Images of an Empire Chinese Geography Textbooks of the Early 20th Century Mats Norvenius Department of Oriental Languages Stockholm University 2012 © Mats Norvenius 2012 Stockholm East Asian Monographs No. 12 Stockholm University, Department of Oriental Languages, SE-106 91 Stockholm Printed by Universitetsservice US-AB, Stockholm ISSN 1101-5993 ISBN 978-91-7447-479-4 Acknowledgements In preparing this thesis I have been fortunate to enjoy help and support from many people in the world of learning. First of all I would like to extend my gratitude to my supervisor, Associate Professor Marja Kaikkonen, for her commitment, support and encouragement. Over the years she has offered firm guidance and has patiently read countless versions of my manuscript, giving me valuable advice and extensive comments on how to clarify my ideas and improve my text. I would also like to thank Professor Torbjörn Lodén for practical support and for arranging contacts with relevant scholars in China. Professor Zhou Zhenhe at Fudan University kindly gave me access to his private collection of early geography textbooks, and Doctor Ni Wenjun most generously gave me detailed information about where I could find relevant research materials at libraries in Shanghai and Beijing. During my visits to Beijing Normal University, Doctor Lu Peiwen always made me feel most welcome and spared no effort in helping me with both practical and research- related issues. I am deeply grateful to Professor Claes Göran Alvstam at the School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University, for all the help and support I have received throughout the process of writing this thesis. I have greatly benefited from his learned comments, continuous encouragement and positive feedback. Special thanks go to Associate Professor Carl Cassegård. Our long discussions have been a constant source of inspiration, as well as the many articles and books he has recommended over the years. His observations, comments and suggestions have been invaluable. Doctor Martin Nordeborg generously shared his broad knowledge of early Japanese textbooks and education in Japan and has contributed with comments which truly have been of great help at different stages of writing this thesis. I am also grateful to Professor Lars Ragvald at Lund University, Professor Gunhild Vidén, Professor Jan Retsö and Associate Professor Kenneth Nyberg at Göteborg University, all of whom have contributed valuable comments on my manuscript at a rather late but nevertheless crucial stage of my work. I would also like to thank Associate Professor Patrik Ström, Doctor Kalle Magnusson and Eva Aggeklint for moral support and encouragement and Thomas Ekholm for helping me designing the cover. Devoted librarians in Sweden, China and Japan have done their utmost to help me to get hold of necessary materials. I am particularly thankful to the staffs at Göteborg University, Beijing Normal University and Tsukuba University. I would also like to thank my mother Inga-Stina and my sister Kristina for their support and encouragement. Above all I would like to thank my beloved wife Camilla. Without her loving care, patience and wholehearted backup it is unlikely that this thesis would ever have been possible. Table of Contents 1 Introduction 7 1.1 Introductory remarks 7 1.2 Points of departure and aims of this study 9 1.3 Previous research 15 1.4 Primary material 20 1.5 The general outline of this thesis 28 2 Background 29 2.1 New educational policies in the East 29 2.2 The “Japanese spirit” 36 2.3 The cry for reforms 43 2.4 The adoption of a Japanese-style educational system 46 2.5 The new textbooks 61 2.6 Japanese images of Japan and of East Asia 66 2.7 The introduction of Japanese human geography into China 73 2.8 The preservation of the national essence 75 2.9 Orientalism and Occidentalism 79 2.10 Summary 88 3 Progress, civilization and the struggle for survival 90 4 The lay of the land and its influence on man 104 4.1 The promises of a mild climate 104 4.2 The importance of the topography 107 5 The alleged roots of backwardness 113 5.1 The lack of a soldierly spirit, of unity and a progressive mindset 113 5.2 Harmful customs and practices 125 5.3 The evils of autocracy 128 5.4 The evil combination of ignorance and religion 135 6 Ancient glory and sources of pride and hope 148 6.1 China and Asia as the cradle of civilization 148 6.2 The Chinese as an ancient people of conquerors and colonizers 153 7 Regional differences within the Chinese Empire 163 7.1 The backward southwest and the progressive coastal areas in the southeast 163 7.2 The city of Shanghai 176 7.3 Southerners and Northerners 179 7.4 The Northern capital 184 7.5 The Chinese inland 187 7.6 The population of the far northeast 191 7.7 The Mongols 192 7.8 The Tibetans 198 7.9 The population of the far west 200 8 Neighbours in the East 204 8.1 Korea 204 8.2 Japan 214 8.3 Taiwan 221 9 Conclusions 226 Bibliography 