Re Encounters In China

First Published in 1985. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an Informa company.

This unique book is the first to bring together a group of leading China experts to reflect on their cultural and social encounters while travelling and living in the PRC. Covering nearly a half-century, these stories open a vivid window on a rapidly evolving country and on the zigzag learning curve of the China trippers themselves.

Americans in China tells the dramatic stories of individual women and men who encountered the People's Republic of China as adversaries and emissaries, mediators and advocates, interpreters and reporters, soldiers, scientists, entrepreneurs, and scholars. In Americans in China, Terry Lautz provides a series of biographical portraits of Americans who have lived and worked in China from before the Communist era to the present. The pathbreaking experiences of these men and women provide unique insights and deeply human perspectives on issues that have shaped US engagement with the People's Republic: politics, diplomacy, education, business, art, law, journalism, and human rights. For each of these Americans, China was more than just another place: it was an idea, a cause, a revolution, a civilization. Some of them grew up in China while others were motivated by curiosity and adventure. Some believed Red China was an existential threat while others looked to the People's Republic as a socialist utopia. Still others--including a number of Chinese Americans--worked to improve US-China relations for personal or professional reasons. Looming over their narratives is the quandary of whether divergent Chinese and Western worldviews could find common ground. Was it best to abide by Chinese norms, taking into account China's unique history and culture? Or should individual civil and human rights be defended as universal? Would China move in the direction of Western-style liberal democracy? Or was the Communist Party destined to follow an authoritarian path? The figures in this book had distinctive answers to such questions. Their stories hold up a mirror to our two societies, helping to explain how we have arrived at the present moment.

In the twenty-first century, China has emerged as the leading challenger to U.S. global dominance. China is often seen as a sleeping giant, emerging out of poverty, backwardness, and totalitarianism and moving toward modernization. However, history shows that this vast country is not newly awakening, but rather returning to its previous state of world eminence. With this compelling perspective in mind, D. E. Mungello convincingly shows that contemporary relations between China and the West are far more like the 1500-1800 period than the more recent past. This fully revised second edition retains the clear and concise qualities of its predecessor, while developing important new social and cultural themes such as gender, sexuality, music, and technology. Drawing from the author's thirty years of experience teaching world history, this book illustrates the importance of history to students and general readers trying to understand today's world.

For the Chinese, the drive toward growing political and economic power is part of an ongoing effort to restore China's past greatness and remove the lingering memories of history's humiliations. This widely praised book explores the 1500-1800 period before China's decline, when the country was viewed as a leading world culture and power. D.E. Mungello argues that this earlier era, ironically, may contain more relevance for today than the more recent past. This fully revised fourth edition retains the clear and concise quality of its predecessors, while drawing on a wealth of.

Written by a team of internationally recognized scholars, Christian Encounters with Chinese Culturefocuses on a church tradition that has never been very large in China but that has had considerable social and religious influence. Themes of the book include questions of church, society and education, the Prayer Book in Chinese, parish histories, and theology. Taken together, the nine chapters and the introduction offer a comprehensive assessment of the Anglican experience in China and its missionary background. Historical topics range from macro to micro levels, beginning with an introductory overview of the Anglican and Episcopal tradition in China. Topics include how the church became embedded in Chinese social and cultural life, the many ways women's contributions to education built the foundations for strong parishes, and Bishop R. O. Hall's attentiveness to culture for the life of the church in Hong Kong. Two chapters explore how broader historical themes played out at the parish level—St. Peter's Church in Shanghai during the War against Japan and St. Mary's Church in Hong Kong during its first three decades. Chapters looking at the Chinese Prayer Book bring an innovative theological perspective to the discussion, especially how the inability to produce a single prayer book affected the development of the Chinese church. Finally, the tension between theological thought and Chinese culture in the work of Francis C. M. Wei and T. C. Chao is examined. "This is one of the finest books on Christianity and Chinese culture to have emerged in recent years. Philip Wickeri has done the almost-impossible, and assembled an outstanding, world-class team of scholars to write on Anglican and Episcopal history in China, with essays focusing on education, liturgy, ministry, ecclesiology and theology. This is a timely, important book—and one that will re-shape the way we understand the place of Anglican and Episcopal churches in the past, present and future."—Martyn Percy, dean of Christ Church, Oxford, UK "This pioneering study provides new knowledge of local parishes, translation of liturgy, as well as mission and theology of Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui. Comprehensive in scope and original in using new resources, it will stimulate new scholarship in the study of Christianity in China."—Kwok Pui-lan, author of Chinese Women and Christianity, 1860–1927 "The essays included in this important volume offer a refreshingly realistic image of the Christian missionary enterprise and its interaction with Chinese culture and society. The contributors present new angles of interpretation, with more informed and nuanced accounts of the complexities and contradictions that shaped the encounter of one particular strand of Western Christianity and Chinese culture during a turbulent century of change."—R. G. Tiedemann, professor of Chinese history, Shandong University, China

Chinese and U.S. writers try to bridge the culture gap in this “splendid little book” from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (The Washington Post Book World). Winner of the New England Book Show Award It’s been a pilgrimage for Annie Dillard: from Tinker Creek to the Galapagos Islands, the high Arctic, the Pacific Northwest, the Amazon Jungle—and now, China. This informative narrative is full of fascinating people: Chinese people, mostly writers, who encounter American writers in various bizarre circumstances in both China and the U.S. There is a toasting scene at a Chinese banquet; a portrait of a bitter, flirtatious diplomat at a dance hall; a formal meeting with Chinese writers; a conversation with an American businessman in a hotel lobby; an evening with long-suffering Chinese intellectuals in their house; a scene in the Beijing foreigners’ compound with an excited European journalist; and a scene of unwarranted hilarity at the Beijing Library. In the U.S., there is Allen Ginsberg having a bewildering conversation in Disneyland with a Chinese journalist; there is the lovely and controversial writer Zhang Jie suiting abrupt mood changes to a variety of actions; and there is the fiercely spirited Jiange Zilong singing in a Connecticut dining room, eyes closed. These are real stories told with a warm and lively humor, with a keen eye for paradox, and with fresh insight into the human drama. “Engrossing and thought-provoking.” —Irving Yucheng Lo, author of Sunflower Splendor ‘Keenly observed, often comic encounters.” —The New York Times Book Review “Dillard distills her encounters in lively anecdotes, sketches and vignettes. Her charm lies in the simplicity of her storytelling.” —Publishers Weekly