English 281 Analysis

Before the arrival of western powers, China was very stable, agricultural, and ethnocentric. They had many factories that produced silk, cotton, and porcelain with their natural resources: salt, tin, silver, and iron mines. They had no interest of trade or interaction with foreigners. From the early eighteenth century, European and American Imperialism spread throughout China with a goal to extend their nation’s power. China was one of many territories that undertook the changes of New Imperialism. By 1912, the country was governed by outside nations: Great Britain (mostly), Russia, Germany, France, and Japan. Their influence on China resulted malignantly on the country’s economy, political ties, and lifestyle; in spite of the few

In document 1, there is Hongwu Emperor’s favorite passage from “The Way and the Power” and it’s stopping China from letting people trade and go to other countries because the king was afraid of his people realizing that there are lots of better places in other countries and other countries have better products than China. If people finds out that other countries better place to live than people will start complaining and scatter to other countries. This will eventually make China lose power and other countries will start to invade and attack China. Next, document 9 a Chinese emperor wrote rules for his people in 1524 and it was about trading without permission with Barbarian will be punished. First rule said that people who meet them and trades with barbarian before the examination of the ship will be punished.

This particular case of Confucianism in the 1986 Journey to the West television series is especially interesting, due to China’s socio-political setting of that time. The influence of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on media content[4] combined with its usage of Confucianism to secure its own right to rule[5] make the Journey to the West television series the perfect medium to promote Confucianism to the masses. The enormous popularity of Journey to the West

Reading T. R. Reid's new book brought me back to that conversation. ''Confucius Lives Next Door'' is aptly named. Reid, a longtime reporter and Asia correspondent for The Washington Post, has nailed his copy of the Analects to the mast. Drawing on the experience of his own and his family's life in Tokyo and other east Asian points, he has written a paean to what he terms ''east Asia's social miracle -- how the Asians have built modern industrial societies characterized by the safest streets, the best schools and the most stable families in the world.'' Asians, he holds, have ''a sense of civility and harmony that you can feel,'' and they ''achieved their social miracle primarily by holding to a

Another section in the book that reflects the topics we have discussed during the semester is Foucquet’s The book of Changes. On page 15, Spence states that Foucquet was not allowed to employ any more Chinese to transcribe his work, ultimately resulting it being more difficult for him to bring his work to fruition. Foucquet’s work is described as his passion, which is “to unravel the hidden meanings in the Chinese past”. Because this takes place during the rule of the Qing dynasty, which is known for not wanting anything to do with Europeans, Chinese rulers may not want Foucquet to show Europeans China’s past. Furthermore, on page 16, Spence writes, “Western missionaries in China may leave only if the Emperor consents,” which further substantiates this theory. A third moment that clearly reflects a topic that we covered is when Hu snatches a letter that Foucquet writes about his behavior from Father Gramain and shreds the letter to pieces. In a way, Foucquet is John Hu’s “master”. Earlier in the text, Spence states that Hu is Foucquet’s assistant, which proves this

Throughout the late eighteenth century, China did not reject the outside world. It just failed to see that the globe had something to offer. China ran well enough with cheap labour and efficient administration. Supply and demand was easily met in a way that left no incentive to invest in technological improvement. Plus, China was unaware that an economic, technological and cultural revolution was taking place in Europe and expanding throughout the rest of the world. For this reason, China did not industrialize in the way that the West did. China became weak and fell behind the technology race because of its poor leadership. Chinese emperors were more

Still present in its attitude towards outsiders today, China has always frowned upon immense interaction with other societies. Even though China wouldn’t become fully isolated until Europe’s Age of

China, the creator of tea and silk went through a period where they had troubles with the west. This took place in the early nineteenth century. During this time china still thinks that they are the middle Kingdom (The center of the world). Great Britain has wanted to expand for years and get trade from other countries. China has not wanted to trade with Britain. China has not wanted to trade because of they are self sufficiece. China has been living by Confucian principles for the last thousand years, and does not want to change their way of life. The west really wanted China 's tea and silk so they kept trying to trade with china, but the problem was that great britain had nothing china wanted. Then one

