Study On Medium Usage By Christian Missionary In China(1565-1912)

At the time of Ming and Qing dynasty (1565-1912), the missionaries ofChristian’s two branches, Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, move to China, forthe relief of sowing the good seeds and saving souls to preach their religion. Most ofthe time, however, they were abominations to Chinese and were treated as barbarians.How to use medium to remove the prejudice from the Chinese and transmit Christianinformation is the key to their success.This study suggests that Roman Catholic missions’ actions of disseminatingChristian knowledge during16th-18th century were limited for both subjective andobjective reasons, especially by the determinant factor caused by characteristics ofmediums. The Chinese ways of getting information and their living standards wereclosely related to the usage of Chinese words. Chinese words are numerous and theirsight and sound are integrated with semantic and verbal content, which made Chinesewords less radical and efficient technology for mass communication. Further more, byusing Chinese words, the whole Chinese community was shaped and organized alongwith the patterns of literate culture. Roman Catholic missions were trying to introducephonetic letters to translate the sounds of Chinese language into one and the samevisual code. Pitifully, their endeavor were not appreciated and therefore adopted bymost Chinese at that time.In early18th century a direct conflict occurred between Roman Catholic Churchand Chinese emperor, which at beginning was caused by the orders issued by churchprohibiting converts to perform traditional Chinese rites such as honored theirforefathers and Confucius ceremony. The Chinese emperor fought right back byissuing prohibitions which do not allow any form of preaching or propagation toChinese. Since restrictions made public propagation uneasy, Catholicism inclined todevote them into developing folk converts. The political environment was toughthough, hence the associated activities became more privately in order to survivepersecutions against Catholics. The protestant missionaries started their works inChina in1807by mainly using written words, literary works and periodicals. Thephonetic alphabet and type printing were their most important technology, by whichthey used to translate one language into another. By editing English-Chinesedictionary they were able to speed up their capabilities of spreading knowledge. Along with printing and distributing holy bible, periodical press was introduced toChinese, which was a new form of literary works to them at that time. Though it wasfirst designed to publish pure religious information, but considering its objective andeffect, it tends to be more folk style with much news on it. This is the very source andoriginal form of Chinese modern newspaper.In the mid19th century, many imperialism states forced China to open its interiorto them. While Christianity gained much privileges through this on their advantage.At the mean time, many churches, organizations and their associates came in acontinuous stream to aid missionaries. With their establishing and expandingthemselves in China, they were able to penetrate into every last angle in Chinesecommunities. As a result, the traditional structure of Chinese communities wasdisintegrated for the sake of western privilege and the demands for new informationthat were set by printing technology.The consequences accompanied with the medium usage by missionaries were bothinspiring and frustrating. In short, something gained and other things were lost forever.Traditional ties based on consanguinity stand the impact forced by another optionprovided by Christianity, but the autocratic monarchy didn’t survive this. While thelinks between Chinese and their nature gods-"tian" and "di" was cut off. Those whowouldn’t accept Christian were strengthening those were left-consanguinity so as toseek an peace within themselves. On the other hand they tended to seek an external tiewith others where the rise of technology and using technology to chase fame andprofit provided an ideal alternative. The work of disseminating Christian informationwas done long ago, though the belief in Christian and the popularization of its valuewere far less accomplished.