Reflective Journal on Topic Three Chineseness

LI Jiaxuan 15103592d

Dr. Pan Lu

FH1000

4 December，2015

Reflective journal on topic three Chineseness

1. Introduction

Chineseness is a heated topic for all these years. Although it does not have a specific definition as many other cultural phenomena and may concentrate on different aspects according to situations, scholars more or less agree there exists a signifier that can cover all the aspects of being a Chinese. However, when it comes to a further cognition, it is quite various and controversial. Some researchers follow the tradition which believes Chinese can be defined perfectly and unparalleled with a scientific attitude, whose meaning will not be affected by any surrounding circumstance, and they attach a great importance to the influence of Confucianism, while many claim de-Chinese as their views and even give his study an astonishing title like fuck Chineseness. Meanwhile, a third voice, not as radical as the two above, appear that Chinese is not a category with a fixed content, but is ‘constantly renegotiated and rearticulated’ (Ang 38). This article will support the third opinion of open Chineseness and discuss its nature from the perspective of history and geography. In addition, based on the new environment of diaspora, this article will study how open Chineseness adapts to the current society and solve the problem of identity, compared with the other two opinions.

2. Main body

The modern concept of Chineseness formed under the influence of western study of China during the 19th century. As Italo Calvino described in his famous book invisible cities,‘Elsewhere is a negative mirror. The traveler recognizes the little that is his, discovering the much he has not had and will never have (29)’, Chineseness has long been an ‘elsewhere’ in western academic ideas. In connection with the western theory, the early Chinese thinkers like Yan Fu(严复)，Liang Qichao（梁启超），Lu Xun（鲁迅）were greatly inspired and tried to set up a standard Chineseness by transforming traditional Confucianism. Though these thinkers tried to define Chineseness in a determined way, this attempt itself revealed the flexibility of Chineseness. The initial concept of Chineseness shaped in Zhou Dynasty and represented itself as a sense of superior ‘Cathay’, which is quite different from the modern Chineseness (Tu 154). The cultural concept of Chineseness is open and changeable from its beginning. Additionally, the territory of China changes from time to time, not to mention the vassal connection with Japan, Korea and Vietnam and the East Asian cultural sphere, as a result, Chineseness is also ambiguous politically and geographically. We can say that cultural, political, geography nature of Chineseness is changing all along the development of so-called ‘China’.