Abstracts
2020-12-02
The “New Girl” in the Late Qing Chinese Drama:The Characters inside and outside threeChuanqi
Xia Xiaohong (p.1)
Along with the “Western learning spreads to the East” movement, especially the emergence and spread of all-girls schools promoting modern education, new female figures bearing the personalities of a modern citizen arose in the late Qing society. Their colorful life became a theme of the Chinese drama, and was constantly depicted and praised by the advocators of the “Chinese Drama Revolution” in late Qing. Among these works of Chinese drama, three successive ones in the early 20th Century stand out because of their realistic basis: “Aiguo Nü’er Chuanqi”, “Guangdong Xin Nü’er Chuanqi”, and “Songling Nü’er Chuanqi”. This paper analyzes the above works to reveal the real life of women in late Qing, including both renowned figures — such as XueJinqin who spoke publicly and patriotically against the Sino-Russian Treaty, Wu Mengban who initiated establishment of the Women’s Learning Society in Shanghai, Du Qingchi who devoted herself to women’s education — as well as less famous ones such as Liu Pingquan who failed to fulfill her high ambitions. My study pays tribute to these pioneering “New Girls” and uncovers the difficulties for women’s liberation in late Qing.
The discrimination about whether Richthofennamed the “Silk Road”
Liu Jinbao (p.43)
At present, it is widely believed that the concept of “Silk Road” comes from Ferdinand von Richthofen, he published the bookChina:TheresultsofMyTravelsandtheStudiesBasedThereonin 1877, in volume 1 of this book, page 454, he wrote: “From 114 BC to 127 AD, the road linked China to the areas between the two rivers of Amu Darya and Syr Darya, and to India. It became a trading route for the areas within and beyond the western borders of China, and silk was the major commodity.” Actually, there is not such a sentence in his book, and also, mentioned the concept of “Silk Road”was an accident for him. The widely quoted sentences mentioned above was summarized by Albert Herrmann.
Ye Gongchuo and Dunhuang Studies in Modern China
Zhao Dawang (p.55)
Ye Gongchuo made an important contribution to the development of Dunhuang Studies. Compared with his contemporaries who engaged in Dunhuang Studies, his academic achievements were not so great. But he actively advocated and promoted Dunhuang Studies, with his advantages in terms of social position and interpersonal relationship. He created the first social group for Dunhuang Studies, promoted the lists of the Dunhuang documents which were preserved all over the world, and dedicated to the collection and preservation of Dunhuang manuscripts. Moreover, he pushed the development of Dunhuang Studies by giving help to other researchers and institutes. He played a significant role in many important events of Chinese early Dunhuang Studies.
The Qing legation in London andIts Application of International Law
Huangfu Zhengzheng (p. 85)
First instituted in 1876, legations introduced new channels of communication between the Qing and foreign governments. Located overseas and staffed by a coterie of semi-professional diplomats supervised by high-ranking ministers, Qing legations conducted diplomatic negotiations, intelligence gathering, and supervision of consulates and Qing students in foreign countries. They also asserted the Qing’s legal authority over Chinese populations overseas and brought any unresolved disputes between foreign ministers and the Zongli Yamen in Beijing to the attentions of their home governments. This study aims at identifying the diplomatic, political, and cultural roles performed by the Qing legation in London based on a careful combing of Qing ministers’ letters (zhaohui) housed in the British National Archive, together with internal communications with the imperial court, the Zongli Yamen and provincial officials, supplemented by diplomats’ personal accounts.
Obstructing Based on Arguments:
Cai Jun and the Local Diplomacyin the Late Qing Dynasty
Zhang Xiaochuan (p. 117)
Cai Jun became a government official in his early years in Guangdong, and then was put in charge of local foreign affairs in Guangdong, Jiangsu, and Fujian. As a result of years of experience in managing foreign affairs, he formed his own style, which was the combination of theoretical preparation supported with the public laws and treaties, and the verbal tricks and tactics during the negotiation process, based on the daily contacts and showing goodness. On the basis of his own experience, Cai Jun wrote a book, Arguments in Diplomatic Affairs, which displayed the general details in local diplomatic practice. However, he also used some narrative skills to propagandize himself. In the context of frequent Sino-foreign contacts, the fact that Cai Jun took part in various foreign affairs and even got a name as an official of a low or middle rank, was closely related to the diplomatic inclination of “obstructing” in the Late Qing Dynasty.
