The Image Of China In Japan's Travel Notes To China During The Meiji Period

During the Meiji period,a large number of Japanese went to China for sightseeing and investigation with different purposes and motives under the initiative of the government,and wrote a lot of travel notes.Among them,the travel notes of others such as mountain qianren,small chestnut qianxiangding,ceng gen junhu,xiao Lin aixiong,naito hunan,natsume soushi,yu yezheren,sangyuan stallion are more representative.These travel notes are often accompanied by pictures and photos,which are extremely precious.Moreover,the contents recorded are also rare historical materials for us to study the economy,culture,military affairs,diplomacy and other aspects of modern China.Travel notes to China in Meiji period not only have objective description of China at that time,but also are full of misinterpretation and prejudice.Based on these representative travel notes and other travel notes and writing materials of this period,this paper tries to objectively reveal the Chinese people's writing of the image of China,and at the same time to investigate and analyze the cultural mentality behind the image.The paper is mainly carried out from the following aspects:In the introduction,this paper first discusses the origin of the travel to China in this period,and then,on the basis of the review of the domestic and foreign research,this paper puts forward the writing idea of the paper.The first chapter mainly focuses on the various aspects of Chinese people depicted in travel notes to China,and views the images of Chinese people during this period from the perspectives of officials,scholars and ordinary people.In the face of a nation beset by internal strife and foreign invasion,the traveler paints a picture of officials awakening to change,or corrupt and xenophobic,or just talking about it.Scholars made choices between the influence of "western learning" and the reality of selecting officials in the imperial civil examination system.Some still adhered to the theory of "six classics" and were obstinate.For the description of ordinary people,there will even be a visitor to compare to the "animal expo field".In China during this period of peregrinator through contact with China at all levels of communication,they found that the authoritarian system reform is still in the maintenance of the upper class of vested interests,most intellectuals scholars still cling to the classics stubborn,ordinary common people under the oppression of the feudal autocratic numbness of life,is China's feudal autocratic system hampered China's progress,also limits the development of China's modernization.Through such writing,the traveler shows the"legitimacy" and "rationality" of the reform of Japanese capitalism.The second chapter analyzes the treaty port cities and traditional cities described in the travel notes,and discusses the development status of Chinese cities under the impact of industrial civilization.The travel notes present the deformed appearance of treaty port cities,and the rich concession forms a sharp contrast with the poverty at the bottom.Relying on the development of politics and military,the traditional cities show the situation of "exhausted land",reflecting the omnipresent feudal power.It was a psychological shock for travelers to experience the Chinese cities of the time firsthand and discover that western powers were reaping enormous benefits from China.Moreover,Japanese travelers to China often view the recent development of Chinese cities from the perspective of their own interests.Therefore,behind their talk about the deformity and stagnation of Chinese cities,there is also the ambition of invading China.The third chapter focuses on the writing of the declining Chinese traditional culture in the writings to China.writing show the decline of traditional Buddhism and Confucianism,the decline of traditional literature and folk culture.Tourists find the backward and dark side of Chinese culture,so they have a kind of sympathy and pity psychology,even disdain and hostile attitude,and thus have more self-esteem or even arrogance towards their own culture.Therefore,while outlining the decline of Chinese culture,they also further prove the superiority of Japan's own culture,and try to revise the traditional Chinese view that Japanese always respect Chinese culture,,so as to provide certain factual basis for Japan to take further actions against China.The conclusion part is a summary of the full text.In the travel writing to China during the Meiji period of Japan,the tourists sketched for us the images of Chinese sentient beings,Chinese cities and Chinese culture,which were combined to form the image of China in the eyes of the Japanese,and also implied their cultural mentality.When we look at the image of China in the eyes of the Japanese people,we should not only realize that the Japanese people's writing about the image of China is true,but also realize that there may be bias and misinterpretation in the travel notes.We should have an objective understanding of this.At the same time,we study the travel notes of this period in the hope of better self-reflection and self-development.