collection of Geographies from Small Square Teapot Pavilion. Compiled and published by Wang Xiqi (1855– 1913) during 1877–1897, this massive collection introduced global geographies and included travelogues penned by Chinese visitors to foreign countries as well as descriptions of places in China.[3] Such knowledge of the world was a necessary condition for certain educated Chinese to not only jettison the Sino-centric worldview that they had grown up with but also, as Rebecca Karl has shown, discover a world where inequality among nations prevailed and the possibility of an anti-colonial alliance for China to join existed.[4] A more important precursor to the Fukan travelogues was the Dianshizhai Pictorial (Dianshizhai huabao), published every tenth day in Shanghai between 1884 and 1898, which frequently featured descriptions of Western countries by Chinese travelers. One of the main contributors was Wang Tao (1827–1897) who visited Italy, France, England, and Scotland over a period of several years from 1867 to 1870. His contributions to the Dianshizhai Pictorial would be published in 1890 in a book, Pictorial Illustrations of Travel Journals (Manyou suilu tuji), which Wang Xiqi included in the Collection of Geographies in 1891.[5] Wang Tao also used his travel experiences to write fictions about Western women for the reading public.[6] Given these antecedents, it is no surprise that Liang Qichao’s journal of his visits to America and Europe in 1903 purposefully spoke to a wider audience, while Shan Shili (1863– 1945), wife of a Chinese diplomat, published her travel journals aimed at elite women as readers around the same time.[7] The subsequent rise of travelogues as a well-

defined literary genre may be seen in the fact that Travels in Yunnan (Yunnan youji) and Travels in Xinjiang (Xinjiang youji), as well as a two-volume collection of travelogues about various Chinese provinces, were published by the China Book Company in 1922 and 1924, respectively.[8] The Fukan responded to the growing interest among the Chinese reading public in knowing about the world and various parts of China. The Fukan joined a trend already well under way. Yet, with the potentials for reaching the wider audience through a daily newspaper (a modern invention), the Fukan travelogues reinvigorated and revamped a time-honored literary practice, imbuing it with additional traits. The essays were all written in vernacular Chinese, thus being part of the “literary revolution” in that sense; they were serialized in a daily newspaper supplement and therefore more widely circulated, with both intellectual and commercial implications. Their content also differed from that of previous travelogues: they were not only about places, material culture, and exotics, but also, and more reflectively than before, about peoples, institutions, social patterns, and cultural practices, even though earlier Chinese travelers had also covered these topics to varying degrees. Last but not the least, these travelogues about both China and other countries collectively conveyed a more acute awareness of and a more urgent concern about China’s place in the world, a mind-set not to be easily subsumed by the term “Chinese nationalism.” At the same time, continuity existed in terms of literary format. Historian D. R. Howland noted that not until Liang Qichao’s Travels to the New World in 1903 did Chinese travel writing began to have thematic structures, even though some continued to write in the earlier “sketch” or diary form.[9] Indeed, most Fukan travelogues, appearing over a decade after Liang’s book, were written as diaries, which would suggest that they were casual observations and anecdotal musings when written, not intended to be thematic arguments. Nevertheless, their publication in a daily newspaper supplement constituted part of the public discourse about issues examined here. The Fukan travelogues also deserve attention because of their authors’ profiles. The essayists were mostly teachers and students from elite institutions such as Beida and Yenching University and less prestigious ones such as normal universities in Beijing, Nanjing, and Hangzhou. Better-known writers such as Zhou Zuoren and Sun Fuyuan also occasionally contributed their journals of traveling within China. Some of the pieces were authored by women, but the majority of writers were men (there were more men than women among teachers and students to begin with). The Fukan travelogues therefore represented the worldviews and sentiments of a broad segment of educated Chinese more than those of well-known writers usually identified as “Chinese intellectuals.” As such, they offer a rare opportunity for us to see how these educated Chinese understood the world and China’s place in it.

APPROACHES TO TRAVEL WRITING The challenge of making sense of travelogues was recognized long ago. Writing in

1988 on Ferdinand Albercht as a traveler, Jill Bepler noted that “[t]ravel literature of whatever period is an area in which few scholars feel at ease. Historians are bothered by the potential subjectivity of the information they contain; literary critics are disturbed by their factual nature. The classification of many types of travel literatures as ‘Sachbücher’ removed them for a long period from the gaze of literary history, leaving them exclusively to the attention of historians of geography and anthropology.”[10] Of course, right at that time a new body of scholarship on travel writing was being produced. In a 1999 essay, Steve Clark also comments that travel writing was considered “too empirical” to enter the literary canon, “yet too overtly rhetorical for disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, geography or history.” He immediately adds, however, that in the previous two decades, “post-colonial studies has seized upon this very impurity of the form as an exemplary record of crosscultural encounters between European and non-European peoples.”[11] Although the analysis of European travel writing as colonial discourse may be dated to Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978), the flourishing of the scholarship on the subject came in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Mary Louise Pratt offered a reading of European travel writings as part of the empire-building process, and of writings by the colonized as an appropriation of the rhetorical strategy of the colonizer.[12] The analytical concepts she uses, such as “transculturation,” “contact zone,” “anti-conquest,” “autoethnography”/“self-fashioning,” are useful in exploring the two-way interactions between the colonizer and the colonized in a variety of contexts. Sara Mills has made a contribution that is relevant to this chapter by calling attention to multiple voices and positions simultaneously co-inhabiting one text.[13] Whereas some of the more recent studies examine the colonial discourse under new guise in contemporary travel writing, research on earlier travelogues has taken diverse directions.[14] Steve Clark, for example, cautions that the strong model of exploring the linkages between travelogue and empire does not exhaust other readings of travel writing as a form—the essays he edited sought to “resist the reduction of cross-cultural encounter to simple relations of domination and subordination.”[15] Other works on travel writing and empire have emphasized the consequences of mobility as reflected in post-imperial, post-colonial travel writings. Paul Smethurst pointed out the importance of investigating, for a possibility of extracting travel writing from imperial meaning-makings, “the means by which travel writing reached its audience, who that audience was, what physical forms the writing took (such as journals, dairies, essays, guidebooks, logs, images, and anthropologies), and who controlled its production.”[16] The critical questions posed by Smethurst, and other approaches noted above, are instructive to the study of Chinese travelogues here. In the context of the various intellectual strands and discourses in the Fukan, this chapter focuses on how the travelogues of the 1920s helped form and inform Chinese discourses of the time to construct or confirm, or sometimes destabilize, such notions as “the Chinese nation,” “civilization,” “national character,” “colonized people

(wanguonu),” and “progress,” which betrayed a Chinese internalization of the meganarrative (of the Enlightenment vantage) on modernity and Western superiority, even though alternative views were also voiced at times. No less significant were travelogues about various parts of interior China that revealed the underdeveloped conditions of China in comparison with the West and Japan, or for that matter, with treaty-ports in China. Such travelogues also served to introduce readers, who were mostly residents in major cities, to various localities of the vast country that they knew very little about, thus helping construct what China as a nation or Chinese as a people was. Taken as a whole, the Fukan travelogues exhibited an intellectual-moral tension between a romantic and idealistic longing for an envisioned world of universal peace and equality that would transcend race, nation, culture, and other boundaries, and a pressing and pragmatic quest for China’s nationalist struggle (and modernization) predicated on a national identity in the lived colonial world where the law of the jungles prevailed.

CHINA, THE WEST, AND THE WORLD By the early 1920s, educated Chinese had long been aware of the gap between China and Western nations in industrialization—what they referred to as “material civilization.” Yet, deeper questions, such as what was the reason for China’s economic underdevelopment, whether or not it was due to China’s culture, and whether China, weak as it was, deserved to be treated equally among nations, continued to perturb educated Chinese. Traveling overseas and observing firsthand Western countries and peoples tended to sharpen a sense of both differences and similarities between Chinese and Western cultures. Travelers also formed a new conception of China as a nation and the Chinese as a people. One prominent strand in these travelogues was a longing for a cosmopolitan world of universal peace and international equality, in tandem with a sense of Chinese national identity that was paradoxically reinforced and questioned at the same time. A Chinese student by the pen name Shouchun, heading to the United States to study, chronicled his journey from Shanghai to San Francisco in the summer of 1921. [17] Once aboard a foreign ship going to a foreign land, Shouchun immediately felt himself on foreign soil, with his sense of national identity crystallized. “As if looking from outside a circle, what went on inside it became even clearer to me today, which made me even more heartbroken—why is it that Chinese nation has degenerated to such a degree?”[18] A similar moment of reflection upon departing from the country was recorded by Yang Xuanyu, another student, who sailed from Shanghai for Marseilles in 1922. As the ship was leaving the dock, Yang was overcome by mixed feelings. “I dislike Shanghai, but it is part of my motherland; although I equally dislike my motherland, at this moment I finally feel I cannot part with it easily.”[19] Such a mind-set and its corresponding emotions were to frame how Chinese travelers would reflect on what they experienced along their journeys. From the newspapers available on the ship Shouchun learned that the British and

Chinese governments had confirmed their participation in the Washington Conference. He expected that the chaotic political situation in China would be well publicized by the Japanese at the Conference to discredit the Chinese government. Chinese warlords and politicians would be famous, he noted with sarcasm, but an opportunity for the Chinese people to improve their standing in the world would be squandered. “In sum, if we want to change our status internationally—to enjoy the opportunity of equality among humankind, we must overthrow domestic thieves first!”[20] Time and again frustration with conditions in China went hand in hand with indignation at how China was treated by foreign powers. Perhaps to compensate for their frustration and indignation, Chinese travelers would often express a strong hope for a cosmopolitan world where equality among nations, peoples, and races would prevail. The sentiment reflects an anti-colonial— but not necessarily nationalistic—stance.[21] Upon crossing the International Date Line, Shouchun pondered over the various divides among humankind, as well as the relativity of time and space, just as Shan Shili had done while crossing international borders and time zones in 1903.[22] “I believe all boundaries between races and nations, and countless divides between classes and political parties within a country, are not absolute and irreconcilable. If only [people would] extend their sights far and wide, it is not difficult to understand one another and help one another, to increase true happiness of humankind.”[23] When the ship finally arrived in San Francisco, all Chinese, Japanese, and Indian passengers had to present their passports to get ashore, whereas Americans and Europeans did not, again something Shan Shili had seen in Russia two decades earlier.[24] Witnessing the scene, however, Shouchun felt sad, not so much due to the manifest discrimination against Asians per se as because of racial discriminations in general. According to him, when the ship had earlier entered a port in Japan, the Japanese required that all whites show their passports to go ashore while “yellow faces” need not, which was “full of tit-for-tat flavor,” and praised by some people. “Although I did not like what the Americans did, I cannot praise the Japanese for making it even for the yellow race, because if human beings do not get rid of such a mentality of discriminating against one another, the world will never have peace!”[25] To a degree, the discourse on the desirability of transcending the divide between the yellow and white races was a double effacing of Chinese national identity—first, Chineseness was to be subsumed by a Pan-Asian or “yellow race” identity, a lingering imaginary ever since the Japanese victory in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, if not earlier; and second, Chinese identity was to be rendered insignificant still further, as the Pan-Asian identity was to become insignificant in a worldwide community of equal races and peoples.[26] It may be argued that educated Chinese like Shouchun longed for a cosmopolitan world because it was imagined to be an avenue for China as a nation and the Chinese as a people to emerge as an equal member of a world community from an inferior status in the world of colonial hierarchy. In other words, at least to a certain degree, it was a psychological compensation for the lived reality of

colonial hierarchy, as well as a moral position informed by both the notion of “great union (datong)” in Chinese tradition and imported intellectual resources. Not surprisingly, the said Chinese longing in these travels was accompanied by a desire to fuse Chinese and Western cultures, thus joining another larger discourse.[27] At the end of his journal Shouchun noted how his journey had convinced him that Eastern and Western cultures must reconcile and converge to benefit humankind, and that people like him, who had knowledge of both cultures, had a special responsibility to assume that task.[28] Xiong Baofeng, another student traveling to the United States in 1923, offered the same thoughts.[29] For these educated Chinese, therefore, the cosmopolitan world that they longed for promised personal fulfillment aligned with a universal good. If a foreign ship bound for a foreign country may be considered a piece of foreign territory and thus a “contact zone,” it generated among educated Chinese travelers a keen sense of inadequacy in matters from rules of etiquette to physical prowess, or a fear of being viewed as such. Xiong Baofeng journeyed to America on a foreign ship. One evening, several Cantonese servants on the ship played mahjong. An American passenger watching them playing told Xiong that the Americans had recently begun to take up mahjong, introduced to the country by Chinese students, and that some Chinese even made a living by teaching Americans how to play the game. Feeling embarrassed, warranted or not, Xiong wrote sarcastically: “These days Mahjong sold in the Sincere and the Wing On Department Stores in Shanghai have Roman numerals and the Western alphabet on them, which is evidence that our ‘national essence’ has been exported to the West by admirable overseas Chinese students!”[30] Later, the ship’s crew organized sports competitions among passengers. Xiong noted sourly that Chinese students on board did not take part in any sports except mahjong games, which they won.[31] Related to a sense of inadequacy and insecurity, an inevitable aspect of the Chinese traveling abroad was to be reminded of China’s backwardness. Shouchun spoke disapprovingly of an American missionary on board who had spent nineteen years in China. “This type of people did not have deep knowledge to begin with, but after swindling around (huhun) in China for several years, they would call themselves ‘China experts’ and talk about China anyway they wanted—mostly speaking ill of China. So who knows how many foreigners who have not been to China have a misconception [of China], for which these people are certainly responsible.”[32] Though expressing insecurity, Shouchun’s comment came from a desire to tear down barriers between cultures rather than to defend China per se, since he himself voiced despair over China’s domestic conditions. Such encounters served to reinforce a sense of Chinese identity among Chinese travelers, but also gave rise to feelings of inferiority and inadequacy. In response, these travelers were often defensive about Chinese shortcomings while simultaneously feeling ambivalent about their Chinese identity. The ambivalence about Chinese national identity could also be genuine cognitive

awareness, rather than discursive maneuvering. Sun Fuxi (1898–1962), brother of Sun Fuyuan, studied fine arts in France during 1920–1925. He wrote about how he used to envision “nation ( guo)” as an enclosed space, the way the Chinese character looked, after his father had explained to him the function of the city wall of his hometown—to defend against enemies from outside. The notion began to dissolve, however, when he traveled to Korea and saw people going back and forth freely across the Yalu River, the border between China and Korea. Now in France he further reflected on what a nation meant. Like French citizens, he was benefiting from utilities, transportations, theaters, libraries, and schools. In France anyone from other nations could openly learn how to train military forces and make weaponry. When Sun went to a market with a French classmate, the latter advised him to be on guard against pickpockets and not to be overcharged by sellers—advice suggesting a behavior that contradicted how Sun had expected the French would act in order to protect their national reputation. Sun concluded that the French were not as nationalistic as he had thought they would be, and that the notion of “nation” was perhaps not useful for the Chinese either. He admitted to instances of nationalistic behavior that contradicted his thought, and argued that these were phenomena in a transitional time: It is a fact that humankind is not equal and that there are dominances of one over another due to man-made differences such as racial divides, national boundaries, differences in productive powers and in occupations, and so on. [. . .] If from now on the cruel nature of beasts [on the part of the powerful] is gradually reduced on one hand and [the weak] gradually comes to a sense of self-reliance on the other hand, then equality among humankind will be realized.[33] Needless to say, Sun was expressing a wishful and naïve hope. At a deeper level, Sun’s experiences and perceptions pointed to the fact that the imperialism and colonialism, which resulted in the increased traffic of people between the colonial metropolis and peripheries, both reinforced and blurred national identities, which disoriented but at the same time inspired an educated Chinese who traveled from the periphery to the metropolis. Sun also expressed his discomfort at the perceived necessity for China to wage nationalist struggles. Referring to the Chinese efforts to regain sovereignty over foreign concessions in China, Sun said that “we do not hope there will be Jiaozhou Bay and Guangzhou Bay inside France, even if Chinese soldiers would become strong through eating Chinese flesh and blood to the point of being able to eat foreign flesh and blood.” The derogatory reference to strong military forces of any nations was indicative of Sun’s disapproval of the “law of the jungles.” If he had been a narrow-minded patriot, Sun continued, he could have killed people in France to convey his patriotism, but would have to guard himself not to be killed by others demonstrating their own patriotism. “A person who really wants to stick to narrow patriotism can never go one step beyond his nation’s border, the border that I

conceived in my childhood; otherwise he would certainly act like a madman or like a tiger breaking out of a cage into a crowd of human beings.”[34] Condemning narrow or extreme nationalism and patriotism as barbaric or less than human emotions, and longing for universal peace and equality that would transcend national boundaries, Sun was bothered by the irony in his perception that China had to wage nationalist struggle in order to be treated equally by powerful nations. Between October 1922 and July 1923, Sun Fuxi had a long piece serialized in the Fukan. It was a journal of his stay in French countryside to draw sketches of natural scenes while boarding with a French family. The experience offered him a fresh perspective from which to compare city and countryside, and France and China. Staying with his host family, Sun was surprised on several counts. Firstly, the hostess’s shabby attire and coarse appearance completely shattered his long-held notion of French women as being glamorous. Second, the house was very old and unclean, calendars from 1910 and 1913 still hanging on the wall and the stove being of an old type, very similar to the kind that rural Chinese used.[35] Third, Sun discovered that not all French cared about etiquette that was supposedly associated with civilized nations. “The etiquette that is customary in cities is absent in the countryside. Spitting anywhere is a common practice here. When we [Chinese students] first arrived in foreign countries we took pains not to breach etiquette; yet country folks do not care about such etiquette.” Sun noted the host’s bad table manners; and how the hostess coughed at him (due to a cold) while speaking to him. [36]

The behavior Sun mentioned as matters of etiquette or lack thereof was the kind that Westerners would cite to criticize Chinese being less than civilized in a discourse on modernity and civilization that had been ongoing since the nineteenth century.[37] Probably informed by such criticisms or by the stories of returned Chinese students, Sun had obviously internalized the notion about proper etiquette being normative behavior in such countries like France and was thus shocked that French villagers did not practice it. The urban-rural divide in France also reminded him of the same divide in China, and he easily invoked the notion of French villagers being “pure and simple,” a trope often used by educated Chinese and foreigners alike to describe Chinese peasants. During his stay in the countryside, Sun compared the lives of rural and urban laborers in France and developed an insightful view about France (and by extension the West in general). Sun found that rural laborers had a much better life than urban laborers because the former had more freedom.[38] One day Sun went with the host family to a mountain outing. The host said that “people living in these mountains have nothing to argue with the world, because they have wheat and sweet potato to feed themselves, and need not compete fiercely with others.” In his musing afterward, Sun realized that even “in a country of material civilization,” beyond a few big cities most people, just like most Chinese, lived on their own labor and had no other desires: From this point of view, we can say that the so-called flourishing scholarship in

France is no more than a few scholars making the show, one part representing the whole; from another point of view, we can also say that France’s national strength is no more than the result of a small group driving the people in the whole country to pay taxes and serve as soldiers. We need not pursue the question of whether in France it is a minority of scholars who earn glories for a majority of citizens or it is the majority of citizens who provide living for a minority of bureaucrats; but we can believe that on this point France is hardly more advanced than China, and the Chinese need not lose their self-confidence![39] Sun Fuxi was not a Marxist or a theorist of any kind, but his direct exposure to the French countryside and his cross-cultural experience led him to reach those conclusions. Notably, referring to France’s “material civilization” and “national strength,” Sun spoke mainly of French scholarship and scholars, of bureaucrats only once, and of industrialists not at all. In a broader sense, Sun had turned “Orientalism” on its head by practicing in rural France a reverse of the “discovery” that Westerners had made about non-Western peoples. He thus gained a new understanding or imagination of both China and France, in which French peasants were equivalent to Chinese peasants, and he as an educated Chinese (scholar) was more civilized, as defined by Western standards, than peasants in both countries, which in turn somehow equalized France and China.

JAPAN AND THE ISSUE OF NATIONAL CHARACTER In contrast to Shan Shili who wrote her travels in 1903 with a nascent nationalist resentment directed at Russia rather than Japan,[40] the Chinese view of Japan had changed by the early 1920s as Japan had risen as a major power in Asia at the expense of Korea and China (and even Russia). Japan was widely perceived to have a long-term design to dominate and, if possible, colonize entire China. The possibility looked very real, especially to those who traveled to Japan and witnessed the advance Japan had achieved in modernizing itself, in contrast to the dismal conditions China was sinking into during the same time period. This historical context framed the perceptions and emotions of Chinese travelers. “A Travel Diary” by a Chinese woman pen-named Yixing, a teacher at Beijing Women’s Normal University, was typical in expressing ambivalence toward Japan. On a tour of educational institutions in that country, she took a Japanese passenger liner from Tianjin and arrived in Kobe. Upon disembarking from the ship, she “could not bear the sight of Chinese students wearing kimono,” implying that those Chinese women had lost their national identity.[41] In Kyoto she attended a meeting hosted by Chinese students commemorating the Day of National Humiliation (May 7, the day Yuan Shikai accepted the revised Twenty-One Demands imposed by Japan in 1915). She was sensitive to the Japanese talk of Sino-Japanese friendship, given the reality of Japan’s dominance over China. While visiting two women’s schools in Osaka, “the Japanese tried to cultivate good feelings at every turn,” Yixing noted, “but their

unnatural attitude only caused my aversion.”[42] On several occasions she felt the Japanese were hypocritical in espousing Sino-Japanese friendship and world peace. [43] Yixing’s experience may be contextualized by Joshua Fogel’s findings that Japanese travelers to China in the 1910s and 1920s also frequently expressed “the desirability of continued Sino-Japanese friendship on the basis of a long tradition of such” and that they looked “for ways to incorporate China into a contemporary Japanese worldview that emphasized mutual goodwill.”[44] When Yixing visited a women’s normal university in Nara, she watched a class at the attached elementary school. The class happened to be about Chinese geography and the teacher discussed military rule, warlord politics, and a weak central government in China. Yixing lamented: “It was so much more painful to hear them talking about such things!”[45] Yixing was invited to attend a welcome meeting hosted by students from Taiwan. When the students spoke of “we compatriotic sisters,” Yixing was thrown into “boundless sorrow,” since Taiwan was under Japanese rule. She was also distressed that these students did not speak Mandarin and had to communicate with her in Japanese.[46] All these snippets were imbued with strong nationalistic sentiments. Yixing was not single-mindedly nationalistic, however. She reckoned that Japan was indeed more advanced than China; and more importantly, she was reflective and ambivalent about her own emotions that she recognized came from her nationalistic consciousness. After expressing the sadness in Nara about her meeting with the students from Taiwan, for instance, she pondered that “if by nature human beings really have affection and love for one another, they should not be bound by national borders that are not natural and should not be blocked from seeing true faces of one another!”[47] When she watched a singing and dancing performance by Japanese school girls in Tokyo, she “was moved by the moment, truly forgot about national boundaries, and only felt great joy.”[48] At a welcome meeting hosted by the Japanese YWCA in Tokyo, she wrote, Japanese women were vivacious and joyous and did not put forward the “rubbish” about Sino-Japanese friendship, which “made us forget about national boundaries—so it is believable that religious spirit does not have national boundaries.”[49] Yixing’s ambivalence also had a material and spatial dimension. When she went to the beach in Dalian after returning from Japan, she felt that the only flaw in the beauty of the place was that Dalian was leased to the Japanese. Then she immediately questioned herself: “Is it not shameful that facing the greatness of the nature, one should have a sense of alienation due to a narrow conception of nation?” She visited the Russo-Japanese War battle site and the Manchurian-Mongolian Museum, and talked with two members of the YMCA in Dalian. They all agreed that the Japanese were mentally enslaving the Chinese through education, but at the same time were making material progress in the city. Yixing reflected that had it not been for the Japanese concession, Dalian would probably have remained a piece of desolate land. “Thinking from the perspective of the world, one cannot but thank the

Japanese for adding one more piece of useful land to the world!”[50] This is how Yixing, like Sun Fuxi in France, was torn between her desire to transcend her national identity and her sense of that very identity from which she was unable to escape. Her ambivalence was another sign of how an educated Chinese was struggling to come to terms with the world of colonial hierarchy in which she felt compelled to locate and define herself. Ambivalence toward Japan was also seen in travelogues that described Japanese martial spirit in comparison with the Chinese. Wu Jian was among twenty graduates from Beijing Normal University to investigate Japan’s educational institutions (the frequency of such learning trips was indicative of Japan’s attraction as a model). One of his major observations was that militarism permeated the educational system in Japan. He concluded that China should implement military training in the educational system as well. “Before the great union is realized, there will be competitions for nations to stand up in the world; since there are competitions, citizens must have the ability to compete. [. . .] Right now there is an ambitious Japan on the side of China. China has no intention to invade Japan, which is morally correct, but we must find ways to resist Japan invading China!”[51] Notice again the reference to “datong” and the felt tension between the ideal and the necessary nationalist struggles. Related to Japanese martial spirit was the discourse on “national character.” While traveling from Shanghai to the United States to study in November 1921, Yang Shaozhe went ashore when the ship called at several Japanese ports. Aside from the topic of libraries in which he was interested, Yang said that he was most struck by “Japanese national character”: Japanese citizens are polite and pleasant. Needless to say, people of the upper class are very elegant and polite, amiable and gentle; even in the low class society, people are courteous. When a rickshaw puller receives a fare, he will raise his hands to express gratitude; when a waitress brings food to table, she will bow to express respect. As for their brave spirit—killing to revenge, it is everywhere to see; no one would dare to bully even little children of three feet tall. Especially, when diplomatic issues arose, such as the Washington Conference, the whole country would rally together, and all newspapers would promote solidarity among the people. In sum, the Japanese national character is one of soft on the outside and steely in the inside, unlike Chinese citizens who are tough on the face and petrified in the heart, acting brashly at a dispute but quitting quietly when the opponent is tougher.[52] Thus, without apology Yang romanticized Japanese national character to criticize Chinese national character. Notably, Yang’s depiction of the Chinese national character mirrored “Ah Q”, the protagonist in Lu Xun’s “The True Story of Ah Q,” first serialized in the Fukan between November 1921 and February 1922. Whether or not Yang was inspired by that work, his comments helped reinforce and circulate among

educated Chinese an unflattering stereotype of “Chinese national character,” which seemed to offer an explanation of China’s weakness in comparison with Japan.

COLONIZED PEOPLES IN ASIA In 1922 Yang Xuanyu was among ten students going to Berlin to study via France. Aboard a ship bound for Marseilles, they took great care not to make mistakes in table manners, something that Sun Fuxi noted in his writing cited earlier. When the ship arrived in Hong Kong, Yang was awed by the city’s beauty, but sullen at the thought that it was ruled by the British. Equally unsatisfying was that ninety percent of local merchants in Hong Kong were Chinese, but few understood Mandarin and most only spoke English. Later, as the ship anchored at Hai Phong and Saigon, Yang took note of Vietnamese customs in some details. More significant was Yang’s observation of how the Vietnamese lived under the French colonial rule. Hai Phong and Saigon are the most prosperous cities in Vietnam, and political and economic powers are completely in the hands of the French. The shrewdest among the local people usually serve as loyal slaves to the French, relying on the latter’s favor to mistreat their own compatriots of the same race and culture. As for the weak and incapable ones, pitifully, they are subject to double dominance, serving as slaves of slaves to get by a life of cattle and horses. They are meek and filthy, without any sign of self-assertiveness: they seem to have lost all the vitality of human existence, nor do they have any impulses for independence and autonomy; perhaps the people of this nation are bound to go extinct and become historical antiques.[53] Here, besides a sense of superiority over the colonized peoples and an internalization of Social Darwinism, Yang showed an understanding of how a colonial society operated—the colonial power relied on local elites to rule over the colonized people as a whole, and the majority of the people in such a country were subject to double dominance—a situation Chinese travelers could easily grasp by looking at the foreign concessions in their own country. In the British-ruled Kuala Lumpur, Yang found that residents were all Indians, “physically quite strong and rather energetic, something that is very different from the dead-like numbness of the Vietnamese. If the people in this land are able to receive more education and gain more knowledge, they will certainly mark a color on the map [for their country] and cease to be slaves of the British.”[54] This observation was again underpinned by a notion of national character (and physiques) that would explain a racial/civilizational hierarchy even among colonized peoples. The trope of colonized peoples being inert and passive (and therefore partly responsible for their abject conditions) was not new, but had often been evoked as early as the turn of the twentieth century.[55]

Like the similar discourse of two decades earlier, Chinese travelers’ observations of other peoples tended to confirm a racial/civilizational hierarchy that justified colonial order. They also led to reflections over how China would fare in the near future. During Yang’s short stops in Vietnam, he wrote that the Vietnamese “were also of yellow race, but their physique was even weaker than the Chinese. The strong triumph and the weak perish, so [the Vietnamese] deservedly lost their country. But looking back at our country, I am afraid we do not have much that is above them. If we do not try early and strive for revitalization and stop fighting among ourselves, I am afraid the great title—slaves who lost their countries—will fall on our heads!”[56] Such reflections were an inescapable thought process for Chinese travelers, and might well have been Yang’s motivation to comment on the Vietnamese to begin with. Later during his journey, upon learning that the war between the Zhili and the Fengtian cliques had broken out back at home, Yang was “overwhelmed by endless shocks and pains.” “Why are we so unfortunate to be the Chinese who suffer, for no reasons, from the ravages of those robbers [warlords]? Why are we so unfortunate to be the Chinese who cannot improve themselves, who have no way to subdue those robbers, and who have to resign [ourselves] to such ravages? I want to say something but have no words! What good would my words do even if I had [them]!”[57] This sentiment summed up the prevailing feelings of powerlessness among these educated Chinese to whom the prospect of the Chinese joining the ranks of colonized peoples appeared painfully real. Of all colonized peoples, the Koreans were the most frequent subjects of commentary in the Fukan travelogues, as Korea had already fallen victim to the colonial power China also faced—Japan. On her return journey from Japan, Yixing arrived in Korea. Her impression of the Koreans was that “they have knowledge of a childish level and a simple and honest culture.” Again, a sense of cultural superiority was evident, and it was typically shown in viewing the inferior in terms of “childlike” and “underdeveloped” mental capacity. It is debatable whether or not such language was more benign than what the Chinese had used to describe nomadic groups on the northwestern frontiers as wolves or beasts in imperial China.[58] What is indisputable is that at a certain level these educated Chinese had adopted the discourse of Westerners that placed peoples in a hierarchy of developmental stages from the primitive to the civilized or from the childlike to the mature (see Chapter 2). This discourse was different from the traditional Sino-centric worldview, in that the Chinese used to rank peoples’ levels of civilization by the distances between their locations and the throne on which the Chinese emperor sat as Son of Heaven—a spatial hierarchy. The Western view of world history since the Enlightenment, on the other hand, was both a spatial hierarchy and a temporal process, in which the West was both at the center spatially and at the highest stage temporally. In a fashion similar to Yang Xuanyu’s comments on the Vietnamese cited above, Yixing made a connection between an underdeveloped mental capacity and a supposed lack of reform spirit on one hand and the colonized status of the Koreans on the other hand. “Having old and stale social customs, without a desire to reform

and to progress—such are perhaps the signs of a colonized people! How can I bear laughing at them?”[59] Yixing could not mock the Koreans because she was aware of Chinese social customs that were equally old and stale and in need of reform. Critically, however, she blamed the Koreans’ lack of reform spirit on Japanese efforts to erase their national consciousness. She witnessed the Japanese colonial education at a women’s high school, where “the so-called [Korean] national language is Japanese.” She wondered whether Korean students in elementary schools would be so denationalized as to unconsciously “resign themselves to the authority of the Japanese Empire.”[60] Wu Jian also commented on the Japanese methods of enslaving the Koreans. The Japanese abolished Korean language and Korean history in the colony’s school curriculum; if employed by the Japanese, those Koreans who spoke the Japanese language would receive twice as much in wages as those who did not speak the language. Another Japanese colonial policy was to prohibit the Koreans from building better housing, which Wu believed was done to make foreign travelers think that the Koreans were of lower caliber and incapable of independence. He himself was initially led to think that way.[61] Wu Jian appears to have been more perceptive of the Japanese colonial policies than Yixing, whose view that the Koreans were simple and honest, but impeded by inertia, bore out Wu’s point. The Japanese discrimination against the Koreans did not escape Chinese travelers’ notice. On his way to America, Yang Shaozhe arrived in Nagasaki on November 5, 1921. He learned that the Japanese Prime Minister Hara Takashi (1856–1921) had been assassinated the day before. Although the assassin was a Japanese man who had been arrested on the spot, all the Japanese newspapers reported that the assassin was a Korean. According to Yang, the newspapers deliberately fabricated the story, because whenever a disastrous event occurred in Japan, they would blame the Koreans. In Yang’s analysis, such deceptions arose from three factors: the publishers feared that more Japanese people would get the idea of attacking the government; they did not want to blame their own countrymen for bad deeds; and they looked down upon the Koreans.[62] Since Yang Shaozhe was only stopping over at Nagasaki, his analysis and opinions must have been formed on the basis of his prior knowledge about Japan and Korea. In other words, that the Japanese ruled over Korea and discriminated against the Koreans was accepted knowledge among educated Chinese. What was publicized on the subject in the Fukan travelogues would further inform readers.

