Prof. Ge Zhaoguang,
(Fudan University,Shanghai,China)

Is it enough to interpret China only with Chinese materials?

You may think it is just a matter about the scope, techniques and methods of handling historical materials in a first glimpse, but actually it's a major question on how to "understand" or "interpret" Chinese history and Chinese culture. We understand that "He who knows one, knows none", or to put it in modern language, we cannot truly understand Ourselves without Others. However, in studying Chinese history and culture, it is always difficult for us to get rid of the prejudice of "interpreting China from a Chinese perspective" and the mono model of "viewing China from a Western perspective" so as to review China from the perspectives of our neighboring cultures. Lots of materials on Chinese history have been kept since ancient times by Korea, which is neighboring China, and Japan, which is separated from China by the Sea of Japan, but it seems that many of the materials are still not being fully used.

Actually the value of these materials was realized really early. In 1938, Mr. Hu Shih, as the first Chinese delegate, attended the International History Conference held in Zurich, Switzerland. In his thesis entitled "Recently Discovered Material for Chinese History" (written in English), he talked about the most important historical materials on China at that time according to his knowledge. These include the oracle inscriptions, Dunhuang（敦煌） scrolls, Juyan（居延） bamboo slips of the Han dynasty , court archives from the Ming and Qing dynasties, the so-called 'the Four Major Discoveries', together with various forbidden books and lost texts. Along with these new discoveries are Chinese historical materials preserved in Korea and Japan which would be the topic of my eassy. Nearly seven decades have passed, except for few published materials like The Pilgrimage Accounts to Tang China（入唐求法巡礼行记） by Ennin（圆仁） of Japan, Notes of A Sea Voyage（漂海录）by Choe Po（崔溥） of Korea, Rehe Diary （热河日记）by Park Ji-won（朴趾源） of Korea and the ten volumes or so of valuable Chinese historical materials from the Annuals of the Li Dynasty（李朝实录）edited by Mr. Wu Han（吴晗） and the like, most of the Chinese literatures written by ancient Japanese and Koreans have yet to be well organized and studied.

Ⅱ
In recent years, two reasons drove me into the field of "East Asia".. The first reason is the increasing popularity of the topic "East Asia"— whether "East Asia" (or Northeast Asia) can be a region for political, historical and cultural identification? To put this in another way: to create such a common region, how should we review and reflect on our own histories and cultures? These have become topics that the academic and intellectual circles cannot evade. To respond to these topics which have become popular in the academic and intellectual circles of Korea, Japan, Mainland China and Taiwan, I could not but engage in the study of "East Asia" in recent years, a topic which was not my specialized field of study.

There is another reason. The method of describing history from the point of view of nation-state has been questioned in post-modern history in recent years. This has aroused a new series of topics about what "China" is and how to re-understand or re-interpret "China". These again aroused our interest in re-understanding "China". We have all along evaluated China against a Western background and discussed history with modern political borders. We, however, cannot but change our ways. Rather, we should review China as a cultural entity through the eyes of our neighbors. That's why I have made so many efforts to read these kinds of materials as well as asked some friends and students to collect them for me when I was visiting Japan, Korea and Taiwan.

I was so shocked after carefully reading the materials because they contained such a large amount of information and were so rich in content. Moreover, they vividly presented to us how Koreans and Japanese at that time knew, remembered and imagined about China.

Ⅲ
Most of them are, of course, about history.

Information about Chinese culture and thoughts in Park Ji-won（朴趾源）' s Rehe Diary （热河日记）had been frequently cited in the past. Those almost rebellious words of the people at that time were rarely found in Chinese literatures, but often appeared in Korean's. We can also find information about certain parts of the history that had been "deleted" or "forgotten" by Chinese.

For example, with regard to the studies of conflicts between the Manchu and Han nationalities in the Qing dynasty, we can find from the records of Korean strong national sentiment of the Han nationality even after the Qing dynasty had been established for more than one century. We can also find new information from studying the modern history of East Asia. For example, the diplomatic relationships between Europe, the United States, Korea, China and Japan in late Qing dynasty. We can even get a strong sense of what was happening at the spot if we read Beizha Notes（北楂谈草） by Jeong Geon-jo（郑健朝） and Tianjin Notes（天津谈草） by Kim Yun-sik（金允植）. More important is that the historical details neglected by Chinese were carefully noted down by our neighbors from Korea in their works. For example, you can find in these materials detailed information about the performance, ticket price, seat, list of plays and audience of Beijing opera, about the popularity of the Dongyue Temple in Beijing in the Ming and Qing dynasties as well as the book market and popular works at that time in the colored glazed workshop in Beijing.

To those studying the history of thoughts and academic development, what is especially attractive is the information about the transmutation of thoughts and academic ethos can also be found in these materials. For instance, the Beijing Revisited（燕台再游录） written by Ryu Dek-gwung（柳得恭，1749-?） recorded a conversation took place in April of 1801，the 6th year during the reign of Emperor Jia Qing（嘉庆)，in which the author went to Beijing to buy books by Zhu Xi（朱熹）, and he talked to Ji Yun（纪昀） about being unable to get The Notes of Baitian（白田杂著） by Wang Maohong（王懋竑） in Northern China, and Ji Yun（纪昀） answered "The current trend is going towards works like Er Ya （尔雅）and Shuo Wen（说文）, so Zhu Xi's books would be hard to find in the marketplace." This can be the evidence to support what Zhao Lian（昭槤） has said in Notes of Xiaoting（啸亭杂录） "People in Beijing put away books of Lian（濂）, Luo（洛）, Guan（关） and Min（闽）（namely the four schools of Neo-Confucianism）since no one read them anymore." So books on Neo-Confucianism could not be found in the marketplace for two decades due to their unpopularity, and this indicates the change of academic ethos at that time.

