Collision And Syncretism Of The Chinese And Western Culture In The Late Ming

The association of Chinese and Western culture is in a distant source and a long stream. There are the economic and political contact, especially the coming to China of the Nestorians, Franciscan and Judaism in succession before the early Ming period. It laid a good foundation for the total contact and deep exchange of China and the West in the Ming period.Along with opens for the Age of Sail in the Late Ming period, the Society of Jesus as represented by western missionary began to preach Christianity to the East Asia. They gradually established the effective missionary policy of tapping China gate, under the difficultly exploring of the precursors, Francis Xavier,Alessandro Valignano,Michele Ruggieri and so on. Later, Ricci as a comprehensive person of the adaptive policy, penetrated into the Chinese mainland. He adjusted the missionary strategy and came to the Confucian closer based on the careful observation of China's social custom. It formed the adaptive strategy in the main form of "the way to have friends" and "mission by works". Thus, Ricci achieved a great success. By the most flourishing economic and cultural areas in China, Ricci moved to the north from Guangdong Province. He made Catholic become Chinese successfully, and the inter-cultural between China and West further spread In broad geographical.Guided actively by the rule of Matteo Ricci, the Chinese and western culture had a substantial collision involving all aspects of the Chinese and western culture. Facing the complex cultural environment in the late Ming period, Ricci conciliated the Chinese and western culture efficiently, and made groundbreaking exploration for positive talks of the Chinese and western culture on the relatively equal platform. It influenced profoundly on the social and cultural process of Chinese and western.Confucianism was the traditional orthodox, which value and position was taken seriously by Ricci. In the way of wearing Confucian garb,speaking Chinese and reading Confucius classics, Ricci moved toward Confucian scholars actively. He made friends with the scholars, and established the Confucianism image. Thus, it constituted the special culture phenomenon in late Ming Dynasty. Ricci strove to aid Confucianism into Catholicism, so as to alleviate the estranged psychology which was brought to scholars because of heterogeneity between China and the West. He tried to plant the Catholicism deep into the soil of the Chinese culture. Although both sides had profound differences among the ontology,kindness,filial piety and the opinion of death and life, and suffered intense rebound from the conservatives as well, Ricci assimilated the ethical composition through selective absorbing of Confucianism. He found the religious factors of the original Confucianism, so that he grafted Catholicism into Confucian speaking successfully. But the syncretism of Confucianism and Catholicism made concession for the Confucianism, that the Catholicism presented ethical and secular intension. This catered to the thoughts for dealing social problem, and instilled new vitality into the mental change of China.The Buddhism and Catholic are similar in many aspects. Early in the mission, the Jesuits such as Matteo Ricci lessoned from the monk's clothing and term. And, Ricci attempted to open the door of China by it. But based on the consideration of missionary work, Ricci abandoned monk's clothing and confusing term, and rejected Buddhism publicly in order to go with the stream of critical Buddhism in late Ming. He tried to clarify the difference between the Catholic and Buddhism so as to establish the Catholic irreplaceable image. Both of the Catholic and Buddhism collided vehemently in the way of presence or absence, heaven and hell as well as the salvation. But it leaded to be misunderstood inevitably because of mutual cognition not thorough and the differences between thinking modes. The doctrine of both was gleaned from lively debates so, exactly on the basis of in-depth exchange. And the repulsive mentality was decreasing gradually,so that both sides presented a reconciliation and mutual tolerance trend in the late period of Ricci's mission. Thus, by Ricci's interpretation, contradictive situation had improved markedly without any obvious rejection never.If the ethical collision of the Chinese and western present a complicated and difficult course, the dialogue of science and technology between Chinese and western opened by Ricci was more smoothly, and had made positive results especially in the astronomical and mathematics.Ricci translated books in cooperation with scholar such as Li Chih-tsao and Hsu Kuangch'I. And it laid the foundation for the Chinese original texts of western science and technology. The Chinese Jesuit-literati and enlightened Confucianism scholar introduced western scientific instruments and method, although the conservatives observed "differentiating Chinese from foreigners" strictly and put forward "not worth worshipping western skills". So it made the slow development of science and technology of China change positively, and played a catalyst role in revolution of the Chinese science&technology knowledge structure and academic ideology. Thus,"investigating natural phenomena and their principles" had taken shape which was differed from convention. It laid a foundation for the modern western science introduced into China.At the same time, in Ricci's great efforts, Chinese philosophy,science&technology and art began to be introduced to the west, so as to change the western vague cognitive of China. As foreign observers and researchers at that time, the missionaries represented by Matteo Ricci, established the basic pattern of incipient sinology in the western world, and introduced objectively imperial China and Confucianism to the West. It had huge appeal to European society in the Renaissance, so that the European society showed cultural anxiety and expectation in early modern Western Europe by Chinese images. Then, the European promoted the enlightenment, and realized the self-criticism and transformation of western society. The Chinese began to identity the western image,so that some enlightened scholars learned techno-culture from the West, criticized and transformed the shaky society of the late Ming dynasty. It brought a ray for the illiberal cultural attitudes which demonized the West.In short, facing the complex and volatile international situation, we reviewed the profound peaceful expedition trip by Ricci in the late Ming. Look upon ourselves, and respect others. Thus, it will have an important reference value for the peaceful dialogue during different civilizations or religions, cultural consciousness and cultural prosperity.