CHINESE NATION AND DIASPORA The travels about foreign countries would often touch upon the authors’ observations of and interactions with overseas Chinese, which demonstrates that the existence of Chinese Diaspora did not dilute, but reinforced Chinese national identity of both overseas Chinese and Chinese travelers in the world of colonial hierarchy. One notable comment by travelers on overseas Chinese was about the latter’s

ability or inability to speak Mandarin, considered by travelers as a key mark of being Chinese. As mentioned earlier, Yixing was sad for being unable to communicate with the students from Taiwan in Chinese. Similarly, on board the ship for America in 1923 Xiong Baofeng found all waiters in the dining hall were Cantonese and, to his misgivings, did not speak Mandarin— he had to communicate with them in English.[63] When Wu Jian summarized his reflections on his visit to Japan in 1921, he too found Chinese immigrants in Japan did not speak Chinese. In a side street in Kobe there were quite a few Chinese stores selling Chinese dry goods, and people wore Chinese attires but did not speak Chinese. A woman originally from Shandong province had bound feet and wore decades-old clothing. “She preserved every bit of those national essences, but did not speak Chinese language! When I bought something from her, a Chinese kid served as my interpreter—such was the achievement of Chinese immigration overseas!”[64] What Wu meant by “Chinese language” was Mandarin, the newly standardized national language. This consistent sensitivity of Chinese travelers to language use by overseas Chinese was striking. The ability to use Chinese language was taken by writers, and presumably by readers too, as the first and foremost constituent of Chinese identity. Inability to speak the language was deemed a partial loss of that identity. Attention to the well-being of overseas Chinese was another feature. When his ship made a stop in Japan, Yang Shaoze noted, without giving his source of information, that Chinese residents in Nagasaki were fewer than 1,000, with additional 2,000–3,000 in the surrounding countryside. When he reached Kobe, he put the number of Chinese residents there at 3,000, most of whom were Cantonese in origin.[65] During his voyage to America in 1921, Shouchun’s ship stopped in Hawaii. He learned that there were about 25,000 Chinese living on the islands. Several Chinese merchants living in Hawaii told him that “Chinese in Hawaii worked very hard and cared a lot about China. But they were not well educated and were looked down upon by foreigners. The political parties in China only wanted to use the patriotic sentiments of overseas Chinese to get their money they earned with blood and sweat, by devising various pretexts to solicit donations, but never tried to help overseas Chinese. In terms of education, for example, overseas Chinese never got any assistance or guidance.”[66] This sentiment among overseas Chinese was amplified in an account by Xiong Baofeng. When traveling to San Francisco in 1923, Xiong’s ship stopped in Hawaii. While sightseeing, he met Mr. Wang, a Chinese resident, who sought out Xiong and other Chinese passengers to have conversations. Born in Hawaii, Mr. Wang traced his ancestry to Guangdong. He wanted to go to China, but was trapped by his family obligations. Always keen to the situations in China, Wang said that he hated Sun Wen (Sun Yat-sen). “I admired Sun Wen’s spirit, but unfortunately his means was not very good. He occupied Guangdong and made ordinary people live in hot fire and deep water crying for ghosts and spirits. In the past when he solicited our donations, we were glad to give, but not anymore these days. Using Cantonese money to hurt

Cantonese—such a stupid thing we will not do.”[67] Wang’s sentiment reflected Hawaiian-Chinese disappointment at the political conditions in China and their withdrawal from involvement in Chinese politics after the mid 1910s.[68] Xiong replied that let alone the political chaos in Guangdong, the whole China did not have a president at the time. Wang opined that whoever was the president would not make any difference and China would not have peace. Such views were nothing new, of course; yet, the sharing of the disillusionment and despair between the traveling Chinese and the overseas Chinese lent a strong sense of Chinese identity to both. The issue of racial discrimination naturally came up in their interaction and caused Xiong to have some reflections. Mr. Wang invited Xiong and others to his home. Xiong learned that in Hawaii the Chinese were discriminated and a strict line existed between whites and colored peoples. Xiong related it to the Americans burning down Chinatowns and the Chinese suffering from horrendous mistreatment in California. “I do not hope the Chinese retaliate against the Americans in the same way, but I do hope the Chinese will never forget such humiliations so as to strive to renew themselves. I hope even more that human psychology of [racial] discrimination will be soon eliminated so that those horrible and inhumane events will not befall Hawaii and any part of the world where human beings live.”[69] Once again the sentiment was a longing for equality of peoples and nations. The most extensive contact with Chinese Diaspora was reported by Hu Shiqing, a Chinese diplomat stationed in the United States, who toured seven South American nations in nine weeks in 1923. His writing about the journey was noteworthy not only because his interactions with overseas Chinese but also because the countries he visited were not “the West,” but former colonies of the West where USA and European nations still dominated, which added a somewhat different tone to the discourse on Chinese identity vis-à-vis non-Chinese cultures. Starting from Key West, Florida, on April 16, Hu’s first stop was Cuba. Accompanied by a Chinese diplomat stationed in Cuba, Hu toured Havana. The food in Chinese restaurants was better than what he found in Washington D.C. Hu learned that Chinese merchants fared well in business, only next to American and Spanish counterparts. There was no Chinatown in Cuba, but Chinese lived in enclaves to form their own community. “The advantage of so doing is that they do not feel isolated in a foreign land, and individuals’ behaviors have to conform to the [Chinese] social norms and go under public scrutiny [within the community]. The disadvantage is that they are self-contained and cannot absorb new ideas from foreigners; especially because they do not pay attention to sanitation, foreigners look down upon them and even use it as a pretext to discriminate against them.” Hu mentioned that the previous year the Pan American Medical Association held a meeting in Havana, at which it was proposed that to improve sanitation and health in Americas, unsanitary and unclean peoples such as the Chinese should be excluded from the continents. “From now on, in order to earn reputation and status in the world, the Chinese must effectively improve their sanitation.”[70] It is noteworthy that Hu used “Chinese (huaren)” and “foreigners

(wairen)” in his writing, even though the local people would consider Chinese residents as “foreigners” or “aliens.” In Chinese tradition “foreigners” (yi) meant less cultured than Chinese. As Hu Ying has discussed, the sense of superiority in the traditional construction of Chinese vs. non-Chinese was already being destabilized in the late Qing travelogues.[71] The use by Hu Shiqing of the term wairen (foreigner) instead of yi was another indication of both semantic and conceptual changes in Chinese discourse, partly due to the British banning the use of yi from Chinese official communications after the Opium War.[72] Moreover, it reflected a historical change in Chinese subjectivity in the colonial world order: In the travelogues by Hu Shiqing and others, being Chinese meant being inferior, looked down upon, and defensive. In other words, Chinese had fully internalized what foreigners thought and spoke of them, even if they did not read and need not read Westerners’ travelogues about China in the same time period that historian Nicolas Clifford described.[73] Hence the aspiration on the part of Chinese travelers that China and the Chinese would move out of that inferior status and be equal with other nations and peoples. Strolling down the streets in Havana, Hu saw a Chinese theater house where only traditional Cantonese plays were performed, and the posters on the wall were all in Chinese. In a bookstore there were few new books or books on serious subjects, but plenty of low-brow popular story books. To Hu, these places indicated the low level of education among the Chinese in Cuba. “Since even with such a low level of education, overseas Chinese were able to start from scratch to make a fortune, earning a third place in businesses in this country,” wrote Hu, “if China has policies about international trade, and institutions of higher education to train practical business talents, plus the skills they already have, we Chinese should have a significant place in the world’s commerce.”[74] In subsequent interactions with local Chinese (mainly Cantonese merchants), Hu urged them to invest in education to increase their competitiveness in business and deal with sanitation to fight discrimination.[75] After arriving in Panama, Hu went into a Chinese restaurant to have lunch. He was thought to be Japanese and was told that egg fried rice he wanted was not served there, until he showed his passport to the owner. The latter was greatly pleased and began to apologize and treated him with hospitality. Only speaking Cantonese, the owner wrote on a piece of paper: “it is so regrettable that you and I are both Chinese, but we cannot speak Chinese to each other.” Giving his name as Chen Fazhang, the owner wrote that if China’s people could not unify, how it could become strong and wealthy. “Overseas Chinese are all very patriotic; I have encountered many such instances,” wrote Hu.[76] While aboard the ship for Peru, Hu once again noted that the Chinese among the ship crew were very warm to him but had the language barrier.[77] In Peru a new wave of anti-Chinese initiatives had been launched in 1922, followed by a counterdiscourse defending Chinese immigrants, and both were ongoing at the time of Hu’s trip.[78] In this context Hu defended Chinese immigration in a conversation with three

Peruvian passengers.[79] It is not clear whether the conversation was entirely factual, but his narrative helped make readers aware of how Chinese immigrants fared in countries that were not “the West” and the multidimensional interactions among nations, peoples, races, and ethnic groups. In the port city Mollendo in Peru, Hu went into a Chinese restaurant. He was again mistaken as Japanese before being recognized as Chinese and warmly treated. Speaking half Mandarin and half Cantonese, the restaurant owner was able to communicate with Hu. There were only over forty Chinese residents in the city and over twenty Chinese stores, but they all made good profits. Of the forty some Chinese, more than ten had married Hispanic women, and their children did not speak Chinese. “The next generation after them will not know that they have Chinese blood in their bodies.”[80] Thus Hu finally made an explicit connection between one’s language and identity.

TREATY-PORT CHINA When Yixing arrived in Manchuria on her way back from Japan via Korea, her sense of shared experiences with the Koreans was heightened as she visited the treatyports and concessions under Japanese control. While still on the train, Yixing was relieved to hear familiar Mandarin, instead of Japanese, spoken around her—the sense of loneliness she felt in Japan was gone. Yet, when she passed through the Japanese concession in Fengtian (Mukden), where the streets were wide and clean, shops were in multi-story buildings, and signs were in Japanese, she felt “as if I were in Japan again!” As soon as she entered the Chinese area, however, a stark contrast with the Japanese concession struck her: In every direction she saw only a desolate countryside with dilapidated dwellings, roof tiles scattered around, which in the dusk made a rather bleak picture—“I could not bear comparing [the two areas].”[81] Visiting the Southern Manchurian Middle School run by the Japanese, Yixing noticed that Chinese and Japanese students were in two separate divisions, but the language of instruction for both was Japanese.[82] At a Japanese-run normal school in Port Arthur, the curriculum did not include Chinese history, and Chinese language instruction belonged to extra-curricular activities. In Dalian at a welcome meeting hosted by the YMCA, people shouted “[long live] the Republic of China!” Yixing’s reaction was: “In the half-dead Dalian this was like calling the soul of the dead, which one cannot bear hearing!”[83] It is noteworthy that in making these comments Yixing had no qualm about her nationalistic emotions—she seems to have intentionally dramatized them—since she was in China. Yu Chengze (1903–1982, a.k.a Yu Yifu), a student at Yenching University in Beijing, made a trip to his hometown in Jilin Province in the summer of 1924. He traveled by train from Beijing via Tianjin to Fengtian and Harbin and then by muledrawn wagon to his hometown. He described the Japanese-controlled Southern Manchurian Railway (SMR) for readers: From Fengtian it went southward to Dalian, northward to Changchun, and eastward to Andong on the Yalu River; and westward

was the Chinese railway connecting Fengtian and Beijing. There were three train stations in Fengtian: the Xiaoximen, the Huanggutun, and the Japanese station. The Beijing-Fengtian Railway ended at either the Xiaoximen or the Huanggutun, but for passengers to make connections with the SMR, the train would stop at the Japanese station, where Yu got off. Right across the station was the Japanese concession. He could see bright street lights, many vehicles, and multi-story buildings there, “no less bustling than Tianjin.”[84] Zhang Tingjian (1901–1981), pen-named Chuandao, was a teaching assistant in the Philosophy Department at Beida in 1922. In the summer 1924 he and his wife took a vacation by way of traveling to Manchuria. Upon arriving in Fengtian, Zhang too was impressed by the SMR station’s architecture and equipment and the Japanese concession’s infrastructure and facilities.[85] Chinese travelers were unanimous that the Japanese-controlled areas were much better managed and more prosperous than those under Chinese governance, and their admiration was coupled with an anxiety over what the Japanese might do next in China. Indicative of the anxiety, Zhang described two structures in the Japanese concession that stunned him: (1) Facing the SMR station stood a monument commemorating the Russo-Japanese War and (2) a tomb was decorated with a huge cannon shell (ten feet long) on which engraved “Monument to Loyal Souls.” On the sides of the tomb were a cannon pointing toward Fengtian and a rusty gunboat.[86] After this description, however, Zhang abruptly said the following: “I will insist on my prejudice and let my collegiate brothers call me ‘a slave of foreigners.’ I always feel that foreigners are better than the Chinese; the countrymen of the ‘poet who lost his country’ (wangguo shiren) [referring to Rabindranath Tagore] whom the reformminded youth denounced, or Korean friends whom we deceived, are so far ahead of us that we cannot see their backs.”[87] One may interpret this comment as arising from deep frustration, intensified by the imperialist and martial spirit that the Japanese flaunted, at Chinese inability to industrialize or “civilize,” which put the Chinese even behind the Indians and the Koreans, two colonized peoples. Indeed, criticizing Chinese national character with sarcasm was a frequently used rhetorical device in Chinese writings at that time. More disheartening to Chinese travelers than the foreign concessions was the behavior of foreigners and Chinese citizens in China. Perhaps with an element of dramatization, Yu Chengze recounted an incident aboard the SMR train he was riding: A peasant sneezed at a Japanese couple sitting across and was slapped by the Japanese man, even though the peasant begged for forgiveness. Yu tried to get up to intervene, but a Chinese merchant sitting across him held him down. “Let alone beating,” said the merchant, “even if [the Japanese] killed a [Chinese] person, it would be just like killing a chicken. Last year the Japanese caught a [Chinese] thief. [They] first stripped him naked and let him freeze in the snow-covered ground, and then force-fed kerosene down his throat. The thief died within two hours! Brother, in this place the issue is not whether you will be bullied, but whether you can endure it.”

His blood boiling, Yu told himself, “If I had a gun, I would shoot that scoundrel on the spot!” Then he thought: “If I killed him, how would the Chinese government handle the matter? How could I ever make up to the Chinese government?” With that thought, he took the merchant’s advice.[88] The last comment referred to how the Chinese government had been held responsible by foreign powers whenever their nationals were injured or killed in China. The humiliation Chinese travelers felt in treaty-port China was not limited to their experiences with the Japanese. Riding the Chinese train back to Beijing from Fengtian, Zhang Tingjian and his wife sat in a second-class car. At Qinhuangdao, seven American servicemen and one officer boarded the car. One drunken American soldier asked a Chinese soldier sitting nearby to join him for drink. Not understanding the English language, the Chinese soldier made no response, upon which the American slapped him in the face three times before being ordered by the officer to stay away, all the while the Chinese soldier remained motionless and silent. Zhang sighed: “Perhaps yellow people are supposed to be bullied, or it is because they [whites] want to bully yellow people.”[89] Thus, “being slapped around,” literally and figuratively, described how the Chinese were treated by foreigners in China and how China as nation was treated by foreign powers. The discomfort with Western privilege in China was articulated in a 1926 piece by Chen Hengzhe (1893–1976), a Beida professor, published under the pen-name Shafei. When she boarded a train to Beidaihe, the famous beach resort not far from Beijing, she was worried that there might be too few Chinese at the resort. “Since the few summer resorts in China are all developed by foreigners, foreigners have assumed an attitude of being the owners. They seem to say to the Chinese: ‘This is our place. Why should you imitate us and come here to vacation in summer?’ Perhaps I was overly sensitive, but when this feeling came to me, what could I do to get rid of it? If there were more Chinese there, at least I would feel more natural. When I did see several Chinese in the hotel, the unpleasant feeling that I invaded foreign territory was finally gone.”[90] Feeling that she was invading foreign territory while she was in her own country well illustrated the psychological dimension of the world order in which China was situated and the way Chinese travelers experienced it.

NATIVE CHINA The sarcastic comments seen above about Chinese submission to foreign dominance in China may be better appreciated along with the writings about a native China. Such writings were of interest to readers because as urban residents they often did not know about various regions of China, and rural society in particular. Those travelogues exposed the “innocence” and “pristine-ness” of China praised by Bertrand Russell and lamented by Lu Xun. For the latter innocence and pristine-ness meant “uncivilized” and “primitive” in the discourse on modernity and thus explained the way China was treated by foreigners. Antonia Finnane has examined a controversy in 1934 around a book by Yi Junzuo, Idle Talk on Yangzhou, depicting the city as a

physically decayed and socially backward place, out of step with the modernizing pace that China needed. Applying Partha Chatterjee’s insights in Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World, Finnante identified a number of intellectual elements in the comments from Yi Junzuo and many of his critics, from an internalized, revised Orientalist view to atavistic, modernizing, and gendered perspectives, within a discourse of anti-colonial nationalism.[91] Significantly, written about a decade earlier, the Fukan travelogues on native China would fall into these same categories, especially placed side by side with the travelogues on foreign lands, but no controversy arose in the 1920s, reflecting a more diverse political-intellectual environment than the 1930s, besides the fact that the negativity in the travelogues was much less pronounced than in Yi Junzuo’s book. The travelogues on native China touched upon many geographical localities and covered several aspects: Travel conditions (reflecting slow pace of modernization); landscapes and ecological environment; social-economic conditions; and social customs and cultural practices. They conveyed a sense of adventure, wonder, and bewilderment that one would expect while traveling in foreign lands. As far as educated Chinese living in treaty-ports and major cities were concerned, interior/native China was as foreign as Korea or Malaysia or Peru. To begin with, travelers’ observations and comments revealed a particular dimension of the mentality of educated Chinese. In analyzing Chinese intellectuals’ willingness to criticize Chinese society and culture out of an inferiority complex vis-avis the West and Japan, Shu-mei Shih has made an important point: “The target of criticism in most cases was the uncultured and irrational masses, contrasted to the intellectual who presented himself as a rational critic of Chinese society. [. . .] If the intellectuals felt inferior to the West and Japan then, this inferiority translated into superiority over the masses.”[92] This was true of travelers’ comments on native China. When Yixing rode a train to Tianjin on her way to Japan, for instance, she noted that the unpleasant odor on the train was such that she “cannot but blame our countrymen for not caring about their personal hygiene.”[93] Speaking of the filthy conditions in the third-class cabin aboard a ship from Dalian to Tianjin on her return journey, she observed that “we often promote the life of the common people; this is a good opportunity to experience the life of the common people.”[94] Yixing consciously positioned herself above the “common people” who had yet to be civilized. This sense of herself as educated “we” versus those who represented China’s backwardness was a critical intellectual and psychological backdrop for her perceptions and emotions along her journey, which is also seen in Sun Fuyuan’s account below. This attitude typical of educated Chinese seems to have given them the possibility of joining the colonial metropolis as individual cosmopolitans and distancing themselves from the backwardness at home for which they felt dispirited but not responsible. Beneath the sense of superiority over the masses lay a lingering feeling of the educated being superfluous or irrelevant to the life of the masses and therefore the fate of the nation. A touch of sadness and powerlessness permeated between the

lines in those writings. In regard to travel conditions in China, Gan Zhexian’s journey from Beijing to his native home in Sichuan is one example. Starting on July 1, 1923, his first leg was a ride on a train in third-class car from the Han Garden station in Beijing to Hankou at a cost of 15.75 yuan. The train arrived in Hankou on July 3. The next day he boarded a steamship for Yichang in steerage for three yuan, and arrived in Yichang on July 8. He paid to be ferried over in a small boat to another steamship. Again riding in steerage, he reached Wanxian on July 10. He rested in Wanxian for five days before traveling further in a sedan chair on July 16 and arrived in Liangshan county seat on July 18. He picked up his journey two days later in a sedan chair to arrive at his hometown Dazhu on July 21. Excluding his stays in Wanxian and Liangshan, the journey took thirteen days.[95] Cao Peiyan’s journal on his two-month journey in the summer of 1921 also provides how it was like to ride trains. Setting out from Beijing, he visited Tianjin, Jinan, Nanjing, Wuxi, Shanghai, and Nantong to investigate educational institutions.[96] He offered “tips on traveling in China.” The chaos in third-class cars along the TianjinPukou railway was the worst of all railways. Soldiers did not pay fare but occupied seats that other passengers paid for. Loss of luggage was common, which was not helped by the fact that there was no light (oil lamps) in third-class cars. Snacks and fruits sold at various stops along the railway were not clean, and travelers should be very careful with what they ate. If one wanted to visit schools, one should go to the outlets of the Commercial Press which would provide best assistance (presumably because the publisher was the main supplier of textbooks to schools, even though Cao did not explain).[97] Cao’s journal revealed both more positive developments and certain deplorable conditions in the cities he visited, but those were the most developed cities at the time, not unfamiliar to readers (and Tianjin and Shanghai were of course treaty-ports, not “native China”). More “newsworthy” were, therefore, the travelogues that took readers into interior China and rural society. Yu Kun, a fine art student, traveled in the summer of 1922 from Tianjin to Qufu and Tai’an in Shandong Province to draw life sketches. After getting off the train at Yaochun station, he rode a mule-drawn wagon to Qufu. The unpaved road was so bad that the wagon shook violently. At one point, they had to use ferry boat to cross the Si River (Sishui). In shallow water near the other side, a few boatmen who operated the ferry pushed the boat carrying two wagons. A dozen or so teenagers swam to get mules crossing the river. When the boat ran aground and the riverbank still about twenty feet away, the boatmen carried passengers on their backs to the bank. The total charge for the trouble was 20 wen a person, 2 wen a mule, indicative of local living standards.[98] On his return journey Yu again crossed the Si River. He noted that the boatmen were all naked, yet female passengers, old and young, did not care at all, even as boatmen carried women and men on their backs to the bank. “It is said that people in Qufu are not enlightened, which actually is not true. The divide between men and women does not exist at all—but only at the ferry of the Si

River.” Yu noted other social customs in Qufu: Few people in Qufu cut their hair, and many put their queues atop their heads. “When you ask for direction, you should not call people senior brother, which is a taboo; rather you should address them as junior brother or mister.” The hostels and eateries were of old style and dirty, while calligraphy prints were sold everywhere, a sign of mixing culture and business.[99] A more trying, and adventurous, journey was taken and recorded by Sun Fuyuan. In 1923 Shaanxi, Gansu, and Xinjiang in northwestern China were making joint efforts to build a Northwestern University. Sun was invited to take a tour to Shaanxi for the purpose. The group of five left Beijing by train on November 21 for Zhengzhou, and arrived in the evening. Next day they reached Guanyintang, beyond which the rail track was under construction. Sun walked into the town only to find all dwellings were thatched houses—“as those one would find in Africa,” and he “began to see the poverty in the interior.” Next morning, they rode an engineering vehicle for two and half hours to reach Zhangmao. To travel farther, the group had to use mule-drawn wagons, mule-carried chairs, human-carried sedan chairs, small horse-drawn carriages, and pack mules.[100] The last leg of the journey was made by a bus.[101] Altogether, Sun’s trip from Beijing to Xi’an took nine days. One sub-strand in the travelogues was a sense of regional or provincial identity, which coexisted with the discourse on Chinese national identity. In the summer of 1924 Sun Fuyuan made a second trip to Xi’an, along with Lu Xun and others.[102] In Zhengzhou Sun witnessed local people’s responses to a two-month drought. A large crowd was holding a procession in the streets praying for rain, each person wearing a head wreath made of tree leaves. “Their action was very childish, but beyond that, their appearance suggested a poetic beauty to me,” Sun commented, in the same tone as Russell commented on Chinese rickshaw pullers. Describing the landscape of yellow earth without vegetation, Sun reflected on the war-filled history of Shaanxi. He attributed to that history the character of the Shaanxi people, who were calm, reticent, and amiable—an attempt at a stereotype of regional cultural character.[103] The train from Beijing only went as far as Shanzhou, Henan Province. Sun’s group traveled further to Tongguan by a boat on the Yellow River for 180 li in four days. On their return trip, Sun’s group traveled along the Wei River for 250 li from Caotan (30 li north of Xi’an) to Tongguan, which took four and a half days.[104] Sun commented on the social conditions in Shaanxi and Ganxu. I was told that compared to Gansu, Shaanxi was already counted as one of the more developed provinces. The material life in Shaanxi was low to the minimum and all daily necessities such as food, clothing, and tools depended on other provinces, while the intellectual life was so full of Neo-Confucianism that it surprised me. But in Gansu, I was told, boys and girls of seventeen or eighteen usually did not wear clothing, while girls of eighteen would follow the common practice of widow chastity, for which memorial tablets and archways were built everywhere. [. . .] My advice to Gansu people is simply this: wear clothing! To

wear clothing, you must weave cloth; to weave cloth, you must spin thread; to spin thread, you must grow cotton; and to grow cotton, you must stop growing and using opium first.[105] So again Sun characterized people in their provincial identities and assumed a position to “educate” the masses in those provinces. With atavistic, rather than Orientalist, undertones about a contrast between urban, modern, educated people and rural, traditional, uneducated people, Sun vividly sketched how the boatmen on the Yellow River, who took his group to Tongguan, went naked and were beautiful being naked. Under their dark skin were their healthy muscles and fully developed bones. Their hair cut short, without style. They went barefoot, with straight toes. “We absolutely admired their bodies that were really the same as Greek sculptures. [. . .] Besides doctors, to whom else can our bodies be shown?” All the boatmen looked like around forty years old, while their actual age ranged from twenty to sixty. Sun reflected on whether these people with perfect bodies also had a developed mind. He and his two fellow travelers, Lu Xun and Xia Yuanli (1884–1944, professor of physics at Beida), studied the boatmen, and the latter in return observed them with curiosity.[106] In Xi’an Sun’s group visited the Sleeping Dragon Temple, the School of Fine Arts, and the Society for Changing Customs (yisushe). The last institution was actually a theater school of post-secondary level where students learned “Shaanxi Tune” (qinqiang), the regional theater. The income from theater performance by its students was more than enough to support the Society, “thanks to Shaanxi people’s theatergoing custom.” Within Xi’an city, besides the Society, there were two more Shaanxi Tune houses and one Peking Opera house, all being quite expensive but always sold out, including seats on the second floor reserved for women.[107] Sun found that in Shaanxi dialect the sound of “s” usually was pronounced as “f,” “d” as “ds,” and “t” as “ts,” initially causing some confusion to him and Lu Xun.[108] Sun made comparisons between Shaanxi and Shanxi. Sun heard that boats on the Yellow River usually would spend night on the northern bank (Shanxi), instead of the southern bank (Henan), because Shanxi was well-known for an absence of bandits, opium, and foot-binding. Although these would not impress people in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, but bandits, opium, and foot-binding were exactly what Henan and Shaanxi still had, said Sun. He recalled their stop at a village in Shanxi where crabapples were everywhere and an elementary school was attended by all children from dozens of households in the village, depicting a peaceful and progressive countryside in Shanxi.[109] Again provincial characters were highlighted. Over two months later Wang Tongling, who made the same trip with Sun and others, also published his reminiscences, confirming much of what Sun had said.[110] On the other hand, certain readers criticized Sun’s comments on Gansu Province, especially the hearsay about naked seventeen- or eighteen-year-olds and widow chastity practiced by young girls.[111] The exchange shows that educated Chinese of

treaty-ports and urban centers were ignorant of native China except their hometowns, hence the “newsworthiness” of such travelogues. The Fukan travelogues make one of the most interesting and revealing types of readings available about Chinese minds in the New Culture era. Interesting in that they provided experiences and insights of educated Chinese as travelers that are rarely discussed in the China scholarship. Revealing in that one is informed of how educated Chinese experienced and interpreted the modern world that China had been forced to encounter and be part of. In a study of Shan Shili’s travel writing, Hu Ying observed that the post-colonial approach would be inadequate to analyze Shan’s writing, because she was not a colonial subject and China was no longer conceived as the center of civilization either. “Living in late nineteenth to early twentieth century China and traveling to a world beyond the Qing Empire, Shan Shili could not but face multiple, overlapping powers with competing centers, which she inevitably compared, criticized, and appropriated for her own uses.”[112] In the early 1920s, China’s standing in the world had hardly changed from 1903, despite the founding of the Republic in 1912. Educated Chinese with increasing access to and knowledge of the world came to realize ever more acutely that China was a weak nation vis-à-vis Western powers and Japan. Chinese travelers to the West and Japan had mixed and conflicting emotions: They were ashamed at China being a weak nation and blamed Chinese national character for it, while indignant at the way China was treated by Western powers and Japan; they felt inadequate and insecure as Chinese citizens vis-à-vis Westerners; and they expressed an aspiration to a world of racial and national equality, as a critique of the lived inequality among peoples and nations. They articulated deep ambivalence at the Japanese capability of “making progress” and the threat Japan posed to the survival of China as a nation. Chinese travelers to Korea, Vietnam, and Malaysia, made poignant observations about “colonized peoples” and their level of “civilization,” coupled with concerns that the Chinese would follow their suit. Such discourses tended to confirm or construct a racial/civilizational hierarchy, in which China was placed below the West and Japan and above Korea and Vietnam. And their experiences in foreign concessions and treaty ports only highlighted China’s status as such, amplifying and reinforcing the above-mentioned emotions and reflections. The emotional ambivalence and intellectual ambiguity in the travelogues indicate a complex subjectivity or subjectivities characterized by conflicting impulses, those of accepting and rejecting the Western narrative of History and the discourse on modernity, and those of internalizing civilizational hierarchy and resisting the colonial world order, all at the same time. In other words, the Fukan travelogues exhibited a multiplicity of meanings and meaning-makings; and amidst the multiple meanings stood a key intellectual-moral paradox between a romantic and idealistic longing for a cosmopolitan world transcending race, nation, language, and other boundaries, and a

compelling and pragmatic need for China’s nationalist struggle predicated on a national identity and for China’s modernization modeled after the West and Japan. Yet, since a racial/civilizational hierarchy that Chinese travelers helped to confirm tended to justify the colonial world order, nationalism would not serve as a sufficient intellectual resource to overcome that order, nor was it, in itself, intellectually and morally satisfying. Yixing’s self-questioning of her own sense of national identity while in Japan, or the reflections on the meaning of “nation” penned by Sun Fuxi sojourning in France, in effect destabilized or subverted the notion of Chinese nation and the appeal of Chinese nationalism. Instead, Chinese travelers imagined and aspired to a cosmopolitan world that would allow China to transcend the civilizational hierarchy and the colonial order to join a world of peace and equality, but the aspiration was even less realistic and remained idealistic and rhetorical. What the travelogues signified was a Chinese subjectivity that cannot be easily categorized as colonial or anticolonial or post-colonial consciousness, but rather an uneasy and ambiguous mixture of multiple, often conflicting, normative and cognitive subjectivities. The mixture reflected the colonial world order of the early twentieth century in which China was situated.

NOTES 1. Literary historian Richard Strassberg has noted that as late as the first half of the twentieth century the term youji had not appeared in the classical dictionaries Ci Yuan (1915) and Ci Hai (1938). “It remained for modern Chinese anthologizers to argue for travel literature as a major prose genre in its own right and to reintroduce it to contemporary readers.” Richard Strassberg, Inscribed Landscapes, p. 9. 2. For Qing officials’ travel journals, see D. R. Howland, Borders of Chinese Civilization: Geography and History at Empire’s End (Duke University Press, 1996), pp. 80–107. Several Qing official reports and private diaries have been re-published. See Guo Songtao, Shixi Jicheng (A journal of my journey as envoy to the West) (Shenyang: Liaonining renmin chubanshe, 1994); Wanqing Haiwai Biji Xuan (A selection of journals of overseas trips of the late Qing), (Beijing: Haiyang chubanshe, 1983). 3. Xiafang Hazai Yudi Congchao (Collections of Geographies from Small Square Teapot Pavilion) (Shanghai: Zhuyitang, 1891). 4. Rebecca Karl, Staging the World: Chinese Nationalism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (Duke University Press, 2002). 5. Wang Tao, Manyou Suilu Tuji (Pictorial Illustrations of Travel Journals) (Shanghai, Dianshizhai Huabao Guan, 1890; Jinan: Shandong Huabao Chubanshe, 2004). 6. For Wang Tao, see Emma Jinghua Teng, “The West as a ‘Kingdom of Women’: Woman and Occidentalism in Wang Tao’s Tales of Travel,” in Joshua A. Fogel, ed., Traditions of East Asian Travels (New York: Berghahn Books, 2006), pp. 97–124. 7. David Akush and Leo O. Lee, Land without Ghosts: Chinese Impressions of America from the Mid-Nineteenth Century to the Present (Berkeley: University of

California Press, 1989). On Shan Shili’s travel, see Ellen Widmer, “Foreign Travel through a Woman’s Eyes: Shan Shili’s Guimao luxing ji in Local and Global Perspective,” Journal Asian Studies, 65, 4 (Nov. 2006):763–791; Hu Ying, “‘Would That I Were Marco Polo’: The Travel Writing of Shan Shili (1856–1943),” in Joshua A. Fogel, ed., Traditions, pp. 144–166. 8. Advertisements in Xue Heng Vol.1, No.1 (Jan. 1922) and Shaonian Zhongguo Vol. 4, No. 9 (Jan.1924). 9. D. R. Howland, Borders of Chinese Civilization: Geography and History at Empire’s End (Duke University Press, 1996), p. 106. 10. Jill Bepler, Ferdinand Albercht, Duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg (1636–1687): A Traveller and His Travelogue (1988), p. 11. 11. Steve Clark, “Introduction,” in Steve Clark, ed., Travel Writing and Empire: PostColonial Theory in Transit (London: Zan Books, 1999), p. 2. 12. Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London: Routledge, 1992; second edition, 2008). 13. Sara Mills, Discourses of Difference: An Analysis of Women’s Travel Writing and Colonialism (London: Routledge, 1991). 14. An example of the former is Debbie Lisle, The Global Politics of Contemporary Travel Writing (Cambridge University Press, 2006). 15. Steve Clark, “Introduction,” p. 3. 16. Paul Smethurst, “Introduction,” in Julia Kuehn and Paul Smethurst, eds., Travel Writing, Form, and Empire: The Poetics and Politics of Mobility (Routledge, 2009), p. 2. 17. The author republished his travelogue in Young China in December 1922. See Shaonian Zhongguo, Vol. 3, No. 5 (Dec. 1922):41–49. 18. CF, 1921/11/23. 19. CF, 1922/11/6; 11/9. 20. CF, 1921/11/27. 21. In a study on the English periodicals published by Chinese in Shanghai during the 1920s-1940s, Shuan Shen found that there were “multiple and different cosmopolitan cultures” in early-twentieth-century China and that “some forms of cosmopolitanism” at that time “were not in opposition to nationalism.” See Shuan Shen, Cosmopolitan Publics: Anglophone Print Cutlure in Semi-Colonial Shanghai (Rutgers University Press, 2009), pp. 22–23. 22. Ellen Widmer, “Foreign Travel,” 764–765. 23. CF, 1921/11/24. 24. Ellen Widmer, “Foreign Travel,” 782. 25. CF, 1921/11/27. 26. For pan-Asian discourse and activities in the late nineteenth century and beyond, see D. R. Howland, Borders of Chinese Civilization, especially pp. 244–247. Also see Rebecca Karl, Staging the World: Chinese Nationalism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), Chapter 6. 27. For the discourse on the so-called “materialist Western civilization” and “spiritual

Eastern civilization” in the 1920s, see Charlotte Furth, Ting Wen-chiang: Science and China’s New Culture (Harvard University Press, 1970); Alitto, Guy S. The Last Confucian: Liang Shu-ming and the Chinese Dilemma of Modernity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979). 28. CF, 1921/7/28. 29. CF, 1923/12/9. 30. CF, 1923/12/4. 31. CF, 1923/12/7. 32. CF, 1921/11/27. 33. CF, 1922/3/26. 34. CF, 1922/3/26. 35. CF, 1922/11/1. 36. CF, 1923/7/9. 37. See Nicolas Clifford, “A Truthful Impression of the Country”: British and American Travel Writing in China, 1880–1949 (University of Michigan Press, 2001). 38. CF, 1923/5/10. 39. CF, 1922/11/29. 40. Ellen Widmer, “Foreign Travel.” 41. CF, 1922/7/22. 42. CF, 1922/7/23. 43. CF, 1922/7/30. 44. Fogel, The Literature of Travel, pp. 168–169. 45. CF, 1922/7/25. 46. CF, 1922/7/25. 47. CF, 1922/7/25. 48. CF, 1922/7/30. 49. CF, 1922/8/3. 50. CF, 1922/8/27. 51. CF, 1922/1/11. 52. CF, 1922/2/25. 53. CF, 1922/11/9. 54. CF, 1922/11/11. 55. See Rebecca Karl, Staging the World, pp. 159–163. 56. CF, 1922/11/10. 57. CF, 1922/11/12. 58. See Peter Perdue, “Nature and Nurture in Imperial China’s Frontiers,” Modern Asian Studies, 43, 1 (2009):245–267. 59. CF, 1922/8/22. 60. CF, 1922/8/23. 61. CF, 1922/1/21. 62. CF, 1922/2/15. 63. CF, 1923/12/4. 64. CF, 1922/1/23.

