Sailing in the Western Wind
Enoch Wan
Professor,
Western Seminary
Published
in Global Missiology, Contextualization, Oct. 2003, www.globalmissiology.net
Abstract
First in a series of six
articles concerning Christianity and evangelism within the contexts of the two
very different systems of contemporary
First published in Chinese Around the
World, March 1999 (A Ministry of Chinese Coordination Centre of World
Evangelism) and posted at http://www.missiology.org.
Send
comments to: ewan@westernseminary.edu
I. PRELIMINARY
INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES
This is the first of a six-part
series on Christianity in the East and the West within the contexts of the two
very different systems of contemporary USA and the overseas-born Chinese.
The plan is to first identify the elements of Western influence on Chinese
culture in general and Chinese Christianity in particular in order to call for
the formulation of Sino-theology for contemporary Chinese, making our Christian
faith relevant in the anticipation of a new millennium and to be better
received by non-Christian Chinese. Then it is to show that there are also
elements of Eastern influence (Easternization) on the
contemporary American culture, leading to the discussion of cultural clash or
mutual enrichment of the East and the West. The series of six is meant to be
both descriptive and provocative.
II.
INTRODUCTION
There are undeniable elements in the
contemporary Chinese culture as factual evidences of Western influence. Let's
begin with food: corn, potato, tomato, egg-plant, peanut, pepper, pine-apple,
etc. were introduced from the West into China either directly or
indirectly. In addition, many items in the daily life of individual
Chinese are of Western origins: vocabulary（e.g.烏托邦，模特兒，冰淇淋）, dress（洋服）,
calendar (the adoption of AD vs. the lunar calendar), cooking style（e.g.
西餐）, transportation (e.g. the use of bicycle, motor cycle, car,
train), communication (e.g. telephone, satellite, inter-net, etc.).
III.
MULTI-DIMENSIONAL AND MULTI-LEVEL WESTERNIZATION
The extensiveness and
comprehensiveness of Western influence on the Chinese culture is beyond the individual
level; it is institutionalized collectively and internalized personally.
Various dimensions of contemporary Chinese culture have been westernized.
Only seven selected aspects are summarized below to highlight this reality.
A. Science & Technology
Western missionaries were the key
people who introduced Western science and technology into China. For
instance, early in the 17th century, Jesuit missionary Trigault
(1577-1628) brought to the emperor a collection of 70,000 volumes of foreign
language from the Pope, and then 400 titles of translation into Chinese were
produced by Jesuit missionaries to introduce Western science and technology.
Later Protestant missionaries, such as Calvin Mateer,
Timothy Richard, W.A.P. Martin, systematically translated into and extensively
published in Chinese to introduce Western science and technology to China.
After the repeated humiliations by
the superior military power of the Western nations, Chinese leaders, such as
Lin Tze-hsu（林則除）,
Tseng Kuo-fan（曾國藩）, Li Hung-chang（李鴻章）, Chang Chih-tung（章之洞）, were eager to save China by adopting Western science and
technology. The following events were clear cases of this kind: during
the Self-Strengthening Movement of 1860-70 period, there was the establishment
of shipyard and machinery, the founding of Ship & Sale Bureau （輪船招商局） in 1872, the Kai-ping Mining（開平煤礦）in 1876, the Nan-bei Electric（南北電線）in 1878, the telephone company in 1905, the use of cannon
and battleship during the time of Emperor Kuang-Hsu（光緒）of the Ch'ing Dynasty（清朝）in late 19th century, etc.
B. Military & Weaponry
During the Tai-ping Rebellion, the
officials of the Ch'ing Dynasty discovered the effectiveness of Western
weaponry. In 1862, the government purchased seven battle ships and one
supplier ship from Britain and started the trend of importing Western war
technology. In 1866, Tso Tsung-tang（左宗棠）founded the first modern military training school in Fu-jian（福建）.
Later Naval Academy was established. Many were sent by the government to enroll
in military academies to learn the Western warfare methodology.
Since the first Sino-Japanese War of
1895, the imperial government of the Ch'ing Dynasty initiated the Western style
military training program. This marked the beginning of a large scale
military westernization, and Yuen Shih-kai's（袁世凱）German style training of the army was one of the notable
cases. In 1923, Sun Yat-sen（孫中山）, the founding father of the Republic of China, sent Chiang
Kai-shek（蔣介石）to Europe for an exposure to the Western military
program. In 1924, upon his return from the West, Chiang founded the
Huang-po Military Academy（黃埔軍校）to train the revolutionary force to fight against the
warlords.
C. Politics & Ideology
In 1842, through the writing of Wei-yuan（魏源，《海國圖志》）, the Western parliamentary system was introduced to China
for the first time. In the 80's of the 19th century, after their visit to
the West, imperial officials proposed to institute parliamentary system in
China. During the Hundred Days Reform（百日維新）, leaders like K'ang Yu-wei（康有為), Liang Ch'i-ch'ao（梁啟超）, etc. had advocated the parliamentary
system and in 1906, petitioned to implement a constitutional monarchy system.
In 1912, the first Congress in China（南京臨時參議院）was established, patterned after the British and the German
one. In 1911, at the founding of the Republic of China (RC), Western
democracy replaced the Chinese imperial system and the leader was Sun Yat-sen, who was the Founder of the Republic and a
Christian, and was educated in the Western systems of Hawaii and Hong
Kong. He traveled abroad extensively during the period of 1895-1911,
absorbing Western ideology and instituted Hsen-jon-hue（興中會）
among overseas-born Chinese. Among the supporters of the revolution, many
were Christians and graduates of missionary/Western schools. The
political ideology of the Republic was Sen-min-ju-yi （The Three Principles of the
People, 三民主義：民族，民權，民生）which included the spirit of Christianity and Western
democracy.
