| Guangzhou is located in South of China, it has been the politic and economic center of South China for over 2,000 years because of its particular geographical position. The Central-Plain culture and various kinds of foreign cultures have been merged and developed, which causes the extremely strong opening in Guangzhou. In the late Ming Dynasty, as a kind of new civilization, western culture was introduced to Guangzhou. It opened a new scene of communication between Chinese culture and western culture. Western culture spreading in Guangzhou can be divided into different stages. Guangzhou had already been an international metropolitan before the Opium War (1840-1842) and western culture had already appeared in Guangzhou. But the spread of western culture was not smooth because of Chinese's inherent sense of superiority. So, the influence of western culture on the ordinary people in Guangzhou was little. After the Opium War (1840-1842), Guangzhou was damaged seriously and its economic status was dropped down sharply. The hostility mood of people in Guangzhou was serious. Communication between Chinese and Western culture came into a deadlock in Guangzhou. The original arrogant psychology to foreigners was replaced by frightened psychology among of the people in Guangzhou. They began to extricate themselves from predicament. Under these circumstances, westernization movement emerged and the study of the west became popular. Western cultural was poured into Guangzhou, changed the people's life in Guangzhou rapidly and produced extensive influences. The influence of western culture to the residents in Guangzhou was presented by two aspects, which are material influence and spirit influence. The material life, such as people's clothing, food, shelter, transportation and medical, changed sharply. Both the interior and exterior of life incorporated western culture. Western food, western rice and western flour enriched the diet structures and contents of people. Western cloth and suit changed the traditional Chinese clothes and broke the traditional grade of the clothes. The Western-style house showed the owner's status. Facilities of modern city facilitated people's life, widened the communication space, and improved the quality of people's life. Western-style medical method and means formed the supplement to traditional Chinese medicine. It improved the medical levels and people's health. In the spirit life, the new religious belief enriched the people's inner world in Guangzhou and Jesus began to occupy a lot of people's spiritual space. The traditional bad habit changed and was buried because of western culture. The freedom atmosphere was rooted in people's heart. The public amusement space expanded, the family's amusement was broken through and the humanized factors in amusement expressed. It was the representation of Chinese and Western cultural exchanges, and it was the result of the culture merges too.The influence of western culture on residents' life in Guangzhou was differentiated into classes. Because of economy and consciousness, the upper strata had more conditions to accept and imitate western civilization. The changes of the material and spiritual culture of people in Guangzhou indicated that the acceptance of western culture were mostly from top to bottom. Western diet, dress, house culture and etc, which had all influenced the rich stratum of the society of Guangzhou at first, then influenced other strata progressively. The popularization was the inexorable trend of its speading.
|
PDF Full Text Request