65. CF, 1922/2/17; 2/18. 66. CF, 1921/11/25. 67. For the reactions to taxes and levies by the Guangzhou regime under Sun Yat-sen in the early 1920s, see Michael G. Murdock, Disarming the Allies of Imperialism, pp. 73–104. 68. Adam McKeown, Chinese Migrant Networks and Cultural Change (The University of Chicago Press, 2001), pp. 247–249. 69. CF, 1922/12/8. 70. CF, 1924/1/14. 71. See Hu Ying, “Re-Configuring Nei/Wei: Writing the Woman Traveler in the Late Qing,” Late Imperial China, 18, 1 (1997):72–99. 72. Lydia Liu, “The Question of Meaning-Value in the Political Economy of the Sign,” in Lydia Liu, ed., Tokens of Exchange: The Problem of Translation in Global Circulations (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999), 13–41. 73. Clifford, Nicolas. “A Truthful Impression of the Country”: British and American Travel Writing in China, 1880–1949. (Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 2001). 74. CF, 1924/1/14. 75. CF, 1924/1/17. For using sanitary issue to discriminate against Chinese immigrants in Peru, see Adam McKeown, Chinese Migrant Networks and Cultural Change (The University of Chicago Press, 2001), pp. 149–151. 76. CF, 1924/2/4. 77. CF, 1924/2/4. 78. Adam McKeown, Chinese Immigrant Networks and Cultural Change, pp. 166– 174. 79. CF, 1924/2/15. 80. CF, 1924/2/19. 81. CF, 1922/8/25. 82. CF, 1922/8/26. 83. CF, 1922/8/27. 84. CF, 1925/5/17. 85. CF, 1924/9/17. 86. CF, 1924/9/17. 87. CF, 1922/9/17. For more on the reference to Tagore, see Chapter 2. 88. CF, 1925/5/18. 89. CF, 1922/9/20. 90. CF, 1926/9/1. 91. Antonia Finnante, “A Place in the Nation: Yangzhou and the Idle Talk Controversy of 1934,” Journal of Asian Studies, 53, 4 (Nov. 1994):1150–1174. Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse (University of Minnesota Press, 1986). 92. Shu-mei Shih, The Lure of the Modern, p. 24. 93. CF, 1921/7/7.

94. CF, 1922/8/29. 95. CF, 1923/11/18–11/30. 96. CF, 1921/10/13–18. 97. For the dominance in textbook market by the Commercial Press in the 1910s and 1920s, see Ted Hunter, “Culture, Capital, and the Temptations of the Imagined Market: The Case of the Commercial Press,” in Kai-wing Chow, et al. eds., Beyond the May Fourth Paradigm: In Search of Chinese Modernity (Lexington Books, 2008), pp. 27–45. 98. CF, 1922/10/13. 99. CF, 1922/10/27. 100. CF, 1923/12/13; 12/14 101. CF. 1923/12/14. 102. It appears that Sun arranged to have Lu Xun to give lectures for the summer classes at Northwestern University established the year before. From July 21 to July 29 Lu Xun gave ten one-hour lectures and received 300 yuan as fees and transportation cost (Lu Xun donated 50 yuan to a local theater school whose performances he and Sun attended several times during their stay in Xi’an). See Lu Xun Riji, pp. 432–437. 103. CF, 1924/8/16. 104. CF, 1924/8/16. 105. CF, 1924/8/16. 106. CF, 1924/8/17. 107. CF, 1924/8/18. 108. CF, 1924/8/18. 109. CF, 1924/8/18. 110. CF, 1914/10/27; 10/28. 111. CF, 1924/9/8; 9/12. 112. Hu Ying, “‘Would That I Were Marco Polo’,” p. 162.

Chapter 5

Cultural Legacy and Scientific Methods The Enterprise of Reorganizing National Heritage The Chenbao Fukan was known as one of the leading publications participating in the New Culture movement and has been widely recognized by historians as an outlet for the “new literature.” This reputation is well deserved, as other chapters of this book demonstrate. Yet, the scholarship on the New Culture era has not fully recognized the fact that besides publishing “new literature,” the Fukan was actively engaged in the enterprise of “reorganizing national heritage” (zhengli guogu),[1] which was conceptually and factually related to but should not be conflated with “national essence” movement (guocui yundong)—the latter was regarded as resistance by cultural conservatives to the New Culture movement.[2] Indeed, serious expositions of China’s cultural legacies (philosophy and literature in particular) took a prominent place in the Fukan, often the first item on page one. They showcased the supplement’s scholarly quality and educational function and offered an attraction for readers and contributors, from well-known scholars to college graduates and students. Focusing on philosophy and literature, this chapter will map out how such an enterprise was pursued and how it fit into the intellectual and moral imperatives of cosmopolitanism, nationalism, and individualism. To explore the subject, it is necessary to trace the political and intellectual context, especially the complex relationship among three notions, “guocui” (national essence), “guoxue” (national learning), and “guogu” (national heritage). The much involved genealogy of these overlapping notions and what they signified point to the very multiplicity of positions, meanings, and meaning-makings in these intellectual endeavors.

“REORGANIZING NATIONAL HERITAGE” IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT The terms “national essence,” “national learning,” and “national heritage” had a complex evolution in early-twentieth-century China. Adopted from Japan and promoted by late Qing reformers such as Liang Qichao, Huang Zunxian (1848–1905), and Zhang Zhidong (1837–1909), the term “guocui” began an enduring intellectual life when the National Essence Journal (guocui xuebao) was launched in 1905 by the Society for Preserving National Learning (guoxue baocunhui). Under the stewardship of the Southern Society founded in 1909 and then the Xue Heng (Critical Review) launched in 1922 by Mei Guangdi (1890–1945), Hu Xiansu (1894–1968), and Wu Mi (1894–1978), professors at Dongnan University in Nanjing, the National Essence

circles evolved and mutated, well into the New Culture era, with its political agenda shifting from anti-Manchu to anti-radicalism, while those involved remained committed to preserving traditional cultural treasures as native intellectual resources for China’s rejuvenation.[3] More recent studies have shed additional light on the whole phenomenon of “national essence” as an intellectual and political enterprise, in forms of research activities, journals, and associations. Peter Zarrow has detected a connection between the National Essence Journal and the evolution of an anarchist bent among such anti-Manchu revolutionaries as Liu Shipei (1884–1919) and Zhang Binglin (1869–1936).[4] Elisabeth Kaske has traced and analyzed the origins and complexity of the “national essence” movement, noting the diverse and opposing agendas of its promoters from Zhang Zhidong to Zhang Binglin, among others. Along with Liu Shipei, Huang Jie (1873–1935), Deng Shi (1877–1951), and others, Zhang Binglin, who studied philology in the context of his national essence agenda, represented the racialist revolutionaries against the Manchu and therefore ideologically was in opposition to Liang Qichao as a reformist regarding the Qing dynasty on one hand and Western and Chinese cultures on the other.[5] Scholars have also shown that the intellectual and ideological positions of the Critical Review were more complex than a single term, such as conservative or traditionalist or antimodernist, can fully capture.[6] At the time of its publication, however, the journal was widely perceived as an outlet for “national essence” writings by such contemporaries as Zhou Zuoren (see below).[7] Hu Shi even considered the journal a vehicle designed “almost exclusively to attack” him.[8] As Lawrence A. Schneider observed long ago, “in spite of the fact that from at least 1919 the term ‘national essence’ had acquired unpleasant connotations of anachronism and reaction, the contributors to the CR [Critical Review] used the concept unapologetically to describe their own goals.”[9] All this would suggest that by the early 1920s the iconoclastic discourse had rendered “national essence” synonymous with “conservative” and “anti-New Culture,” at least in the eyes of many New Culture practitioners. In the meantime, another term coined by Zhang Binglin, “national heritage,” seemed able to be construed or appropriated to mean either “national essence” or “national learning,” with different connotations. It is in this discursive context that those among New Culture practitioners who wanted to strike a balance between learning from the West and preserving the best of Chinese tradition (a position the Critical Review also claimed to subscribe to), such as Hu Shi, opted to use the phrase “reorganizing national heritage” to refer to an intellectual enterprise. The term was nationalistic-sounding due to the word “guo,” while sufficiently reformist but not so radical as to break completely with the past due to the word “reorganizing.” Even more viable politically was to use the term “national learning,” which seemed farther removed, both in semantics and in the discursive context of the time, from what “national essence” might imply. The genesis of the three terms sketched above would contextualize how Cao Juren (1900–1970) tried to cope with these loaded terms in the 1920s. Born in

Pujiang, Zhejiang Province, Cao read widely in Chinese classics and was also educated in Western-style at Hangzhou Normal School. From 1923 onward he began to teach Chinese as “national language” (guowen) at colleges and universities in Shanghai, Nanjing, and Beijing. For his teaching purpose he would use Chinese classical texts such as Zhuang Zi, Xun Zi, Wenxin Diaolong by Liu Xie (465–520), and writings by Cao Pi (187–226), Lu Ji (261–303), and Yan Zitui (531–595), as well as Yan Fu’s translations of Thomas H. Huxley (1825–1895) and Herbert Spencer (1820–1903). In the midst of confused and confusing intellectual trends of the time, Cao was confronted with the issue of how to treat Chinese classical texts. As Cao recalled later, the term “national learning” was coined in the early twentieth century, when cultural conservatives tried to save Chinese tradition in the face of Western learning flooding the country by trumpeting “national essence.” It was Hu Shi, however, who clarified what “national learning” should be about—“reorganizing national heritage” with comparative and scientific methods. Fully agreeing with Hu's view, Cao decided he would not care what to call what he was doing and went about his teaching as he saw fit.[10] Actually, Hu Shi stated that “guoxue” (national learning) was a short-hand for “guoguxue” (national heritage studies), but “guoxue” was a better term for its neutral connotation, while “national heritage” contained both national essence and national dregs.[11] In other words, for Hu Shi, Cao Juren, and others, to differentiate “national learning” from “national essence” (its perceived conservative agenda), the key was a critical reorganization, as opposed to uncritical celebration, of national heritage. In the first three decades of the twentieth century, therefore, educated Chinese were awash in these intellectual crosscurrents—from the efforts by cultural conservatives who wanted to preserve Chinese tradition completely intact (whether or not in some sort of mixing with Western culture), to cultural iconoclasts who wanted to totally jettison the tradition in order to revitalize Chinese society with an infusion of Western culture, to those who, positioning between the two extremes, wanted to reorganize Chinese tradition through scientific methods while learning from the West all that would benefit China. These conflicting yet overlapping endeavors were part and parcel of the intellectual landscape of the time. The Indian scholar Partha Chatterjee argued that before anti-colonial nationalism began its political struggle against imperialist power, it already took the form of cultural nationalism by dividing an outside, material domain of statecraft, science and technology, and an inner, spiritual domain bearing essential marks of cultural identity. While conceding the necessity of catching up with the West in the material domain, it insisted on the autonomy of the spiritual domain. “The greater one’s success in imitating Western skills in the material domain, therefore, the greater the need to preserve the distinctness of one’s spiritual culture. This formula is, I think, a fundamental feature of anti-colonial nationalisms in Asia and Africa.” Chatterjee points to language (including literature and drama), secondary schools, and family, among other things, as areas where the nationalism in the spiritual domain manifested.[12] If we apply this perspective to early-twentieth-century China, the alleged cultural

conservatives, such as the Critical Review group or Liang Shuming (1893–1989), may be regarded as cultural nationalists and critics of Western-derived modernity.[13] The enterprise of reorganizing national heritage may very well be understood in the same light. On the other hand, scholarship for the sake of scholarship or studying a culture for its innate worth also motivated participants. Hu Shi, the promoter of reorganizing national heritage, would explicitly reject a nationalist agenda on his part. In 1928 Hu declined an invitation to join the China Scholarship Society because the society’s constitution contained propagating Chinese nationalist spirit as one of its missions. Hu wrote: “I do not think Chinese scholarship has intimate relationship with nationalism. If scholarly research is guided by nationalism or any ism, it must be flawed for defects of exaggeration or evasion. We reorganize national heritage only to study history, only to exert efforts for scholarship, that is, so-called seeking truth from facts, which never plays the role of propagating nationalist spirit and feelings. This point few scholars have understood these days.”[14] This comment suggests both Hu Shi's own position as an individualistic scholar and his keen awareness of the nationalistic motivations among many educated Chinese. A further motivation for people like Liang Qichao was to rediscover the valuable parts of Chinese cultural legacy and make them relevant to China's own future and worthy of contributing to a world culture defined by cosmopolitanism.

DEFINING “REORGANIZATION OF NATIONAL HERITAGE” On April 23, 1922, the Fukan published an article, “A Tendency in the Intellectual Circles,” by Zhou Zuoren (pen-named “Zhong Mi”). Zhou characterized the tendency as “a rapid rise of national essentialism (guocui zhuyi)” with two inevitable elements: a return-to-the-ancient orientation (fugu zhuyi) and a xenophobic orientation (paiwai zhuyi). Zhou saw the trend in several recent developments: 1) Proposals that appeared in Shanghai and Beijing for adopting Confucian rituals and music,[15] 2) lectures given by a Beida professor Zhu Qianzhi (1899–1972) on “ancient learning” (guxue), 3) the debut of the Critical Review in January 1922, and 4) most critically, Zhang Binglin's public lectures on national learning. Zhou said he respected Zhang’s scholarship, but felt Zhang was best suited to do specialized research, not public lectures, because the latter could be used as a launching pad for the return-to-theancient movement, no matter Zhang’s intention—according to Zhou, people said that Zhang lecturing on national learning indicated vernacular new literature (baihua xinwenxue) being worthless. Here Zhou lumped together several different events with another label, “return-to-the-ancient,” and linked whatever Zhang meant by “national learning” with a conservative agenda.[16] Yet, Zhou did not reject in principle the call for reorganizing national heritage, even though both endeavors would be dealing with ancient texts. Zhou stated his position as follows: [Besides creating new literature], if we want to reorganize national heritage, we also have to rely on modern new theories and new methods, in order to have any

success. Take literature studies for instance, we cannot but rely on the new theories of foreign literary criticism; if we follow the old Chinese method, then the writings carrying the [Confucian] way (zaidao zhiwen) are certainly the real literature, and fiction and theater are just playthings that make people lose high purposes, or at best something that barely counts as literature.[17] To Zhou, then, it was not that national learning by definition was reactionary, but that how it was conducted would determine what its agenda was.[18] Zhou's view was based on an accepted demarcation of Chinese tradition between a high culture consisting of literature (essay and poetry), history, and philosophy, and a popular culture including theaters, story-telling, fictions, folklores, and folk religions. He believed that in light of Western literary theories, literature studies (and reorganizing national heritage in particular) should include both. In fact, these were exactly what were taking place in the pages of the Fukan, as we shall see. Zhou Zuoren’s commentary invited a response from Hu Shi who wrote under a pen-name “Q. V.”[19] Hu found Zhou’s view over-pessimistic—Zhou’s fundamental error lay in his treating what had become or was becoming the past as a trend toward the future. “National essentialism that returns to the ancient and excludes the foreign certainly does not belong to the future, but to the past.” The growing trend at the moment was to write in vernacular, not in parallel rhythms, and to abandon footbinding, instead of practicing it. People who wrote prose and poetry in vernacular surely outnumbered those who kept the Manchu hairstyle as Zhao Xiucai did in “The True Story of Ah Q” (the protagonists in Lu Xun's story were now common metaphors among the educated). “We can be assured that [new poets] Xie Bingxin, Wang Jingzhi, and others will never go back to writing parallel rhythmic prose. Of late a piece of bad news seems to have come out of the Critical Review that Mr. Hu Shizhi [Hu Shi] was to write poems in ancient style (gutishi). Even if that news were true, it would perhaps be no more than such an event as Beida students wearing dragon gowns in a ‘costume competition’ yesterday [playing for fun], not worth the fellows of the Critical Review being optimistic, nor Mr. Zhong Mi being pessimistic.” What Hu was referring to with satire was a fierce attack by Hu Xiansu in the Critical Review on Hu Shi’s book of new poems written in vernacular, A Collection of Experiments (Changsiji).[20] As for Zhu Qianzhi, the Critical Review, and Zhang Binglin, Hu Shi did not think any of them signified a new development. Zhu, a professor of Chinese classics at Beida, was all along doing research on ancient philosophy; there was no need to suspect he had abandoned the new to return to the ancient. Mei Guangdi and Hu Xiansu who launched the Critical Review remained what they had been seven or eight or more than ten years ago, and did not represent a current or future trend either.[21] The journal had actually been in the ice box for several years, Hu noted, before it finally came out in 1922, which led Zhou to think it was new. As for Zhou’s opinion that Zhang Binglin’s public lectures would “sow many seeds for a return-to-the-ancient,” it

was overblown in Hu’s view. People who had listened to Zhang’s lectures on national essence in Japan many years ago included Qian Xuantong, Shen Jianshi, Ma Youyu, Zhu Yangxian, and others, and they all became champions of the New Culture movement. Another error in Zhou Zuoren’s article, Hu opined, was to take what happened in the non-intellectual circles (bu sixiang jie) as the trend in the intellectual circles (sixiang jie). How could those who worshipped and kowtowed to a photo as the real image of the Lü Zu (a deity of religious Daoism), or those who practiced martial arts, divination, and alchemy, be worthy of the honorable title of “the intellectual circles?” Hu Shi concluded his essay with a call—”Fighters of the literary revolution: Strive and march on! If the literary revolution were unable to withstand one or ten or one hundred lecturing Zhang Taiyan [Zhang Binglin], how could [we] be counted as an army of the revolution?”[22] Hu Shi’s assessment of the intellectual trends of the time reflected his confidence in the eventual triumph of the New Culture over any attempts to resist it and his awareness of the multiplicity of ideological positions and intellectual nuances in the academic and literary circles. Hu’s comment on Zhang Binglin’s diminishing influence may be supported by the fact that when Zhang gave his lectures on national learning in 1922, Cao Juren took complete notes of the lectures and had them published as a book credited to Zhang, but Cao refuted Zhang’s criticism of vernacular poetry in an appendix. Cao stated that he supported national learning because he wanted to find out whether there were valuable materials in it, to reorganize it for posterity, to reveal its true quality to counter those conservatives who would use it as their charm, and to facilitate Western and Chinese cultures communicating with one another—that was why he attended Zhang’s lectures, with a critical attitude.[23] Cao’s comments again suggest that it was the purpose and methods, rather than the materials, of national learning that would define it as progressive or conservative. From our perspective, Zhang Binglin may not be regarded as someone lending support either willingly or unknowingly to any perceived return-to-the-ancient enterprise. As Young-tsu Wong’s research shows, Zhang was well-versed in Western learning via Japanese language and developed his own view of plural modernities, of which Western modernity (with its merits and defects) was one variety and Chinese modernity could be another. His view was based on his rejection of universality of human minds and affairs and therefore his notion of “diverse evolution” of societies and cultures—a revision of Darwinism.[24] Zhang Binglin’s interest in national essence or national learning may be considered in this crucial intellectual context—his challenge to the Enlightenment teleology. This critical stance would be consistent with a cosmopolitan agenda to create a diverse world culture that would contain the best of all cultures. An awareness that reorganizing national heritage could take different directions prompted some New Culture practitioners including Hu Shi to regard the enterprise as compatible with, or even an integral part of, the New Culture movement and, more importantly, try to make it serve the latter purpose by engaging in it, so that it was not

a monopoly of cultural conservatives. By January 1923 Hu Shi would be presiding over the publication of the Guoxue Jikan (National Learning Quarterly) based at Beida, and members of its editorial committee included Zhou Zuoren, Qian Xuantong, and Li Dazhao, among others.[25] The very move of launching the journal might have been designed in part to rival the Critical Review in laying claims to the ownership and authority of reorganizing national heritage. When he was writing the preface to the journal, Hu Shi felt that he could not speak freely his personal view because the piece was supposed to represent the entire editorial committee.[26] This again points to diverse and nuanced intellectual positions among the committee members, of which Hu was aware. In short, people of different intellectual and ideological positions were involved in reorganizing national heritage. On February 25, 1924, Hu Shi’s lecture, “Second Talk on Reorganizing National Heritage,” delivered at Dongnan University, appeared in the Fukan. This was a second talk, because Hu Shi first proposed reorganizing national heritage as one of the four missions of the New Culture movement in his article, “The Meaning of New Intellectual Trends,” published in the New Youth in December 1919 (the other three being “studying problems, importing scholarly theories, and reconstructing civilization). [27] In this latest lecture Hu Shi further clarified the purpose of the enterprise. None of various sciences in our country can compare with [those of] Western nations, and at the present it is really difficult to develop these to a level comparable to Europe and America. But national heritage is our own stuff and should be handled [by us] better than in other countries in the world. This responsibility rests on the shoulder of the Departments of National Learning at your university and at Beida, and on all those who are committed to reorganizing national heritage. [. . .] The term “national heritage (guogu),” coined by Mr. Zhang Taiyan, is much better than such terms as “national essence” (guocui), “national flowers” (guohua), etc. because it does not have a pejorative or celebratory connotation. These days when ordinary old gentlemen see the currency of the new culture and the decrease in the number of people reading ancient books, they always sigh that “Western wind is blowing eastward, and national essence is perishing!” Yet, upon opening ancient books, there are errors, forgeries, unreadable and incomprehensible words and phrases all over, so that it is rather impossible to push average young people to read them. In the event that “national essence did perish,” it would not be young people’s fault, but the fault of old gentlemen who did not reorganize [ancient books]. So to avoid the disaster that “national essence perishes,” national heritage must be reorganized so that average young people can read it! Hu Shi was actively co-opting the national essence agenda and channeling it toward a reorganization of national heritage as he defined it. He proposed four methods or tasks for the enterprise. 1) Produce easy-to-read texts, involving correcting errors, annotating texts, adding punctuations, separating a whole piece of

writing into paragraphs, and providing introduction. 2) Make indexes for ancient books. 3) Summarize the existing debates and controversies over ancient books. 4) Compile topical histories of different genres, such as a history of poetry or a history of lyrics.[28] It is clear by now that those who advocated and practiced national learning (reorganizing national heritage) did not conceive the task to be a return to the ancient or a restoration of Confucian ethics, but rather a scholarly undertaking that would require scientific methods (borrowed from the West) and provide the necessary cultural continuity for China’s survival in the modern world. What Zhou Zuoren considered a tendency to return to the ancient was not easily distinguishable from reorganization of national heritage, since the latter was inherently predicted on an interest in traditional texts, but the methods and goals would be different between the two endeavors. One important difference was that national learning practitioners would study both elite and popular cultures, whereas their national essence counterparts had no interest in popular culture. Both Zhou Zuoren and Hu Shi wrote works on popular culture in Chinese tradition. While sounding his warnings against the real or perceived danger, Zhou was not categorically opposed to Chinese tradition. Susan Daruvala has argued that in his writings from the 1920s through the 1930s Zhou offered an alternative to the May Fourth construction of nation as a manifestation of modernity; and he did so by appealing to aesthetic categories of “taste” (quwei) and “true color” (bense). “[T]he aesthetic categories he deployed were not a new invention but drew on literary and philosophical traditions available within the [Chinese] civilization.”[29] This study shows that Zhou's many writings in the 1920s, in terms of genre and content, fell into the category of reorganizing national heritage. Zhou’s subjective and objective relationship with Chinese cultural tradition was not clear-cut and straightforward, but rather complicated, as much as that of many other New Culture intellectuals from Hu Shi to Guo Moruo.

WHAT WAS NATIONAL HERITAGE? If reorganization of national heritage was deemed legitimate, claiming the ownership of the enterprise would seem as desirable as claiming that of the new literature. The questions are: what would national heritage be comprised of and what would be the method to reorganize it? The answers to these questions were critical in determining the nature, and establishing the authority and credibility, of the endeavor. In theory, any and all texts (and material culture) passed down from China’s past could be considered national heritage; but a more manageable curriculum would be necessary, especially for interested young Chinese, in order to engage in national learning. To that end, in 1923 Liang Qichao and Hu Shi proposed their respective minimum reading lists of the essential texts in national learning. A comparison of the two would reveal the idiosyncrasy and commonality of these two men’s intellectual interests that helped inform the reorganization of national heritage at that time. In February 1923 the editor of the Qinghua Weekly, of the Qinghua School,

asked Liang Qichao to provide a reading list in national learning. Two months later Liang drew up an annotated bibliography entitled, “the Essential Introductory Readings for National Learning and the Reading Methods.” It was published in the Fukan in June, after its initial appearance in the Qinghua Weekly. Liang put the readings in five categories. Under “Moral Cultivation and Intellectual History,” he listed Analects, Meng Zi, Book of Changes, Book of Li, Lao Zi, Mo Zi, Zhuang Zi, Xun Zi, Han Fei Zi, Guan Zi, Lüshi Chunqiu, Huai Nan Zi, Chunqiu Fanlu (by Dong Zhongshu), Yantie Lun (Debate on salt and iron), Lun Heng (by Wang Chong), Bao Bu Zi, and Lie Zi. Liang said that “Analects is the ultimate fountainhead of Chinese thought for two thousand years, to which the influence of Meng Zi since the Song can be compared.” He hoped that scholars would learn the two works by heart and use them for self-cultivation. He recommended Dai Zhen’s (1724–1777) annotation and interpretation of Analects and Jiao Xun’s (1763–1829) of Meng Zi, respectively. “The above are the most important works in intellectual history before the Han and Jin [dynasties]. During the six dynasties and the Sui and the Tang, the most splendid works in the intellectual circles were Buddhist works, the titles of which will be listed elsewhere.” Liang then listed as many as nineteen important titles from the Song onward.[30] To Liang, Chinese intellectual history was comprised of much more than Confucian and Neo-Confucian texts, and it included Buddhism and important intellectual schools that debated and criticized Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism, from the pre-Qin to the late Qing. It is telling that Liang included books by Kang Youwei, Zhang Binglin, Hu Shi, Liang Shuming, and himself who all reinterpreted Chinese intellectual legacies in their own ways informed by Chinese experiences and imperatives since the late Qing. In a sense, Liang’s reading list invoked what he considered to be most relevant in national learning to China in the early twentieth century. The list registered the final phase of Liang’s political-intellectual journey from embracing Western civilization to reembracing Chinese tradition; and it reflected the historical moment in which China was situated in the 1920s—such a list could not have been proposed by any Qing scholar or Liang himself in the nineteenth century. We skip four other categories Liang prescribed—”Political History and Other Literature,” “Rhymed Verses,” “Etymology and Grammar,” and “General Readings”— to look at his appendix. The first part was a shorter reading list, condensed from the long one. Liang opined that whatever a learned person’s specialty was, be it geology or engineering, the person must read the books in the short list, or “one cannot truly be a learned Chinese (zhongguo xueren).” The second part addressed how to read Chinese classics. Liang emphasized that some books should be read quickly, others word by word, and certain classics should be learned by heart, such as the most valuable literary works and the words of moral cultivation. “Being a member of a nation, one must have some understanding of his nation’s good literature. Only learning by heart, can [it] stay in our ‘subconsciousness,’ take root, and gradually ferment without us realizing it. Sage’s sayings help cultivate our body and soul, and some of them have long since formed

the common consciousness in our entire society. Since [we] are members of this society, we should grasp the common consciousness thoroughly so that we do not have a barrier separating us from it.” Here Liang spoke of being knowledgeable of national heritage as a prerequisite for being a true member of Chinese nation who could appreciate its best literary works and grasp the common moral consciousness (and sub-consciousness) of its citizens. Liang drove home the point by asking students of Qinghua School, the preparatory school for study in America, to be versed in national learning. Because these students would be influential when they return to China, Liang said, whether they could make a difference to Chinese culture would depend on their knowledge of national learning. “If you become the best American scholars in body and soul, I am afraid you will have no influence on Chinese culture. If you would have [such influence without any knowledge of national learning], we could have just invited [to China] one hundred and scores of blue-eyed American Ph.D.s, and why would we need you?”[31] The third part of Liang Qichao’s appendix was a critique of a reading list in national learning prescribed by Hu Shi, who was also asked by the Qinghua Weekly to supply such a list. Hu’s list was published in the weekly and the Endeavor that Hu edited. The Fukan would republish the list at Liang’s request, after publishing his critique of it.[32] According to Hu Shi, his list was not for those who already possessed basic knowledge of national learning, but for average young people who wanted to acquire national learning systematically. He rejected the old methodology in national learning, for example, starting from etymology and philology, which Zhang Binglin advocated,[33] since those works were in need for reorganization to begin with. Hu dismissed the accomplished scholars in national learning as achieving their successes through unintelligent hard labor, not through sound methods. Hu listed works not by genres but by a chronological order, what he called a “historical method of researching national learning.”[34] Liang found Hu Shi erred in several respects. First, Hu’s list did not aim at right readers, but reflected what Hu himself was doing at the time—writing a history of Chinese philosophy and a history of Chinese literature—so that the list was too demanding for those who did not intend to specialize in these subjects but not sufficient for those who did. Second, Hu’s list was not for beginners in national learning, but was like a minimum catalogue of a small library on the history of Chinese philosophy and literature, and therefore was useless to young people with no experience in national learning. Third, since Liang believed history was the most important part of national learning, he found it shocking that Hu’s list excluded all history texts but included such fictions as Sanxia Wuyi (Three errand knights and five righteous fighters) and Jiuming Qiyuan (A wrongful case of nine lives). Fourth, the absence of the history texts made other titles difficult for young people to understand. [35]

Whatever their respective merits and defects in technical or pedagogical terms, the two reading lists, widely publicized in print media, reveal the rich intellectual context in which national learning was promoted. Liang Qichao emphasized the

importance of reading the fundamental books in national learning as a prerequisite for being Chinese and understanding the common culture of all Chinese citizens. Wu Zhihui, for one, criticized Liang for his reading list because the discredited “national essence” would gain respectability due to Liang's intellectual stature and his aboutface from denouncing Zhang Zhidong's exaltation for national essence two decades earlier; on the other hand, Liang Shiqiu (1903–1987), a writer-translator, found Wu Zhihui's criticism misguided.[36] In effect, the two reading lists played an instrumental role in raising awareness of and interest in the enterprise of reorganizing national heritage among educated Chinese in the 1920s.[37]

HISTORY OF CHINESE PHILOSOPHY In early 1919 Hu Shi published An Outline of the History of Chinese Philosophy, a book based on his lectures at Beida.[38] In a preface, Cai Yuanpei, chancellor of Beida, enthusiastically praised Hu's book as a work written by a scholar who specialized in Western philosophy but tackled the subject successfully. The book proved widely popular and saw seven printings within four years.[39] On March 13–17, 1922, the Fukan carried a review of Hu’s book, a lecture delivered by Liang Qichao at the Society for Philosophy at Beida on March 4 and 5.[40] Liang exhibited a serious scholarly approach to the subject and a professional courtesy to Hu Shi (Hu attended the second half of the lecture on May 5). As the review shows Liang’s take on Chinese philosophical tradition as well as Hu’s, it is worth a closer reading. Liang praised Hu’s book, along with Liang Shuming’s The Cultures of East and West and Their Philosophies. “It can really count as [Chinese] citizens’ honor to have such products in the philosophical circles.”[41] Liang informed the audience that he was invited by the author to critique the book.[42] In Liang's view, Hu Shi's book focused on epistemology, making it an unprecedented creative work, though such a focus was not the only perspective to study various philosophical schools in the past. Liang endorsed Hu’s method of understanding philosophical developments in the context of epochal changes, but questioned Hu's reading of historical epochs on several counts. First, Hu Shi cut off the origins of Chinese philosophy by starting his history from Lao Zi and Confucius who, as it were, “dropped from the sky” without antecedents. Liang opposed the view that Xia, Shang, and Zhou had no culture or philosophical thought. Generally speaking, when human beings evolved to a certain level, they would naturally think about such questions as “what is the universe,” “where did human beings come from,” and “what the political system should be like,” . . . and then would have their reasoning and viewpoints, which would constitute the roots of philosophy. For example, how human beings should make use of and adapt to the nature is the question that we Chinese have studied most seriously for

several thousands of years, which by no means started only from Lao Zi and Confucius.[43] In Liang’s view, Hu Shi’s error came from his doubt of ancient records (yigu). Having doubts was a good methodology, but an excessive doubt would also be problematic. If one would totally discard Book of Rites, Classic of Books, and Spring and Autumn Annals in discussing ancient Chinese history, it would amount to throwing away a larger part of Chinese heritage. To make his point, Liang cited Hu’s dismissal of Guan Zi as a complete forgery of later times: In Liang’s view, Guan Zi might as well have contained elements of Guan Zhong’s (716–645 BCE) ideas—otherwise why would the forger use Guan’s name for the book, not other equally important contemporaries of Guan?[44] Secondly, since Hu Shi rejected most of ancient books as sources, he had only Book of Odes to explain the historical background of Lao Zi and Confucius, yet Odes was created three hundred years before Lao Zi and Confucius and five hundred years before the Warring States period when Chinese philosophy reached its prime. “Is this not like using the late Ming and early Qing society as the background of today’s [intellectual scene]?” Liang took exception to Hu’s explanation of why Chinese philosophical schools thrived in Eastern Zhou. Hu Shi pointed to corruption in governments and sufferings in society, which Liang viewed as “an imposition of the twentieth-century Western hat on the heads of Chinese poets of twenty-five hundred years ago.” Of the four reasons that Hu Shi offered to explain the rise of Chinese philosophy in Eastern Zhou—incessant wars, breakdown of social order, economic inequality, and bad government—Liang found only the second to have some historical specificity, and the other three were constants in Chinese history, not unique to Eastern Zhou. Liang doubted that “offering cures for societal illness” would characterize the motivations of ancient philosophers. In his view, “most of what they said was daily food and drink they consumed for themselves.” He offered his own explanations for the rise of philosophy in Eastern Zhou: 1) the growth of educated class; 2) political decentralization; 3) ethnic assimilation into Chinese of non-Chinese peoples; 4) fewer and larger states through annexation; 5) social stability under hegemony of one or another state; 6) decline of old classes; 7) quickening of annexation, hegemony, and stability during the Warring States; 8) quickening of the spread of learning; 9) competition for talents and growth of freedom of thought; 10) popularity of copying books; 11) rapid social changes that stimulated intellectual curiosity; and 12) dissatisfaction with society that made social issues the center of intellectual concerns.[45] Liang did not explain how his last point differed from Hu Shi’s view on curing societal ills as ancient philosophers’ motivations. Thirdly, Hu Shi dated the history of Chinese philosophy from Lao Zi and Confucius, yet the identity and the time of Lao Zi could not be established from the sketchy and contradictory sources. Liang asked why Hu, who doubted ancient records, had no questions about the sources on Lao Zi. Liang also found it problematic that Hu Shi's book included “Yang Zhu,” an essay attributed to Lie Zi (of

the Warring States period), since it was widely agreed among scholars that the whole book of Lie Zi was a post-Han dynasty forgery.[46] Liang considered Hu Shi far better in discussing epistemology than ontology and view of life and in interpreting Mo Zi and Xun Zi than Confucius and Mencius. Liang disagreed with, and offered counter arguments to, several points Hu made about Confucius: Hu interpreted Confucius’s notion of “learning” as book learning only; Hu said that Confucius spoke of what should be done, but not why it should be done; and Hu treated as a fact the allegation that Confucius had Shaozheng Mao executed. On the last point, Liang argued that the earliest allegation appeared in the chapter “You Zuo” of Xun Zi, which Hu himself said was a forgery in later times, and that the alleged execution did not sit well with the political culture of the Spring and Autumn period and contradicted Confucius’s own belief in moral force rather than punishment as the right instrument of governance.[47] Liang found Hu Shi’s interpretation of Zhuang Zi problematic too. The chapter “Fable” in Zhaung Zi stated that “All things have their own origins that pass down through generations in different forms.” Hu Shi called it the invention of evolution theory. Even if Hu’s take on this particular sentence was correct, noted Liang, the sentence was not the most important of what Zhuang Zi offered. In other words, Liang found Hu reading a modern (Western) theory back into Zhuang Zi. Hu Shi characterized Zhuang Zi’s thought as relativism, according to which a debate between two people about who was half an inch taller would be pointless to Zhuang Zi looking down from the Eiffel Tower. “This view sounds reasonable at first;” Hu Shi quipped, “yet it is the argument about this half inch that pushed knowledge in the world forward, and it is the argument about this half inch that led to social reform.” To this statement, Liang countered that Hu’s view contained only half of the truth—“I would like to tell Mr. Hu that [warlords] Zhang Zuolin and Cao Kun are only fighting for this half inch, and two brothers who would kill one another for inheritance are only arguing for this half inch.”[48] In other words, rather than belittle it, Liang commended Zhuang Zi's relativist philosophy as conducive to peace and harmony. In Liang’s judgment, Hu Shi’s interpretation of Mo Zi was excellent, and his analysis of dialecticians (mingjia) expert. “Mr. Hu did not take dialectics as one school but see each school having its own dialectics. This is really a super-broad perspective.” But Hu’s explanation of why the Mo school disappeared was insufficient. Liang approvingly quoted from Zhuang Zi that Mo Zi’s view “is too frightening, making people worried and pessimistic; and is hard to carry out; [. . .] it goes against the mind of [people] all under heaven, and all under heaven cannot stand it. Although Mo Zi could carry it out, what could he do with [people] all under heaven [unable to do it]?” Liang said that “both Mr. Hu and I admire Mo Zi, but we need not hide this weak point [of Hu's] about Mo Zi.”[49] As for why Chinese philosophy declined in the Qin-Han period, ending a formative period in Chinese intellectual history, Hu Shi offered four reasons: 1) skepticism from dialectics; 2) narrow utilitarianism; 3) authoritarian establishment of one school