The Overlooked Realistic Concern: Chen Yuan’sYuanXiyurenHuahuaKaoin the West
Tu Hanzhang (p. 147)
Focusing on the English translation ofYuanXiyurenHuahuaKaoand the reviews of the book in the West, the author reveals that the translator Luther Carrington Goodrich had made adaptations to Chen’s original work and that the book had been quite controversial among American reviewers. Many notes had been added meticulously to the original work, but Chen Yinke’s preface with strong theoretical concern disappeared in Goodrich’s translation. Furthermore, although most of the reviewers appreciated Chen’s “exhaustive coverage of the materials”, his realistic concern, far from being understood and accepted, had been overlooked or even criticized by American scholars like Frederick W. Mote and Owen Lattimore. The author argues that the reason why Chen’s realistic concern had been overlooked is due to not only Chen’s style of writing in which “sublime words with deep meaning” are used but also the existence of emotional barriers between them.
A Study of Military State and county militaryhouseholds Seen in the Yellow Bookof the Ming Dynasty
Zhang Heng (p. 173)
In the paper back documents of yuefu poetry collection in Shanghai library, there is a Yellow Book of military service in four leaves, which contains details of matters such as the charging and distribution of military households in zhou county and military households in the Ming dynasty. The Ming dynasty in the army household confiscation and clearance of the management process of the main reference in the “army Yellow Book” in the civilian part, when refers to the Yellow Book of the army household confiscation and check the specific content of the notes. The detailed contents of the rectification of the wei suo in the period of xuande in the Yellow Book provide a typical case for us to understand the principle of “camp first, camp later” when the wei suo made up the army households. The discovery and interpretation of such first-hand historical materials provide detailed historical materials for us to understand the relationship between the Ming dynasty junhu system and the Yellow Book system, which reflects the consistency between the Ming dynasty books and the Yellow Book. The retention of such detailed materials of soldiers at the level of prefectures and counties in Ming dynasty provides a new way of thinking and method for the academic community to interpret the military household system in Ming dynasty from the level of prefectures and counties and the Yellow Book of compulsory military service, and to make use of all kinds of original materials for historical research.
The Differentiation and Assimilationof the Operation Mechanism of TujiaHousehold Registration in Qing Dynasty
Huang Zhongxin (p. 207)
The Qimen Xiugai Chengyuan Bu (Account Book for the Rebuild the City Wall of Qimen County)during the Qianlong Period of the Qing Dynasty is not only a record of the accounts of rebuild city, but also a summary of the Tujia information of the whole county, which had the nature of the household register. The amount of donations and transports for rebuilding the city walls reflects the actual state of temporary tax allocation, which shows the operation mechanism of Tujia organization. The Tujia organization controlled by gentry and clan has formed a stable operation mechanism, often with certain tax arrears, and the specific situation of the sub-households is quite vague. In order to grasp the land tax quota directly, the government tried to adjust the pattern of Tujia, which had a good effect temporarily, but could not avoid the trend of tunneling.
The Acceptance and Change of ChineseAncient Local Administrative Systemin Korean Peninsula: A DiscussiononMyeon-RiSystem in Joseon Dynasty
Zhu Mei (p. 249)
The acceptance and change of ancient Chinese local administrative system in Korean Peninsula can be analyzed from the perspective ofmyeon-risystem. Based on the political idea of former kings’ political mechanism includingxiang-suisystem of the Zhou Dynasty and considering the implementation of village, an administrative division of past dynasties in China, as a reference, the structure ofmyeonandrireform in 17th century reflected the governance idea on village of the Joseon Dynasty to some extent. The design ofmyeon-risystem in 17th century emphasized national re-registration and governance on the village while actively undertaking feudalism ideas of ancient approaches and inheriting the legacy of ancientxiang-lisystem and township official system. The unit ofmyeonandriundertook the administration management responsibility at the primary level with some certain attributes of village autonomy. The evolution ofmyeon-risystem shown in the household registration of Danseong-hyeon of Gyeongsang-do manifested that at the late 17th century was gradually formed and in 18th century was basically established themyeon-risystem and the vertical subordination betweenmyeonandriin Danseong-hyeon.
