When West Met East:Views Of Guangxi Society In The Perspective Of Modern Westerners

In modern China,it was a special group of missionaries,businessmen,travelers and diplomats,they had generally accepted higher education before coming China,and had a keen observation on society.During the period of staying in China,they witnessed a society that was completely different from their home country,and then they wrote about life,work,travel and exploration into letters,diaries,work reports,memoir and biography,to convey Chinese images and information to the West.It was an important window for western world to understand the modern Chinese society.Whether they landed in China from the coast of Guangdong,went up to Guangxi along the Xijiang River,infiltrated Guangxi from the French colony of Vietnam,or from the northern neighboring provinces of Guizhou and Hunan,these westerners recorded their own scenery and social life in Guangxi,spreading to the West,so that it began the early impressions and perceptions of Guangxi and even China in the West,and became an important basis for them to judge China society.At the same time,it was also an important material to study the modern western view of China.The full text is composed of three parts: introduction,main text and conclusion.The introduction mainly introduces the reason and significance of the topic,the current situation of the research on "Chinese Image in the Western Perspective" by domestic and foreign scholars,the main body material used in this paper,research methods and ideas.The main text is divided into eight chapters.The first chaptermainly introduces the first-hand historical materials used in this paper,and provides the academic circles with the basic materials for the study of the modern local history of Guangxi.The second,third,fourth,fifth,sixth and seventh chapters detail the main contents of the missionaries’ concern after they entered Guangxi,including the social phenomena witnessed,such as the natural scenery,bandits,multi-religious and folk culture,and women’s life of all levels,conflict between missionaries and local people in Guangxi,etc.The eighth chapter discusses the influence of the missionaries’ activities in Guangxi and their experiences on the local society,based on the interpretation and analysis of the previous historical data.It includes the contribution of education,medical and charitable caused to the social development in modern Guangxi,and impress on western world about the view and policy of Guangxi and even China.On the basis of summing up the full text,the conclusion further explains that the basic historical materials with the core of missionary literature are of great value to the study of modern Chinese social history,especially the modern local history.