[Confucianism]; and 4) superstitions spread by alchemists (fangshi). Liang added two more reasons, which may be called an essentialist view of Chinese culture. 1) When different ethnic groups were mixing together and society was changing drastically during Eastern Zhou, ideas were active like rushing currents competing with one another; after the currents converged into a large lake, water became calm, which was what occurred in the Han. 2) As a people living on vast plains, the Chinese had their character formed by the natural environment and cultural heritage, a character that preferred golden mean to extremes. After the stimulus of Eastern Zhou faded, Confucianism that was most suited to Chinese character became dominant.[50] Hu Shi was not entirely convinced by Liang’s critique, but he only made a brief oral response right after Liang's lecture on May 5 and did not publish any written responses.[51]

PRE-QIN POLITICAL THOUGHT As seen above, Liang Qichao, a “man of many transformations,”[52] was consistent in one aspect throughout his political-intellectual evolution—he tried to connect his scholarly pursuits and intellectual curiosity with his contemporary concerns with China’s fate in the modern world.[53] This was also shown in his participation in reorganizing national heritage, reflecting his change of positions from admiration of Western civilization and denunciation of Chinese civilization to reevaluation of both. A reading of his contributions to national learning in the 1920s (the final decade of his life) does not alter our understanding of Liang; yet, it sheds additional light on Liang's intellectual journey and the cultural scene of the time. A significant piece of scholarship by Liang Qichao, “Pre-Qin Political Thought,” was published in June 1922. Liang defined “pre-Qin” as the Spring-Autumn and Warring States periods or Eastern Zhou (781–221BCE). What was the relevance of the pre-Qin political thought to China in the 1920s? Concrete political conditions were determined by particular time and space, said Liang, but abstract political thought was not. “That is why I feel studying pre-Qin political thought and European-American political thought were almost equally important and valuable; both can be called empty talks and be said of practical utility.”[54] This move by Liang equated Chinese ancient wisdoms with more recent Western ideas—a familiar point in the scholarship on Liang.[55] To justify his move, Liang further argued that politics reflected national psychology (guomin xinli) either in positive or negative terms—positive when citizens tried to realize an ideal political system, and negative when citizens acquiesced in an existing political system. “To study politics, the most important is to study national psychology; and to reform politics, the most fundamental is to reform national psychology.” National psychology would change but would always retain its inherited gene. Of all components of the Chinese cultural gene, the most powerful were the theories offered by ancient philosophers. “One who studies politics should not neglect even a slightest piece of the political thought from the past of this country. What is

good ought to be promoted, and what is bad should also be examined.” Speaking of the flourishing schools of philosophy in the pre-Qin era, Liang said that “our national character (minzuxing) emphasized practicality most, and no matter which school, all thinkers aimed at helping the society (jishi) and providing peace for the people (anmin); and almost all [philosophical] theories were eventually anchored in politics.” To study political systems and conditions, more recent cases were more important; but to study political thought in China’s past, it would be sufficient to start with the pre-Qin political thought. Such was Liang's rationale for his undertaking. Liang classified the pre-Qin political thought into four theories—perhaps too neatly—: 1) non-rule (wuzhi) or anarchism, 2) rule of men (renzhi), 3) rule of propriety (lizhi), and 4) rule of law (fazhi). The idea of non-rule was mainly from Daoism and partly adopted by late Legalism. The rule of men was an idea shared by Confucianism and Moism. The rule of propriety was advocated by Confucians and opposed by others. The rule of law school was a convergence of Daoism, Confucianism, and Moism. Citing classical sources, Liang analyzed several key features shared by the four theories. First, “the Chinese all believed in natural law or universal principle, which, when applied to politics, would result in a perfect political system.” Second, ancient Chinese philosophers did not believe in the divine right of rule that was dominant in medieval Europe. “Our [ancient] theories on the origins of the state are quite similar to the modern theory of social contract, but unfortunately only similar to the views of [Thomas] Hobbs and [John] Locke, not the views of [Jean] Rousseau, which was little to blame, given their historical times. Why do human beings need a state? Why did the state need a government? Why did the government need a head? On these questions, various schools had quite similar views, which already existed in the antiquities.” These theories shared a common spirit: “They all held that the state arose only out of practical needs, and the state was established on the basis of the people’s awareness (minzhong yishi). They already saw the three-phrase principle that modern European-Americans believed in—so-called ‘of [the] people, for [the] people, and by [the] people’ [English in Liang’s text]. Especially, they saw clearly the meanings of ‘of’ [and] ‘for.’ They therefore never accepted that the state was owned by one ruler or one class; never accepted that the state existed for the interest of one ruler or one class, and they held that revolution was a legitimate right.” What Liang offered here was a modern interpretation and to a degree an effort to find equivalency between Chinese and Western political theories or relative merits and defects of both, but the argument was based on textual sources nonetheless. Charlotte Furth has observed, referring to the “neo-traditionalism” of Liang Qichao and others in the 1920s, that “whether this represents ‘cultural nationalism’ or a genuine perception of spiritual affinities across cultures is a matter which cannot be clearly decided.”[56] One is inclined to conclude that both elements were present in Liang’s intellectual endeavors in the final decade of his life. Third, “the Chinese were correct in seeing the nature and political purpose of the state [i.e., of and for the people], but how to achieve that purpose? Unfortunately, [an

answer] was never invented thoroughly. In brief, the Chinese knew well the necessity of government by the people (minzhong zhengzhi), but never came up with a way to allow the people to administer the government. Not only did the principle of the socalled ‘by [the] people’ not appear in China in reality, but also was not explored in theory.”[57] Intellectually honest, Liang spelled out this key difference between Chinese philosophy and modern Western political theories and systems. Fourth, “when the Chinese spoke of politics, they always took ‘all under heaven’ as the highest goal. Both the state and family were only the phases through which to arrive at that highest goal.” Liang emphasized that the pre-Qin political theories could be called pure cosmopolitanism (chuncui de shijie zhuyi). Ancient Chinese philosophers would regard modern nationalism that originated in Europe as extremely narrow-minded and despicable. Confucius, Mencius, Mo Zi, and others traveled to various states, and would assist anyone who would adopt their ideas; and they did not have the concept of motherland, “because they considered themselves individuals in the world, not belonging to a particular state.” None of the important statesmen of Qin (Baili Xi, Shang Yang, Zhang Yi, Li Si and the like) was a Qin native, “because they felt that talented people in the world ought to have the right to manage collectively an administrative area (a state) in the world.” From the perspective of modern patriotism, Liang said, one could regard people in the pre-Qin era as traitors of their states, but they would not have understood the notion of patriotism. Whereas France and Germany used to be of one state under Charlemagne but became sworn enemies for hundreds of years, Jin and Chu, two states in the Spring-Autumn period, lost any trace of those identities after the Qin-Han period. “If a person says I am a national of Shanxi and you are a national of Hubei, would that not be a joke?” “That we [Chinese] could transform into such a big nation is due largely to this cosmopolitan political theory. Yet in recent twenty to thirty years, we have been imitating other countries’ nationalism; this is the reason why we have not been successful. Thus, this [cosmopolitan] school of theories was suitable in the past and will be suitable in the future, but is really the most unsuitable at the present.”[58] The last point once again articulated the tension between the cosmopolitan aspiration and the nationalist imperative. Whether or not Liang’s attempt to equate the “all under heaven” of Eastern Zhou with the world of the twentieth century is proper, it is clear that he preferred a cosmopolitan world to one of nationalist struggles that was sadly unavoidable in the twentieth century (the present to him). It is epistemologically and historically significant that Liang traced the cosmopolitan impulse among educated Chinese like himself back to the pre-Qin political thought as a philosophical gene in Chinese national psychology or national character, even though he would certainly be aware of biases or prejudices based on regional or local cultural differences.[59] Yet, Liang remained correct in the statements cited, in that the native-place-based identities may have constituted ethnicity, but did not rise to a national identity for any of those regional or provincial groups and did not constitute basis for forming separate states. The movement for federated provinces (liansheng yundong) in the early 1920s amounted to little for the very reason. Of equal

significance, especially from the vantage point of the early twenty-first century, is Liang' articulated view that modern nationalism was a temporal phase between the past and the future, to be transcended. He imagined that the Chinese who were unsuccessful in the current nationalist phase might as well be successful in the future cosmopolitan world, given their cultural gene. As such, his vision complicates, if not contradicts, what Xiaobing Tang has analyzed as Liang Qichao’s strategy to describe world history as a spatial process instead of a temporal one in order to claim a place for China in the modern world.[60] In either case, however, Liang's goal remained the same—placing China abreast of Western nations in world history. Liang proceeded to analyze in some detail the four pre-Qin theories. The nonrule theory represented by Lao Zi and Xu Xing (372–289 BCE) advocated a society where no one should interfere with another person’s life, and therefore no government would be desirable. Citing the critics of Daoism such as Mencius and Han Fei (281– 233 BCE), Liang noted that Lao Zi’s ideal society was premised on non-competition among people who had little desire and needed little material things for life, an unrealistic premise from the viewpoint of economics. Since Lao Zi and his followers could not refute their critics, the non-rule theory was fatally flawed.[61] In Liang’s analysis, the rule of men theory favored by Confucianism and Moism had two important tenets: 1) Meritocracy—to make moral and capable people rule over the lesser ones, and 2) Uniformity—to make people below to follow and conform to people above. Liang held that meritocracy contained some good reasoning. As for uniformity, Mo Zi advocated that the best person should be on top, to be followed by all below. So meritocracy and uniformity were two related concepts, which Liang called “thorough meritocracy and absolute interventionism.” The problem was how to make sure the best person would be the ruler, and Mo Zi never gave a satisfactory answer. Citing the Legalist counter-argument that the rule of men would depend on the appearance of sages, Liang opined that “[s]peaking dispassionately, the rule of men theory cannot be said to be entirely wrong, but the sage expected by the theory cannot be guaranteed to appear. To carry out the rule of men theory, a majority of the people in the country must be sages. The rule of propriety theory from Confucianism was to help meet that requirement.”[62] Liang cited several definitions of “propriety” (li) from classical sources and summarized the concept as follows: “Li is the natural law that is made into concrete conditions to serve as standards of human behavior.” Confucians accepted human desires as natural, but there need be rules to limit such desires, and such rules are propriety. Whereas law depended on political coercion, propriety depended on social sanction and aimed at changing social custom and human behavior. Liang summarized the criticisms of the theory this way: formulaic and ineffective to Moism; overly interventionist in people’s life to Daoism; not interventionist enough to Legalism.[63] The rule of law theory or Legalism, Liang said, was the final fruition through the collective hands of Shen Dao (395–315 BCE), Yin Wen (360–280 BCE), and Han Fei who integrated earlier strands in Daoism, Confucianism, and Moism. Citing classical

sources, Liang defined “fa” (law) broadly as “models of human behavior based on the natural law,” and narrowly as “written legal code.” Legalists wanted to use law to regulate society where good people would not violate law anyway but bad people would be restricted by law; and law made all people equal before it. In Legalists’ mind, the ruler was not above the law but subject to law as well. One way of doing so was to make law public and known to all. The ideal outcome of the rule of law was actually non-rule as advocated by Daoism. Liang regarded the rule of law theory as the most organized and relatively reasonable, which contributed to the rise of Qin. He saw three shortcomings inherent in the rule of law theory, however: 1) The overconfidence in the state power resulted in the state destroying personal freedom (geren ziyou). 2) It mechanically used one model to fit all people, which hindered the development of individuality (gexing fazhan). 3) It forced people to find ways to game the system within the boundary of law (falü fanweinei qiaoqu). Moreover, there was a problem particular to the pre-Qin Legalism, for example, it never addressed the issue of who was to control lawmaking power. If the ruler could throw away any law when he felt it inconvenient, then the omnipotence of law became the omnipotence of the ruler. “Because of this loophole, not only could it not defend itself against criticisms from other theories, but was it also destroyed by despotic rulers. To establish modern politics, we should adopt the fundamental spirit of the Legalism on one hand, and revise its other aspects on the other.” “We admit that [good] politics is more than the rule of law, but if even the rule of law cannot be established, then [our government] cannot become a [modern] state, let alone talking about ‘more than.’ That is why I hope the true spirit of the pre-Qin Legalism will be seriously promoted, which will then perhaps become something like Zi Chan (?-533 BCE) said—‘I use [law] to save the society’.”[64] Liang’s exposition of the pre-Qin political thought may be considered a valiant effort to use “modern new theory and new methods” (Zhou Zuoren’s words) to reorganize national heritage and make it relevant to the contemporary concerns. On one hand, Liang saw the value of the pre-Qin political theories, especially the Legalism, and on the other hand, his analysis was informed by both contemporary conditions in China and by Western theories and experiences. The comparison he so easily made between ancient Chinese thought on the origins of the state and European theories of social contract, between ancient Chinese cosmopolitanism and modern European nationalism, his analysis of the three shortcomings in the rule of law theory, and the very notions and vocabularies of Western origin, such as “personal freedom,” “development of individuality,” and “gaming the system within the boundary of law,” would not have been possible without the Western influence and his knowledge of and personal experience in Europe and America. Liang’s suggestions for changing Chinese politics were difficult to carry out, since people who had political power ignored him and people who agreed with him were powerless—ultimately, by Liang’s own logic, the national psychology or cultural gene determined Chinese political conditions of his time. Nevertheless, Liang demonstrated the relevance of reorganizing national heritage to China's conditions in his time.

CONFUCIAN POLITICAL THOUGHT In 1922 Liang Qichao was lecturing at Dongnan University on the history of Chinese political thought and writing a book on the subject. At the urging of “colleagues of this newspaper”—referring to Sun Fuyuan, Liang had the second part of his book, “Confucian Philosophy and Its Political Thought,” serialized in the Fukan in December 1922. This long article further exposited the pre-Qin political thought and unambiguously affirmed Liang's positive valuation of Confucianism and his criticism of Western ideologies, which makes a sharp contrast with his thinking two decades earlier. Our focus here is to see how Liang compared Chinese and Western cultures. In Liang’s interpretation, Confucianism was essentially a philosophy of life about how to be human. Quoting from Analects, “Ren is about being human” and “Governance is about being straight,” Liang explained that to Confucius the way to be human and to be straight was to see other people as the same as oneself or measure other people by oneself, that is, to have a consciousness that all people belonged to the same species (tonglei yishi). If one understands this, one will know Confucian political thought has a starting point completely different from several European-American ideologies that are most popular today. They emphasize people’s differences and mutual animosity, whereas we promote the convergence of human nature and mutual affinity. Their so-called nationalism takes narrow patriotic mind as sacred, sees other nations as alien kind, so that in all their efforts to push the latter to death there is no such a thing as “commiserate” (buren). The result is that fighting until the people are crushed into pieces is taken as a glory. That is precisely what Mencius called “one who has no compassion (ren) does what he does not love to people he loves.” Since the so-called capitalists among [Europeans and Americans] do not see other people as like themselves, they always do to workers what they do not want to be done to themselves, the crime of which is unforgivable to be sure. Yet those who favor workers—such as Marxists—also advocate returning to [capitalists] what they do not want to be done to themselves. The Book of Odes says: “when people have no good conscience they blame one another.” [. . .] In the view of us Chinese who follow Confucius, the so-called social morality at least should be based on the principle of no mutual animosity; the consciousness of [all people] belonging to same humankind should be expanded everyday, and it should never be considered an auspicious and good thing to encourage severance and to reduce such a consciousness. That is why the so-called “nationalist consciousness” and “class consciousness” have never been clear to, or can be said to have never existed in, my mind.[65] While Liang’s claim is questionable that he never believed in nationalism in any way or form, it is significant that he said he did not. The point is simply that by 1922 Liang had been deeply disillusioned with almost all Western ideologies including

individualism, nationalism, capitalism, and Marxism, which underpinned his reassessment of Chinese cultural tradition. At the same time, his interpretation of Confucian notion of all human beings belong to one species would logically support a cosmopolitan vision of the world, whence he reinterpreted cosmopolitanism in the Chinese past and commended it for the future. In Liang’s account, for Confucianism, the ideal governance was to achieve a society of compassion, which was called “great union” and was meant for “all under heaven” or the world. As the Classic of Li described, in the world of great union there are no classes and hereditary political power; the government is elected by the people; relationships between urban area communities (chengyu zuzhi)—different from the so-called “international” relations of his lifetime—are formed on the basis of compassion; social organizations are based on families with a spirit of “transcending the family,” and all people are equal in every way; people in prime year work most, while the elderly and the young receiving public support from society (shehui gongyang); and he quoted from the Classic of Li: “goods are not wasted but not privately hoarded either, and efforts are not spared of oneself but not necessarily for oneself.” Liang emphasized that although the last point coincided with “what today’s socialists have lauded—‘each according to his ability and each according to his needs,’ it is based on a very different view of life [from socialism] that is extremely gentle and tolerant, to which the so-called ‘materialist view of history’ is exactly the opposite.” Thus Liang rated Confucianism superior not only to nationalism and capitalism but also to Marxian socialism, and perhaps somewhat equal to social democratic liberalism in terms of an emphasis on social welfare. Liang quoted from the Classic of Li: “It is not due to fantasy that the sage is able to treat all under heaven as one family and the land in the middle (zhongguo) as one person.[66] In order to achieve it, one must know [human] feelings, compare them to righteousness, see the benefits [of doing so], and understand the trouble [arising from not doing so].” He added his own comments: “At the end of having no compassion, one is numb in feelings and has no sense of pain or itch of his own limbs. At the end of having compassion, one has sharp senses like he was shocked by electricity and has feelings, righteousness, benefits, and troubles of entire humankind in his body. ‘Treating all under heaven as one family and the land in the middle as one person’ is indeed believable.”[67] This was again an idealized version of the Confucian utopian vision of a world of great union, which was a vital intellectual resource of the cosmopolitan aspirations on the part of educated Chinese discussed in this book. Liang made a further move in his interpretation, however, with certain philosophical sophistication. The ideal of great union was a conception of the ultimate perfection of humanity in the universe, he said, but the universe would never be perfect because perfection would mean the end of the universe. That is why the Book of Changes started with “heaven” (qian) and ended with “non-perfection” (weiji). Human affairs were continuous steps on a never-ending journey toward perfection.[68] Liang admitted again that the notion of the rule of men depended on the advent of sages, which did not routinely happen in reality, but he argued that between the two

alternatives, 1) the rule of law and 2) the rule of the majority—“what is called democracy in modern times,” the latter should be pursued, and it was consistent with the Confucian emphasis on shaping the people’s morality through propriety.[69] Confucianism was therefore compatible with and indeed necessary for the rule of majority or democracy. Liang was one of the first, if not the first, to make a connection between Confucianism and liberal democracy, an argument that has been made by some Western scholars in recent decades regarding the prospects of democracy and protection of human rights in China.[70] Yet, Liang’s point was that before the people were educated and raised to a higher moral level, the rule of majority was not desirable or possible. What Confucians hoped for were not sages who would rule and govern, Liang explained, but sages who would transform the people and make them attain good conscience and morality by themselves (zide). In that sense, statesmen were educators. “If laws could achieve good governance without waiting for sages,” Liang asked, “why has today’s [Chinese] government still been in more and more turmoil, after the Republic of China adopted many laws of European-American kind?”[71] Here Liang pointed out both the reason why the Republic was not a functioning democracy and the path to achieving it through education and moral cultivation of the entire citizenry. Thus Confucianism, as Liang interpreted it, offered intellectual resources to devise solutions to China's contemporary problems. Liang defended Mencius’s view that compassion and righteousness, not profit, should be the guidance of human behavior. “Although this theory maintained its considerable force in our society for two thousand years, people who really practiced it were few; with the utilitarian philosophy introduced from the West in the recent ten years and more, and shallow and distorted interpretations given to this theory of Mencius, it has become almost the target for ridicule. Today [we] cannot but give a new and thorough assessment of its value.” Mencius was not speaking about profit motives in doing a particular thing, Liang said, but about the overall motivation of human interaction. In comparison with the theory of efficiency emphasized by utilitarian philosophers, Liang would rather support Mencius’s view. “I do not believe that the meaning of ‘life’ can be calculated on abacus. I firmly believe that humankind live for life, not for some kind of efficiency; we will do certain things that have absolutely no efficiency or low efficiency but that we are supposed to and willing to do.” This is a strong philosophical argument against the values placed on Western science and technology that produce industrialization, and a rejection of capitalist modernity in general; and it is certainly a reaction to WWI and an echo to similar post-modern sentiments expressed in post-WWI Europe. Liang highlighted his reevaluation of Western-Chinese civilizations by discussing the concept of compassion-righteousness (renyi) vis-à-vis that of rights (quanli). “The nature of ‘profit’ (li) that is [morally] even lower than efficiency lies in the concept of rights. It can be said that the rights concept is the sole original element of EuropeanAmerican political thought [absent in Chinese tradition]. What they called human rights, patriotism, and class struggle—all [political] activities—originated nowhere else

but in this. The concept is carried even to the most simple and most intimate relationships in social organization such as [relations] between father and son and between husband and wife. Such a concept cannot be grasped in our Chinese mind.” Liang asserted that the Chinese could not understand why there would be rights to speak of between father and son or husband and wife, and could not grasp related concepts such as rights of people vs. people, localities vs. localities, institutions vs. institutions, class vs. class, and nations vs. nations. He argued that the Chinese took the concept as a fashionable theory that explained why Western nations were wealthy and adopted it as decoration, but it did not help China. Liang was thus explicitly criticizing West-imported liberalism in the New Culture era. Europeans and Americans certainly understand this concept and use it as the framework to organize their societies. But why are their societies superior to ours? We are sorry to have failed to find out [the answer], and they [Westerners] also secretly wondered why. The [answer] is actually what Mencius said, ‘to socialize for profit’ (jiaozhengli), ‘to treat one another with profit in mind’ (huaili yi xiangjie), ‘be insatiable unless take over’ (buduo buyan), ‘yet it has not happened that [such behaviors] would not lead to demise.’ In essence, the concept of rights entirely arose from confrontations between human beings, and is absolutely incompatible with the concept of compassion that connects human beings. And as a material thing, the nature of rights is of unlimited expansion, and there will never be a day it is satisfied. Indeed, as Mencius said, ‘one who has ten thousand takes [goods] from one who has one thousand, and one who has one thousand takes [goods] from one who has one hundred, and no end to it.’ The result of expanding rights against each other can only go down the path of ‘struggling against and killing one another, which is called human catastrophe’ ([from] Li Yun). It is unheard of that a society based on such a concept can be stable for long. Those among Europeans who are far-sighted sometimes painfully spoke of the pending perish of their modern civilization, largely because of this. [72]

In short, Liang Qichao revised, or reversed, the intellectual-political position he had taken two decades earlier, one of advocating Western style liberal democracy as the remedy for China’s weakness.[73] The enterprise of reorganizing national heritage now served as a platform from which to criticize Western ideologies including capitalism, nationalism, individualism, Marxism, and Bolshevism. Liang still held on to liberalism, in the sense of the government “of, for, and by the people” and of social welfare, yet he rejected the rights concept as the guiding principle for such a democracy to work. Applying the political thought as he found in the ideas of Confucius and Mencius, Liang envisioned that the Confucian notions of compassion (awareness of all human beings belonging to one species), benevolent governance, and moral cultivation, and the notion of equality before law in Legalism, could be the intellectual foundation for democratic government, harmonious society, and peaceful

world. It is also worth noting that Liang's interpretation of Confucius which emphasized all human beings belonging to one species was close to Tagore's reasoning behind his cosmopolitanism which saw the harmony among differences of men and between the local-traditional and the universal.[74] Whether or not Liang might have been influenced by Tagore's thought in any way is unclear, though. After Liang’s long article was serialized, no counterargument against his position ever appeared in the Fukan, or in the New Youth and the Guide for that matter, not even from any educated Chinese known to have embraced nationalism or Marxism or individualism or the rights concept. Those Fukan contributors who were discussing the issue of nationalism and socialism around the same time (see Chapter 6) did not engage Liang Qichao’s argument at all, even though they must have been aware of this article.[75] One may conclude that Liang's command of classical sources was unassailable and his reinterpretation of Confucianism was at least theoretically plausible so that no one found it easy to argue against them.

CRITIQUE OF NEO-CONFUCIANISM On October 12, 1921, the Fukan began to serialize a long article by Hu Shi on Fei Mi (1625–1701), an early Qing Confucian scholar known for his criticism of NeoConfucianism.[76] Hu focused on Fei Mi’s A Book on Propagating the Way (Hongdaoshu). Fei’s objective was to debunk the claim by Neo-Confucian scholars such as Zhu Xi (1130–1200) and others that the way of Confucianism which originated with the beginning of Chinese civilization from Fu Xi and Shen Nong on down became lost after Mencius until it was rediscovered by Zhou Dunxi (1017– 1073), Cheng Hao (1032–1085), Cheng Yi (1033–1107), and Zhu Xi himself in the Song Dynasty. This claim grew into an orthodox in the Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism known as the “Lineage of the Way” (daotonglun).[77] Although Fei Mi followed his father’s wish and studied with Sun Qifeng (1584–1675), a subscriber to the orthodox, Fei came to refute it and called it a “fantasy.” According to Hu Shi, Fei Mi argued that from Confucius, to his seventy disciples, to Mencius and Xun Qing, none of them spoke of the Lineage of the Way, and it was the Song Neo-Confucians who invented it and imposed it back upon ancient sages from Fu Xi and Shen Nong down to Confucius and Mencius. Hu Shi quoted Fei as saying that “it is proper to try to get one percent of the sages’ virtue to benefit oneself and learn [from it] to cultivate one’s own person. Yet, [it is not proper] to take what is learned from the sages’ teachings to turn it upside down and find meanings where there is none, and then claim such is what the sages said and such is what one learns from the sages. How extreme is it in smearing [the sages] to think that what the ancients and the moderns never knew is acquired by only us one or two persons sitting meditating—what Confucius did not have, [his] seventy disciples did not believe, Meng Ke (Mencius) and Xun Qing (Xun Zi) did not dare, yet [one] in later times came to possess?” At that, Hu Shi quipped “how forceful!”[78] To argue that there was no break in the transmission of the Confucian way from Mencius through

the Han-Tang to the Song dynasty, Fei Mi held that the way was maintained and manifested by rulers as well as scholars—although there were bad rulers, the institutions and rituals designed by the sages continued to be transmitted to later times. Fei was impatient with what he considered the empty talks of Neo-Confucian scholars, and he stressed the importance of practices and life experiences. Hu Shi made a connection between Fei’s position on this issue and his life of going through the social chaos and human catastrophe caused by Zhang Xianzhong (1606–1647), a rebel leader, during the Ming-Qing transition period. Fei himself said that “[I] experienced societal turmoil and the pain of abandoning home at young age and suffered from starvation several times, so that I understand that the imperial court is the sovereign of the world, high officials are the pillars on which the people rely; when [these] go wrong slightly, the flesh of the weak will be the meal of the strong; in such times, [such Neo-Confucian notions as] ‘keep heart in the body,’ ‘pursue the principle in matter (jiwu qiongli),’ and ‘reach good conscience (zhi liangzhi)’ are useless for saving the society.” Hu Shi noted that this self-reflection was the most meaningful point in Fei’s writing. Fei Mi further stated that “if [I] only experienced hardships and sufferings without reading ancient annotations [on Confucian classics] (Guzhushu), [I] would not know the origin of the way; if [I] only read ancient annotations without experiencing hardships and sufferings, [I] would not see the substance of the way.”[79] Hu Shi commended this insight as even more important. Citing approvingly Liang Qichao’s comment in The Intellectual Trends in the Qing Period (Qingdai xueshu gailun) that the Qing learning arose with promoting the substance of the way and declined with failing to carry out the substance, Hu Shi asked why Qing scholars failed. The answer, said Hu, was that Qing scholars delved into the evidential learning to look for the substance of the way where only the origins of the way existed, as Fei Mi had pointed out. In Hu’s analysis, Qing scholars believed that the Han dynasty was closer to the time of ancient sages and therefore the ancient books of the Han were more substantive and reliable than NeoConfucianism—“that is the biggest reason why the substantive learning (shixue) of the early Qing became the Han learning.”[80] Because Qing scholars wanted to overthrow the despotism of the “fantasy”—the Lineage of the Way—they promoted the Han learning, without realizing that people of the Han dynasty were even “more absurd, more stupid, more deficient, and more gripped by fantasy than people of the Song. The biggest crime of Han Confucians, however, was not their creation of fantasy, but their forgery of false evidence and their fabrication of ancient books,” such as Erya, Shouwen, the preface to the Classic of Books, and the ancient version of Book of Documents (guwenjing). Such forgeries were more intimidating than the fantasy of Song Neo-Confucians, Hu explained, because the latter were stating their own opinions and their authority could be easily toppled when their “Lineage of the Way” was proven false; in contrast, the Han forgeries “were made in the name of ancient classics, with the golden sign of being ‘not far from the ancient times,’ so much so that all the master scholars of the Qing period could not crush the authority of Han learning!” Finally, comparing Fei Mi with American philosopher William James

(1842–1910), Hu Shi applauded Fei for using “substantive-ness” and “usefulness” as the standards to evaluate Chinese philosophical tradition, reconciling the two seemingly opposing tendencies among Chinese scholars and philosophies—1) highly intelligent but uncompromising, which was unable to go deep, and 2) deeply knowledgeable but yielding, which was unable to go far. Hu Shi called Fei’s approach a balanced view of the history of Chinese philosophy.[81] Hu’s piece was a scholarly treatment of Fei Mi’s contributions to the history of Chinese philosophy, and Confucianism in particular. It did not address directly the ongoing political and intellectual movements of the time. One may argue, however, that Hu Shi was publicizing the minority voices in Chinese intellectual tradition, suppressed by Neo-Confucianism, so as to criticize the latter. He was also criticizing the Han-Tang Confucianism by pointing out the defects in Fei Mi and in the Qing “Evidential Learning” and “Han Learning.” In other words, Hu Shi was using the intellectual resources from Chinese tradition, in addition to Western ones, to criticize the most dominant ideology in that tradition—both the Han-Tang Confucianism and the Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism. In a sense Hu Shi was doing what Liang Qichao did, that is, to rescue and redeem the original Confucianism of Eastern Zhou from corruptions and distortions of later times, including the Qing Evidential Studies that was supposedly doing the same job. At the same time, Hu was practicing what he preached—reorganizing national heritage in the spirit of the New Culture movement. Moreover, Hu’s intellectual propensity and literary style was evident in the article. His appreciation of Fei Mi’s emphasis on substance and utility of intellectual endeavors reflected his own training in and internalization of positivist and utilitarian philosophy imparted by John Dewey. Thus Hu's article on Fei Mi echoed his positions in several better-known intellectual debates in the 1920s.

LIANG QICHAO ON QU YUAN As traditional high culture included philosophy, literature, and history only, reorganizing national heritage envisioned by Hu Shi and others was meant to include not only literature and history but also popular culture. Outside of or parallel to this endeavor, a prime example of Chinese intellectuals being drawn to both elite and popular culture in Chinese tradition is Lu Xun's A Brief History of Chinese Fiction in two volumes published in 1923–1924 and his other writings on traditional literature.[82] In the Fukan, articles of this genre dealt with individual writers, and they did not constitute a coherent or systematic history of Chinese literature.[83] Yet, they did show that educated Chinese were under profound influence from, and have a binding interest in, such traditional literary works, a fact that much scholarly attention to the “new literature” tend to obscure. Liang Qichao delivered a lecture on Qu Yuan (338–288 BCE) on November 3, 1922, at Dongnan University, and it was serialized in the Fukan two weeks later. In Liang’s view, Qu Yuan was the earliest writer of Chinese literature. Although the Book of Odes and other writings of the antiquity were literary works, their authors were

mostly anonymous. “To seek literary works that had individuality, the first thing is to study Qu Yuan.”[84] After discussing Qu Yuan’s life, sources of which were sketchy at best, Liang asked some important questions: Why did such great literature as Qu Yuan’s appear at that time? Why did it occur only in Chu, not in other states? Why was Qu Yuan the first person to create such literature? Liang’s answer to the first question was that the Chinese culture was developing to a height in Qu Yuan’s time, with philosophy and literature arising in parallel—Zhuang Zi, Meng Zi, and Zhanguo Che contained much literary flavor. Liang’s answer to the two other questions ran as follows: In my view, we Chinese nation, after each [ethnic-cultural] assimilation, would experience a splendor of literature. In the early years of the Spring-Autumn period, the state of Chu was entirely non-Chinese (manyi); after the mid SpringAutumn, [it] was gradually assimilated into Chinese states (zhuxia). Qu Yuan was born some two hundred fifty years after the completion of this assimilation. At that time, it can be said, the Chu people were the new elements that just came of age in the Chinese nation, like new youth in society who just grew mature. Previously, the Chu people most firmly believed in shamanism and ghosts, entertaining mystical consciousness and nihilistic ideal, just as children love made-up fairy tales. Upon coming into contact with realistic, ethical culture of the old nation on the central plain, [the Chu culture] would naturally give birth to new things.[85] Liang’s analysis of Qu Yuan here is not particularly enlightening as scholarship, but it serves to indicate that the assimilation thesis, or the cultural nationalist interpretation, in understanding Chinese history, especially from the pre-Qin to the Song dynasty, had been accepted in the early 1920s.[86] Yet, to fully grasp the thesis in Liang Qichao’s terms, it should be taken along with 1) Liang’s view noted earlier that people in the Eastern Zhou period did not consider themselves belonging to a particular state, but to the entire world known to them—all under heaven, a world that constituted a historical China without a fixed territorial border; and 2) Liang’s attempt (shared by other educated Chinese) to apply the pre-Qin notion of “all under heaven” as a cosmopolitan vision of a world of great union to the twentieth century. Liang’s discussion of Qu Yuan’s importance in the history of Chinese literature, amplified through print media, would seem to have reinforced both the assimilation thesis and the great union thesis.[87]

HU SHI ON WEI-JIN PLEBIAN LITERATURE In 1920 and 1921, while a professor at Beida, Hu Shi delivered lectures at the Training Institute for National Language on Chinese literature that would later be published as a book, A History of National Language Literature. The book would have three chapters covering the period from the Three Kingdoms to the Song

dynasty. Chapter 1, “Plebian Literature during the Three Kingdoms and the Southern Dynasties,” was first published in the Fukan in December 1921.[88] This topic, and others, showed Hu Shi’s scholarly interest in both popular culture and high culture in Chinese tradition, which was what Zhou Zuoren advocated for reorganizing national heritage. Hu Shi began with a summary of the Wei-Jin and Northern-Southern dynasties (220–589) as a historically important period: The division of the country, the invasion of non-Chinese peoples, and the assimilation of the latter into the Chinese—the assimilation thesis again. What was relatively new was that he placed an emphasis on Wu of the three kingdoms (succeeded by Eastern Jin and southern dynasties), because Wu provided a shelter for preserving Chinese culture in Jiangnan (south of the Yangzi River) “during this first difficult passage in the history of Chinese civilization,” while in North China non-Chinese peoples who were assimilated into Chinese culture offered a different style or flavor of the expanding culture. “The folk literature of this period of north-south division was naturally the literature of new peoples in the north and the south.” The literary writings in Wu dialect in the south, which had been neglected before, evolved into a style of love-sick singing, while in the north emerged a new literature of martial and heroic style.[89] The term “new peoples” Hu used referred to the outcomes of ethnic mixing of non-Chinese and Chinese in the north, and that of northern Chinese migrants to the south and southern aborigines. Hu’s point about the latter added an important dimension to the ethnic-cultural assimilation thesis. Evidently, the significance of this process in Chinese history was very much appreciated by Hu and Liang Qichao, among others, and was further disseminated among educated Chinese through print media. What Hu Shi referred to as plebian literature were folk songs or verses, not the prose of high culture. Hu opined that the “boys-and-girls literature” (ernü wenxue) in the south was generally interesting, some verses having deep feelings and a few others having tragic colors; and this literature was at its best describing feelings of loved ones parting with one another.[90] As for what was called “heroic literature” (yingxiong wenxue) in the north, Hu Shi cited the Song of Chi Le (chilege) as a prime example. Originally in the language of Xianbei (a non-Chinese nomadic group), the verse was translated into Chinese language and became well known: The Valley of Chi Le, at the foot of the Yin Mountain, The sky is like an infinite dome, covering grassland in four directions; The sky is in deep blue, and the vastness of grassland has no end, Sheep and cattle become visible as grasses are bent low by blowing wind.[91]

The last line was a magic touch, Hu Shi said, “how simple, how real!” In his view, the aesthetic difference between the heroic tone of such folk songs and the boysand-girls literature of the south was one between the sky and the earth. Even when describing love, the northern plebian literature had a rustic, straightforward style, different from the affectedness in the southern literature. Such was the characteristic of the literature of the new peoples in the north.