A Preliminary Survey of the Contentsof the Sanskrit and Tibetan Versionsof theCīvaravastuof the MūlasarvstivdaVinaya
Wu Juan (p. 271)
TheCīvaravastu(“Section on Robes”), the seventh chapter of the MūlasarvstivdaVinayavastu, is arguably one of the most important sources for understanding not only the monastic law code of the Mūlasarvstivdins, but also Indian Buddhist narrative lore. TheCīvaravastuhas only survived in Sanskrit and Tibetan versions, with no Chinese translation available. Its significance has long been neglected by modern Chinese scholars. The present paper consists mainly of three parts. The first part introduces in detail the extant Sanskrit and Tibetan versions of theCīvaravastu, as well as related studies published to date. The second part offers an overview of the content and structure of theCīvaravastu, and provides a concordance table of the Gilgit Sanskrit manuscript of theCīvaravastuand its corresponding Tibetan translation. The third part, taking the story of Ajtasatru’s past life and his rebirth as an example, demonstrates that theCīvaravastuhas a unique value for the comparative study of Buddhist and Jaina narrative literature, and thus deserves more attention than it has received so far.
A Study on the Power of Tao Yuanming’s Poetry
Liu Yi (p. 303)
Tao Yuanming’s poems are natural and transcendent, but many ancient and modern poets and scholars say his poems are extremely powerful. However, there has been a lack of special discussion on the strength of Tao’s poems and the ways of their existence and expression. In fact, Tao’s poems have both tolerant and transcendental power, which is due to the combination of his personality traits of simple, plain, lazy and unsocial, upright, virtuous. In his poems, we can observe the existence and performance of its power from three aspects: The first is to look at the style of “Zuo Si Fengli”左思風力. The second is from the self-identification and self-description of “Jie”介 and “Zhuo”拙. At last, we can find this kind of deep and extensive power from the more hidden word method, syntax and composition.
Research on literature labelled as AligningWenzhangyuanqi — Discussion basedon its collation editions of availableto scholars in the Song Dynasty
Li Xiaohong (p. 337)
Ren Fang’s Wenzhangyuanqi (任昉《文章緣起》) is the first book focusing on the name origins of existing genres in the ancient China, and has an record of 85 genre types, each with genre name and its earliest case, the essay title and author’s name, developed by writers and scholars from Qin Dynasty to Dong Jin Dynasty. The available editon of this book is colated by Hong Kuo (洪适) in the South Song Dynasty, yet passing-down editions since Ming Dynasty are commonly mistaken to be 84 genre types. Thereupon, a full list of 85 types is discussed here according to an early edition used in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, which was taken as the Tang Dynasty scholar Zhang Ji’s collation work by Sikuquanshu Zongmu (四庫全書總目). There are two main different approaches, namely Zongji (總集) and Zajia (雜家), existing in the genre-upstreaming literatue in the Pre-Tang Dynasties, and Wenzhangyuanqi is following the Zongji approach by beginning with a complete essay of the Divine Emperor and Virtuous Sages. This standpoint was widely accepted to describe Ren Fang’s original book in the literature since Liang Dynasty. Zhang JI’s edition was attributed to Zajia well after its finishing, though the supplement by Zhang Ji was already rejected in the Song Dynasty. Scholars since then used to adopt both approaches to do further work on Ren Fang’s book with a series of new books by Chen Maoren (陳懋仁), Fang Xiong (方熊), Sun Biwen (孫璧文) and Qiang Fangqi (錢方琦) to name but a few, to merge into a kind of literature labelled as Aligning Wenzhangyuanqi. This distinct phonomenon forms a wide genre spectrum with as many as 228 types, therefore provides a special perspective to inspect the origin and development of the ancient genres.
Where is Dongting: Context of novelhistory’s context ofDongtinglingyinzhuanand the Taoist concept of Dongtian
Li Xiaolong (p. 375)
The story ofDongtinglingyinzhuantakes place in the Dongting, but where the “Dongting” actually is a question. According to the evidence of “The shore of Xiangjiang” and “born in Chu” in the text of the novel, it should belong to Chu; however, the expression of “I heard you’re going back to Wu” in the novel should also belong to Wu. This contradiction can not be solved only by collation, because some conflicts do not come from words, but from the story structure. In fact, this contradiction should be related to the geographical concept of the ancients, that is to say, the two Dongting are interlinked. If we put this into the context of the history of novels such as the story of theLinagsigongji’sZhenzedongandLingyingzhuan, we can find that This mode also has complex intertextuality in the world of novel history. If go further into its cultural context, we can see that the imagination and interworking settings of these novels all come from the Taoist concept of the Dongtian.