Depicting Glory is a digital project that presents a group of rare Chinese objects drawn from across the Brown University Library. Most of these items date from the late Qing dynasty in the 19th century, though one item is a set of maps published in Taiwan around 1960. Although the items were created in different times and places, they collectively reflect societal sentiments surrounding an issue central to China’s modernization process: the intersection of power, status, and collective identity. Each of these objects involves a public reckoning with a dramatic shift in a power that came with the great expansion of military might and regional status in the late 18th century, the cataclysmic erosion of power and order across the 19th century, and the ongoing quest to restore power and glory from the 20th century to the present.
This study compares two travelogues in Brown University’s Gardner Collection — 鴻雪因緣圖記 (A Wild Swan’s Trail: The Travels of a Mandarin) by Lin Qing in 1849, and 唐土名勝圖會 (Famous Sights of the Chinese Land) by Okada Gyokuzan in 1805 — and examines the contrasting visions of China in late imperial China from Chinese and Japanese perspectives. Through the mapping and analysis of depicted scenes in both sources and a comparative analysis of their provenance, we uncover not only a vibrant tapestry of Chinese life, but also these two travelers’ perspectives on the final vestiges of the last imperial dynasty of China.
This research studies Christianity that was at the heart of the most notable cultural conflicts in China, particularly from the Taiping Rebellion of 1851–1864 to the Boxer Rebellion of 1899–1901. Through a linguistic, musical, and visual examination of two documents from Brown Library’s special collections, the so-named 1907 “Chinese Hymnal” compiled by American missionaries, and a Chinese artist’s 1871 illustrated rendition of English Puritan John Bunyan’s 17th-century novel The Pilgrim’s Progress, Zoe Yu ’27 sheds light on the endeavors of missionaries, musicians, and artists to sinicize Christianity and navigate linguistic and ideological barriers in promoting national salvation during the tumultuous late Qing Dynasty.
In Fall 2023, I completed an UTRA project relating to the history of Chinese writing, under the guidance of Professor Li Zhuqing. As I learned about the ways Chinese script has evolved over time, I read portions of Jing Tsu’s Kingdom of Characters and Yinxin Zhan’s 汉字说略 [Chinese Script Explained] and scoured CUHK’s multifunction Chinese character database. I found it interesting how the overwhelming majority of Chinese characters now take the form of semantic-phonetic compounds. This unique aspect of Chinese writing is something that Chinese language learners, like myself, can and should take advantage of in our language learning. In December 2023, I presented my work in the John D. Rockefeller Library, along with the other UTRA awardees under Professor Li’s guidance. Here are some notes to supplement my presentation slides!
What sets the Chinese language apart from most European languages is the writing system. Chinese writing is often referred to as logographic — each graph represents a semantic unit — whereas European languages are phonetic — you can “sound” out the language. We will learn later in the presentation that Chinese characters also have a mechanism to represent sound.
Let’s look at an example: the English word “nation” and its Chinese character equivalent 国 (guó), meaning “nation, country”. It’s easy to sound out the word “nation”, and we can obtain its meaning from the root “nat-” (derived from Latin “to be born”). Whereas, the Chinese character 国 doesn’t seem to reflect the [guó] sound at all, and the meaning (or its “root”) is not obvious either. Where in English there is a strong connection between the word and its sound and meaning, Chinese characters seem to have a discrete connection to its meaning and no connection to its sound. This leads to the guiding question of my presentation. How do we obtain sound and meaning from Chinese script?
Oracle bone script is the earliest form of Chinese script that we know of, originating over 3000 years ago in the Shang dynasty. Oracles would inscribe these characters on turtle shells and crack them to interpret responses from the gods for their clients. The pictures in the slides are from a book in the Rockefeller Library East Asian Studies collection. The original turtle shells are on the right with modern characters overlayed on the left.
The characters in oracle bone script were pictographs; the characters visually depicted their meanings. Some of the most commonly used Chinese characters today can be traced all the way back to pictographs in oracle bone script. In the classification of Chinese characters by structure, the literature categorizes pictographs that represent objects (象形; “like shape”) and concepts (象事; “like concept”). Later, Chinese script began to combine pictographs to express more complex ideas. The literature categorizes these characters as compound pictographs (会意; “combine meaning”) and semantic-phonetic compounds (形声; “shape and sound”). Because of the prevalence of these compounds in modern Chinese and the effectiveness of this compounding mechanism in representing a character’s meaning and sound, the remainder of the presentation focuses on semantic-phonetic compounds (abbreviated as S-P compounds).
An S-P compound is composed of a semantic and phonetic marker. The semantic marker, often also the character’s radical, hints at the character’s semantic meaning. The semantic marker can play a few roles. It can represent the character’s semantic category (e.g. the semantic marker of 鹤 (“crane”) is 鸟 (“bird”)), implied meaning (e.g. the semantic marker of 债 (“debt”) hints at the interpersonal meaning of its earlier form 责 (“responsibility)), or full meaning (e.g. the semantic marker of 鼻 (“nose”) was the earlier form of “nose”). The phonetic marker hints at the character’s sound. This can be more obvious, such as in the phonetic marker of 理 (lǐ) is 里 (lǐ). Some cases can be less obvious as the phonetic marker is phonetically similar, such as the phonetic marker of 国 (guó) which lies in its traditional form (國) is 或 (huò).
Now that we have a formulaic way of representing meaning and sound in each character, we’re set, right? Not quite. Determining what the S and P markers of a character are is a non-trivial task. The arrangements of S and P markers can take 1 of 5 forms: left-right, top-bottom, and 3 variations of inner-outer (see the slide). Through my analysis, I have defined some handy tricks that Chinese language learners can use to determine the S and P markers of a character.
