Overseas Chinese and Merchant Philanthropy in China: From Culturalism to Nationalism

AbstractThis article discusses how and why the cultural and political significance of China as ancestral home was transformed during the half century between 1850, which marked the start of mass migration from China, and the turn of the twentieth century when modern nationalist ideologies first appeared in China and then spread rapidly to Chinese emigrant communities in Southeast Asia and beyond. This phenomenon is examined by looking at the role of merchant philanthropy, which is a crucial site for the construction and articulation of emigrant discourses of native place attachment. The article first examines the rise of philanthropy as a merchant strategy for claiming elite status and community leadership and for negotiating with political power in late Imperial China. It then looks at how and why homeland philanthropy was embraced by merchants in overseas Chinese communities in Singapore and Malaya beginning in the late nineteenth century. The final section studies the shift in the ideological underpinning of merchant philanthropy from Confucian culturalism to modern nationalism, and considers the implications of this shift for merchants' role in native place society and politics.

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Gender and Social Life in Imperial China

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.013.201 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Weijing Lu

Keyword(s):

Social Life ◽

Social Classes ◽

Secret Societies ◽

Late Imperial China ◽

Late Imperial ◽

Imperial Period ◽

Imperial China ◽

Foot Binding ◽

Local Traditions ◽

Native Place

Social life in imperial China was structured on the Confucian gender principles of the separation of male and female and the division of “inner and outer” spheres. Homosociality prevailed while heterosociality was limited. Homosociality dominated the forms and manners of social interaction. Men moved around freely and faced little constraint in forging relationships and networks, while women were largely homebound and secluded. In general, women enjoyed more physical freedom in earlier imperial times than in late imperial China, when seclusion of women intensified thanks to the rise of the female chastity cult and the spread of the practice of foot-binding. But even in the late imperial period, women were able to form networks and communities, in person or by means of writing. Local traditions and stages in the life cycle influenced women’s lived experiences of socialization, and class also played an important part in social life for both men and women. For example, education and a government career provided main venues for elite male socialization but for the men in lower social classes, their networks were built around localized institutions such as temple associations, sworn brotherhood, secret societies, and native place association.

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Russian-Chinese Cultural Exchanges in the Early Modern Period

Reshaping the Boundaries ◽

10.5790/hongkong/9789888390557.003.0003 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Nikolay Samoylov

Keyword(s):

Early Modern ◽

Early Modern Period ◽

Mirror Image ◽

Late Imperial China ◽

Late Imperial ◽

Cultural Information ◽

Modern Period ◽

Cultural Exchanges ◽

Imperial China

This chapter investigates the development of Sino-Russian exchanges from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. The author emphasizes the role of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Beijing for transmitting social-cultural information between the two neighboring empires. Through their writings on late imperial China, missionaries like Archimandrite Iakinf (Bichurin) played a key role in the burgeoning of Russian Sinology and created an idealistic image of China in political, legal, and educational terms. The author further ponders at the diverse and even conflicting perceptions of China among Russian missionaries and intellectuals. They did not represent China as it was but as what they expected it to be—a symbolic mirror image for them to reflect upon the reality in Russia.

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‘CANNOT BE FED ON WHEN STARVING’: AN ANALYSIS OF THE ECONOMIC THOUGHT SURROUNDING CHINA’S EARLIER USE OF PAPER MONEY

Journal of the History of Economic Thought ◽

10.1017/s1053837213000229 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 35 (3) ◽

pp. 373-395

Author(s):

NIV HORESH

Keyword(s):

Early Modern ◽

Ming Dynasty ◽

Economic Thought ◽

Late Nineteenth Century ◽

Private Institutions ◽

Late Imperial China ◽

Late Imperial ◽

Paper Money ◽

Imperial China ◽

The Stability

This article argues that Western impressions of the Chinese pre-modern monetary experience might have been excessively colored by Marco Polo’s favorable commentary on the stability of the Mongol polity and its dissemination of paper money. Experiments with unconvertible paper money had ultimately been no more successful in late-imperial China than they were in the early-modern West. By 1430, in fact, the Ming dynasty was forced to abandon the issuance of paper money altogether. The genesis of paper money both in China and it the West had originally emanated from private institutions. However, royally chartered banks of issue were conspicuously absent from the Chinese setting until the late nineteenth century.

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The Origins of Prejudice: The Malintegration of Subei in Late Imperial China

Comparative Studies in Society and History ◽

10.1017/s0010417500018351 ◽

1993 ◽

Vol 35 (2) ◽

pp. 211-238 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Antonia Finnane

Keyword(s):

Chinese Society ◽

Lu Xun ◽

Late Imperial China ◽

Usual Practice ◽

Late Imperial ◽

True Story ◽

Place Of Origin ◽

The Subject ◽

Imperial China ◽

Native Place

The convention for introducing biography in the Chinese textual tradition is to identify the subject not only by his name but also by his native place. The classic formula used for this purpose is set out in the preface to “The True Story of Ah Q,” in which Lu Xun remarks that “when writing biography, it is the usual practice to begin ‘so-and-so, from such-and-such place’ ” (Lu 1959 [1921]: 93). This formula was adopted in official documents, popular stories, obituaries and tomb epitaphs as well as in formal biographies or biographical notices. There were variations in its form, in which the person was identified as being “native of this place, living in that place” or “originally of this place, now of that place.” But in any event, a man was, and still is, normally identified by both his personal name and the name of his place of origin, just as a woman was usually identified by the names of her father and her husband. The problem for Lu Xun as fictional biographer was that Ah Q's name was a matter of debate and his place of origin unknown: He floated unmoored through Chinese society.

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John Fryer and the Shanghai Polytechnic: making space for science in nineteenth-century China

The British Journal for the History of Science ◽

10.1017/s0007087400033835 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 29 (1) ◽

pp. 1-16 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

David Wright

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Late Nineteenth Century ◽

Late Imperial China ◽

Science Textbooks ◽

Late Imperial ◽

John Fryer ◽

Imperial China ◽

Late Nineteenth ◽

The Creation ◽

New System

The introduction of modern Western science into late imperial China naturally involved the creation of new linguistic spaces through the translation of science textbooks and the formation of a modern scientific lexicon, but it also required translation in another, physical, sense through the creation of institutions whereby the new system of practices and ideas could be transmitted. The Shanghai Polytechnic, opened in 1876 under the direction of John Fryer, was promoted as an academy for the ‘extension of learning’; this paper explores the role John Fryer and his Polytechnic played in making space for science in late nineteenth-century China.

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