3. The Western Evaluation of the Values of the Chinese
In the field of world civilization and cultural exchange,there is always a perspective of mutual observation and mutual evaluation. In the modern history of the thought exchange between China and the West,there are Chinese people opening their eyes to see the world,and there are also Westerners stretching out their necks to explore the Chinese mysteries.Over 10 years ago,some scholars compiled a series entitled The West in the Eyes of China in 2000 and China in the Eyes of the West in 2000,which collects the images of China and the West left in the process of their imagining,feeling,knowing,understanding and getting familiar with each other in the 2000 years of history,showing both of their profound and superficial perspectives when Eastern and Western civilizations observe each other. The images of China that remain in the records of Western thinkers,theologians and travelers collected in the series,as well as those exquisite judgment and description of the Chinese people's words and deeds permeated between the lines,are exactly the portrayal of Chinese civilization and the values of China and Chinese people in the Westerners' evaluation system. Of course,such description and narration of them mostly are not direct,but obscure; thus,only through earnest and personal experience and observation can we realize them and only by meticulous exploration can we tell whether or not these records are accurate,pertinent,and proper.
Ⅰ .The Sources of the Information about the Evaluation of the Values of the Chinese
Marco
Since the 5th century B.C.,the Westerners have had an initial impression on China.It was the light fabric called seres—silk that brought China into the cognitive world of Westerners. From then on,the East-West exchanges were begun slowly; besides the real life of the Chinese people,even their world of thought,spiritual pursuits and values began to gradually come into Westerners' sight and evaluation. After the Middle Ages,with the increased exchanges between China and Western countries,the image of the Chinese people,especially their values became clearer in the Westerners' minds,and relevant records also increased. Those well-known works such as The Travels of Marco Polo,Book of the Estate of the Great Khan,The Decameron and Canterbury Tales more or less record some landscapes,customs,characters and stories of China,through which we can roughly see the image of the Chinese people in the eyes of Westerners. There are a great many materials on this,so it is difficult to trace and mention them all. Thus,for the sake of accuracy,we only select some texts that describe the values of the Chinese people most directly to take a general view.
In the 13th century,the merchant Marco Polo of Venice described the life and warfare of Tartars and their Monarch Genghis Khan in his travelogue,he said Tartars are hardworking,indomitable,brave,skilled in fighting,fearless of danger,and not afraid of difficulties and hardships,he also mentioned that they have their only God,morals and laws. Marco Polo also told about the details of the views,people,life and production in the cities in China,from which we can see the values of the local Chinese people. For example,when he recorded Hangzhou in his travelogue,he wrote:
He also added:
There are a lot of descriptions like this in the travelogue of Marco Polo,which all can reflect some sides of the values held by some people in some places in the traditional Chinese society. Of course,they were also the values of the Chinese.
Beginning with Marco Polo,a large quantity of travelogues,biographies and journals more or less record some values of the Chinese people. Among them the most worth mentioning are “the most affluent areas in the world” described by Odoric,Mandeville's Travels of Sir John Mandeville,Mendoza's History of the Great and Mighty Kingdom of China and the Situation Thereof,Matteo Ricci's The Journals of Matteo Ricci,the “Eastern Europe” called by Leibniz,the description of China by Voltaire in Folklore,as well as the description of the values of the Chinese people by Quesnay,Montesquieu,Macartney and Hegel in their academic or political writings.
In the late 19th century and early 20th century,a large number of American missionaries and scholars came to China and they carefully observed the values of the Chinese in their mission or teaching. Among the great many writings and literature left by them,some depict and portray the traditional Chinese people as well as their ideological concept and spiritual value at that time,which are worthy of our attention and can provoke contemporary Chinese people's deep thought.
