16. Translating Western Democratic Education in the Chinese Context

YANGSHENG GUO

16. TRANSLATING WESTERN DEMOCRATIC EDUCATION IN THE CHINESE CONTEXT

A PERSONAL REFLECTION Being brought up by a Communist vision of education in China, re-educated within the ideal of democratic education in North America, and now fairly experienced in a mixed-blood education system in Japan, the author finds it perplexing to talk about education in democratic terms. Certainly, my own personal experiences in the three different historical, social, political, cultural, and even linguistic contexts are not offering encouraging evidence to support the idea of democratic education, which still remains a myth, a utopian dream, especially from the Chinese perspective.

BACKGROUND In a sense, modern Chinese education since the May 4th Movement of 1919 can be described as a process of translating Euro-American democratic education, both literally and symbolically. Etymologically, the Chinese equivalent to democratic or democracy came a long way. Over a century ago, some elite Chinese returned from the West might have understood what democracy referred to. However, they could not render the term into Chinese, which was confined to a feudal, patriarchal, hierarchical, totalitarian, and dictatorial system of discourse. They had to transliterate the word into de mo ke la xi. There was a popular slogan during the May 4th Movement that said “Only Mr. De mo ke la xi can save China.” Although not many Chinese knew what the transliteration actually meant, people believed it held the key to China’s future so long as it could be translated into proper Chinese and transplanted in China’s soil. Years later, China found and borrowed the Chinese equivalent, minzhu, from Japanese, which used two Chinese characters, min (people) and zhu (master) from Classical Chinese writings as one word to translate that Western concept (see Liu et al., 1984), perhaps during the Meiji Restoration. This is ironic, and certainly politically subversive. The two characters, expressing two ideas that are “as incompatible as fire and water,” seldom, if ever, went together as one word in mono-character-based Classical Chinese. Indeed, in one rare case in one of the earliest Chinese classics, the Book of History, believed to be compiled by Confucius, one can find min zhu. However, in that context, min zhu meant exactly the opposite of democracy. As one word, it refers to the ruler— master of the people (see Shu et al., 1985, p. 1804).

This irony, in a sense, seems to characterize modern Chinese education since the May 4th Movement. On the one hand, China has been translating the Euro- American idea of democratic education, along with its associated vocabulary and grammar, as a means of national survival, rebirth, and rejuvenation in colonial and postcolonial contexts. On the other hand, the more China translates the myth of Western democratic education in political, philosophical, and institutional terms, the further away China seems to find itself to be from that myth in reality.

DEMOCRATIC EDUCATION MOVEMENTS Dramatic Transition At the turn of the 20th century, the dream of saving China through learning Western science and technology was shattered to pieces in front of a series of happenings: China’s defeat in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, the bloody, short-lived Wuxu Bianfa (Reform Movement of 1898), and the invasion and carving up of China by the Allied Forces of Eight Powers (Britain, USA, Germany, France, tsarist Russia, Japan, Italy, and Austria) in 1900. To survive, China chose to further westernize its education, instead of questioning what might have been educationally wrong with its previous occidentalist and utilitarian attempts. The most prominent scholars and educators of the day, such as Kang Youwei (1858- 1927), Liang Qichao (1873-1929), and Yan Fu (1853-1921), attributed China’s failure to the long-standing tradition of imperial examinations. Those people appealed for abolition of the Imperial Examination system; following Western and Japanese examples, they proposed a new, more nationally organized system of education that would involve the majority of the population; they advocated education for women—who had never been recognized as holding up half the sky; they recommended new, Western-style curriculum contents and teaching methods (see Sun, 1992). Due to their efforts and persistent lobbying by Western missionaries like Ernst Faber (1839-99), Young John Allen (1836-1907), and Timothy Richard (1845-1919) for adopting Euro-American education systems, the collapsing Qing Dynasty finally issued an imperial edict in 1902 to implement “New Education.” This New Education, outlined in the “Imperial School Regulations“ (completely revised in 1904), dictated a 20-year elementary, secondary, and postsecondary schooling system. It provided clear curricular and pedagogical guidelines for all levels of education. It was the first time in Chinese history that education was organized, administered, and implemented by the government across the country. Although the New Education came close to the then Euro-American system of national education, it stated as its basic principle that “All levels and forms of schools must be rooted in loyalty (to the emperor) and filial piety, and must be based on Confucian classic learning” (in Sun, 1992, Translation mine). Throughout the system, there was no place for girls or women. Although education was

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