Borders of Chinese Civilization

D. R. Howland explores Chinas representations of Japan in the changing world of the late nineteenth century and, in so doing, examines the cultural and social borders between the two neighbors. Looking at Chinese accounts of Japan written during the 1870s and 1880s, he undertakes an unprecedented analysis of the main genres the Chinese used to portray Japanthe travel diary, poetry, and the geographical treatise. In his discussion of the practice of brushtalk, in which Chinese scholars communicated with the Japanese by exchanging ideographs, Howland further shows how the Chinese viewed the communication of their language and its dominant modeshistory and poetryas the textual and cultural basis of a shared civilization between the two societies. With Japans decision in the 1870s to modernize and westernize, Chinas relationship with Japan underwent a crucial changeone that resulted in its decisive separation from Chinese civilization and, according to Howland, a destabilization of Chinas worldview. His examination of the ways in which Chinese perceptions of Japan altered in the 1880s reveals the crucial choice faced by the Chinese of whether to interact with Japan as kin, based on geographical proximity and the existence of common cultural threads, or as a barbarian, an alien force molded by European influence. By probing Chinas poetic and expository modes of portraying Japan, Borders of Chinese Civilization exposes the changing world of the nineteenth century and Chinas comprehension of it. This broadly appealing work will engage scholars in the fields of Asian studies, Chinese literature, history, and geography, as well as those interested in theoretical reflections on travel or modernism.