Since the problem of values is a very large topic,which is reflected in all aspects of life,production and struggle practice of a society and its groups,it is indeed not easy to express the values of a society or a group in brief and extremely academic words. The descriptions of the values of the Chinese by those missionaries and scholars motioned above are not just a few insipid words,but have permeated through the details of the Chinese society and Chinese people observed and portrayed by them carefully. In view of this,it is difficult for us to summarize all their views on the values of the Chinese in simple words,and the best way is to find access to the information on this aspect.
In our opinion,such writings are directly related to the topic we are talking about here,which are: Chinese Characteristics by Arthur H. Smith,Real Chinaman by Holcombe Chester,The Changing Chinese by E.A.Ross,China: An Analysis by Frank J.Goodnow and The Lore of Cathay by W.A.P.Martin, and so on.
From the early 20th century to the present,another century passed,during which there also emerge a lot of Western writings introducing and evaluating Chinese people. Among these writings,some have distinct political overtones and some are classic academic works; some cause ideological turmoil in the calm environment,and some reassure the people in the social unrest. The coming out of these writings also shows the Westerners' evaluation of the Chinese people,especially their values.American reporter Edgar Snow's Red Star over China,British author Han Suyin's The Morning Deluge,and John King Fairbank's The Cambridge History of China are all examples in point. Of course,these writings are not to specially describe the values of the Chinese,but only imply them in some respects,from some perspectives and to some extent.
Ⅱ .The Evaluation Mixed with both Praise and Criticism
In general,Westerners have both favorable and unfavorable views on the values of the Chinese. Those holding a favorable view often highly praise the excellent Chinese civilization and the glorious Chinese culture,thus generating a feeling of yearning and admiration on the values of the Chinese. It should be said that such praise is not overrated, but generally is stating an objective fact. The Chinese nation has a long history of 5000 years and has created the most admirable civilization and cultural achievements in human history,making an important contribution to human civilization. These achievements and contributions are the pride of the Chinese people. Throughout Chinese and foreign fields of thought,in this regard,all the people who have magnificent and broad view of history and know to regard human society,China and the Chinese civilization from the macro-historical perspective will agree. In fact,there are a lot of Westerners who praise Chinese civilization and Chinese history like Voltaire,Hegel and so on.
Of course,there are many Western observers who have little understanding of the Chinese civilization,culture and history,and they left their disdain for and criticism against China and Chinese people in their writings,among which,there is no lack of attack and criticism against the values of the Chinese. Regarding this situation,we need to mention that a lot of such kind of observers and thinkers observe or analyze the values of the Chinese under the influence of a strong ideological background,and they tend to comment China's political and social systems from their own political stance and value attitude,thus causing them to view the values of the Chinese with prejudice. Furthermore,some of them even simply make efforts to specially look for the deficiencies in character,thought,spirit and values of the Chinese people,and thereby defame the Chinese people by taking a part for the whole. However,after all,such situations are only a small minority.
A very interesting phenomenon is that almost all people who have observed China would mention the national character and values of the Chinese people,the only differences are that some of them mentioned it positively and some of them held an attitude of criticism,some mentioned it in more detail and some just talked about it briefly. Among those works concerning the evaluation of the values of the Chinese,The Journals of Matteo Ricci that once was the most influential work in the Chinese and foreign fields of culture and thought is a representative work. The author Matteo Ricci is an Italian missionary,who is also an important figure in the early history of Chinese and Western cultural exchanges. He had lived in China for 28 years,and he translated Euclid's Elements,and Epitome Arithmeticae Practicae,Measurement Theory etc.together with Chinese Ming Dynasty scientist and mathematician Xu Guangqi and Li Zhizao and wrote the memoirs of his life in China,that is,China in the Sixteenth Century: The Journals of Matteo Ricci,in his later years. In this book,Matteo Ricci praised that the Chinese people were the most industrious people,and most of them had strong mechanical process ability. He also considered that the Chinese people had business gifts and talents and were versatile. Moreover,in his view,the Chinese people are accustomed to living a frugal life and have an ingenuous temper. And in morality,the Chinese people attach the greatest importance to the five major virtues,viz. benevolence,righteousness,etiquette,wisdom and integrity,and emphasize to be considerate,respectful and polite towards others in handling matters. These are the depiction of the values of the Chinese from a positive side. But Matteo Ricci also thought that Chinese people were used to being arrogant because of their ignorance of the outside world,but once the truth was revealed,they would feel inferior. It should be admitted that Matteo Ricci's evaluation of the values of the traditional Chinese people is quite objective and fair,which includes both positive praise and negative comments.
