My initial intent of creating this blog, besides expressing my love and reverence towards Guangxu Emperor, was to share my knowledge on Chinese history and traditional culture with readers around the world. According to my own experience here in France,a large number of Europeans really know little about Chinese history. However, it seems that Japanese history is more well-known to Westerners. After some reflections, I concluded that it might have been due to the lack of Chinese materials translated into foreign languages. For example, I could find little information on Guangxu Emperor if I use the English search engine.
My history presentation this week was 'Brotherhoods and Secret Societies in Qing China', some people may argue that I always choose topics concerning China, about which they consider is unfair. However, I took this one really out of good intent that it would be extremely hard for Europeans to find enough sources. This topic was also presented by Europeans in the two other groups. I heard that one group presented the photo of Consort Zhen in their ppt, saying that she was Empress Dowager Cixi, and worst of all, our most knowledgable history teacher did not find out this ridiculous mistake.
From all these experiences, I reached the conclusion that Chinese sources have been poorly translated and thus hardly available to those who donot understand the language. Besides, it's extremely hard and takes so many years to learn Chinese, especially for those who start late.
Finally, I want to talk about why I admire Guangxu Emperor. In my childhood, I liked him only because I sympathized with him and was extremely interested in his enigmatic life. Now, the image of the Emperor has become ever nobler in my eyes. He seems to have really been the 'Son of Heave', carrying its mandate to save the Chinese people, however, failed disastrously due to resistance from both inside and outside the court.
But what I like most about the Emperor is that he connected the Chinese tradition with the modern world. On the one hand, he revered the Chinese traditional culture and the Confucian legacy, regarding it as the basis of our country; on the other hand, he embraced western ideologies with an open mind to enrich and modernize China. Unlike him and his supporters, the revolutionists and later the communists sought to save China by the means of cutting her completely from the past, to 'smash the school of Confucianism',etc, and then to transplant something completely foreign on the Chinese soil, which resulted in the consequence that China has learnt little from the essence of Western liberal democratic thinking, while having lost almost everything precious of her own tradition. In recent years, there has been a revival of Confucianism in mainland China, it seems that we have finally turned towards the right path gradually, which has been embodied by Guangxu Emperor and the reformists more than one century ago.
Thank you for this blog. I'm glad you have something to research and write about that you are really love. And I'm very grateful to you for taking the time and effort to inform us regarding history which, as you say, many of us would never come across or have access to.
回复删除Somebody posted her own collection of books
回复删除Another enthusiast:)
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=85919&id=54248846756
Merci,Matterhorn.As far as I observe, although the traditional culture of the east and the west differ a great deal, the soul and the spirit of these beautiful traditions quite resemble each other. The Confucian legacy is as important to China as the Christian legacy is to Europe.
回复删除Sun yat sen really was the first dumb dumb who severed China from her past. By creating a useless republic he have destroyed most of Confucian social and political values.
回复删除Confucius lived during the tumultuous spring and autumn period which was more chaotic than early 20th century China, still he never considered republic like government as a way to save China; instead he favored absolute enlightened Monarchy in accordance with the principle of dynastic cycle.
For modern Chinese sun yat sen is a god, but for me as a monarchist; he is nothing more than a stupid little know it all, a idiotic dreamer, and thanks to him 100 years since wuchang rebellion the Chinese have had: era of the warlords, KMT’s “Cash My Check ”, tremendous tragedies during WWII, the great leap forward, cultural revolution, still a divided china, an atheist communist prc; and now a rich know it all prc (every day a piece of Chinese heritages are being demolished for the so called new china – it is very funny to see this because all 1st world countries still have their “history” intact).
Seeing characters like HIM Emperor Guangxu I believed the mandate of heaven was still rightfully Qing’s.
Concerning Ci Xi rather awful reputation; remember this fact: she had seen the western behaviour toward China and her people, especially during the opium wars. Any person in her shoes will react the same, which is the western countries are barbarian and we must defend ourselves from them with all we got. In my perspectives up to the end she still believed that her policies were right, in order to save China.