The history of Chinese students studying in American universities dates back to the mid-1850s, when the first student, Yung Wing, graduated from Yale University in 1854 (Bartlett and Fischer Para. 8). After that. Qin Dynasty starts sending Chinese students to learned new sciences and technologies and we called “Westernization Movement”. The educational missions to the US were organized in the 1870s to train specialists who would create “better engines and iron hulls” for Chinese ships (Bartlett and Fischer Para. 8). The 1870s mission involved about 120 students, who were sponsored to study at the United States’ top universities. Since the 1870s, the number of Chinese students in American colleges has grown exponentially to become the largest population of foreign students in the US (Institute of International Education [IIE] 7). After the Qing court’s resistance to reform and by China’s weakness, Sun Yat-Sen led a revolutionary military uprising. During the regime changing time, people really didn’t know what democracy is. Therefore, more and more students chose to study abroad to learn about the western political system. Chinese students travel to the US to pursue a degree in Western colleges, which they consider to be among the best learning institutions in the world.

After the Opium Wars, Chinese intellectuals had started to become aware of China’s weakness on the world stage. By 1900, defeat in the Sino-Japanese War, the failure of the Boxer Rebellion and the humiliating treaties that followed, made it clear to all. The old empire was in decline with the inadequacies of tradition exposed. A critique of the Confucian Doctrine, had begun. China needed to rejuvenate, rewriting the weaknesses of the old empire into a youthful nation. The questioning of nationhood coincided with a rising class of literati learning outside of China. Those such as Liang Qichao, believed that the huge gap between China and the West was not because of race but different educational systems within which, the education of children was vital. Ideas of Social Darwinism and the survival of the nation spread, furthering the symbolism of the child through the prism of the nation. Reformers in this class fervently critiqued the Civil Service Examination system in relation to foreign aggression. Lin Shu denotes, “thousands of literati were trained to be familiar with Confucian classics and historical books, but they had no ability to deal with invaders.” In this way,

Along with Prince Gong’s active role in ‘seeking to improve China’s diplomatic relations and advance the military’11, the dominant leaders of modernization sought to ‘take the foreigners as their teachers and models; then they may come to the same level and be their equals; finally they may move ahead and surpass them’. Their ideas were supported by a number of provincial governors and scholar-officials who began to ‘seek out an effective path for reform’12. These efforts would become known as the Self-Strengthening Movement. The leading theorist of the movement was the scholar-official Feng Guifen who believed in order to ‘strengthen the Qing state, traditional Confucian culture and institutions must be preserved’ and ‘supplemented by Western weapons and technological learning’. Although the reforms proposed modernization, a cultural change was needed for it to truly be in effect. With the establishment of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Zongli Yamen), Zeng advised to send students to Western countries for technical training and in result a mission was sent to the United States of America the following year. However after a few years the students were instructed to return to China claiming that they spent to much time on Western learning and not enough on their Chinese studies. Although, the officials most likely feared that the students were ‘learning democratic or republican ideas’13

the essence of the Chinese culture. He always said the importance of teaching could change the

The Reid family moved to Japan in 1990. The family had encountered various aspects being economics, religion and culture. The author describes how Confucian values in East Asia have kept the area safe and steadily developing and also how the West can learn and improve by adapting these values.The novel Confucius Lives Next Door begins by comparing East Asia to the West. The first chapter intrigued me because I never knew the statistics of our country compared to East Asia. I was aware of the level of knowledge being higher than the West but, the table on page 15 was quite an example. However, education was not the only element that struck me, divorce, children and the goodness of people did as well.

A few days ago, when we were talking about education in English class, our professor asked me a question: “what do you think the difference is between education in the US and in China?” As the only fortunate person who has experienced education systems in both the US and China, I became the most appropriate one to answer this question; however, I had lost myself in thought. In my memory, my father has always been talking to me about his worries of the conservative and feudal of Chinese education would kill students’ creativity and originality. On the other hand, he was also concerned that students who are experiencing liberal education system would have an unstable fundamental education. From my experience, my father wanted to give me the best education by taking the advantages from both Western and Eastern education. Yet, what is the best? Or what is better? For a while my mind was blank; I sat there numbly with no response until class was over. Nevertheless, the lately news of Chinese international students expelled by the US colleges by playing plagiarism associating with professor’s question, Chinese government should pay more attention to Chinese education and what is causing the problems.

The article ‘Internationalization of Chinese Higher Education’ explains the development and problems in Chinese Higher Education from Han dynasty