233 1 Introduction 1.1 Introductory remarks Today the school subject geography is hardly the major channel through which knowledge about the nation, or the world at large, is gained, either in the West or in the East. But a century ago, a textbook in geography was one of few easily accessible sources for common people which provided systematized information about the world. Geography textbooks of the early 20th century dealt with the physical features of the earth surface, geological conditions, climate, natural and political divisions, production and population. In that respect they did not perhaps differ significantly from the geography textbooks which are used today. However, geography during the early 20th century, even more than today, shared common ground with other fields of study such as history, sociology and anthropology, which was also reflected in the geography textbooks. Hence school geography offered a broader spectrum of ―knowledge‖ than today, but on the other hand it was deeply coloured by racism, chauvinism and romanticizing about an imagined glorious past, besides having a strong faith in development and progress. The mass production of textbooks and the popularization of general education for the broad masses during the late 19th and early 20th centuries helped to spread the idea that the inhabitants of a given state, although most of them had certainly never met each other, shared a common past (perhaps even a common destiny) as members of the same nation (or, to quote Benedict Anderson, they belonged to the same ―imagined community‖).1 Undoubtedly, school geography played an important role in this process. That is, the geograhy textbooks taught schoolchildren in what respects they were similar to or different from people in foreign countries, or for that matter from peoples in other regions of their own nation. In 1901 the Qing regime, in power 1644-1911, took wide-ranging measures to reform the Chinese empire, and fundamental changes were carried out within the field of education, resulting in the completion of China‘s first modern educational system in 1904. Modern schools mushroomed across China with the abolition of the ancient examination system in 1905, and modern textbooks introducing new non-traditional knowledge became common reading in the classrooms, along with the Chinese Classics. Thanks to modern geography 1 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London & New York: Verso, rev. ed. 1991). 7 textbooks schoolchildren got a glimpse of the world outside their own local community and were informed about the circumstances in other provinces and, to some extent, about the conditions in countries beyond the empire. Thus geography textbooks gave them an idea of their own nation, in relation to the rest of the world, and were probably the closest most people ever came to a journey across their nation, not to mention a trip abroad. This study deals primarily with issues that concern images of the peoples of the multiethnic Qing Empire, as encountered in a wide range of textbooks and other teaching materials on the school subject of geography that were used at various institutions of modern learning during the closing years of the Qing dynasty in the first decade of the 20th century. The main focus is on the Han Chinese majority of China Proper (i.e. the eighteen provinces), although this study also deals with the minorities of China Proper, as well as the ethnicities of Manchuria, Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet and Taiwan (at that time a Japanese colony) and the neighbouring countries of Korea and Japan. Korea and Japan are both countries which have been greatly exposed to the influence of Chinese high-culture, and they both belong to the same Confucian cultural sphere that shares the use of Chinese characters. The images in Chinese geography textbooks from the early 20th century of the peoples of East Asia cannot be dealt with comprehensively without taking into consideration the large imprint Japan left on China, especially in the field of education, after Japan‘s victory in the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895). The late Qing era was heavily influenced by Japanese approaches towards reforms and modernization, and new perceptions of the world in Japan did not pass Chinese educationalists unnoticed. Cultural impulses which had previously run eastwards from China to the Korean peninsula and the Japanese archipelago went in the reverse direction at the end of the Qing dynasty, from the militarily strong Japan towards a weakened China. 8 1.2 Points of departure and aims of this study Before more specifically addressing the aims of this study, I would first like to give a summary of some of the arguments of James Morris Blaut in his The Colonizer’s Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History, which has been a source of reflection throughout the writing of this thesis.