The French Enlightenment thinker Montesquieu,who lived in the first half of the 18th century,conducted researches on the political system,institution,customs and etiquette of China in his great masterpiece The Spirit of the Laws. He discussed Chinese emperors' luxury and common people's diligence and frugality,researched into the values of population,land and labor of the Chinese people,and highlighted the qualities of their character,etiquette and morality. Besides,Montesquieu also mentioned the merits and defects in Chinese people's character,as well as the reasonable and biased aspects in their value judgment. He believed that Chinese religion,law,customs and etiquette were based on the combination of legislation and governance,while Chinese emperors' governance was on the basis of the thought of governing home and the life of Chinese people was totally under the guidance of etiquette. In order to maintain the life,the ordinary people could only choose to work hard,and subject to the needs of life or weather conditions,they had to be mercenary,but the law did not impose restrictions on this.
Matteo Ricci
Similar to Montesquieu,another important French Enlightenment thinker Voltaire also made evaluation of and paid a lot of attention to Chinese culture and history,and he spoke more highly of the thought,culture,spirit and values of the Chinese people. He thought that the Chinese culture was not only much earlier and more civilized than Western culture,but also had the features of giving emphasis to tolerance,wisdom and harmony rather than superstition and fanaticism. He wrote:
Voltaire clearly realized the wisdom and greatness of the Chinese,and he tried to avoid the prejudice due to ignorance while evaluating the Chinese people and Chinese society. One of his remarks may play a role of “rehabilitation” for Chinese civilization and society,and also play an “instructive” role for later generations' understanding of China,that is,
In order to understand the two views of evaluation more directly,we have listed several important thinkers' points of view so as to make a general view of the two entirely different views in the Western academic circles when they make comments on the values of the Chinese. It should be noted that these views mostly refer to the Chinese people in the traditional sense and seldom involve the values of the contemporary Chinese people after the reform and opening up. For historical reason,comparatively speaking,the comments of the Westerners on the traditional Chinese people as well as their values are much more than their evaluation of the values of the Chinese people in the current era. However,it is still not easy to just make evaluation of the traditional Chinese people and their values. China has an accumulation of civilization and culture of thousands of years,and it is ruled by the feudal ideology that is dominated by the Confucianism for over two thousand years. Confucianism has distinctive characteristics,which means it is able to create fairly consistent characteristics of personality and values. However,on the other hand,Chinese culture is undoubtedly too profound,even the system of Confucianism is a very complex system of values. The famous French thinker Jean-Paul Sartre once had a view on this. In 1955,Sartre visited China,and when he spoke about his impressions on the Chinese in an interview,he said:
Voltaire
Needless to say,even in the present cultural exchanges between China and the West,there will certainly be a lot of vague understanding or even misunderstanding about China and the values of the Chinese for one reason or another among Westerners,which will greatly hinder the cultural exchanges and social interaction at all levels between China and the West,and to some extent may also plant the seeds of alienation and resentment. A friendly,smooth and fruitful international exchange must be built on the basis that the two sides can understand each other,trust each other,and approach the ideological and cultural essence and intrinsic values of the other side as far as possible. Thus,in the mutual observation between China and Western countries,what is more serious is not the mistakes in understanding that have been appeared or will appear again,or the fetters in exchanges brought by them,but rather the lack of an attitude of respecting each other and being willing to understand and accept each other. The purpose of this book is exactly to introduce an objective and real system of thought and values of the Chinese to the outside world,which,in a certain sense,is intended to make contributions to the exchanges and intercourse between China and the West.