Hu Shi singled out the Song of Mulan (mulange) as the finest work of the northern plebian literature. The beginning six lines of the song were the same as the Song of Willow Branches (yangliuzhi ge), indicative of its plebian origins; there were signs that the middle part was tempered with by literati; and the last part again was full of plebian flavor that literati were incapable of. In an end note, Hu Shi observed that some of Tao Qian’s poems could be counted as plebian literature, even though Tao was a member of literati.[92] Hu’s comparison of the northern and southern styles of folk songs has become a conventional view in Chinese historiography of Chinese literature.[93] The attention Hu Shi paid to the plebian literature in Chinese tradition was consistent with the call for “literary revolution”—vernacular language literature. His personal interest in vernacular literature was no doubt inspired in part by his research in folk literature in the Chinese past, whic demonstrated the relevance of reorganizing national heritage to the New Culture movement.

GAN ZHEXIAN ON TAO QIAN The reorganization of national heritage carried in the Fukan suited scholarly interests of aspiring college students as well as established scholars, and offered both groups publication opportunities. The mentoring role of teachers for students encouraged the latter to take the career paths they did. Among visitors to Hu Shi’s home in the 1920s were students at Beida or other universities in Beijing, including Gan Zhexian, Yang Honglie, and Lu Kanru, and Gu Jigang.[94] Gan Zhexian was one of the most prolific contributors to the Fukan. Most of his articles dealt with traditional Chinese philosophy, literature, and history, and a few were surveys of the intellectual and literary scenes at the time. Zhou Zuoren in his late years recalled Gan as a disciple of Hu Shi’s, saying that after graduation Gan was unable to find a long-term teaching job because of his personality. Gan “was able to write long articles of several tens of thousands of words, and once published ‘Tao Yuanming and Tolstoy’ in Sun Fuyuan’s Chenbao Fukan running for two or three months. Upon reading it, readers got headaches and admired him at the same time.”[95] Gan’s article on Tao Qian (Tao Yuanming, 365–427), “China’s Tolstoy,” was serialized for ten days in August 1922 (Zhou’s memory of it running for two-three months suggests that the article was unusually long and made an impression at that time). To justify a comparison of Tao Qian and Tolstoy, Gan argued that Tolstoy represented a meeting in Europe of Eastern mysticism and Western realism, while Tao symbolized a mixture of the northern and southern literary styles in China—the categorization of two literary styles that Hu Shi had already discussed. While Gan did not elaborate on Tolstoy, he tried to develop the notion of the two literary styles by tracing Tao’s northern flavor all the way back through Eastern Han, Western Han, to Meng Ke and Xun Qing of the Warring States period, and his southern flavor through the same periods to Lao Zi, Zhuang Zi, Qu Yuan, and Song Yu of the Spring-Autumn period and even to the Book of Odes.[96]

Noteworthy is that by paralleling Tao Qian and Tolstoy, Gan reconceptualized and reoriented the spatial opposites of south and north, with their respective symbolic values of yin and yang, to coincide with those of east and west, so that both the East and the South would represent yin or femininity—gentle, spiritual, imaginative, speculative, mystic, etc., whereas both the West and the North would symbolize yang or masculinity—heroic, material, realistic, straightforward, steadfast, etc. In the earlytwentieth-century Chinese imaginary and public discourse, China as a whole was often conceived or represented as feminine, spiritual qualities of the East, vis-à-vis the masculine, materialistic West (Chapters 2 and 4). Gan’s argument began with highlighting the interaction and convergence of the perceived yin and yang (southern and northern) styles within Chinese culture or literature, and then juxtaposed the pair with the familiar East-West dichotomy, supposedly seen in Tolstoy’s works. While it is not clear that Gan was aware of the implications of his move, the fact that he tried to make such connections was suggestive of both a binary view of things that was traditional and an effort to re-think the relationship between Chinese and Western cultures in new ways. Gan proceeded to compare Tao Qian and Tolstoy and find commonalities between the two, in terms of their temperaments, characters, addictions, ideas, artistic practices, and life circumstances. Both men had a temperament of being proud and solitary. Tao was addicted to wine-drinking and reading (he read widely but not carefully), and Tolstoy to gambling and writing.[97] Tao was full of deep feelings— he wrote about his sympathy with ancient tragic-heroic figures such as Ji Zi (9th century BCE) and Jing Ke (?–227 BCE), his sentiments on gathering and parting with friends, and his love of family members—so that in terms of having a loving heart, Tao was equal to Tolstoy.[98] Like Tolstoy or even more so, Tao favored countryside and peasant life, out of an escapism from politics he was disillusioned with and an appreciation of Lao Zi’s utopian vision of a simple rural living—the latter was best captured in his famous essay, “A Trip to the Land of Peach Blossom.”[99] According to Gan, Tao expressed a pessimistic feeling toward life and death, regarding life as ephemeral and death as causing sadness in people, which would compare to Tolstoy who also feared death.[100] Finally, in their artistic views and practices, Tao was similar to Tolstoy in that their works had a spirit of plebian literature and Tao’s writing was close to vernacular or national language literature—a point Hu Shi had made; and both wrote works that were somewhat autobiographic. Gan called Tao Qian a true literary writer who would understand Tolstoy’s saying that truth lies in nothing but love. [101]

One may agree with a reader who argued in a letter to the editor that Gan Zhexian’s comparing Tao Qian and Tolstoy was far-fetched and unnecessary, since Tao could be evaluated in his own right.[102] Yet, one may also see Gan's approach as a strategy to justify reorganzing national heritage, or to enhance its respectability, by linking it with a study of European literature that was more easily accepted among “new-literature” enthusiasts, and to advertise his own erudition in both Chinese and

Russian literature. As a graduate of Beida who could not find a long-term teaching job, Gan took up writing for journals and newspaper supplements as his career, and Chinese philosophy, literature, and history as his expertise. Thus the enterprise of reorganizing national heritage suited his career path, literary taste, and intellectual interest. The above-mentioned reader expressed a disapproval of Gan’s “strong desire to publish.”[103] Yet, Gan could be excused if publishing articles was what he did for living.

YANG HONGLIE ON WENXIN DIAOLONG With regard to research methodology in national learning, Yang Honglie (1903–1977), another person partly mentored by Hu Shi, deserves attention. Yang graduated from the Department of Foreign Languages at Beijing Normal University (BNU) before taking up graduate studies at the National Learning Institute at Qinghua University. He would later be better known for his works on the history of Chinese law and legal system that he authored in the early 1930s before his doctoral training at Imperial University of Tokyo. In the early 1920s, still a student at BNU, he published several substantive articles on Chinese literature and historiography in the Fukan, contributing to the scholarship in national learning. In October 1922 Yang’s essay on Liu Xie’s (465–520) Wenxin Diaolong (Engraving dragon with a literary heart) appeared. Wenxin Diaolong was a work of literary theory and criticism that critiqued dozens of literary styles and formats up to Liu Xie’s time. While long regarded as an important book on the subject, it had not received scholarly treatment in vernacular Chinese until Yang Honglie’s essay. Yang began by quoting from Liang Qichao's The Intellectual Trends of the Qing Period that any intellectual school in history went through a cycle like an organism— birth, prime, transformation, and decline.[104] To be accurate, of course, what was described by Liang and cited by Yang is not cyclical but evolutionary in intellectual and literary history, but his point remains that minor elements in an intellectual school or trend would eventually overcome and replace the main body of that school or trend. From this perspective, Yang observed that by the Jin dynasty (266–420) Chinese literature had grown to the point of being over-elaborate, superficially decorative without substance, and Liu Xie’s work was a reaction to the dominance of that literary style. Unfortunately, Yang said, Liu’s voice was not echoed by others, and people in later times tended to regard Wenxin Diaolong as a book of styles, losing sight of its larger thesis. Yang offered his view on three contributions and one defect he found in the work: Liu advocated a natural style of expressing ideas and feelings, criticized the over-elaborate style with his own standards, and explained the relationship between literature and epoch; and the defect was that Liu tried to have literature carry the way (yiwen zaidao) by erasing the boundary between refined literature (chunwenxue) and coarse literature (zawenxue) that had been established before him. “My article is of course aimed at showing that [Liu Xie] was a literary reformer of his time, but it will not cover up his shortcomings.”[105]

Yang cited Chinese and foreign literary authorities to support his arguments. He quoted Hu Shi’s words that “speak only when you have something to say” to explain Liu’s view that one should write words to express one’s ideas and feelings, not to use affected feelings to decorate words.[106] Yang considered Liu Xie the first literary critic in Chinese history in that Liu practiced in Wenxin Diaolong what the BritishAmerican author Richard G. Moulton (1849–1924) said in The Modern Study of Literature.[107] When Yang turned to Liu Xie’s observation of how literary styles of each epoch would reflect their historical times and situations, he noted that Liu Xie’s view was also expressed by Liu Zhiji (661–721), Gu Yanwu, and Zhang Binglin. Yet, he further compared Liu’s view with Japanese writer Kuriyagawa Hakuson’s (1880– 1923) statement that throughout history what was called literature was nothing but a mirror created by its time and circumstances to reflect themselves.[108] These citations suggest that foreign works such as Moulton’s and Kuriyagawa’s were available to Chinese college students in Beijing (judging from the page number cited by Yang, he used the English original of Moulton's book). Engaging in reorganizing national heritage, Yang Honglie readily used his knowledge of foreign and Chinese scholarship to help establish his own scholarly credentials and by extension the credibility of national learning.

LU KANRU ON WANG BO Another learned contributor was Lu Kanru (1903–1978). Lu studied in the Department of Chinese at Beida during 1922–1924. In 1923, while a second-year student, he published an article on Wang Bo (650–678), a famous poet of the Tang dynasty. With a longitudinal perspective on the history of Chinese poetry, Lu argued that the Book of Odes and the Chu poetry (chuci) represented the immature stage of Chinese poetry, the Han and Wei poetry constituted the first mature period, and the Tang poetry was the second, represented by Du Fu; and Wang Bo, along with Yang Jong, Lu Zhaoling, and Luo Binwang, served as a transition between the two mature periods. Lu Kanru said he used to be a worshipper of the Chu poetry too, but after a thorough study of it, he found the Chu poetry was not what people said it was, and the same was true of the Book of Odes. To support his view, which was not congruent with Liang Qichao’s assessment of Qu Yuan, Lu quoted from French writers Anatole France (1844–1924) and Jules Lemaitre (1853–1914) to explain why the two ancient classics had been considered the height of Chinese poetry for so long—critics often insisted on their views which “contained nothing, in the end, but personal preference grown rigid” (Lemaitre).[109] The fact that both Yang Honglie and Lu Kanru cited Western authors in their essays on Chinese traditional literature suggests that college students were not only exposed to foreign works but also felt it necessary to cite such works as a badge of scholarly credentials. As for methodology of studying Chinese poetry, Lu Kanru held that the best method was to study a poet chronologically, but that was usually not adopted in Chinese literature. One common method was to classify poems by format. Another

was to classify poems according to content, which tended to get bogged down in too many and too narrow categories. In studying Wang Bo, Lu divided Wang’s poems into descriptive and lyrical ones (Wang did not write narrative poems). Wang’s descriptive poems were best at describing vividly the season of spring (those made up half of his descriptive poems).[110] Among Wang’s lyrical poems, the best were the ones expressing sadness about parting with friends and loved ones, because Wang was unsuccessful in a career—“one who was unable to realize ambition was naturally more able to feel the pain of parting.” Lu did not offer any theoretical explanation as to why that was the case. He further observed that Wang’s poems on escaping the world, love affairs, mourning, and so on were not as good because these were not his true feelings.[111] Finally, Lu praised Wang for phonetics and rhymes in his poems. Lu said he could hear good phonetics and rhymes when read them, but could not explain how and why —readers would have to appreciate such qualities on their own. He gave several examples of Wang’s command of phonetics and rhymes, and quoted from British poet Tennyson’s “Enoch Arden” to make a comparison.[112] Lu Kanru’s interpretation of Wang Bo deserves attention because Lu would go on to become an accomplished scholar of Chinese literature, especially Chinese poetry. With his wife Feng Yuanjun (1900–1974), an equally esteemed scholar, Lu would coauthor the History of Chinese Poetry in 1931, among many other important works. In other words, the works of reorganizing national heritage that appeared in the Fukan were often serious and high caliber scholarship at that time, the intellectual value of which was no less than the fictions and poems that are better known as the “new literature.” In a sense, the Fukan provided not only a forum for national learning but also a training ground for the scholarly endeavor and career path of those emerging scholars. As we have seen, in the New Culture era, while a new literature was growing, Chinese cultural tradition was not rejected by educated Chinese, not even by some Western-educated professors. “Ambivalence” was the key word to describe their relationship with and attitude toward Chinese tradition and Western culture. This chapter argues that the Chenbao Fukan was much more than an outlet for the “new literature” (however defined) and that a strong interest in Chinese cultural tradition was evident in the Fukan and beyond. One would further argue that the very notion of the New Culture movement itself need be redefined in order to consider the full meanings and implications of all kinds of published works, from original novels and poems, translations of foreign works, Chinese travelogues, ideological and intellectual debates, to the works of national learning or reorganizing national heritage, all written in vernacular language (or not, as in the case of the Critical Review). A strong argument for such a broad view of the New Culture movement is that the writings on Chinese traditional philosophy and literature sampled here could not have been produced at any point of time before the New Culture era—for instance, not in the

1860s or the 1890s. The methods used and perspectives adopted in dealing with Chinese cultural legacies were remarkably characteristic of the ethos of the time and in turn contributed to the New Culture movement. The efforts by iconoclasts to define the New Culture narrowly as anti-traditionalist positions and discourses were as unsound as the efforts by certain writers to claim exclusive ownership of the “new literature.” Ultimately, those efforts themselves were constitutive of the intellectual life of the New Culture era and in need for closer scholarly scrutiny. Equally significant, it is in the enterprise of reorganizing national heritage that lay the promise, and its realization, of a combination and reconciliation of cosmopolitan, nationalistic, and individualistic impulses among educated Chinese. As noted earlier, a cosmopolitan outlook would not exclude Chinese culture but regard it as a contributing part to a world culture, and thus it is perfectly legitimate for a Chinese cosmopolitan to be engaged in researching, interpreting, and preserving national heritage, which at the same time was a nationalistic endeavor, at least in the sense of reaffirming the value of Chinese culture. Furthermore, the kind of research, writing, and publishing was an individualistic calling, freely chosen based on the person's intellectual sensibilities and aesthetic tastes. On all these counts, it was intellectually and morally satisfying to practice reorganizing national heritage. Chinese intellectuals from Liang Qichao to Hu Shi, and many others, came to rest on this modest level of selffulfillment in the trying time of the 1920s.

NOTES 1. Hu Shi’s own English translation of the term “zhengli “ is “systemize.” See Grieder, Hu Shih and the Chinese Renaissance, p. 161, note 88. 2. The term “cultural conservatives” is used loosely here, referring those who were keen to preserve Chinese cultural tradition, whether they denied or recognized its defects. The practitioners of “national essence movement” certainly qualified as cultural conservatives, while they may be arguably called cultural nationalists. For an overview of the national essence movement as a cultural conservative movement, see Laurence A. Schneider, “National Essence and the New Intelligentsia,” in Charlotte Furth, ed., The Limits of Change, pp. 57–89; Guy S. Alitto, The Last Confucian: Liang Shu-ming and the Chinese Dilemma of Modernity, pp. 6–12. Alitto’s point is well taken that the Chinese cultural conservatism, and the constructed dichotomy between “spiritual essence” and “material civilization” or “interior” and “exterior,” was part of a world-wide reaction to modernization also seen in other national contexts from Germany, Russia, India, Japan, to Muslim societies. 3. See Laurence A. Schneider, “National Essence and the New Intelligentsia”; also, Martin Bernal, “Liu Shih-p’ei and National Essence,” in Charlotte Furth, ed., The Limits of Change, pp. 57–112; Lydia Liu, Translingual Practice, pp. 239–256. 4. Peter Zarrow, Anarchism and Chinese Political Culture, pp. 38–52. 5. Elisabeth Kaske, The Politics of Language in Chinese Education, 1895–1919, ch. 5.

6. See, Lydia Liu, Translingual Practice, pp. 239–256; Tse-ki Hon, “From Babbit to ‘Bai Bide’: Interpretations of New Humanism in Xueheng,” in Wing-kai Chow, et al. eds., Beyond the May Fourth Paradigm: In Search of Chinese Modernity (Lexington Books, 2008), pp. 253–267; Yi-tsi Mei Feuerwerker, “Reconsidering Xueheng: NeoConservatism in Early Republican China,” in Kirk Denton and Michel Hockx, eds., Literary Societies in Republican China (Lexington Books, 2008), pp. 137–169. 7. Jerome B. Grieder’s reading was somewhat different from Schneider in that Grieder emphasized the cosmopolitan vision of Mei Guangdi and Wu Mi who launched the Critical Review in January 1922 and the anti-modernist thrust they learned from their teacher Irving Babbitt, a professor at Harvard University. See Grieder, Intellectuals and the State in Modern China, pp. 236–238. 8. Hu Shi Riji Quanbian, Vol. 3, p. 546. In October 1921 Hu Shi was invited to join Dongnan University faculty, and he declined. He noted that “Dongnan University would not tolerate me. In Beijing people who oppose me are scholars of old learning and ancient texts, so it is to be expected; but in Nanjing people who oppose me are all returned students, which cannot but make one disappointed.” See Hu Shi Riji Quanbian, Vol. 3, p. 386. 9. Lawrence A. Schneider, “National Essence and the New Intelligentsia”; Martin Bernal, “Liu Shih-p’ei and National Essence,” in Charlotte Furth, ed., The Limits of Change, p. 73. 10. Cao Juren, Wo Yu Wode Shijie (My world and me), pp. 201–210. 11. Guoxue Jikan, Vol.1, No.1 (Jan. 1923), p. 2. 12. Partha Chatterjee, Nation and Its Fragments, pp. 6–11. 13. It is instructive to compare Chatterjee’s comment just cited with Guy Alitto cited above in note 2, and further with Jerome B. Grieder’s characterization of “neotraditionalists” Liang Qichao’s and Liang Shuming’s similarities: “They agreed, in the first place, that life is divisible into ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ levels of existence, separate and perhaps even mutually opposed. They shared the view that the genius of Chinese social thought lay in its treatment of the inner life, or, to put it another way, that the Chinese way of life exalted the spirit. On this account they agreed that Chinese life is morally superior to the deplorable Western obsession with material progress” (Grieder, Hu Shih and the Chinese Renaissance, p. 145). 14. “Letter to Hu Pu’an, November 17, 1928,” in Hu Shi Wenji (Collection of Hu Shi’s writings), Vol. 3, p. 287. 15. In spite of the New Culture movement, the Confucian rituals and music were being used by the government at the time: Lu Xun as an official of the Ministry of Education would attend the annual ceremonies of commemorating Confucius in 1921 and 1923 (see Lu Xun Riji, p. 357, 387). 16. Besides its content, the Critical Review was perceived to be conservative also due to the fact that all articles published in the journal were written in classical Chinese. Zhou Zuoren criticized the Critical Review’s attack on vernacular language, including Hu Shi’s “new poetry,” upon reading its first issue in February. See CF, 1922/2/4.

17. CF, 1922/4/23. 18. In the pre-1911 Revolution years Deng Shi, an anti-Manchu national essence promoter, had called on Chinese scholars to pursue Chinese studies with their own methods and principles instead of those imported from abroad. See Elisabeth Kaske, The Politics of Language, p. 231. 19. Zhou Zuoren had talked to Hu about his concerns regarding the intellectual scene before publishing his article in the Fukan, and Hu expressed his different opinion. See Hu Shi Riji Quanbian, Vol.3, pp. 639–641. 20. Hu Xiansu said that because of its extreme recklessness and destructiveness, Hu Shi’s A Collection of Experiments was dead literature that could not be saved by using a living language (vernacular Chinese). See Critical Review, Vol.1, No.1 (Jan. 1922); Vol.1, No.2 (Feb. 1922); Hu Shi, “Preface for the Fourth Edition,” Changshi Ji (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 2000), pp. 5–6. 21. In 1915 Hu Shi first proposed among Chinese students in the U.S. a literary revolution with promoting vernacular language, and the opponents to his ideas included Mei Guangdi who was studying at Harvard. See Grieder, Hu Shih and the Chinese Renaissance, p. 80, note 8. 22. CF, 1922/4/27. 23. Zhang Taiyan, Guoxue Gailun (A general treatise on national studies) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1997), 2–3. 24. Young-tsu Wong, “Zhang Binglin’s Critique of Western Modernity: A Chinese Version of Cultural Pluralism,” in Peter Zarrow, ed., Creating Chinese Modernity: Knowledge and Everyday Life: 1900–1940 (New York: Peter Lang, 2006), pp. 23– 49. 25. See Guoxue Jikan Vol.1, No.1 (January 1923). 26. Hu Shi Riji Quanbian, Vol.3, p. 882. 27. Xin Qingnian, Vol.7, 1 (Dec. 1919):5–12. 28. CF, 1924/2/25. 29. Susan Daruvala, Zhou Zuoren and an Alternative Response to Chinese Modernity (Harvard UP, 2000), p.244. 30. CF, 1923/6/14. 31. CF, 1923/6/18. 32. CF, 1923/6/24; 6/25. 33. Zhang believed that an ability to differentiate forgery from true texts of classics and knowledge of phonology, philology, and geography were the prerequisite skills for pursuing national learning. See Zhang Taiyan, Guoxue Gailun, pp. 9–11. 34. CF, 1923/6/24. To contextualize Hu's point, it may be noted that Hu Shi wrote the following in his diary in October 1921: “Organizing sources is important, and interpreting sources is also extremely important. China only has sources—countless sources—but does not have history, precisely because historians lack the ability to interpret.” See Hu Shi Riji Quanbian, Vol.3, p. 431. 35. CF, 1923/6/23. 36. CF, 1923/10/15.

37. Luo Zhitian, Guojia Yu Xueshu (State and Scholarship), pp. 267–272. 38. The book was supposed to be the first volume, but the second volume was never published. 39. Shen Weiwei, Wudi Ziyou: Hu Shi Zhuan (No Place Is Free: A Biography of Hu Shi) (Shanghai: Wenyi chubanshe, 1994), p. 60–62. 40. In a letter to Hu Shi dated October 18, 1920, Liang Qichao said that he had a lot of critiques about Hu's book, and he would tried to write a long article about the subject. See Liang Qichao Nianpu Changbian, p. 922. 41. For a summary of Liang Shuming’s arguments in his book, see Grieder, Hu Shih and the Chinese Renaissance, pp. 135–145; Guy Alitto, The Last Confucian. 42. Liang began with a point about scholarly criticism. “What I have to say as criticism may not be correct; even if they are correct, they will not reduce the value of the book itself; the book has its own standing point, which is firmly grounded.” CF, 1922/3/13. 43. Benjamin I. Schwartz made essentially the same point in his study of ancient Chinese philosophy. See The World of Thought in Ancient China, p. 3. 44. CF, 1922/3/13. 45. CF, 1922/3/14. 46. CF, 1922/3/15. 47. CF, 1922/3/16. 48. CF, 1922/3/17. 49. CF, 1922/3/17. 50. CF, 1922/3/17. 51. Hu noted in his diary that with an entire lecture to criticize his book, Liang proved to be not good at socializing. Hu also noted his disagreements with Liang's views, but commended Liang for adding two more reasons for the decline of ancient philosophy by the Qin-Han times. See Hu Shi Riji Quanbian, Vol. 3, pp. 570–572. 52. The quote is from Charlotte Furth. See Merle Goldman and Leo Ou-fan Lee, eds., An Intellectual History of Modern China, p. 130. 53. See Joseph Levinson, Liang Chi’-ch’ao and the Mind of Modern China. 54. CF, 1922/6/9. 55. Besides Joseph Levenson, see Philip Huang, Liang Qichao and Modern Chinese Liberalism; Xiaobing Tang, Global Space and the Nationalist Discourse: The Historical Thinking of Liang Qichao. 56. Merle Goldman and Leo Ou-fan Lee, eds., An Intellectual History of Modern China, p. 129. 57. CF, 1922/6/9. 58. CF, 1922/6/9. 59. See Emily Honig, Creating Chinese Ethnicity: Subei People in Shanghai, 1850– 1980 (Yale UP, 1992). 60. Xiaobing Tang, Global Space and Nationalist Discourse of Modernity (Duke University Press, 1996). 61. CF, 1922/6/10.

62. CF, 1922/6/12. 63. CF, 1922/6/14. 64. CF, 1922/6/15. 65. CF, 1922/12/13. 66. I have chosen to translate “zhongguo” () in the classical sources as “land in the middle” instead of “central kingdom” because the latter would be a mistranslation of the concept in the Zhou and pre-Zhou sources. At the very least, my translation is consistent with Liang’s usage in his discussion of how “all under heaven” contradicted the notion of nation-state. 67. CF, 1922/12/13. 68. CF, 1922/12/14. 69. CF, 1922/12/15. 70. See, e.g., de Bary and Tu Weiming, eds., Confucianism and Human Rights (Columbia UP, 1999); de Bary, Asian Values and Human Rights (Harvard UP, 2000); Daniel A. Bell, Beyond Liberal Democracy: Political Thinking for an East Asian Context (Princeton UP, 2006). 71. CF, 1922/12/16. 72. CF, 1922/12/17. 73. Hao Chang, Liang Ch’i-ch’ao and Intellectual Transition in China, 1890–1907 (1971); Philip Huang, Liang Ch’i-ch’ao and Modern Chinese Liberalism (1972). 74. Saranindranath Tagore, “Tagore's Conception of Cosmopolitanism: A Reconstruction,” University of Toronto Quarterly, 77, 4 (Fall 2008):1070–1084. 75. According to Joseph Levenson, however, Yang Ming-chai published a book in 1924 critiquing Liang’s “Pre-Qin Political Thought” (Levenson, Liang Ch’i-ch’ao and the Mind of Modern China, p. 216). 76. Hu Shi noted in his diary that he was struck by Fei’s views, especially his historical perspective, which Hu considered were above those of Fei’s mentor Sun Qifeng and other contemporaries. See Hu Shi Riji Quanbian, Vol. 3, p. 255, 259. 77. CF, 1921/10/12. 78. CF, 1921/10/13. 79. CF, 1921/10/14. 80. CF, 1921/10/15. 81. CF, 1921/10/17. 82. See Leo O. Lee, Voices from the Iron House: A Study of Lu Xun (1987), 28–46. 83. A history of Chinese modern literature was just beginning to emerge for the first time with Hu Shi’s “the Past Fifty Years of Chinese Literature” published in 1923. See Yingjin Zhang, “The Institutionalization of Modern Literary History in China, 1920– 1980” (1994). 84. CF, 1922/11/18. 85. CF, 1922/11/19. 86. For a discussion of the different narrative strategies to construct a unified Chinese nation by tracing a common origin (racial or cultural) in Republican China, see James Leibold, “Competing Narratives of Racial Unity in Republican China” (2006); for a

debate between Ping-ti Ho and Evelyn Rawski on the assimilation thesis, with regard to the Qing dynasty in particular, see the Journal of Asian Studies, 26, 2 (Feb. 1967):189–195; 55, 4, (Nov. 1996):829–850; 57, 1 (Feb., 1998):123–155. 87. Liang’s interpretation of Qu Yuan in terms of the assimilation thesis was a standard understanding of Chinese history that still frames recent works in the PRC on the role of Qu Yuan in the history of Chinese literature. See, for example, Fu Yisheng and Jiang Fan, Xianqin Lianghan Wenxue Piping Shi (A history of literary criticism in pre-Qin to Han Dynasty) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1990), pp. 19–21. The view that Qu Yuan was the first poet in Chinese literature is also common in standard histories of Chinese literature in China today. See, for example, Zhang Peiheng and Luo Yuming, Zhongguo Wenxue Shi (A history of Chinese literature) (Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 1996), Vol. 1, pp. 155–156. 88. It would become Chapter 4 of Hu Shi's envisioned book. Hu never finished the earlier part—presumably three chapters—and the later part of this history (these would be dealt with in his another book, A History of Vernacular Language Literature. 89. CF, 1921/12/2. 90. CF, 1922/12/3. 91. The Chinese verse of the song is: , , , ; , , . 92. CF, 1921/12/5. 93. For example, Zheng Peiheng and Luo Yuming, Zhongguo Wenxue Shi (A history of Chinese literature) (Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 1996), pp. 416–424, 442– 448. 94. For instance, on October 29, 1922, Yang Honglie and two other students visited Hu Shi. Hu asked Yang to do research on a historical figure and Yang did; while reporting his findings, Yang asked Hu to read a long essay Yang wrote, “A New Treatise on History and Geography,” which was later serialized in the Fukan. On November 19, 1922, Gan Zhexian, Lu Kanru, Yang Honglie, and others visited Hu Shi together. See Hu Shi Riji Quanbian, Vol. 3. 872–875; 884. 95. Zhou Zuoren, Zhitang Huixiang Lu (Hebei jiaoyu chubanshe, 2002), pp. 549–551. 96. CF, 1922/8/1. 97. CF, 1922/8/2. 98. CF, 1922/8/3; 8/4; 8/5. 99. CF, 1922/8/6; 8/7; 8/9. 100. CF, 1922/8/10. 101. CF, 1922/8/11. 102. CF, 1922/8/18. 103. CF, 1922/8/18. 104. CF, 1922/10/24. 105. CF, 1922/10/24. 106. CF, 1922/10/25. 107. CF, 1922/10/26; Richard Green Moulton, The Modern Study of Literature: An Introduction of Literary Theory and Interpretation (University of Chicago Press, 1915), p. 317.

108. CF, 1922/10/27. 109. CF, 1923/7/16. 110. CF, 1923/7/18. 111. CF, 1923/7/19. 112. CF, 1923/7/20.

Chapter 6

Life, Love, and Nation Intellectual and Moral Sensibilities of Educated Chinese The Fukan was one of the venues where many intellectual and cultural debates and polemics took place, with overlapping themes and cross-purposes, showing the spell to a varying degree of cosmopolitan or nationalistic or individualistic ideologies on the minds of educated Chinese. These included debates over “isms vs. problems,” “government of good people,” “science vs. philosophies of life,” “red imperialism,” and so on. Besides these better known debates involving high-profile intellectuals of the time, there were lesser-known debates that have so far escaped scholarly attentions. While shedding additional light on a celebrated debate—“science vs. philosophies of life,” about the relevance of Western and Chinese cultures to individuals' life in the modern world, this chapter will unearth a couple of relatively obscure intellectual engagements, to round out more fully the intellectual minds in the New Culture era that were shaped by and shaping their social-cultural contexts. One of the lesserknown debates was about love and marriage, reflecting the changing moral values among the educated on the very personal issue, as a result of the encounter between Chinese tradition and Western culture. The other involved anti-Japanese boycott and revealed Chinese understanding of such ideologies as anti-imperialism, socialism, anarchism, and nationalism, in relation to individualism. As such, these debates offer two opposite yet related dimensions of Chinese concerns of the time—the individual's life and the nation’s well-being. Our interest is not only in the subjects under debate, but also in the way the Fukan editors handled the debates and the way contributors engaged in them, in order for us to better grasp how newspaper supplements, along with independent journals, played a crucial role in forming and informing the public discourse and discursive practices of the time. One of the frequently used rhetorical strategies or argumentative techniques, for example, was for the participants to use sarcasm, by way of quoting their opponents’ terms, phrases, or statements, and placing them in a different rhetorical context or leading them to an opposite conclusion by their own logic so as to highlight the opponents being erroneous. Other techniques included citing or quoting authorities from Chinese and foreign sources, which led to the introduction in the public discourse of a new concept—“plagiarism,” which would henceforth become an issue (poorly defined) in the Chinese intellectual circles, even though it did not stop plagiarism as a practice.

SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHIES OF LIFE This debate was set off by Zhang Junmai, a professor of philosophy at Beida, who gave a speech at the Qinghua School on February 14, 1923.[1] After the speech was

published in the Qinghua Weekly, Ding Wenjiang, a professor of geology at Beida, published a rebuttal in the Endeavor, which in turn invited rejoinders from Zhang, and then Ding countered with further arguments, until the debate was joined by others (mostly professors). The Fukan began to carry Zhang’s initial speech on May 2, 1923, after Sun Fuyuan noticed that the debate in the Endeavor was gaining wide interest among the reading public. Other articles from both sides continued to appear in the Fukan until the end of June. This in effect turned the Fukan into one of the two main venues for the debate where major articles from both sides were published and republished. To place the debate in a larger intellectual and discursive context, it is useful to point out that around the time of the debate the Fukan had been publishing various translated works on Western philosophy and sciences, including W. S. Jevons’s The Rule of Science (starting on March 10, 1923), Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity (from April 9, 1923), Lewis Terman’s Standard Revision of Binet-Simon Scale—on the measurement of IQ (from February 22, 1923), and Hans Driesch’s lectures on “Systemic Philosophy” (from on March 8, 1923) and on “Issues in Modern Psychology” (from May 12, 1923)—Driesch’s lectures at Beida were interpreted and transcribed by none other than Zhang Junmai. The debate over science and philosophies of life, therefore, served to underscore the cognitive and intellectual influence of such translated works on educated Chinese. It would not be an overstatement to say that Sun Fuyuan demonstrated both his seasoned editorial skills and his keen marketing instinct in promoting the debate in the Fukan (Chapter 1). Zhang Junmai’s initial speech was entitled “Philosophies of life (rensheng guan),” by which he meant one’s moral values in life. His key points may be briefly summarized as follows: Because science dealt with the objective material world and philosophies of life address the subjective self and its relationship with everything outside self, science would not govern an individual’s philosophy of life, hence various philosophical schools and ideologies that tried to address philosophies of life outside science. Zhang devoted most of his speech to explaining how and why philosophies of life were subjective, intuitive, synthetic, free-willed, and unique (to self), as opposed to science which was objective, logical, analytical, dependent on the law of cause and effect, and based on repeatable and observable phenomena. There was no objective standard for philosophies of life; and a person’s philosophy of life could only be judged by oneself. Philosophies of life (moral values in life) would concern, among other things, such issues as the relationships between self and kin, self and the opposite sex, self and property, self and social system, self and external things, self and the group one belongs to, self and other peoples, self and the world, self and the ultimate reality, etc. Zhang also gave a shorter list of relationships, views of which informed one’s philosophy of life: spirit and matter, man and woman, individual and society, and one’s nation and the world. In discussing those issues, Zhang implied that in spite of the advances in science, the West did not offer a model for China about philosophies of life, as Western societies displayed an emphasis on material or industrial development, prevalence of love stories in literature, concentration of wealth

in the hands of a minority, and nationalism. “Nowadays all people in the country are talking about new culture, but the key to cultural transformation lies within philosophies of life. We have our culture, and the West has Western culture. What is beneficial [to us] in Western culture is to be adopted and what is harmful to be avoided; what is beneficial in ours is to be preserved and what is harmful to be jettisoned; and all this pick-and-choose depends on views [of life].”[2] The point on balancing Western and Chinese cultures was of course a central and familiar one in the New Culture era. Zhang appears to have assumed a more critical attitude toward Western civilization, which was by no means unique, but he did so by dismissing the relevance of science to China’s new culture in the realm of morals and ethics, which irked Ding Wenjiang. After engaging in a two-hour private debate with Zhang that failed to convince the latter of his error, Ding went public with his critique in the Endeavor.[3] Ding Wenjiang’s rebuttal against Zhang Junmai was entitled “Metaphysics and Science.”[4] One important fact that has been overlooked in previous scholarship is that Ding chose to translate the word “metaphysics” into the Chinese term “xuanxue” to make it the main target of his criticism, even though an alternative translation, “xingershang,” had been available and used. In his very article criticizing Zhang Junmai, Ding Wenjing used the term “xingerxia” meaning “physical”—the opposite of “xingershang.”[5] This suggests that Ding was well aware of the alternative translation, as both xingershang and xingerxia were taken from the Book of Changes (Yijing). In Chinese intellectual history, “xuanxue” normally referred to the intellectual strand that originated in the religious Daoism in the Wei-Jin period (3rd–4th centuries) and was later joined by an eclectic confluence of certain elements from Buddhism and even from Confucianism (regarding the heaven-human interactions), with a connotation of being abstract, obtuse, and impractical.[6] This historical origin and usage of the term would explain why Tagore’s ideas were characterized as xuanxue (“mysticism” in my translation) when he was attacked by Chinese nationalists (Chapter 2) and why Chinese native medicine was attacked by Western-trained Chinese doctors as unscientific for being based on xuanxue.[7] Therefore, by using xuanxue to translate the word “metaphysics,” Ding Wenjiang associated Zhang Junmai’s theory with a discredited (at least to the iconoclastic New Culture activists) school of thought in the Chinese intellectual context. His tactics did not escape Zhang Junmai, who pointed out that “[Ding] Zaijun’s article is entitled ‘xuanxue yu kexue,’ because fully aware that today’s young people are loath to the term xuanxue, he deliberately used this term to suit the current fad.”[8] Notably, Sun Fuyuan allowed Fukan contributors to call the debate either “xuanxue yu kexue” (mysticism and science) or “renshengguan yu kexue” (philosophies of life and science) as they chose.[9] Ding Wenjing made it clear that Zhang Junmai’s view was based on metaphysics from Europe, and he (Ding) was opposing the metaphysics, not Zhang the person. In his opinion, Zhang’s arguments on philosophies of life reflected a combination of

European metaphysics (the theology of medieval times, the ontology after the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, and Bergson most recently) and Chinese xuanxue represented by Lu Jiuyuan (1139–1193), Wang Yangming (1472– 1529), and Chen Xianzhang (1428–1500). Ding was firmly against the notion of intuitive knowledge that was antithetical to science and scientific methods as he understood them. Ding allowed that scientists acknowledged what lay beyond the material world perceived by senses was not knowable, an attitude he called “skeptical idealism.” Yet, what scientists and philosophers considered unknowable was exactly what metaphysicians would use to ply their trade—“Berkeley called it God; Kant and Schopenhauer called it will; Buchner called it matter; Clifford called it matter of psychology; and Zhang Jumai called it self.”[10] Ding rejected the divide between spiritual sciences and material sciences and between spirit and matter, a line that Zhang drew in order to place philosophies of life outside science. Ding argued that mental process was the function of brain that could be studied by science. To clarify, by “spiritual sciences” (jinsheng kexue) both Zhang and Ding actually referred to what are now called humanities and social sciences such as psychology, sociology, economics, history, philology, etc. To a degree, the inconsistency or a lack of convention in translating the names of academic disciplines contributed to the confusion and diffusion in the debate.[11] On the other hand, the lack of convention also allowed the participants some leeway to make discursive maneuvers, such as calling metaphysics xuanxue. More important for Ding was that “the purpose of science is to get rid of personal subjective prejudice—the biggest obstacle for philosophies of life—to reach the truth acceptable to all human beings. Scientific methods are to differentiate truth and falsehood of facts, classify true facts into detailed categories, and then find their order and relationships and use the most simple and clear words to summarize them. Therefore, omnipotence, universality, and applicability of science lie not in its subjects but in its methods. Einstein’s theory of relativity is science, [W.] James’s psychology is science, and Liang [Qichao]’s method of historical research and Hu [Shi]’s study of The Dream of Red Mansion are sciences too.”[12] Ding asserted that science was relevant, and indeed important, to moral cultivation or philosophies of life—seeking truth and loving truth would make people dispassionate and analytical, while understanding relationships and psychologies of all living beings would make people understand the joy of life. Ding held up Charles Darwin (1809–1882), Hubert Spencer (1820–1903), Thomas Huxley (1825–1895), William James (1842–1910), and Karl Pearson (1857–1936) as examples of scientific education cultivating moral personal character, in comparison with those whom he called “xuanxuejia” (mystics or metaphysicians) such as Arthur Schopenhauer (1788– 1860) and Friedrieh Nietzsche (1844–1900). On the most critical issue of the time—Western civilization vs. Chinese civilization, Ding defended the former as more than material civilization by stating that science was not responsible for industrial development and capitalist system, since

industrial development was one of the results of science, and industrialists were not scientists. In other words, for Ding, the key to Western civilization was science, not capitalism and industrialization. “A majority of big industrialists in Europe and America are like our military governors and garrison commanders—people from humble background without scientific knowledge. Let’s ask how many scientists have made huge fortunes? Zhang Junmai used Zhang [Jian] and Nie Yuntai as representatives of China’s scientific development, but no matter whether science will accept that, even Zhang [Jian] and Nie [Yuntai] themselves will not necessarily accept that.”[13] Here Ding stretched Zhang Junmai’s argument, as Zhang only said that people admired Zhang Jian and Nie Yuntai for developing industries, but placing value on industry and commerce might not be a reasonable philosophy of life.[14] In short, Ding wanted to rescue science from capitalist industrialization as the latter appeared discredited by WWI to many educated Chinese. Ding defended Western civilization further. “As for Eastern and Western cultures,” he stated, “they cannot be characterized in such opaque terms as material civilization and spiritual civilization.” Disagreeing explicitly with Liang Shuming who had published a book on this issue, Ding argued that even if European culture would go bankrupt due to WWI, it is politicians, educators, and metaphysicians that should be held responsible, not scientists or science. At the same time he vehemently rejected the view that “Western science is mechanical, material, and physical,” therefore inferior to Chinese “spiritual civilization.” Ding was alert to what he considered an opportunistic attack, in the wake of WWI, on the respectability of Western science that had been firmly established in China since the New Policy reform of 1901–1911, the final decade of the Qing dynasty. “After 1901, in order [for China] to use science, [people hostile to science] dare not openly slander science. After the European War occurred, such people’s opportunity has come. Europe that produced science is going bankrupt! Hurry to retrieve our spiritual civilization to remedy material civilization. Such a theory of theirs naturally suits the stomach of European metaphysicians.” While defending science and Western civilization, Ding dismissed with a broad stroke Chinese xuanxue since the Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties as worthless and responsible for all human catastrophes. He called xuanxue a dying theory that seized upon the pernicious remnants of European metaphysics to try to revive itself. Borrowing a sentence from Qing philosopher Gu Yanwu who criticized followers of Wang Yangming and Chen Xianzhang, Ding fired a broadside at Zhang Junmai and the like: “Today’s gentlemen, who wish to quickly establish fame in society, will not learn science when told about science; and will happily accept [xuanxue] when told about Bergson and Driesch, because it is easy to pirate [the latter’s theory] as their own.”[15] This comment touched upon the practice of using foreign sources as cultural capital for intellectual fame and authority in Chinese society, which was not limited to opponents of science but included all sides and Ding as well. In addition, Ding inadvertently broached the issue of plagiarism in translating and appropriating foreign sources in Chinese discourses, an issue to which Zhang Junmai would respond. Zhang Junmai’s rejoinder appeared in the Fukan immediately after the

installments of Ding’s article were complete. Echoing Ding’s point about the respectability of Western science in early-twentieth-century China but from an opposite position, Zhang stated that “in recent twenty to thirty years, the central idea in the academic circles in our country has been the omnipotence of science. [. . .] Whenever a word touches on science, as if it would carry the force of ten thousand pounds of thunder and lightening, all people would say yes, and no one would dare to disagree.” That was why, said Zhang, questioning science's ability to determine philosophies of life would horrify Ding, while in Europe and America the question had been raised since the late nineteenth century.[16] Citing Western sources, Zhang made a point about the difference between spiritual sciences and material sciences. The latter, such as astronomy, physics, and mathematics, were universal and based on the law of cause and effect, whereas the former such as economics, sociology, and politics were society or culture specific, and were not always based on the law of cause and effect, and what they studied were often unpredictable. “Despite regarded by scholars as sciences to this day, in reality social sciences cannot be viewed in the same category as physics and biology.” Such terms as “social science” and “political science” misled people to regard those disciplines as sciences.[17] This comment suggests that Zhang deliberately used the terms “spiritual sciences” and “material sciences” to emphasize their differences in dealing with very different phenomena, even though he did not think spiritual sciences (social sciences) were sciences at all. He then explained that what social sciences dealt with but were unable to predict belonged to what he called philosophies of life. Correcting Ding’s misrepresentation, or revising his own presentation, of his point, Zhang stated that philosophies of life were above and beyond science but does not counter science, and therefore the issue of its divorce from science did not exist.[18] Zhang Junmai fired back at Ding Wenjing’s broadside about plagiarizing the theory of European metaphysicians. He listed seven instances, side by side, down to page numbers, where Ding used the same arguments and languages as Karl Pearson did. “I do not know how [Ding] Zaijun defines plagiarism (xiqu). Should the above examples be regarded as plagiarism? I will tell [Ding] Zaijun frankly: Of so-called scholars in today’s China, not one really makes any invention, and all plagiarize (chaoxi) what foreigners said. Individuals each read books and then follow and advocate what suit their own temperaments. Equally plagiarizing, however, there are so many to be plagiarized, and individuals can freely select [what they want]. Did [Hu Shi] not plagiarize Dewey? Did the Communist Party not plagiarize Marx? In my view, even plagiarism is not a problem. The only problem is that Zaijun claimed not to plagiarize, yet his writing is [similar to the original] to such a degree, without regard for other people’s copy rights (banquan), that I have to feel sorry for Zaijun.”[19] These comments brought to the fore for the first time the issues of plagiarism and copyrights that had never been considered problems by Chinese readers, writers, editors, and publishers. Just as Zhang’s comment would suggest, however, the issue

thus raised had little effect on the behavior of all these parties at the time—plagiarism was an accepted practice in cultural production and consumption, especially with regard to foreign sources. Zhang then proceeded to discredit Karl Pearson’s epistemology on which Ding Wenjing relied, by citing opposing views from Western sources from British philosopher David Hume to American psychologist Carl R. Rogers (1902–1987) who visited Beijing for an international Christian conference in 1922. Zhang rejected as illogical the adjective “scientific” that Ding placed before “epistemology” because epistemology was a philosophical issue, and a scientist’s epistemology need not compare to a philosopher’s. Reflecting his intellectual inclination, which was by no means blindly anti-Western, Zhang recommended Immanuel Kant’s philosophy as the most comprehensive and convincing because it accommodated both the law of cause and effect that governed the physical world and the free will that guided ethics and morality (philosophies of life). Significantly, however, Zhang called on Chinese intellectuals, both those who studied under the British philosophical school and those who studied under the German school, not to just repeat what they learned from their mentors but to transcend and reconcile both the British empiricism and the German idealism to develop a new intellectual path.[20] The sixth and final installment of Zhang’s rejoinder appeared on May 14, 1923. It dealt with two issues: 1) the material civilization of the West and its merits and defects and 2) theories of inner moral cultivation and of evidential research. On the first issue, Zhang held that all societies and peoples had material and cultural life, and the term “material civilization” was applied to the West because its civilization in the recent three hundred years manifested four characteristics: 1) mechanistic outlook (jixielun) became the mental tool to explain everything from natural world to biology and psychology and even human life; 2) academics were inclined to make physical manufactures or inventions, which were fully protected by the state; 3) industry and commerce became national pursuits; and 4) the state’s sole policy was to gain wealth through overseas expansion and back up overseas investments with diplomacy and military force. “Per these four factors, human life seems to exist for materials and money, not the other way around—that is why it is called material civilization.” Thus Zhang gave a clearer definition of “material civilization,” a term widely used but seldom defined at that time. His argument had strength in that he defined “material civilization” as a historical phenomena, in terms of the intellectual, economic, social, and political orientations in modern Europe and America, not as the intrinsic nature or “essence” of Westerners. By contrast, Zhang continued, “Chinese culture had more complicated contents. A dominant religion that would drive people to study the natural world was absent; economy was based on agriculture so that money-calculating merchants (shikuai) and machine-operating workers had no place to use their skills; the seclusion policy did not allow absorbing profits from other countries; as for a philosophy of life, it was fostered by the theory of golden means, without mechanism, teleology (mudilun), or individualism and socialism. In comparison with the West, the East contains what one

can rely on to live in peace, so people all call it spiritual civilization. Whether China’s spiritual civilization should be improved is one thing, and whether the Western material civilization should be modeled is another.” With familiar arguments about the Western pattern of social and economic developments that resulted in imperialism, Zhang rejected it as a model for China. He believed that China needed industrial and commercial developments, but in order to avoid the related ill effects thereof, socialism was needed.[21] Here Zhang's was not an anti-Western position, but an anticapitalist and pro-socialist one—he held that socialism would improve China's “spiritual civilization” by allowing economic development but avoiding its social ills. This constitutes a contrast to Liang Qichao's position (Chapter 5). On the issue of inner moral cultivation, Zhang contrasted what he called three traits of European civilization—1) nationalism, 2) industrialism and mercantilism, and 3) study of natural world [to control it]—with the inner world (nei) defined by Confucius and Mencius to explain his view of the meanings of human life. To understand the Confucian inner world, one has to reject success and profit in order to cultivate self and pursue inner peace, and to reject wealthy nation and strong army in order to achieve good governance (zhiguo) and an egalitarian and peaceful country. “Because I embrace this belief, I am dissatisfied with today’s science education and industrial-commercial policies and seek to change them. Yet, how can today’s humankind, wrapped in three layers of shackles [nationalism, industrial-mercantilism, and the urge to control natural world], be changed by a quiet uttering of the term ‘inner life’?” Zhang further explained why he believed in the theories of inner cultivation of Neo-Confucians as well as idealism of Bergson and Eucken—what Ding Wenjiang called “xuanxue.” Such inner moral cultivation was what China would need in order to change the corrupt politics that could not be changed by either European materialism or the Qing evidential research praised by Liang Qichao, Hu Shi, and Ding Wenjiang. [22] These arguments most clearly stated Zhang’s political concerns which his initial lecture on philosophies of life tried but failed to convey. His invoking an inner world or inner life that characterized Chinese civilization again reminds us of Partha Chatterjee's point on cultural nationalism (Chapter 5). As many participants in the debate seized on some side issues causing the debate to lose focus, Liang Qichao tried to steer the debate back on course by issuing a bravo on May 9, 1923. He called “xuexue and science” the fundamental issue in the universe and hailed the debate “unprecedented,” an extremely fortunate phenomenon in the academic circles, especially because the two parties were his personal friends. He proposed two rules of debate: 1) The two sides should focus on the main issue, not get diverted by secondary issues; and 2) they should be courteous and sincere, not use sarcasm and insult.[23] On May 25 Sun Fuyuan stepped into the arena too, asking for clearer definitions of the terms used in the debate. He gave his own definitions as follows: Metaphysics (xuanxue) studies the whole universe; sciences study the universe separately; a philosophy of life is a person's (or a group of people's) understanding of or attitude toward life; and philosophy studies life both as a whole and separately. He asked

Ding and Zhang not to bring the Han and Song Confucian schools into the debate, since these had little to do with the issues at hand.[24] In fact, of course, these schools were very much an important part, and indeed the starting point, of Zhang Junmai’s position. As the editor, Sun attempted to steer the debate toward an intellectually more fruitful outcome and to make it more interesting to readers. Ding Wenjing’s next response to Zhang Junmai appeared on June 6–9. A noteworthy part was his disagreement with Zhang regarding the divide between the inner and outer worlds or self and non-self. For Zhang, sciences dealt with the outer world or non-self, and philosophies of life were about the inner world and self. Ding countered that whether or not self and non-self or spirit and matter were separable was a fundamental philosophical question in itself. Modern Western philosophers, from Mach, Dewey, and Russell onward, all cast doubts on the independence of “self,” even if they differed from one another; and their views were all based on scientific methods, but were incompatible with Zhang Junmai’s view which was inherited from Aristotle and out of date. “Whichever school of philosophy we believe in, as long as we do not completely ignore the results of biology and psychology, we can never believe there is spirit beyond matter, or an inner world separate from the outer world, or self independent of non-self.” Both material (natural) and spiritual (humanist) phenomena were to be studied with scientific methods. Finally, Ding gave a definition of “philosophy of life” for the first time: “A person’s philosophy of life is his knowledge and emotion and his attitude toward knowledge and emotion.” Emotion was inherited and its development depended on environment; and knowledge was acquired but its driving force was also inherited. There used to be no standards for knowledge and emotion, but the progress of sciences in the past few centuries provided methods (he substituted “methods” for “standards” without explanation). The methods applied to knowledge had produced many achievements, and emotion should be guided by knowledge to develop to a higher level and in a correct direction.[25] This discussion does not seem elegant or logical, but for Ding, “a philosophy of life” was unimportant or even a non-issue anyway. Zhang Junmai issued a public notice on June 7 that due to his work on the transcripts of Dresch’s lectures and his travel plans, he was unable to make further response to the debate and would respond later.[26] But he did not write again on the subject. Finally, Liang Qichao came forward to comment on the arguments by Ding and Zhang. Under the title “Philosophies of life and Science,” instead of “xuanxue and science,” Liang defined the two terms which he said Ding and Zhang failed to define clearly. Life was a combination of human beings’ material and mental conditions and a philosophy of life was an ideal about how to complete such a life; and sciences were rules arrived at from analysis and synthesis of experienced facts and were approximations to truth. He concluded that “the aspects of human life which have to do with reason are to be resolved by science, and those which have to do with emotions are absolutely beyond science.”[27] Thus, Liang was on the side of Zhang

Junmai. Liang's last point received a sharp rebuttal from Tang Yue, a Cornell-educated professor of psychology at Beida, who believed that nothing was beyond scientific analysis.[28] Other academics who weighed in included the following: Lin Zaiping and Zhang Dongsun criticized Ding Wenjiang’s arguments.[29] Zhang Yancun, Zhu Jingnong, and Hu Shi wrote in the Endeavor to question Zhang Junmai’s various points (republished in the Fukan).[30] In retrospect, one is under-whelmed by the debate for its dearth of theoretical elegance and sophistication. The participants in the debate cited Western theories according to their personal temperaments, or in Zhang’s words, they “plagiarized” whatever they liked. On the other hand, behind all these confused and confusing arguments, the central concern of all was clear, that is, what China should do with Western culture and Chinese tradition in order to survive and thrive in the modern world. This enduring issue could not be and was not solved by the debate. In a sense, Chinese intellectuals were trapped by the vocabularies and paradigms of both Western discourse and Chinese tradition. They were unable to “think out of the box” by breaking away from either Western or Chinese philosophical categories, because doing so would deprive themselves of intellectual resources. On the other hand, both sides in the debate resorted to Western intellectual resources, and the difference is that Ding Wenjing used science to negate Western metaphysics along with Chinese philosophy, while Zhang Junmai affirmed Western metaphysics along with Chinese philosophy as a basis for philosophies of life. In the end, the debate did not break new ground—either moral or epistemological, but revealed an underlying problematic in the intellectual life in the New Culture era and beyond—the relationship between Western and Chinese cultures.

THE RULES OF LOVE The Fukan would not have thrived on debates such as the one described above, however. Not very sophisticated as it may seem by today’s standards, the kind of debate that cited Western and Chinese philosophers was over the heads of most Fukan readers, and not many would be able to participate in debates at that level. Yet, the Fukan was popular because it simultaneously hosted many other debates that did not require specialized knowledge and training, thus inviting average readers to participate. A case in point is the debate on the “rules of love,” even though it was also initiated by Beida professors.[31] In early 1923 Tan Xihong, a professor of biology at Beida, unexpectedly became a center of attention when his private life was thrown into public view by the Chenbao and its supplement. The known fact was that Tan’s wife Chen Weijun died of scarlet fever in March 1922, leaving two young children, and in less than two months Tan married her younger sister Chen Shujun, age 22, who had come to their home from Guangzhou some time before the death of her sister in order to attend Beida as an audit student (intending to pass an entrance exam to matriculate the following year).

In January 1923 a certain Mr. Shen Houpei wrote a letter to the Chenbao to complain that he and Chen Shujun had been engaged in Guangzhou and Tan Xihong seduced and pressured Chen to marry him.[32] In response, Chen Shujun sent a letter to the Chenbao to question why the newspaper published Shen's one-sided, untruthful story. She stated that there was no engagement or agreement between her and Shen and only Shen was pursuing her, that her marriage with Tang Xihong was “purely based on personal freedom and mutual wish, on which there is no place for any third party to comment,” and that she would not respond to any further interference in her personal freedom upheld by law.[33] Besides writing his letter to the Chenbao, Shen also handed out in the streets leaflets on which were printed some poems supposedly written by Chen showing affection for Shen.[34] These developments turned a private love triangle into a matter of public debate and caused many readers to denounce either Tan or Chen or both for an “immoral” union. As far as the Chenbao was concerned, this media event would have followed a familiar pattern, in which publishers would try to sell their papers by publicizing sensational news and controversies about perceived “sexual scandals” with little intellectual significances, had it not been for the intervention from Zhang Jingsheng (1888–1970), a professor of philosophy at Beida with a doctoral degree from France. Zhang’s article, “The Rules of Love and A Study of Lady Chen Shujun Incident,” appeared in the Fukan on April 29, 1923. In his analysis, there were four rules of love: 1) Love was conditional. The most important conditions for love to occur included feelings (ganqing), personal character (renge), physical appearance (zhuangmao), intellectual ability (caineng), reputation (mingyu), possession of property (caichan), etc. The better conditions one had, the more love he or she would get; none of the conditions, none of love. 2) Love was comparable. The conditions were considered better or worse by comparison. Choosing marriage partners through comparison “is an indispensable rule in human psychology.” 3) Love was changeable. That was why there were breakups of engagement and marriage, “which are unnecessary in the view of those of us with stubborn minds, but actually are legitimate occurrences according to the rule that love is changeable.” 4) A married couple was one of many kinds of friendship. The relationship between a husband and a wife was more intimate and more intense than that between friends of other kinds, and therefore was more difficult to maintain. Zhang emphasized that those who wanted true and complete love would have to work every moment to improve their conditions in order for mutual love to grow forever; otherwise, the conditions on one side or the other would deteriorate, and love would diminish and marriage break down. In China men treated wives as properties and wives practiced the rule of “marrying the dog, following the dog.” “Since we are in this detestable Chinese society, in inhumane families, and among people who are completely against the rules of love, of course a certain segment of the population would be scandalized upon seeing that Lady Chen Shujun left Shen for Tan.” Zhang called Chen a new style, freedom-loving woman who understood and practiced the rules of love.[35] Thus Zhang implied that the critics of

Tan and Chen were trapped by “old moral propriety (jiulijiao)” and ignorant of the rules of love. In making his comments, Zhang Jingsheng did not try to define what love was nor make a distinction between conditions for love and those for marriage, and did not make clear whether the rules of love were subjective justifications commonly used for personal behavior or objective facts supported by hard evidence from psychological and sociological research. In any case, it appeared to Fukan readers that Zhang was defending Chen’s decision to marry Tan, with an assumption that Chen shifted her love for Shen (a nobody) to Tan (a Beida professor) per the rules of love. In effect the connection Zhang made between the rules of love and Chen’s action put Tan and Chen in a worse light than before in the eyes of some readers (one reader blamed Zhang specifically for causing that effect), and more importantly, his discourse on the rules of love itself went much further in pointing out the inherent instability of love and marriage than the Tan-Chen case suggested and thus had wider social-cultural-moral implications. Many readers were stirred to respond. Unlike the debate on science vs. philosophies of life, the issue of love and marriage seemed to be something everyone could have an opinion on. This debate reflected the minds and attitudes of a larger segment of educated Chinese, especially the younger generation who faced the issue. In fact, that was exactly the reason Sun Fuyuan gave in his editorial note for allowing a lively debate over the issue to unfold. Sun did not publish readers' responses until May 18, and he placed them under a column heading, “Discussions on the Rules of Love,” signaling that a debate was starting. He offered an introduction: Hoping to bring young readers into the discussion by publishing Zhang’s article, he was disappointed that the majority of the responses he had received spoke on behalf of the old moral propriety. This showed, he said, that young people did not study hard, nor used their mind to think, and only relied on traditional opinions they heard from average people in the streets. He forecast that Zhang Jingsheng will write an article to respond, after all contributions were published, to correct their mistakes.[36] As some readers would later complain, Sun was prejudging a debate even before it began. But to Sun’s credit, he published all important pieces from readers, mostly college students and a few professors, that criticized Zhang’s article. Liang Guochang, a contributor, held that judging by the known facts (summarized earlier), Tan Xihong was to blame. “Tan Xihong was a Beida professor. Being a person with higher education and a teacher at the best institution of higher education in the country, [he] occupies a position of leadership and model for the country and his every action and move has some influence on social norms and people’s minds, so the moral standards placed on him should be several times more stricter than on average people. What I have to say below is to criticize him with higher moral standards, above and beyond laws and social customs.” Liang unwittingly conceded that Tan could not be judged wrong by laws and social customs of the time, only by an individual’s sense of morality. In Liang’s opinion, it was the highest of human morality that both men and women be faithful to their spouses, dead or alive, and the

Chinese tradition was wrong only in that it did not require men to be faithful to their wives. By logic, Liang was suggesting, in 1923, that even the cult of widow chastity was the highest human morality and should be extended to include “widower chastity.” Liang regarded Tan as immoral for remarry, for remarrying too soon after his wife’s death, and for possibly seducing or imposing himself upon his late wife’s younger sister who had been engaged with another man already. As for Zhang’s rules of love, Liang found them objectionable because Zhang was justifying irresponsible behavior of people who would break marriages constantly in order to pursue (by comparison) better love and marriage.[37] Liang's was the most harsh position against Tan Xihong based on traditional morals, to which Lu Xun would respond, as we shall see. Similarly, several contributors disagreed with Zhang Jingsheng who seemed to encourage married people to break their marriages in order to seek love based on better conditions, and they objected to the inclusion of such material things as ability (manifested in career, etc.), reputation, and property as conditions for love, reflecting a more idealistic, romantic notion of love.[38] Ding Wen’an, another contributor, tried to be theoretical to match Zhang Jingsheng’s seemingly scientific arguments. He said that love was something mysterious and inexplicable and that people just used the word “love” to describe an emotional state of mind. He nevertheless described love as follows: True love would come only after two persons get acquainted, and examined and finally understood one another; true love should not change just because of changing conditions; and therefore love that would easily change was not true love at all.[39] Pei Xiyu, yet another contributor, maintained that love was two hearts touching one another without other purposes and that conditions would only decide whether love would occur, but could not change true love after it occurred—otherwise why had so many men and women died for love throughout the history of China and the world and why did they not just change their love?[40] Indeed, Zhang’s view that love was changeable seemed to undermine a more idealistic construction of love, and therefore unsettled many people including both those who would romanticize what was called love and those who would worry that if being unfaithful was justified by the rule that love was changeable, marriages would break up too easily and social chaos would ensue. Feng Shizhao, a Beida professor who said he did not know Tan and Zhang personally, contributed his opinion more or less along this line. He agreed with Zhang’s fourth rule, but disagreed with the first three. Like Ding Wen’an, he held that love was mysterious and could not be analyzed and explained scientifically as Zhang tried to do—people in love were unable to answer the question “why you love me.” Love meant that one person would love another person as a whole person, not love his or her conditions. Feng accused Zhang of insulting Chen Shujun by assuming that Chen married Tan for his better conditions.[41] As if to bear out Feng’s last point, Ding Lewen, a contributor, accepted Zhang’s premise and felt Chen should be blamed for changing her heart, not Tan for marrying

her. Ding Lewen disagreed with the rules of love, however. Like Ding Wen’an, he held that pure, true love did not involve any kind of conditions. “The highest, most intense, incomparable feelings that already exist between two friends of opposite sexes, plus sexual senses or even sexual act, are love or falling in love.” If Zhang’s rules were true, people would be in constant pursuit of better conditions for love, since comparisons of such conditions would be endless. Notably, Ding stated that in expressing his view, he was not representing the old moral propriety or trying to remedy “social norms and people’s mind” or promoting “noble morality.”[42] This disclaimer seems to suggest that at the time any hint of trying to remedy social norms and people’s minds or promote noble morality would be equated to representing the old moral propriety. In other words, the iconoclastic discourse of the time was of such force that the “old moral propriety” had become a dirty phrase among educated youth. Peng Baxun’s was a better argued article, in that he made a distinction between love and marriage. In Peng’s view, love was toward a person—his or her “spiritual” conditions such as temperament, knowledge, personal character, and the like, instead of material conditions. And people who fell in love might not pay attention even to the spiritual at the beginning. This kind of love did not have other motivations, and it just grew out of true feelings that could not be suppressed, not be controlled by rationality and changed by external things. It would only pursue satisfaction and happiness of spiritual life, and it might result in marriage. But it was not rare that love did not result in marriage because conditions for marriage did not exist, and that was why many love tragedies existed. If a person would change his or her heart to love a third person because the latter’s material conditions were better, then it was not love, but a desire for material things. As for the rules of marriage, they would include both spiritual and material aspects, but in China’s reality such perfect marriages were rare. “If we want to have marriage completely based on love, we must break up the existing system, and socializing [between sexes] must be completely open, so that we can make choices before committing to love.” Finally, Peng stated that he had no issues with the Tan-Chen marriage, and he found it unnecessary and unhelpful that Zhang invented the rules of love to defend Tan and Chen.[43] Other contributions in the Fukan went little beyond the views cited above, in terms of substantive arguments. Some contributors resorted to sarcastic attacks against Tan Xihong, Chen Shujun, and Zhang Jingsheng,[44] while others were convinced that as a friend of Tan Xihong, Zhang went out of his way to defend Tan.[45] At least two contributions were supporting, or not disagreeing with, Zhang’s rules of love.[46] Curiously, although the issues of love and marriage arguably belonged to philosophies of life and therefore were directly relevant to the debate over science and philosophies of life that was taking place simultaneously, neither Zhang Jingsheng, nor Sun Fuyuan, nor any contributors made that connection. This again suggests that the debate on science and philosophies of life was perceived to be too theoretical for lay people to join.