After the successful communist
revolution in 1949, the Marxist-Engel ideology of the West began to strongly
entrench in the mind of many leaders. Though Mao Ze-dong
（毛澤東） did not follow the communist orthodoxy, his contextualized
version deeply impacted the country and the people for many years to come.
Leaders like Zhou En-lai (周恩來, educated in France) and many others had embraced the
Western political ideology and imposed the Western way on the populace for
decades.
D. Education, Sports & Social
Service
1. Education:
1865 The imperial
government established Tun-wen-guan（同文館）—
the earliest official modern academy for foreign language study with multiple
grades as in the West.
1872 Sending
students overseas became one of the government's policies. Many who were
educated in Europe and the USA returned to China and formed a powerful force
for the socio-cultural change.
1887
Mathematics
of the West was included as a subject in the civil examination for recruiting
officers.
1895 Bei-yen-si-sur-tang
（北洋西學堂, 即北洋大學前身）was founded after the model of Harvard and Yale.
1919 The May
Fourth Movement was the pivotal point of cultural shift in modern Chinese
history. Leaders and participants were students/youths who had either
received Western education or had been influenced by the Chinese YMCA. It
was characterized by a strong anti-traditional Chinese and pro-Western spirit —
to employ Western science, democracy, human rights, etc. to usher in changes in
China.
1922 The RC
government instituted a new public school system, following the American system
and the educational philosophy of John Dewey.
2. Sports:
British soccer was introduced to
China when Shanghai became a major city in the 19th century;
Western style of physical exercise,
track and field, long-jump, hurdles, swimming, gymnastic, etc. was introduced
into Chinese schools through instructors from the West.
Modern sports became popular in the
Chinese society through schools and the YMCA. For instance, basketball was
invented in the USA in 1891 and seven years later was introduced to the Chinese
in 1898.
In 1890, the first Sport's Day with
competition took place at St. John's University, a Christian school.
3. Social Service:
Missionaries from the West rendered
social services, by meeting the needs of the Chinese society, assisting
missionary efforts and practicing Christian charity. Among them were Calvin Mateer, Timothy Richard, W.A.P. Martin, Young J. Allen,
James Legge, Alexander Williamson, John Fryer, etc.
who contributed in founding schools, translating Western publications (in
science, technology, religion, etc.), fighting against opium addiction,
promoting education for female Chinese, etc.
1895 The formation
of the Chinese YMCA provided human resources in modernization.
1919
Educational institutions founded by missionaries and
funded by the church were: 16 universities, 400 high schools, 2,000 primary
schools (also 400 hospitals).
E. Language & Writing
The first person who used Latinization for the study of Chinese language was the
Italian missionary, Matthew Ricci（利瑪竇）in
the Ming Dynasty.
After the
failure of the Hundred Days Reform, Wang-zhao（王照）fled to Japan.
He later employed the Japanese way of phonetics to pioneer the use of Pu-tung-hua（普通話）—
using the Mandarin of Beijing as the standard and utilizing radicals of Chinese
language to write Chinese phonetically. In 1913, Chang Tai-yen（章太炎）advocated the use of the radicals from archaic language of
the Han Dynasty to develop Chinese phonetic alphabets（注音字母）which were standardized by the
government as a unified Romanization system.
In 1928, the government officially
announced that Romanization and ju-yin（注音）were to be used simultaneously.
Hu Shih（胡適）,
educated in Cornell and Columbia, was the first Chinese scholar / educator who
promoted the modern Chinese（白話文）to
replace the archaic literary Chinese（文言文）. With the popular use of the modern Chinese language,
Chinese mind set was freed from the centuries-long traditional way of thinking.
Henceforth, the Chinese writing assimilated the Western style of punctuation
systems, borrowed Western words〔（e.g.
摩托，幽默, Mr. Democracy（德先生）,
Mr. Science（賽先生）〕and employed the English syntax （e.g.
voice, tense, case, gender, etc. as in the case of 3rd person, singular
pronouns: 她，它，牠，祂；passive voice: 我被他打；tense:
已經吃過了）.
The first Chinese publication with
the Western style of punctuation was the British trained scholar Yin-fu's 1904
publication（嚴復，《英文漢話》）. The current practice in Chinese writing (i.e. sideway from
left to right instead of the traditional vertical direction from top to bottom,
and the use of punctuation) is of a Western origin.
IV.
CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA - SAILING IN THE WESTERN WIND
As early as the T'ang
dynasty, Christianity of the Nestorian version was brought to China by
missionaries. It was not until the repeated military defeats of the Ch'ing
government by Western nations, and hence with the opening of free ports and the
signing of the unequal treaties, then Christian missionaries came along with
the gun-boat policy of the West. The understanding of the historical contexts
of the coming of Christianity to China in the T'ang
and Ch'ing dynasties will shed light on the two questions: 1) Why Chinese
resent the entering of Western missionaries and why they resist Christianity
considering it as a foreign import? 2) How extensive and how comprehensive were
the Western influences on the Chinese Christian church institutionally and the
expression of Christian faith theologically?
Even well-educated Chinese nowadays
would have mistaken Buddhism as being indigenously Chinese (false! for it was
imported from India via the silk road of West China) and perceive Christianity
as being imported from the West (false again! for Christianity was originated
in the "near-East" of Asia Minor). In the second article of this
series, we shall review the Western elements in Chinese Christianity and
reflect on the "why" and "how" of theologizing in the
Chinese way.