▎From the most meager historical materials and the most ordinary people, we can see the impact of Chinese and Western cultures▎
The contemporary sinologist Jonathan Spence established his position in sinology with his epoch-making masterpiece The Search for Modern China. He also created a three-dimensional collage of the emperor's appearance in Kangxi. But this time, the character he wrote about was not a politician, aristocrat, a warrior or a noble hermit, but Hu Ruowang, a Guangzhou native who came from a humble background and could only copy documents.
Since Ricci came to China to preach in the 16th century, Jesuit missionaries not only brought Western scientific knowledge, but also translated Chinese classics into Western languages and brought them back to Europe, ushering in a great era of cultural exchange between China and the West.
In the 61st year of the reign of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty (1722 AD), Father Fu Shengze, who was devoted to studying Chinese classics, hired Hu Ruowang, who was working as a church gatekeeper in Guangzhou, to help him return to Europe to study Chinese. Hu Ruowang converted to Catholicism at the age of 19. He could read and write well. Living in the largest international city in Asia after the Age of Exploration, Hu Ruowang had a dream: to go to Rome in person, meet the Pope, and then tell his relatives and friends in his hometown what he saw and heard.
The job offered by Fu Shengze was exactly what he had dreamed of.
However, this overseas work trip seemed to be a process of aphasia. In addition to the fatigue of long-distance sailing, the language barrier and cultural barriers made Hu Ruowang's expectations for this trip continue to fade. He didn't understand why Western women could walk on the streets, what was wrong with bowing to the cross, and wasn't it okay to take off your gorgeous clothes and give them to beggars? These are the boundaries and virtues of the Chinese. In a state of confusion, Hu Ruowang began to wander around. He wanted to complete his Western travelogue, so he wandered the streets of Paris. In the end, Fu Shengze had to imprison him in Xia Hongtong Mental Hospital.
At that time, the Parisians' impression of Hu Ruowang was that he was vulgar, ignorant of etiquette, and stubborn. Although part of the reason was due to poor language communication, it was more of a cultural conflict, just like the internal debate within the Catholic Church on how to view the Chinese ancestor worship rituals and traditional books. Although Hu Ruowang is a minor figure in Chinese history that cannot be included in the annals of history, his historical materials are stored in the world's three major archives. Perhaps it is precisely because of this minor figure's nearly four years of suffering in Europe that, in addition to showing the cultural activities of the church in China and the development of Sinology in Europe, it is more of an impact of the world wave. The door to traditional Chinese weight has never been closed since then.
Celebrity Recommendations
"At turns thrilling, absurd, and unsettling, Jonathan Spence delicately tells a gripping historical story with a profound moral message. A masterful piece of scholarship." --Kirkus Reviews
"Through a literary narrative style, Jonathan Spence was able to find out many of Hu Ruowang's doubts from the historical materials themselves without forcing answers on readers." - The New York Times
"This book will provoke a lot of reflection and deep emotions in readers. They will not only pay attention to the direction of the story, but also savor its implications." - Los Angeles Times