In the meantime, however, readers raised an issue important to this book, that is, how the editor Sun Fuyuan handled the debate. On June 12, 1923, after the responses to Zhang’s article had been published for twenty-three days, Sun began publishing readers’ comments on the debate itself. Chen Xichou objected to Sun’s introduction on May 18 for several reasons. 1) On what ground did Sun equate expressing views of old moral propriety to not studying hard? 2) Sun should be impartial, not in favor of one or the other side. 3) Why should Zhang Jingsheng write a final article to correct mistakes in responses to his original article? Chen noted that the Shishi Xinbao, a newspaper in Shanghai, also published articles criticizing Zhang’s view but without any comment—“I very much support its neutral attitude.”[47] On the other hand, Zhong Menggong said that he was tired of the views published up to that point, because they were “worthless, except providing evidence that the Chinese are not qualified to have debates.” He suggested that Sun should end the discussion or be more selective, not to publish obvious nonsense, so as to save readers’ time and save those contributors from exposing their own ugliness.[48] A third reader expressed the same impatience as Zhong Menggong’s: “Like clowns in old theaters, upon ascending the stage, [contributors] curse and laugh [at Tan, Chen, and Zhang], without reason and evidence—at least one half of the participants in the debate had this attitude.” He questioned Sun’s policy of publishing all contributions and using the debate as a “test of contemporary youth” [Sun’s words], and asked Sun not to publish those pieces that failed the test, and asked contributors to spare readers such shallow arguments.[49] Sun Fuyuan appended his response as follows: He did try to publish betterargued contributions but did not get such, so that he published what he received with his editorial introduction. Some contributors had demanded publishing their pieces by calling the Fukan “the public organ of speech” (gongkai de yanlun jiguan), and he thought it would not hurt the supplement too much to open its space for them temporarily. “I think that except obvious grammatical and logical errors, there are no precise standards [to judge] differences in opinion after all.” Sun added, however, that he could not continue to waste the Fukan’s space and its readers’ time just to expose contributors’ shallowness. Based on readers’ advices (conveyed to him orally and by letters), he would select a few more valuable pieces to publish within a few days and then ask Zhang Jingsheng to write a concluding article.[50] After a three-day hiatus, Sun published another five readers’ letters on his handling of the debate. Of five letters, three did not want the debate to close, and one of the three was from Lu Xun. He wondered whether Sun Fuyuan was taking advice from Zhong Menggong to end the debate, since only two letters and no debating contributions were published on June 12. I think that [Zhong’s] letter is an advice that is not without reason, but in abnormal China, [the editor] can handle the advice in an abnormal way, instead of following it. To be sure, a majority of the twenty some articles previously published was

bizarre and had little relationship with the debate on the rules of love, but on the other hand, as reference materials they can offer unexpected value. These can not only jolt reformers, slightly awakening them from their golden dreams, but also “provide evidence that the Chinese are not qualified to have such debates” [Zhong Menggong’s words], which is where the value of these articles lie. I have little socializing, and what enables me to connect with society relies largely on such black words on white paper, so they really have benefited me. For example, such statements as “teacher should be especially strictly dealt with” and “[if you] advocate love is changeable, then be careful that your wife will change heart and not love you” are interesting to think about, making one feel both at loss and a sense of loss; without such debates in newspapers, one would not have easily heard of, nor easily thought of, those ideas. If [such articles] were to be “stopped by a deadline” and the place for such famous statements to publish be blocked, would not that be a pity?[51] Sun Fuyuan alerted readers to pay special attention to Lu Xun’s letter and carefully appreciate its flavor: We should never forget that Lu Xun is the author of “The Diary of a Madman” and of “A True Story of Ah Q.” The reason why one is never tired of reading his works time and again, and why they enable one to feel a pleasant interest amidst an extremely inner bitterness and pain, entirely lies in his materials that he collected in such a piecemeal way from day-to-day life. Mr. Zhong Menggong is a youth (naturally this is an arbitrary word, since I to date do not know whether or not he is a youth) and has the temperament of a youth, upon inhaling obnoxious smell, either wanting to flee at once or wanting to remove that obnoxious thing at once. Lu Xun would do differently: Like the zoologist treating venomous snakes, the psychologist treating the insane, the medical doctor treating contagious germs, while other people are scared to flee with their ears covered, he would take an attitude of research, without changing his expression and voice at all. Regrettably, however, after I publish this private letter, I am afraid the “valuable” speeches will inevitably decrease day by day. Actually, per the rule of psychological test, we can never tell test-takers that “we are collecting these as materials for the use of research.”[52] As noted in Chapter 1, Sun Fuyuan had a close relationship with and respected Lu Xun. The comment cited above, however, showed Sun's appreciation of Lu Xun's works, and indicated Sun’s own approach to his editing in a similar fashion as Lu Xun wrote his essays, for example, with a sense of irony and sarcasm. Also clear was that both Sun Fuyuan and Lu Xun were supportive of Zhang Jingsheng’s position to break with old moral propriety, even if not entirely agreeing with all his arguments. No more readers’ contributions were published, because Zhang Jingsheng sent in his concluding article earlier than planned due to his travel plans. The long article

appeared on June 20 and 22. Zhang stated that he had no personal friendship with Tan Xihong, and he actually disagreed with Tan on a public issue at Beida; and he mentioned Chen Shujun only because he thought Chen fit the rules of love and therefore used the case as an example. Zhang used much of the eight pages to refute several contributors’ arguments and their logic, which need not concern us here. His most important point is that he was talking about the perfect love [an ideal type] that included both the spiritual and material aspects, which could be analyzed objectively, no matter how people would experience love subjectively. He said that his critics thought he was justifying divorces by saying love was changeable, because they confused the system of marriage with the rules of love.[53] Zhang seems to have been unable to admit that he did not differentiate the two but instead conflated them in the first place. Zhou Zuoren did not directly participate in the debate, but after it ended he published a commentary on a Japanese work, “The Creation of Love,” and took the opportunity to voice his view—he said he deliberately waited for the debate to end before publishing this piece. However inappropriate some of the sentences in Zhang’s article were, Zhou said, Zhang was correct that those who wanted true and complete love had to work hard for it every moment to improve the mutual conditions for love, on one hand to take pleasure at the evolution of love and on the other hand to forestall competition from adversaries. Zhou revealed that he and his wife did exactly that. Zhou reserved sharp words for Zhang’s critics: But moral propriety experts (daoxuejia) are panicked upon hearing [Zhang’s view], and [since they] think love should be unchanging forever, this view is the evil theory that harms social norms and people’s mind. All along the expert is ‘neurotic’ [Zhou’s English], and his special trait is that he feels he is of low and fragile quality; he opposes liberation of the two sexes because he knows that without the oppression by the tradition, he would certainly go promiscuous and could not control himself, and if there is free competition in love he would certainly have no chance of winning. [. . .] One who really loves is like the gardener: He must devote considerable energy in order to cultivate good flowers, while these moral propriety experts are just fishers of sex. Generally speaking, neurotics are most afraid of hearing theories not benefiting themselves. For example, the Chinese oppose the theory of struggle for survival because [they] do not have survival capability, not because the Chinese extremely love peace; now for the same reason the opposition is voiced to the theory that love is changeable. But facts are the biggest threat, and how long can their pink dreams continue? Love is giving, not remuneration, whereas Chinese marriage is commerce; the difference between the two is really too wide.[54] The debate over the rules of love was worth noting because it reflected the changing social and cultural norms and practices in China in the 1920s. At the time

the Qing dynasty law was no longer in effect, and the new draft civil code (produced in the final years of the Qing) was not officially promulgated yet.[55] So relationships between the sexes were largely shaped by social customs and prevailing moral values, and these were changing too. The arranged marriage was breaking down in larger cities where free love and free marriage were practiced by educated people. The discourses on love and marriage in opposition to arranged marriage, or on romantic love and individual sexuality in particular, were liberating, but they were also disquieting to both those who opposed free love and marriage or those who embraced it. Unstable marriages (i.e., divorces) and real or perceived promiscuity upset people who held traditional values on one hand and made young people insecure and uneasy in their relationships with the opposite sex on the other. The choices made by educated Chinese in regard to love and marriage were personal and varied across a full spectrum, as shown by some established intellectuals whose biographies are familiar. Besides Tan Xihong’s case, for instance, Hu Shi, a Beida professor, chose to never divorce his wife with bound feet from a marriage arranged by his mother; Zhou Zuoren, another Beida professor, would stay with his Japanese wife of free marriage for his life (and worked on their love as he revealed); and Lu Xun, a writer and part-time professor at several universities, after sticking to a nominal marriage with his uneducated wife arranged by his mother from 1906, began to cohabit with Xu Guangping, a student of his, in 1928 when he was forty-seven; and finally, the ultimate irony, Zhang Jingsheng, who advocated the rules of love, divorced his first wife arranged by his parents, and married Zhu Wenjuan freely, only to see her leave him; and he was to publicly denounce her action in a journal, New Culture! Such was the social context in which the debate over the rules of love occurred. The debate itself in turn constituted part of the changing social-cultural milieu in which educated Chinese lived and explored full meanings of self and individuality including those of love, marriage, and sexuality.

NATIONALISM, SOCIALISM, AND INDIVIDUALISM From the Twenty-One Demands of 1915 to the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, Japan emerged as the major imperialist threat to China and a primary target of the rising Chinese nationalist movement. Anti-Japanese boycotts were launched by Chinese nationalists on and off in various locations in the country during that period and beyond. In early 1923, in response to Japan’s refusal to abrogate the TwentyOne Demands in the wake of the Washington Conference of 1921–1922, a fresh movement seeking the recovery of Port Arthur and Dalian from Japanese control was launched. According the reports in the New York Times, anti-Japanese boycotts were enforced by activists in several cities, including Shashi, Hubei province, and Changsha, Hunan province.[56] By early summer the Hunan Federation of Labor Unions in Changsha (provincial capital) set up a Society for Backing the Diplomacy (waijiao houyuan hui) to enforce an anti-Japanese boycott. As Chinese pickets tried to block a Japanese ship from unloading goods at Changsha, Japanese marines fired

on the Chinese, killing two and wounding dozens. In response citizens of Changsha staged rallies and demonstrations, along with strikes by workers and students, which were all suppressed under the order of provincial governor Zhao Hengti, while the Chinese government in Beijing made a diplomatic protest to Japan.[57] “Japan’s reply to China’s note of yesterday,” the New York Times reported, “demanding an apology for the shooting of Chinese rioters by Japanese marines at Changsha, province of Hunan, June 2, and the withdrawal of Japanese gunboats from Changsha, was the dispatch today of four destroyers from the Sasebo Base to reinforce the Japanese patrol on the Yangtse river and the official statement that Japan was determined to defend the lives and property of her nationals in China.”[58] The situation sketched above formed the background for a debate in the Fukan during July–September 1923. A contributor pen-named Haoran sent in an article expressing his disapproval of the anti-Japanese boycott. Sun Fuyuan published the article and subsequent responses in the column “Random Thoughts.” Haoran argued against boycott in such a dismissive and sarcastic way that some readers suspected the author was a Japanese national. “If a person does not try to compete with the other side in all other ways, but comes up with the lowest strategy of boycotting goods, such a person cannot be cured with medicine. Yet, the Chinese are greatly absorbed in this [strategy]. Perhaps the not-buy-American-goods [movement] more than ten years ago would count as the beginning of the Chinese boycott. Later on the same game was played once with Great Britain. Now all energy was devoted against Japan.” Haoran did not think boycott would be effective and he personally did not care in which country goods he would buy were made. He cited the French and the Germans who fought each other in WWI not boycotting one another to argue that boycott was a bad idea. His key argument was an opposition to nationalism (guojia zhuyi) and to the concept of nation (guo). This thing called nation is only a tool the rich class uses to maintain and increase its wealth, and common people need not be deceived by it. [. . .] People of rich classes rely on this plaything called nation to eat their meals. Not seeing through what game [rich classes] are playing, common people are confined in the cage of nation and made to follow the [rich classes’] orders willingly and loyally. As long as this trick is not recognized, the world will not have one day of peace. Historically, the Chinese had been indifferent to the concept of nation and not as easily fooled by the trick as other peoples; now other peoples have began to recognize [the trick], and the Chinese are running in the opposite direction, not recognizing it. “Boycott” is the worst kind of the nation concept, and the lowest kind of way to carry out nationalism. Finally, Haoran said that he had read the news that the Japanese government was to use stern methods to deal with the Chinese boycott movement; “it is a pity that citizens may be able to resist my little article, but will certainly submit tamely to the Japanese intervention.”[59]

Responses to Haoran’s article appeared five days later. A majority criticized Haoran’s view from various positions. Confusions in ideologies abounded: A contributor would argue from a nationalist position yet state his opposition to nationalism; and “nation” and “state” were conflated or juxtaposed since both terms were rendered “guojia” in Chinese. Articles in support of Haoran ranged from a utopian cosmopolitan view offered by a college student to a profoundly pessimistic view of Chinese national character and China’s future penned by Zhou Zuoren. It is these multifarious views that are worthy of examination to appreciate the degree to which educated Chinese understood and misunderstood various ideologies at the time. The first issue involved in the debate was nationalism. Peng Guanqin of the Qinghua School found Haoran’s view erroneous, even if socialist. Peng argued against Haoran’s privileging “class” over “nation”—what he took as a socialist position. The Chinese were boycotting Japanese goods because the Japanese oppressed the Chinese; even if national boundaries had been broken and the private property system abolished, speaking from the principle of human community and not referring to international law, the Chinese as human beings should have a chance to live, and the Japanese as human beings should not bully other peoples and destroy their happiness. “We should help people who were oppressed and trying to resist the oppressor.” More importantly, Peng was not convinced that one should casually dismiss “nation” the way Haoran did. “Is nation only a tool for rich classes to maintain themselves? It is beyond dispute that Koreans do not have a nation (nor recognize Japanese nation as their nation), yet what is the situation of the Korean common people nowadays?” Even if the Chinese should not care about the nation that is a tool for the rich, Peng argued, the Chinese should still be concerned about their own happiness.[60] Lin Jiajun, a reader from Tianjin, questioned Haoran’s assertion that peoples in other countries had seen through the nature of nation and moved away from it. “I would like to ask whether the June First Incident [Japanese marines shooting Chinese protesters] in Changsha is the evidence that Japan has changed ‘from not seeing through to seeing through [the nature of nation].’ In recent days newspapers reported the shocking news about [a proposal for] joint international administration (guoji gongguan) of China; if that is true, is this the evidence that Great Britain, the United States, Japan, France, and other countries have changed from ‘not seeing through to seeing through [the nature of nation]?” Lin argued that nationalism was incompatible with the ideals for the future, and that cosmopolitanism [or universal equality] (datong zhuyi) and world peace were in urgent need of being promoted. Yet, at the moment those were but fantasies, and no one would know when they could be realized. “Now, of Great Britain, the United States, France, Japan, and other countries, which one does not raise the golden signs of ‘justice,’ ‘humanity,’ and ‘peace’ as deception and self-deception, while carrying out under such covers their capitalism, imperialism, and militarism to exploit and oppress other nations?” China should not promote nationalism to follow the steps of imperialist countries, but “if the Koreans and the

Vietnamese who had lost their nations wanted to have universal equality with Japan and France, it would be like the insane talking about dreams or the idiotic having no shame.” Under the circumstances China found itself, Lin argued, the sole path for China to save itself was to promote nationalism. Only when China was strong enough to resist foreign oppressions and be equal to other countries, could China be the “first awakened” in the world to effectively promote and practice universal equality and peace, for the benefit of humankind. Indeed, it was shameful and pitiful that having no strength to resist foreign oppressions and no place to plea for justice and to right wrongs, the Chinese could only resort to a passive means—boycott, which was by no means absurd, however.[61] This was one of the better argued pieces in the debate. While exhibiting a strong nationalist sentiment and a grasp of the reality, it was reasonable and logical. Importantly, the author articulated a need to reconcile and prioritize between the nationalistic agenda and the cosmopolitan vision. The point about imperialist powers' hypocrisy of carrying out imperialist design under the cover of trumpeting justice, peace, and humanity was a powerful critique of imperialism. Han Jiexian, a reader from Yanqing county near Beijing, argued along the same line as Lin’s against Haoran’s assertion that other countries moved away from the notion of nation and nationalism. Why does Mr. Haoran favor ideals in disregard of facts? To overthrow the black walls [separating] humankind—national borders—is also my most urgent and enduring desire. But what era is it now? Why did France occupy Ruhr? Why did the United States always want to get involved in the ‘oil issue’ in central Asia? Has Trotsky not repeatedly declared to wage wars for life and death issues? [. . .] At this time when murderous threats arose from four sides [of our country], if we sang the noble tune of all under heaven being one family and breaking borders among nations, then what would be the difference between the behavior of Song Xianggong and ours![62] The result would be that not only the ideal goal we want to achieve would be for naught, but also the home base on which we rely to realize our plan would not be ours.[63] Yan Caiqi, yet another contributor, opined that nationalism was what China needed, whereas other isms could be put aside; and that socialism sounded better than nationalism but it was questionable whether socialism could be realized in China at the time.[64] Clearly, in the imaginary of Peng Guanqin, Lin Jiajun, Han Jiexian, Yan Caiqi, and the like, universal equality and world peace was an ideal for the future and nationalism was the means by which to save China from being vanquished at the present—in that sense, nationalism was a means by which to save a chance for realizing a cosmopolitan vision of universal equality and world peace in the future.[65] The second issue was socialism. Some contributors equated it with international unity of working classes in all countries and therefore connected it with cosmopolitan notion of universal equality and world peace, either at the present or in the future, while others equated it with revolution and violence exemplified by the Russian

Revolution and therefore rejected it. A rather different voice, departing from both socialism and nationalism, came from Zhou Zuoren. Typically, it was conveyed in a sarcastic tone: I am neither a nationalist, nor a socialist, but I am opposed to boycotting Japanese goods; my opposition is not a confrontational one, but just not follow the call [for boycott], for it is my freedom to buy what I want, with which the masses cannot interfere. I believe boycotting Japanese goods is entirely a product of nationalism, because starting from a socialist view, the domestic authoritarian power at least should be rejected at the same time as “enemy nation.” Yet, has not Zhao Hengti who killed Huang [Ai] and Pang [Renquan] become the leader of patriots in Changsha now? Killing people is always the same crime. But now it seems that being killed by one’s own countrymen does not matter, and being killed by foreigners must be revenged: What is this if not nationalism? I am not a nationalist, but if someone were to promote militarism and advocate the use of military force to solve all issues with foreigners, I would support him, because he would still be justifiable and logical. All along China has suffered because it has no military power; if [it] had military power, then the [Japanese gunboat] Fushimi made troubles in Changsha in the morning, and the Chinese fleet could sail toward Nagasaki and Shimonoseki in the evening, without a need for Governor Zhao to issue pleas by telegrams! That is why promoting militarism is a relatively more proper means, even though personally I will never participate in, nor wish little children receive, militarist civic education (jun guomin jiaoyu). No one is willing to be a slave. Anybody should not be any kind of a slave. If one has to kneel under the whip of the old master and get his permission to scold the slave master next door, then this person’s mind is too deeply-ingrained in slavishness. It is said that the Russian government of the despotic era always tried to cause foreign conflicts in order to divert citizens’ attention and to defuse revolutionary situations. Yet, the Chinese themselves declare they would only be concerned with foreign affairs, which really makes them an ideal obedient people.[66] Here Zhou Zuoren was decidedly pouring cold water on the heads of young nationalists or socialists who wanted to do something about Japanese imperialist behavior in China. Zhou’s argument was quite similar to Tagore’s [Chapter 2] in that they both found their countrymen wanting as a people, which contributed to their being victimized by the Japanese and colonized by the British respectively. Zhou Zuoren actually said as much in a private letter in 1925, during the height of the May 30th Movement (see below). Tagore did not favor Indian independence, especially not through violent struggles, before Indians reforming themselves thoroughly first. Zhou Zuoren did not appreciate the Chinese engaging in nationalist actions, such as economic boycott, before reforming Chinese society and culture and getting rid of

warlord governments (and he found the Chinese too weak to practice militarism). The reality was, however, that the national crisis and nationalist sentiments brought forth by the Japanese actions did not allow the Chinese to reflect calmly upon the shortcomings in their own “national character” or to carry out systematic reform of society, culture, and government. Zhou was not unaware of that reality, hence his profound pessimism and cynicism. What was unambiguous was his individualism (similar to Xu Zhimo's) vis-à-vis both nationalism and socialism. On July 23 a contributor related his own experience of taking part in an antiJapanese boycott as a middle school student in Sichuan and said that boycott would not be effective because merchants wanted to sell and customers wanted to buy Japanese goods for economic reasons.[67] This view would be echoed once again later.[68] These contributions are noteworthy because they provide rare voices and reflections from actual participants in Chinese anti-imperialist boycotts in the early twentieth century and they also indicate the reach of the Fukan to middle school students in interior China. Another contributor said that upon reading Haoran’s article, he was convinced that “it was not written by a Chinese, because boycotting Japanese goods is now the public psychology of the Chinese and no one will fail to support it.” The last point, of course, was belied by the very debate in the Fukan. The contributor asked the editor not to allow foreigners to pretend to be Chinese to confuse Chinese minds.[69] To these letters, Sun Fuyuan responded that he would welcome discussions of all issues and that the debate on the rules of love attracted most contributions. He hoped that after the training in that debate, discussions of the larger national issues could avoid some problems seen in the earlier debate and could focus on important points. As for the identity of Haoran, Sun would not reveal it because that was irrelevant to the debate. “Truth is only one. Whether the Chinese or the Japanese knocks on its door, it will come out with the same face. Why should we pre-determine a nationality in order to find truth?” Sun wished Haoran would rejoin the debate with either a concluding article or separate responses to various contributors.[70] Haoran did not write again, however. In the meantime, Peng Guanqin issued a rebuttal against Zhuo Zuoren’s comments. Agreeing that boycott was a product of nationalism, Peng disagreed with Zhou's main points. First, while people proposed boycott to protest the harms done to the country by Japan, they also advocated “abolishing military governor and demobilizing armies” (feidu caibing) to deal with the harms done by warlords and soldiers domestically, even though the effects of these two efforts might be different. If asking the old master’s permission to scold the master next door was slavish, then willingly kneeling under the whip of the new master as well as that of the old and never wanting to rid the pains caused by the whips would indeed be the deeply slavish mind. Second, for Zhou’s preference for militarism to socialism and nationalism, Peng stated that he would support whatever isms that would increase human happiness and oppose whatever isms that would harm humankind. So he

would support the kind of militarism that was only for national self-defense and sometimes for helping others, but would oppose the kind of militarism practiced by Germany and Japan. Third, Peng would not comment on the personal character of Zhao Hengti or his loyalty as “the leader of patriots,” but “as far as the Changsha Incident is concerned, I think he is not only a patriot, but also a person who loves society and humankind. We should not judge everything a person does as wrong, just because the person’s character is not perfect.”[71] Chanyin, another contributor, also rejected Zhou Zuoren’s logic that since Zhao Hengti who killed Huang Ai and Pang Renquan was not punished for the killing, the Japanese who killed the Chinese should not be opposed. “In theory, Zhao Hengti’s killing people should be punished by law, but ‘Chinese law’ has no binding on warlords, and we can only use revolution to reject them. But revolution is not easy to succeed instantly, but who can say it will not succeed one day? Moreover, after all, only very few of our countrymen support warlords’ authoritarian power, and the majority, I dare to say, are already rejecting them and just have not achieved the goal of getting rid of them.”[72] Shi Guangliang claimed a socialist position that both foreign capitalists and domestic capitalists and warlords should be opposed; yet he still supported boycotting Japanese goods, because it would strike at the economic interest of foreign capitalism. Shi stressed three socialist points: 1) aggression against China was done by Japanese capitalists who were the enemy, and Japanese proletarians were not enemies but friends; 2) aggression against China was done not only by Japanese capitalists but also by capitalist countries of Great Britain, the United States, France, Italy, etc. and therefore one should oppose all of them; and 3) domestic capitalists and warlords (especially warlords at the moment) should be fiercely opposed too so that boycotting Japanese goods would be meaningful.[73] This was a socialism from Marxian internationalist perspective. Yu Shoulu, a reader in Jinan, Shandong province, who too was convinced that Haoran was a Japanese national, argued the following: 1) Boycott was a product of nationalism, and China needed nationalism until nationalism ceased in other countries, and the same went for militarism (by which he meant the use of military force). 2) Boycott was not a low strategy, but the highest strategy, since China was a weak country with no other means to deal with Japan, and since it was the most peaceful method. “Stretching a bit, boycotting Japanese goods can be said to be similar to non-cooperation movement—it is of course different from Gandhi’s non-cooperation movement.” 3) The Chinese should boycott domestic capitalists and warlords, but boycotting Japanese capitalists and warlords was even more important, since Japan harmed Chinese lives and properties more cruelly than domestic capitalists and warlords did. “The international capitalism was the enemy of humankind in the twentieth century, and living in the twentieth century, we bear the mission of opposing this ism. Therefore I think either for the sake of our citizens or for the sake of humankind of the world, we should rise to boycott Japan that is like flood and beasts!

The best way for us to boycott Japan is to boycott Japanese goods!”[74] Zhou Canghong defined “nationalism” in a different way to make his argument. His arguments went as follows. 1) The boycott of Japanese goods was a “low strategy,” but it was the only means available to a pitifully weak China to resist the exploitation by a strong-armed Japan. He defined nationalism as an ideology that advocated aggression, so he found it erroneous for socialist-minded contributors to call the boycott a product of nationalism, since the boycott was for the sake of Chinese survival, not aggression. Responding to Japanese aggression, the purpose of boycott was “to make Japanese citizens—propertied class and proletarians—push their government to abandon the policies of aggression against us; as soon as Japan abandons the policies of aggression against us, our method of resistance can be abolished immediately. We must be clear: Our motive of boycott contains no further implication for killing or looting the Japanese.” 2) Citing news reports from various cities on the effects of the boycott, Zhou refuted the view that boycott was ineffective. 3) Zhou further countered the socialist-anarchist view about the evil of “nation.” The socialist or anarchist position would demand the abolition of private property, but commerce was based on private property; to abolish “nation” would require both political and economic reforms, whereas boycott was a method of selfpreservation under the existing political and economic systems; and therefore it was irrelevant to involve socialism or anarchism in the issue of boycotting Japanese goods. Socialism and anarchism did not fit China’s need and they could only be tried in countries with more developed industry and more complete economic organizations. 4) Zhou held that even if boycotting Japanese goods would lead to purchase of more goods from other imperialist countries, it would still serve the purpose of resisting Japan. 5) As for the concern that boycott would cause international intervention, Zhou dismissed it as a lack of the notion of diplomacy: The Chinese government could tell foreigners that the boycott was not directed by the government but a spontaneous popular action. To deal with Japan, the Chinese government could even issue public notices calling for no boycott of Japanese goods, but ordinary Chinese could still stay away from Japanese goods. “Could the Japanese government come to force [Chinese customers to buy]? Could the Chinese government come to force [them]?”[75] One of the ideas emerging in the debate was that to make boycott effective, it would be better to use the slogan “promoting national goods” instead of “boycotting Japanese goods,” so that the boycott would not benefit other imperialist countries and would serve the purpose of opposing all imperialist interests in China.[76] Zhou Zuoren felt compelled to write to oppose the idea of “promoting national goods.” He compared the logic of “promoting national goods” (tichang guohuo) to that of “promoting national sufferings” (tichang guoku) and dismissed both: Promoting national goods means that one should not reject them for their low quality and high price, and promoting national sufferings means that one should not reject them for being brutal and costly. “Because they are national goods, one should not dislike spending big money to buy shoddy products; because they are national sufferings,

one should not complain about lives and property being harmed. Zhao Hengti is a national product, who killed Huang and Pang (being killed by a compatriot (guoren) of course does not matter at all!) and led the Northern Army enter Hunan, and remained the leader of patriots in Changsha after all. In sum, anything that has the word ‘nation’ (guo) is a good thing. As for what this mysterious ‘nation’ is, it is perhaps hard to understand. To answer briefly, perhaps one can say ‘this is a word for which we should endure discomfort and harm’.”[77] Obviously, Zhou was completely opposed to the nationalist sentiment and discourse at that time because they covered up what was wrong with the Chinese themselves. He was thoroughly individualistic and refused to make any sacrifice in the name of nation or national interests which to him was a smoke screen for one evil or another harming individuals. Without explicitly responding to Zhou’s writing, Wang Boyong, a contributor, argued that being a nationalist did not exclude one from opposing domestic oppression at all. “I agree with self-defense actions resisting oppression, but we should clearly recognize that the reason for such actions was not the empty name of ‘nation’ but the substance of freedom. So my position is nationalism for freedom, not nationalism for nation. Whatever hinders our freedom, we consider it oppression and should rise to resist it; such resistance is not limited to foreign affairs, and not limited to anti-Japanese in foreign affairs. A patriot is not limited to struggling against foreigners, and revolution is his cause too, because he only knows resisting oppression, no matter foreign or domestic oppression. It is therefore more accurate to call him the lover of freedom than the lover of nation.”[78] Wang Boyong's argument highlighted the seemingly illogical bias on the part of Zhou Zuoren against the rising Chinese nationalist sentiment in the 1920s. As Wang pointed out, a Chinese nationalist could also oppose the Chinese government or any injustice committed by the Chinese—the two causes were not mutually exclusive. Zhou Zuoren would not be blind to this point. He simply perceived a tendency among the Chinese to be fervent in joining a nationalist cause against foreign powers but passive in opposing the warlord regimes or other domestic social-political ills, failing to examine the root cause of China being a weak nation. His view was more fully revealed in a letter written in June 1925 on the topic of “citizens’ literature” (guomin wenxue): I want to add that promoting citizens’ literature must go hand in hand with promoting individualism. I see some people who advocate nationalism sparing no efforts to oppose individualism, which not only makes nationalism lose its ground, but also makes their idea smell of religion and easily become fanatical. The result would be that whatever of one’s own country is good, whatever of other countries is bad, one’s national territory is the center of the world, and one’s own struggle is justice of all under heaven, all of which can be called “self-respect.” Our resisting other people’s bullying does not mean that we can bully others; and our not wishing others deny our merits does not mean that we should cover up our shortcomings. What we want is justice for all; with justice we demand self-

determination and freedom, and also with justice we condemn ourselves and criticize ourselves [for our shortcomings]. Now we are being bullied to such a degree, partly because of others’ brutishness and partly—at least partly— because of our own degeneration. Before or at the same time as we oppose others [bullying us], we should try hard to eradicate our own depraved character (e genxing), only so doing would the nation have a hope for revival; otherwise, what can be revived are only the ideas of the Boxer rebels. I do not absolutely consider the Boxer rebels’ xenophobic ideas wrong, but I absolutely oppose their bias that whatever of this country was right and whatever of other countries was wrong, and their superstition that they could use “national essence” to resist new methods—these were after all what the Boxer rebels did. Some people, after converted to nationalism, write nothing but in classical Chinese and read nothing but ancient poems, which makes me worry and fear that legitimate nationalism is turning pathetic.[79] If there were confusions among young Chinese about nationalism, socialism, and anarchism, as far as Zhou Zuoren was concerned, he was not confused. He was frustrated at the inability, on the part of many educated Chinese, to exercise criticism of “depraved national character” while being “fanatic” about a nationalist cause and turning nationalism into a pathology—he was frustrated because that inability only made it easier for foreign powers to bully China. The reference to the Boxers reflected an ideological and political tendency among nationalists in the mid–1920s to rescue a positive quality—anti-imperialism—from the Boxer Rebellion amidst negative ones such as superstition and fanaticism.[80] It is instructive that while not a nationalist, Zhou Zuoren would not entirely reject the Boxers’ anti-foreignism. The three debates sampled in this chapter illustrate that in the early twentieth century educated Chinese dealt with ideas, concerns, emotions, and intellectual-moral sensibilities that were modern, in the sense that such issues had never arisen before the encounters between China and the West since the mid–nineteenth century. Yet, these issues did not exist in some uniform modern fashion, but as alternatives and as possible choices that individuals could and did make. The fact that the three debates transpired during the same time period demonstrates a wide range of philosophical and ideological positions, intellectual interests, and nationalistic or social-cultural concerns among Fukan contributors, readers, and editors. Echoing other writings in the Fukan, these debates show that Chinese understanding of all ideologies coming from the West was haphazard and incomplete while the educated tried to use them as intellectual resources to critique daily-life practices in Chinese society as well as the imperialist behavior of the West and Japan. This resulted in a diverse intellectual landscape, with multilayered and overlapping discourses full of confusions, juxtapositions, and ambiguities, which actually contributed to the rich content of the Fukan and its appeal to educated Chinese. The rich diversity in genres and points of

view, including the interactions of cosmopolitan, nationalistic, and individualistic impulses in constant negotiations between Chinese tradition and Western culture, was a hallmark of the intellectual life in the New Culture era.

NOTES 1. For earlier discussions of the debate, see Chow Tse-tsung, The May Fourth Movement (Stanford University Press, 1960), pp. 333–337; Jerome B. Grieder, Hu Shih and the Chinese Renaissance, 145–151; Charlotte Furth, Ting Wen-chiang: Science and China’s New Culture (Harvard University Press, 1970), Chapter 5. 2. CF, 1923/5/2. 3. See CF, 1923/5/6. 4. CF, 1923/5/3; 5/4; 5/5. 5. CF, 1923/5/5. 6. Ci Hai (Shanghi Cishu Chubanshe, 1979), p. 1790; Xu Kangsheng, “A Brief Discussion of the “Xuanxue” School of the Wei-jin Period,” Contemporary Chinese Thought, 12, 1 (Fall 1981):57–86. 7. For the debate on Chinese native medicine, see Xiaoqun Xu, Chinese Professionals and the Republican State: The Rise of Professional Associations in Shanghai, 1912–1937 (Cambridge University Press, 2001), chapter 7. 8. 1923/5/10, 2. 9. The book collection of the debate edited by Wang Mengzou () and prefaced by Hu Shi and Chen Duxiu was published in 1923 under the title Kexue yu Renshengguan (Science and philosophy of life). Another collection edited by Guo Mengliang () and prefaced by Zhang Junmai was published the same year under the title Renshengguan zhi Lunzhan (Debates on philosophy of life). The former book represented the Ding’s camp and the latter, Zhang’s camp, though both books included some articles of the other side. 10. CF, 1923/5/3. 11. Zhang Junmai translated one of the “spiritual sciences”—economics—into “shengji xue”—“livelihood studies.” 12. CF. 1923/5/4. 13. CF, 1923/5/4. 14. CF, 1923/5/2. 15. CF, 1923/5/5. 16. CF, 1923/5/7. 17. CF, 1923/5/7. 18. CF, 1923/5/8. 19. CF, 1923/5/9. 20. CF, 1923/5/9. 21. CF, 1923/5/14. 22. CF, 1923/5/14. 23. CF, 1923/5/9.

24. CF, 1923/5/25. 25. CF, 1923/6/9. 26. CF, 1923/6/7. 27. CF, 1923/9/29. 28. CF, 1923/6/28; 6/29. 29. For Lin’s article, see CF, 1923/6/2; 6/3; 6/4; 6/5. For Zhang’s article, see CF, 1923/6/15; 6/16. 30. CF, 1923/5/55; 6/17; 6/18. Gan Zhexian published an article entitled “Philosophies of life and Theories of Knowledge,” but he stated that he was not joining the debate, but only clarifying his own mind. See CF, 1923/6/25; 6/26/; 6/27. 31. Haiyan Lee discussed the debate in the context of a growing discourse on emotional relationship in China in Revolution of the Heart: A Genealogy of Love in China: 1900–1950 (Stanford University Press, 2007), pp. 142–151. 32. Chenbao, 1923/1/16, p. 7. 33. Chenbao, 1923/1/17, p. 7. 34. This piece of information came out in various articles during the ensuing debate in the Fukan. 35. CF, 1923/4/29. 36. CF, 1923/5/18. 37. CF, 1923/5/18. 38. CF, 1923/5/19. 39. CF, 1923/5/20. 40. CF, 1923/6/9. 41. CF, 1923/5/21. 42. CF, 1923/5/22. 43. CF, 1923/5/26. 44. CF, 1923/6/6. 45. CF, 1923/6/10. 46. CF, 1923/6/7; 6/8; 6/13. 47. CF, 1923/6/12. 48. CF, 1923/6/12. 49. CF, 1923/6/13. 50. CF, 1923/6/13. 51. CF, 1923/6/16. 52. CF, 1923/6/16. 53. CF, 1923/6/20; 6/22. 54. CF, 1923/7/15. 55. See Xiaoqun Xu, “Law and Courts as Negotiating Tools: Marriage and Divorce in Republican China, 1912–1949,” in Stefan Kirmse, ed., One Law for All?, pp. 183– 208. 56. NYT, 1923/5/16, p. 1. 57. Zhongguo Jindai Lish Cidian, p. 214. 58. NYT, 1923/6/10, p. 14.

59. CF, 1923/7/10. 60. CF, 1923/7/15. 61. CF, 1923/7/17. 62. Song Xianggong was the king of Song state (650–637BCE) in the Spring and Autumn period who was known for trying to practice compassion and righteousness in fighting enemy forces, only to lose battles as a result. 63. CF, 1923/7/17. 64. CF, 1923/7/28. 65. Such views were expressed by quite a number of contributors. See CF, 1923/8/7; 9/9. 66. CF, 1923/7/19. 67. CF, 1923/7/23. 68. CF, 1923/7/28. 69. CF, 1923/7/23. 70. CF, 1923/7/23. 71. CF, 1923/7/24. 72. CF, 1923/7/25. 73. CF, 1923/7/26. 74. CF, 1923/8/2. 75. CF, 1923/8/5. 76. CF, 1923/8/2; 8/13. 77. CF, 1923/8/19. 78. CF, 1923/9/2. 79. Zhou Zuoren Shuxin, pp. 44–45. The Boxers that Zhou referred to were Chinese peasants who launched attacks on foreign missionaries and Chinese Christians in 1899–1900, which led to the siege of the foreign legations in Beijing and the eight foreign powers' military intervention, resulting in the 1901 Protocol. 80. For the reassessment in the 1920s of the Boxers as anti-imperialist forerunners, see Paul A. Cohen, History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth (Columbia University Press, 1997), pp. 238–251. Cohen considered this type of historical reinterpretation for current political agendas as “mythologization.”