Ⅳ
Perhaps it's because Japan used to be Korea's occupier and colonizer, its academia had been more concerned about Korean literatures and they have made a lot of collections and research on Korean works written in Chinese. As time goes by, there are still many scholars working in this field, so we have some high standard periodicals like Korea Journal issued at Tenri（天理）; even detailed annotations are available in frequently read Rehe Diary（热河日记）by Park Ji-won. However in China, only The Annuals of the Li Dynasty（李朝实录） and some small amount of Korean works written in Chinese have been published; and works like Tong Mun Guan Ji（通文馆志）and Tong Mun Hwigo（同文汇考，A Collection of the China-Related Diplomatic Documents of Chosn Korea)， and many others were seldom studied by scholars on Chinese culture and history.

But now we are fortunate to have easier access to Korean literatures since many of them have been published in Korea, which would be very convenient for the studies in this field. Not just the The Annuals of the Li Dynasty（李朝实录）, now we also have A Complete Collection of Korean Corpus（韩国历代文集丛刊） published by the Koeran cultural press of Kyŏngin（韩国景仁文化社） with nearly three thousand volumes, and most of them are written in Chinese which are similar to the Chinese historical materials of the Ming and Qing dynasties. As for the Collected Works of Travel Accounts to Beijing（燕行录全集） and the Japanese Version of the Collected Works of Travel Accounts to Beijing（燕行录全集日本所藏编）, compiled respectively by Prof. Im Kijung（林基中） from Dongguk University of Korea and Prof. Fuma Susumu（夫马进） from Kyoto University of Japan, contain one hundred and six volumes with nearly fifty thousand pages devoted to the observations and recordings of China by two generations of Koreans in the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Besides, I think we can try to broaden our perspectives. Some materials may not contain direct information about China but still we can find "China" within them due to the fact that "China" has always been a large "source" or "Other" in both history and reality. So China often emerged in the communication between Japanese and Korean at that time; it often emerged when they were quoting classics, when they were chatting and singing with, as well as observing and appraising each other.

For instance, The Logs（海行总载）edited by Seong Dae-joong（成大中） contains many diaries and poems written by Korean correspondents in Japan, and it recorded a lot of observations, imaginations and appraisals about China from Japanese and Korean's points of view. Various records of local officials receiving ships from the Qing Empire in Nagasaki（长崎）and other places during the Edo age in Japan, as well as information about the so-called Tang Tong Shi（唐通事，namely translators working between Chinese and Japanese）, like the famous From Civilized to Barbarian（华夷变态）, Notes by Tang Tong Shi,（唐通事會所日錄），The Business Records between the China and other Countries（古今华夷通商考）and etc., along with a large number of other historical materials awaiting research, indicate bystander's cold eyes from the already parted Japan. And works about the local customs and common knowledge of China, like the China and Japanese encyclopedia（和汉三才图会）by Terajima Yasuyoshi（寺岛安良）, The custom of Qing Empery（清俗记闻）by Nakagawa Tadahide,（中川忠英） Pictorial Handbook of China's Scenery(唐土名胜图会) by Okada Gyokuzan（冈田玉山） and etc, all worth our studies into the underlying perspectives and attitudes.

As the saying goes "Spectators see the chess game better than the players", these materials could help us to go beyond and reinterpret China so as to get the essence of it.

Ⅴ
After the middle of the 17th century, Japan, Korea and China went farther and farther apart from each other, some strange sort of pride and prejudice emerged and the three countries began to view the neighbors with magnifiers—praising themselves while belittling others. But it's just such observation, imagination and depreciation that highlighted other's dark side and reflected on the observer. Aren't the cultural differences big enough to make it necessary for us to take others as the mirror to self-introspect?

Korean literatures written in Chinese can be the mirror for China to perceive itself. Only with an opaque black layer can mirror reflects; only with differences can cultures be compared. The so-called "self-reflection by mirroring", can be put in such modern language—"to know yourself by Other"—and this is one common way to culturally introspect, and it would be impossible to truly know yourself without a different "Other". The fact in the past was that China paid much attention to the Western "Other" instead of neighboring cultures which share the same origin, like Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Mongolia and India.

Undoubtedly we had shared the same history, tradition and culture originated from Han to Tang dynasties, especially with Korean, Japanese and Chinese. But after the departure in the Qing dynasty, the Asian cultures took different ways to develop with cultural differences emerging, thus generated the change of sentiment, the differences of values and the separation of perspectives, which enable us to spot those slight but significant differences. Through the same origin and superficially slight difference, we would be able to probe more clearly both our and others' cultures, and we can understand how these slight differences are magnified by time and history, and gradually become such profound and hard-to-bridge cultural gap.