Conclusion One important dimension of the intellectual life in the New Culture era this book highlights was a tension between a cosmopolitan longing for a world of universal peace, international equality, and shared culture on one hand, and a nationalist imperative to struggle against imperialism on the other hand (and their relationship to individualism as an intellectual and personal choice among educated Chinese). A salient Chinese intellectual-moral paradox in the 1920s, the tension speaks ultimately to the constant negotiations between Chinese tradition and Western culture in the making of Chinese modernity. Now at the end of our textual tour in the Fukan and beyond, it is proper to take stock of a few thematic connections among the chapters that combine to help inform a better understanding of the diverse and complex intellectual landscape of the New Culture era. First, among reform-minded Chinese there was a sense of insecurity, an enduring notion about inadequacy or weakness in and of Chinese national character (however defined) attributed to Chinese cultural tradition, even though it was not shared by all people (e.g., Liang Qichao in the 1920s, let alone Gu Hongming). Besides the well-known indictment by Lu Xun of the perceived defect in Chinese tradition, an inferiority complex vis-à-vis the West and related frustration were amply shown in the texts examined in this book. The experience of Chinese students travelling to the West and Zhang Tingjian’s description, or dramatization, of Chinese reactions, or rather non-actions, to the abuses in the hands of a Japanese merchant and an American serviceman he witnessed aboard trains (Chapter 4) were illustrative cases. Similarly, Zhou Zuoren was not impressed by Chinese boycott against Japanese goods because he felt it was a reflection of Chinese weakness—inability to resist by military means against Japanese imperialist behavior in China (Chapter 6). This inferiority complex lent itself to the construction or confirmation of a civilizationalracial hierarchy that justified the colonial world order, in spite of anti-colonial critiques voiced at the same time. Second, even with the above-said mentality present, the hold of Chinese cultural tradition on educated Chinese remained strong in the New Culture era. Liang Qichao’s soul-searching intellectual journey is well-known, and his re-discovery of the value of Chinese tradition in the post-WWI period took a prominent place in the Fukan and elsewhere. While Hu Shi was wrongly regarded by some people as the champion of “total Westernization,” he was a main promoter of vernacular Chinese and new literature along with Chen Duxiu and others. Yet, it is the same Hu Shi who actively advocated and practiced reorganizing national heritage by conducting research in traditional philosophy and literature and by launching the National Learning Journal at Beida. In contrast, the Critical Review members were also noteworthy because like Hu Shi they were educated in the United States, but unlike Hu Shi they were decidedly opposed to the vernacular language and literary reforms that Hu Shi and

others promoted and practiced. Their intellectual orientations and endeavors helped fill out the entire spectrum of positions and opinions on the issue of cultural encounters between China and the West. Third, the above-mentioned cultural-intellectual phenomenon contributed to, or was a part of, an unsettled mental struggle and an entangled and unending discursive battle for many educated Chinese, over what or how much to borrow from or reject Western culture and what or how much to preserve or jettison Chinese tradition. In the end, what transpired in the literary and intellectual scenes were negotiations among, and coexistence of, conflicting and overlapping developments that included but were not limited to the following: 1) introduction of and commentary on a wide range of Western philosophy, history, political theories, sciences, social sciences, literature, and literary criticism, 2) experiments with “new literature” based on vernacular Chinese, including new fictions, new poetry, spoken drama, travelogues, and miscellaneous and lyric essays, and 3) wide-ranging scholarly research and publication in traditional philosophy, literature, and historiography on a larger scale and at a deeper level than the conventional understanding of the New Culture era suggests. All these were carried on lively in print media including journals and newspaper supplements, which on one hand engaged educated Chinese of all levels and on the other hand supplemented formal curricula of colleges and schools. The Fukan was a prime example of the phenomenon. The coexistence and balanced appearance of translated works that introduced Western culture and original scholarly works that evaluated Chinese national heritage reflect the deep influence of the cultural tradition on educated Chinese as intellectual resource and cultural identity. Fourth, to deal with the above-mentioned ambivalence and dilemma about Chinese culture vs. Western culture that seemed hopelessly unsolvable, many people adopted an intellectually satisfying, transcendental approach, that is, an articulated vision and longing for a cosmopolitan world of universal equality and peace and a shared world culture resulting from a convergence of different cultures. This approach was intellectually satisfying to most positions along the intellectual spectrum, especially to those who were reluctant to renounce Chinese tradition, because the shared world culture would by definition include Chinese culture (in whatever proportion) and because the very notion of the great union was in part informed by, or even a return to, Chinese tradition, as Liang Qichao would have it. It would also allow educated Chinese to bypass or transcend the issue of China's readiness to become modern and the issue of individuals' relationship to the nation-state. The approach, however, inevitably constituted an intellectual-moral paradox because the cosmopolitan aspiration came into intellectual being, precisely with an awareness that the envisioned or imagined world would not be a reality anytime soon and the nationalist struggle that seemed increasingly unavoidable would push aside the pursuit of such an ideal world and take precedence over or put pressure on individualistic pursuits. An undertone of sadness seeping from the awareness is discernable in the pages of the Fukan, as well as a pessimism about China's fate unmistakably conveyed in Lu Xun’s and Zhou Zuoren's writings. If there was something intellectually

and logically consistent in the position of the Zhou brothers throughout the period, that was their profound pessimism about China and Chinese culture due to “Chinese national character.” Their pessimistic view about the country and their choice of individualism as personal refuge, just as nationalism and cosmopolitanism among other educated Chinese, were ultimately conditioned by the reality of the colonial world order. The multiplicity of meanings in the Fukan’s texts and their social-cultural contexts, by no means exhausted by the above summary, suggests that in the early twentieth century, China's social-cultural-intellectual developments, and its political future that grew out thereof, were not preordained, but were pregnant with multiple possibilities and contingencies, which tend to be obscured by the triumph in the mid–twentieth century of the Chinese Communist Party, the political force inspired by a combination of Western ideologies—nationalism and Marxism-Leninism. In a fundamental sense, the Chenbao Fukan was a product, and a mirror, of China-West cultural encounters in the twentieth-century global history. Educated Chinese of various intellectual and social standings in the New Culture era had to make sense of the relationships between Chinese culture and Western culture, Chinese culture and national identity, Chinese culture and a cosmopolitan world, and all the above and the self (individual). Their personal temperaments, aesthetic tastes, life experiences, and professional careers were intricately related to the ways they would define such issues, and different kinds of cultural capital were accrued and deployed accordingly. What appeared in the pages of the Fukan was in the end informed by these intertwined and interacting objective and subjective factors. This, however, was only one side of the coin. The other side is: All educated Chinese in the New Culture era, who occupied the various positions along the intellectual spectrum described earlier, hardly engaged or reflected on the cultural power relations between China and Western nations. Chinese expressions of cosmopolitanism, nationalism, and individualism as ideologies or discourses were critical of imperialism in general, but they did not directly question or challenge the existing cultural power of the West. These ideologies were predicated on the promise of a Western-defined modernity. Even the intellectual enterprise to rescue something of value from Chinese cultural legacies was undertaken within the narrative framework of that modernity—scientific methods, even though one could interpret the efforts at reorganizing national heritage as cultural nationalism. Educated Chinese acted as if they had been in a position to freely choose to welcome or shut out Western cultural influence. Individuals who had a cosmopolitan outlook, such as Xu Zhimo, Qu Shiying, and Sun Fuyuan, wanted to partake in the bourgeois culture of the World/West. They enjoyed, and wanted to share, what they considered the finest intellectual and literary products that humankind had created which transcended national borders. What they did was in effect to participate in reinforcing the cultural power of the West, along with enhancing their own cultural power in Chinese society. They might have desired to join a world culture as equals, but the consequence of their efforts was to affirm the existing cultural power relations, as evidenced by the

fact that the translated works in the Fukan were predominantly of Western origins. To say this is not to deny Chinese agency, yet that agency tended to work in collusion with or in submission to, rather than in defiance of, the Western intellectual and discursive dominance. In the final analysis, it is in the transnational circulations of ideas and discourses driven by the capitalist-imperialist expansion from the West, in varied Chinese responses to Western intellectual influences and China's cultural legacies, and in the competition among educated Chinese for cultural capital predicated on the confirmation of a civilizaitonal hierarchy and Western-defined modernity, that one finds manifestations of both the said Chinese agency and the power relationship between China and the West—that of the colonial world order. This complicated experience in the early twentieth century of wrestling with the paradox of cosmopolitanism vs. nationalism in relation to individualism, and the problematic of Chinese culture vs. Western culture, has remained vitally relevant to China and the world nearly a century later.

Appendix: Names and Terms NAMES Ailuo Xianke Baili Xi Cai Yuanpei Cao Juren Chen Bosheng Chen Dabei Chen Duxiu Chen Jingxiu Chen Qixiu Chen Shujun Chen Xianzhang Chen Yuan (Chen Xiying ) Chen Yi Cheng Fangwu Cheng Houzhi Dai Chuanxian (Dai Jitao ) Deng Shi Deng Yanchun Ding Wenjiang, (Ding Zaijun ) Duan Qirui Feng Fei Feng Yuanjun Fu Donghua Fu Sinian (Fu Mengzhen ) Fu Tong Fu Xi Gan Zhexian (Gan Dayuan ) Gu Hongming Han Quanhua Hu Shi (Hu Shizhi ) Hu Shiqing Hu Yuzhi

Hu Xiansu Huang Ai Huang Jie Jiang Mengling Jiang Shaoyuan Jin Mancheng Jing Sheng Kang Baiqing Ke Yicen Li Dazhao Li Hongzhang Li Si Liang Qichao Liang Shuming Liang Shiqiu Lie Zi Lin Changmin Lin Huiyin Lin Zaiping Lin Yutang Ling Shuhua Liu Mianji Liu Yimo Lu Kanru Lu Jiuyuan Lu Maode Lu Xun Lu Zhaoling Lu Zongyu Luo Binwang Luo Jialun Mei Guangdi Meng Shouchun Pang Renquan Pu Boying (Pu Dianjun ) Qian Xuantong Qu Shiying (Qu Junong ) Qu Qiubai

Shang Yang Shaozheng Mao Shen Nong Shen Yanbing Sun Fuyuan Sun Fuxi Tan Xihong Tang Yue Tao Ran Wang Bo Wang Guangqi Wang Jingzhi Wang Tongling Wang Yangming Wei Jiangong Wu Mi Wu Tianfang Wu Yu Xia Yuanli Xia Fujun Xie Bingxin (Bing Xin) Xie Guopan Xiong Foxi Xu Zhimo Xu Xing Yang Honglie Yang Jong Yang Shiyi Yang Zhu Ye Shengtao Yu Dafu Yu Jiaju Yu Shangyuan Yuan Shikai Zhang Dongsun Zhang Junmai Zhang Renquan Zhang Taiyan (Zhang Binglin ) Zhang Tingqian (Chuandao) Zhang Xiruo

Zhang Yancun ZhangYi Zhao Taimou Zhao Yuanren Zheng Shiqi Zheng Zhenduo Zhou Fohai Zhou Guangxu Zhou Shuren Zhou Zuoren Zhu Jingnong Zhu Qianzhi Zhu Zhendan (for Rabindranath Tagore) Zhu Wonong Zi Chan

TERMS aiguo ailunni anmin baihuashi baihuawen baihua xinwenxue banquan ban xieshipai bense biji buduo buyan buren bu sixiang jie caichan caineng Changsiji chaoxi Chenbao Fujuan Chenbao Fukan chengyu zuzhi chilege Chuanbao chuci

chuncui de shijie zhuyi chunwenxue da fanyijia da renwu dao daotonglun daoxuejia datong datong shijie datong zhuyi de diyu guanxi e genxing ernü wenxue fa falü fanweinei qiaoqu fandui qiangquan fanwen fangshi fatian fazhi fayan feidu caibing fugu zhuyi fuzao ganqing geren zhuyi geren ziyou gexing fazhan gongkai de yanlun jiguan gongshang wenmin guo guochi guochi jinian guocui guocui zhuyi guocui xuebao guogu guohua guoji gongguan

guoji zhuyi guojia guojia zhuyi guomin xinli Guoti yu qingnian guoxue guoxue baocunhui guoxue jikan gutishi guwenjing guxue Guzhushu Hongdaoshu huaili yi xiangjie hunao hundan jiafa jiaozhengli jiating changshi Jingbao jinsheng kexue jishi jiulijiao Jiuming Qiyuan jiwu qiongli jixielun jun guomin jiaoyu junshi koutou de yuti li li liansheng yundong lijiao lizhi made manyi maren Meizhou pinglun mingjia

mingyu minzei minzheng minzhong zhengzhi minzhong yishi minzuxing mudilun mulange nei Nuli zhoubao Ouyou xinying lu Ouyou xinzhu paiwai zhuyi pianji pingmin zhuyi Pipa xing qianjin de wenyan qiao qian qihong qijie qingsheng quanli Qunbao quwei ren renge rensheng guan renyi renzhi Sanxia Wuyi shehui gongduan shehui gongqi shehui gongyang shengji xue shijie datong shijie heping shijie renlei

shijie zhuyi de guojia shijunzi shikuai shixue shu shufan si sida fukan sixiang jie suiyiyi taoye ganqing tianxia tianxia datong tichang guohuo tonglei yishi tongshu tongshu wenxue tongyan tuanti zhuyi waijiao houyuan hui wangguonu weiji wenru qiren wenxue yanjiuhui wenxue xunkan wenyan wenyi fukan wulü wushenlun wuzhi Wu Yu Wenlu xiaohua xiao renwu xiaoshimin xiaoshuo Xiaoshuo yuebao Xiangdao xinju dajia Xin Qingning Xin shaonian xunkan

xinshi xin wenyi xin yundong lingxiu xingershang xingerxia xiqu xinyue pai xuanhua zhongguo xuanxue xuanxuejia Xueheng yanci yanjiu xi yangliu zhige yi yicong yigu Yijing Yilin xunkan yinshi yingxiong wenxue yiwen zaidao yiyi yizu youji youmo yueju yulun duzei yuti de wenzi zagan zaidao zhiwen zawenxue zhaiyi zhengli zhiguo zhi liangzhi zhiyi zhongguo zhongguo xueren zhuanzai zhuangmao

zhuxia zhuyi zide ziyou shi

References PRIMARY SOURCES IN CHINESE Periodicals [If a publication had an English translation of its title when it was published, the translation is used here, marked by *.] Chenbao (The Morning Post*), Beijing, December 1918–October 1921 Chenbao Fukan (Fujuan) () (Supplement to the Morning Post), Beijing, Oct.1921–May 1928 Chenzhong Bao (The Morning Bell), Beijing, August 1916–September 1918 Chaungzao Zhoubao (Creation Weekly), Shanghai, 1923–1924 Chaungzao Jikan (Creation Quarterly), Shanghai, 1922-1924 Dongfang Zazhi (Eastern Miscellany*), Shanghai, 1921-1924 Guowen Zhoubao (Guowen Weekly Illustrated*), Shanghai, 1924-1926 Guoxue Jikan (National Learning Quarterly), Vol. 1, No. 1 (January 1923) Jianshe (Construction*), 1919-1920 Shaonian Zhongguo (Young China), 1919-1922 Xiangdao (Guide), Beijing, 1922-1927 Xin Qingnian (New Youth), Beijing, 1915-1926 Xinchao (Renaissance*), Beijing, 1919-1922 Xueheng (Critical Review*), Nanjing, 1922-1928 Zhengzhi Shenghuo (Political Life Weekly*), Beijing, April 1924-September 1926

Books Cao Juren. Wo Yu Wode Shijie (My world and me). Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1983. Chen Pingyuan and Xia Xiaohong, eds. Beida Jiushi (Old reminiscences of Beijing University). Beijing: Sanlian shudia, 1998. Ding Wenjiang and Zhao Fengtian. Liang Qichao Nianpu Changbian (A detailed compilation of biographic chronicle of Liang Qichao). Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1983. Fujian Shifan Daxue Lishi Xi. ed. Wanqing Haiwai Biji Xuan (A selection of journals of overseas trips of the late Qing). Beijing: Haiyang chubanshe, 1983. Guo Menliang. Rensheng Guan Zhi Lunzhan (The debate on philosophies of life). Shanghai: Taidong shuju, 1923.

Guo Songtao. Shixi Jicheng (A journal of my journey as envoy to the West). Shenyang: Liaonining renmin chubanshe, 1994. Han Rixin. “Chen Dabei Zhuanlue” (A brief biography of Chen Dabei), in Han Rixin, ed., Chen Dabei Yanjiu Ziliao (Sources for study of Chen Dabei). Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1985. Hu Shi. Baihua Wenxue Shi (A history of vernacular language literature). 1928; Beijing: Dongfang chubanshe, 1996. Hu Shi. “Guoyu Yu Guoyu Wenfa” (National language and the grammar of national language), in Hu Shi, ed., Zhongguo Xin Wenxue Daxi—Jianshe Lilun Ji : (China new literature compendia—volume on theory construction). Shanghai: Liangyou tushu yinshua gongsi, 1935. Hu Shi. Hu Shi Riji Quanbian (A complete compilation of Hu Shi’s diary). 8 Vols. Hefei: Anhui jiaoyu chuban she, 2001. Hu Shi. Hu Shi Wenji (Collection of Hu Shi’s writings). 3 Vols. Beijing: Yanshang chubanshe, 1995. Hu Shi, Zhongguo Zhanghui Xiaoshuo Kaozheng (Evidential research in Chinese chapter fictions). Shanghai: Shanghai shudian, 1980. Huang Renying, ed. Chuangzao She Lun (On the Creation Society). Shanghai: Guanghua shuju, 1932. Liang Shuming. Dongxi Wenhua Jiqi Zhexue (Eastern and Western cultures and their philosophies). Shanghai: Taidong shuju, 1921; Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 2006. Liang Qichao. Qingdai Xueshu Gailun (Intellectual trends of the Qing dynasty). 1921; Beijing: Dongfang chubanshe, 1996. Lu Xun. Lu Xun Riji (Lu Xun’s diary), 2 Vols. Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1976. Lu Xun. Lu Xun Quanji (Complete Works of Lu Xun). Lu Xun Qianji chuban weiyuanhui, 1938. Vol. 1. Wang Mengzou. Kexue Yu Renshengguan (Science and philosophy of life). Shanghai: Yadong tushuguan, 1923. Wang Tao. Manyou Suilu Tuji (Pictorial illustrations of travel journals). Shanghai: Tianshizhai huabao quan, 1890; Jinan: Shandong huabao chubanshe, 2004. Wang Xiqi. Xiaogang Fuzhai Yudi Congchao (Collections of geographies from small square teapot pavilion). Shanghai: Zhiyitang, 1891. Yu Kunlin. ed., Zhimo De Xin [] ([Xu] Zhimo’s letters). Shanghai: Xuelin chubanshe, 2004. Zhang Taiyan. Guoxue Gailun A general treatise on national learning). Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe. 1997. Zhou Zuoren. Zhou Zuoren Shuxin (Zhou Zuoren’s letters). Shanghai: Qingguang chuju, 1933; Shijiazhuang: Hebei jiaoyu chubanshe, 2002. Zhou Zuoren. Zhitang Huixiang Lu (Reminiscences from Zhitang). Hong Kong: Sanyu tushu wenju gongsi, 1970; Shijiazhuang: Hebei jiaoyu chubanshe, 2002.

SECONDARY WORKS IN CHINESE Chen Congzhou. Xu Zhimo Nianpu (A biographic chronicle of Xu Zhimo). No place, 1949. Fang Xiangdong. Lu Xun Yuta Maguo Deren (Lu Xun and those whom he scolded). Shanghai: Shanghai shudian chubanshe, 1996. Fu Yisheng and Jiang Fan. Xianqin Lianghan Wenxue Piping Shi (A history of literary criticism in pre-Qin to Han Dynasty). Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1990. Hou Jie. Dagongbao Yu Jindai Zhongguo Shehui ( L'Impartial and modern Chinese society). Tianjin: Nankai daxue chubanshe, 2006. Liu Shufa. Chen Yi Nianpu (Biographic chronicle of Chen Yi). Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1995. Luo Zhitian. Guojia Yu Xueshu: Qingji Minchu Guanyu Guoxue De Sixiang Lunzheng : (State and Scholarship: Intellectual Debates on National Learning in the late Qing and the Early Republic). Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 2003. Qian Liqun. Zhou Zuoren Zhuan (A biography of Zhou Zuoren). Beijing: Shiyue wenyi chubanshe, 1990. Shang Bin. Wanqing Minguo De Guoxue Yanjiu (National learning in the late Qing and early Republic). Shanghai: Guji chubanshe, 2001. Shao Jian. "Chenbao Zonghuo An" (The case of arson at Chenbao), Dushu Wenzhai (Reading Notes), 2007, No.5. Wuhan: Hubei renmin chubanshe. Wan Pingjin. Lin Yutang Zhuan (A biography of Lin Yutang). Fuzhou: Haixia wenyi chubanshe, 1998. Xu Xiaoqun. “Chengshi Zhiye Yu Chengshi Wenhua: Yeyu He Zhiye Huaju Zai Ershi Dao Sanshi Niandai De Xingqi : 1920–1930 (Professional theater and urban culture: the emergence of Chinese spoken drama in the 1920s–1930s), in Wu Ren-shu, Paul Katz, and Lin Mei-li, eds., Cong Chengshi Kan Zhongguo De Xiandaixing (The city and Chinese modernity) . Taipei: Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, 2010. Yang Yi, et al. Zhongguo Xinwenxue Tuzhi (A pictorial gazetteer of China’s new literature). Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1997. Zhang Peiheng and Luo Yuming. Zhongguo Wenxue Shi (A history of Chinese literature). Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 1996. Zhao Xiaqiu. Xu Zhimo Zhuan (A biography of Xu Zhimo). Beijing: Zhongguo renmin daxue chubanshe, 1999. Zhou Yu. Dagongbao Shi (A history of L'Impartial). Nanjing: Jiangsu guji chubanshe, 1993.

REFERENCE WORKS IN CHINESE E Jirui, et al. 1990. Zhongguo Xiandai Wenxue Cidian . Shanghai: Shanghai cishu chubanshe.

Fan Quan. Zhongguo Xiandai Wenxue Shetuan Liupai Cidian (A dictionary of modern Chinese literary associations and groups). Shanghai: Shanghai shudian, 1993. Minguo Renwu Dacidian (Who’s who of the Republic of China). Shijiazhuang: Hebei renmin chubanshe, 1991. Wang Huilin and Zhu Hanguo. 1992. Zhongguo Baokan Cidian, 1815-1949 , 1815–1949 (A dictionary of Chinese newspapers and journals, 1815–1949). Taiyuan: Shuhai chubanshe. Xu Sixiang and Qing Hong. 1988. Zhongguo Xiandai Wenxue Zuozhe Biming Lu (A list of pen-names of authors in modern Chinese literature). Changsha: Hunan wenyi chubanshe. Zeng Jianrong and Liu Yaohua. 1986. Zhongguo Xiandai Wentan Biming Lu (A list of pen-names on the modern Chinese literary scene). Chongqing: Chongqing chubanshe. Zhonggong Zhongyang Ma En Lie Si Zhuzuo Bianyiju yanjiushi. 1958. Wusi Shiqi Qikan Jieshao (Introduction to the journals of the May Fourth era). Beijing: Renmin chubanshe. 3 Volumes.

SECONDARY WORKS IN JAPANESE Fuiji Shozo. Eroshenko no Toshi Monogatari: 1920 Nendai Tokyo, Shanghai, Beken (Eroshenko's urban story: Tokyo, Shanghai, and Beijing, the 1920s). Tokyo: Misuzhu Shobo, 1989.

JOURNAL ARTICLES, BOOKS, AND DOCUMENTS IN ENGLISH Alitto, Guy S. The Last Confucian: Liang Shu-ming and the Chinese Dilemma of Modernity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979. Arkush, R. D. and L. O. Lee, eds., Land without Ghosts: Chinese Impressions of America from the Mid-Nineteenth Century to the Present. Univ. of California Press, 1989. Barnstone, Willis. The Poetics of Translation: History, Theory, Practice. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993. Bassnett, Susan, and André Lefevere, eds. Translation, History and Culture. London: Pinter Publishers, 1990. Bell, Daniel A. Beyond Liberal Democracy: Political Thinking for an East Asian Context. Princeton University Press, 2006. Bermann, Sandra, and Michael Wood, eds. Nation, Language, and the Ethics of Translation. Princeton University Press, 2005. Bickers, Robert A., and Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom. "Shanghai's 'Dogs and Chinese Not Admitted' Sign: Legend, History and Contemporary Symbol," China Quarterly, No. 142 (June 1995):444–466. Chang, Hao. Liang Ch’i-ch’ao and Intellectual Transition in China, 1890-1907.

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Index A Assimilation thesis in Chinese history, 1 , 2.1-2.2 Association for Literature Studies, 1 , 2 , 3 Association for Young China, 1

B Bing Xin, 1 , 2 Boycotting Japanese goods, 1 debate over, 1.1-1.2

C Cai Yuanpei, 1 , 2 , 3 Cao Juren, 1 , 2 Chatterjee, Partha, 1 Chenbao Fukan, 1 , 2 arson of, 1 , 2 origins of, 1.1-1.2 characteristics of, 1.1-1.2 editors of, 1.1-1.2 Chen Bosheng, 1 , 2 Chen Dabei, 1.1-1.2 Chen Duxiu, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 Chen Hengzhe, 1 Chen Qixiu, 1 , 2 , 3 Chen Yi, 1 Chen Yuan, 1.1-1.2 Cheng Fangwu on translation, 1.1-1.2 , 2 , 3 criticizing Xu Zhimo, 1.1-1.2 Chinese cosmopolitanism, 1.1-1.2 , 2.1-2.2 , 3.1-3.2 and individualism, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4.1-4.2 , 5 , 6 and nationalism, 1 , 2.1-2.2 and translation, 1 , 2 in travelogues, 1.1-1.2 Chinese tradition, 1 , 2 , 3

and Western culture, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10.1-10.2 intellectual resources from, 1 , 2 Liang Qichao re-embracing, 1 popular culture in, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 rights concept absent in, 1 Clifford, Nicolas, 1 Colonial hierarchy, 1 , 2 Colonial world order, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 Colonized peoples Chinese discourse on, 1.1-1.2 Creation Society, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 , 4.1-4.2 See also Guo Moruo Creation Quarterly , 1 , 2 , 3 Creation Weekly, 1 , 2 , 3 Critical Review, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 , 4.1-4.2 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 Hu Shi on, 1.1-1.2 Cultural capital, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 Cultural power relations, 1.1-1.2 , 2

D Dai Chuanxian, 1 , 2 Daruvala, Susan, 1 Dewey, John, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 Ding Wenjiang debating science vs. philosophy of life, 1.1-1.2 Dirlik, Arif, 1 Dongfang Zazhi, 1 , 2 Driesch, Hans, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4

E Eastern civilization vs. Western civilization, 1.1-1.2 , 2 , 3 , 4.1-4.2 , 5.1-5.2 , 6.1-6.2 See also Chinese tradition Endeavor, 1 , 2 Einstein, Albert, 1 , 2 Esperanto, 1 , 2 , 3 and anarchism/socialism, 1 , 2 Eroshenko, Vasilij, 1 in China, 1.1-1.2

F

Fan Yuanlian, 1 Finnane, Antonia, 1 Fu Donghua, 1.1-1.2 Fu Sinian, 1.1-1.2

G Gan Zhixian, 1 , 2 and Hu Shi, 1 on Tao Qian, 1.1-1.2 Great union, 1 , 2 , 3 and Chinese cosmopolitanism, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 Gu Hongming, 1 , 2 , 3 Guo Moruo, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4.1-4.2 , 5 on Creation Society, 1.1-1.2 Guoxue Jikan, 1.1-1.2

H Hockx, Michel, 1 , 2 Hu, Ying, 1 , 2 Hu Shi, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7.1-7.2 , 8 , 9 , 10 on Critical Review, 1 , 2.1-2.2 on national learning, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 , 4 on Neo-Confucianism, 1.1-1.2 on Wei-Jin plebian literature, 1.1-1.2 Hu Yuzhi, 1 , 2.1-2.2 , 3

I Individual cosmopolitans, 1 , 2 Ip, Hun Yok, 1

J Jian Youwen, 1 Jiang Menglin, 1 Jiang Shaoyuan, 1.1-1.2 on Tagore, 1.1-1.2 , 2

K Karl, Rebecca, 1 , 2 , 3

Kaske, Elizabeth, 1 , 2 , 3

L Lecture Association, 1 , 2 Li Dazhao, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 and cosmopolitanism, 1 , 2 editorial policy of, 1.1-1.2 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 Liang Qichao, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 and Lecture Association, 1 and Tagore, 1 , 2.1-2.2 criticizing rights concept, 1.1-1.2 on Confucian political thought, 1.1-1.2 on cosmopolitanism and nationalism, 1.1-1.2 , 2 , 3 on Hu Shi's history of Chinese philosophy, 1.1-1.2 on national learning, 1.1-1.2 on philosophy of life, 1.1-1.2 on pre-Qin political thought, 1.1-1.2 on Qu Yuan, 1.1-1.2 Liang Shuming, 1 , 2 Lin Yutang, 1.1-1.2 , 2 Ling Shuhua, 1 Liu Mianji, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 , 4 Liu Yazi, 1 Lu Kanru and Hu Shi, 1 on Wang Bo, 1.1-1.2 Lu Xun, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7.1-7.2 , 8 , 9 , 10 and "The Diary of a Man Man", 1 , 2 , 3 and Eroshenko, 1.1-1.2 , 2.1-2.2 , 3.1-3.2 , 4 , 5.1-5.2 and "The True Story of Ah Q", 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 on "rules of love" debate, 1.1-1.2 on Russell, 1.1-1.2 on Tagore, 1 , 2 Luo Jialun, 1

M McDougall, Bonnie, 1 Marx, Karl, 1 , 2 Metaphysics translated as xuanxue, 1.1-1.2 Multiple subjectivities, 1.1-1.2

N National character Chinese, 1.1-1.2 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 , 4 , 5 , 6.1-6.2 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 Japanese, 1.1-1.2 National heritage and national essence, 1.1-1.2 and national learning, 1.1-1.2 reorganizing, 1.1-1.2 , 2.1-2.2 Nationalism and individualism, 1 Chinese, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 Chinese ambivalence toward, 1.1-1.2 , 2.1-2.2 , 3.1-3.2 Chinese criticizing, 1 , 2 Chinese understanding of, 1.1-1.2 New Culture era, 1.1-1.2 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16.1-16.2 , 17 , 18.1-18.2 and reorganizing national heritage, 1 , 2 and translation, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 re-appreciation of, 1 , 2.1-2.2 travelogues in, 1.1-1.2 New literature, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 and Chinese tradition, 1.1-1.2 and new poetry, 1 and translation, 1.1-1.2 claiming ownership of, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 practitioners, 1 Newspaper supplement functions of, 1.1-1.2 importance of, 1.1-1.2 , 2 , 3 , 4 New Youth, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6

P Paris Peace Conference, 1 , 2 , 3 Philosophy of life science vs., 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 See also Ding Wenjiang, Zhang Junmai Plagiarism, 1 , 2 Pu Boying, 1 , 2 , 3

Q

Qinghua Weekly, 1 , 2 Qu Qiubai, 1 Qu Shiying, 1 , 2 , 3 on Tagore, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 , 4

R Red imperialism, 1.1-1.2 Rules of love, 1 , 2 , 3 debate on, 1.1-1.2 Russell, Bertrand, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 , 4 and China, 1 , 2.1-2.2 Chinese responses to, 1.1-1.2

S Shaonian Zhongguo, 1 Shen, Shuang, 1 Shen Yanbing, 1 Shih, Shu-mei, 1 , 2 , 3 Socialism Chinese understanding of, 1.1-1.2 Stapleton, Kristin, 1 Sun Fuxi, 1.1-1.2 Sun Fuyuan, 1.1-1.2 , 2 , 3 , 4 and Lu Xun, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 and debate on boycott, 1 and debate on "rules of love", 1 , 2.1-2.2 editorial policy of, 1.1-1.2 , 2.1-2.2 on philosophy of life, 1.1-1.2 on Russell, 1.1-1.2 on translation, 1

T Tagore, Rabindranath, 1 Chinese responses to, 1.1-1.2 in China, 1.1-1.2 Tan Xihong, 1.1-1.2 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 Tang Yue, 1 , 2 Tolstoy, Leo, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 Translatability Chinese discourse on, 1 , 2.1-2.2 , 3.1-3.2

Translation studies, 1.1-1.2 Travel conditions in China, 1.1-1.2 Travelogues, 1.1-1.2 , 2.1-2.2 Chinese identity in, 1.1-1.2 , 2.1-2.2 , 3.1-3.2 regional identity in, 1.1-1.2 scholarly literature on, 1.1-1.2 Twenty-One Demands, 1 , 2

V Vernacular Chinese, 1.1-1.2 , 2 and classical Chinese, 1 and new/vernacular poetry, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 and translation, 1 See also Fu Sinian

W Wang Guangqi, 1.1-1.2 , 2 Wang Tongzhao, 1 , 2 , 3 on Guo Moruo and Xu Zhimo, 1 on vernacular poetry, 1 Weekly Review, 1 , 2 Wei Jiangong, 1.1-1.2 Wu Zhihui, 1 , 2 , 3 Wu Yu, 1.1-1.2 , 2

X Xiangdao, 1 , 2 , 3 Xinchao, 1 , 2 Xu Baohuang, 1 Xu Zhimo, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5.1-5.2 , 6.1-6.2 , 7 and Russell, 1 , 2.1-2.2 and Tagore, 1.1-1.2 , 2.1-2.2 and vernacular poetry, 1.1-1.2 , 2.1-2.2 editorial policy of, 1.1-1.2 , 2.1-2.2 on communism, 1 on his individualism, 1

Y

Yang Honglie and Hu Shi,5.95 on Wenxin Diaolong, 1.1-1.2 Yang Shiyi, 1.1-1.2 Yu Dafu on poetry, 1.1-1.2 on translation, 1.1-1.2 , 2 , 3 , 4

Z Zarrow, Peter, 1 Zeng Xubai, 1 , 2 Zhang Binglin, 1 and national essence, 1.1-1.2 and national learning, 1 Zhang Dongsun, 1 , 2 , 3 Zhang Jingsheng, 1 on "rules of love", 1.1-1.2 , 2 Zhang Junmai, 1 , 2 debating science vs. philosophy of life, 1.1-1.2 Zhang Tingjian, 1.1-1.2 , 2 Zhang Xiruo, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 Zheng Zhenduo, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4.1-4.2 Zhengzhi Shenghuo, 1 Zhou Guangxu, 1 , 2 , 3 Zhou Zuoren, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 on boycotting Japanese goods, 1.1-1.2 on cultural conservatives, 1 , 2.1-2.2 on Eroshenko, 1 , 2.1-2.2 , 3 , 4.1-4.2 , 5 on Gouxue Jikan, 1 on national learning, 1.1-1.2 , 2 on nationalism, 1.1-1.2 on newspaper supplement, 1.1-1.2 on using pen-name, 1.1-1.2 on “rules of love”, 1.1-1.2 on Russell, 1.1-1.2 on Tagore, 1.1-1.2 , 2 on translation, 1 , 2

About the Author Xiaoqun Xu teaches history at Christopher Newport University in Virginia and is the author of Chinese Professionals and the Republican State: The Rise of Professional Associations in Shanghai, 1912–1937 (Cambridge University Press, 2001) and Trial of Modernity: Judicial Reform in Early Twentieth-Century China, 1901–1937 (Stanford University Press, 2008), and numerous journal articles and book chapters on legal-judicial, social, and cultural history of modern China.