There are two heuristics that I came up with to determine the S and P markers of a character. The first method is Most Frequent Radical Position. Since a radical is commonly a semantic marker, we can determine the most frequent radical position within a certain arrangement. If the radical appears in that position, we can make an educated guess that the radical represents the semantic marker and the rest of the character must be the phonetic marker (examples can be found in the slides). The second method is Relative Sizing. The phonetic component tends to be larger in size compared to the semantic component, and radicals are oftentimes simplified or reduced in size to emphasize the phonetic component (examples can be found in the slides). We can combine these two heuristics to make the best guess to determine the S and P markers. There are a few exceptions, however. Radicals can sometimes be phonetic. Cases where this becomes apparent are characters composed of multiple radicals. Additionally, in simplified Chinese, semantic and phonetic markers have been simplified beyond immediate recognition. Referring to the traditional form of the character usually provides better insight into the semantic and phonetic markers.
There are several takeaways from my project that I would like to highlight. S-P compounds provide a structure for Chinese script. This makes Chinese writing more accessible to Chinese language learners. It is also a unique property that can be taken advantage of in Chinese language education. I believe teaching students to identify semantic and phonetic clues in the character, rather than having students use rote memorization to remember characters, would help students recognize and write characters. Additionally, I would argue that traditional characters still have a purpose in simplified Chinese education because they are prime real estate for building this structural intuition of Chinese characters. Chinese writing has been evolving to primarily take the form of S-P compounds, as these characters hold a stronger correlation between script, meaning, and sound. But, I think it is unlikely that more characters will be created, given the homophone problem in Chinese, and more likely that the semantic burden will be given to polysyllabic word units (e.g. 电 (diàn) + 脑 (nǎo) = “computer”).
Many thanks to Professor Li Zhuqing for her mentorship during my UTRA project!
Lotus is a very important symbol in Buddhism. The very first steps of Buddha are flowers, and in paintings, Buddha always sits on a lotus. Lotus is the symbol of purity and stability. Women’s shoes were used to be called 三寸金莲, which is a 3-inch lotus. We admit the prominent influence of Buddhism in early Chinese History, but were women’s lotuses different?
The structure: opening (my initial reaction to the materials), discussion of the two major elements of the foot-binding story (beauty and pain), the modern continuation of the story, and Q&A.
How did I encounter this box of paper? I didn’t think much when narrowing down my research topics, but I see myself everywhere in the material. I’m a dancer, and I know how important my feet and movement are to me. When I’m dancing I'm confident of showing my body and my movements.
I started with the calligraphy of dance, wu. I especially liked the long brush strokes; there was so much dynamic as if the dancer was spinning. But the women who had their feet bound, are unable to dance like this, nor are they able to understand the culture and calligraphy. They are physically and socially impaired.
Then I thought about myself. I can sit here and read, or stand up and dance, yet I took everything for granted. In this research, I want to think about how the women’s story speaks to me or is still going on in my life.
Discuss two kinds of beauty: beauty that women pursue and beauty that is imposed.
Start with poetry (slide 6), women learning embroidery– “unaware of the worries the springtime would bring/ I delighted in flowers soon to blossom”: young girls enjoyed their life innocently, yet they are unaware of what time would bring to them– forcing them into the social norms, expectations of life.
Different patterns of shoes (slide 7) Under the social and physical restrictions, women were still visualizing their wishes for the future. Sometimes mothers made shoes for their daughters, and younger women made shoes for elderly people. These shoes showed the passing on of beauty and good wishes between generations.
Flowers: youth, beauty; Bamboo: modesty, integrity.
Beauty comes from the everyday observation of women. Women find beauty in every object and natural image. For example, cats' whiskers, flowers and grass. Bold use of colors, and design. (slide 9)
However, as the poem goes on (slide 10), the innocent girl grows into a woman– “But my morning dreams are the same as ever”-- with her unfulfilled dreams, the daily repeating routines bringing her into age and sadness. This poem has two readings, 1, Roses are wilted, but the embroidery pattern has stayed till now, and beauty is passed on from mothers to daughters.
2, Sadness and unfulfilled dreams permeate the poem
This leads to the second notion of beauty, which is the beauty that was imposed on women.
Slide 12 poem: at ten, “do not allow her past the red curtain” restriction from parents
Twenty, get married, “she is a spring bud…her parents arrange her betrothal” — social responsibility and expectation restriction.
Slide 13: Children's and young women's shoes. They started foot binding at a very young age, stepping into the social and family restrictions at a very young age.
The interview of a woman: she started foot binding at the age of 3, and got used to the pain at the age of 8. She rarely went out since then.
When sleeping, women were supposed to put sleeping shoes outside of everyday shoes.
Women wear black shoes before marriage and wear red during marriage.
On wedding night, when changing the shoes, women should put the shoes inside the man’s shoes.
In the Qing Dynasty, the court wanted women to unbind their feet. If they refused to do so, their feet were going to be chopped off.
Therefore, the second notion of beauty is entirely under men’s control
When women experience pain and physical restrictions, men see it erotically– women’s willingness to obey. When women show their understanding of beauty through handcraft, men see foot binding as something shameful. They don’t want women to show their understanding and identity through their own craft—shame is a modern perspective.
Pain is always inside of beauty, pain is more abstract that people don’t normally touch on. In the next section: the discussion shifts from beauty to pain.
The discussion of pain can be divided into three categories: How women endure pain,
pain transmission between women, and the inexplicable pain and visible beauty.
The pain was not transmitted explicitly like women teaching…one is directly feeling the pain but unable to fully address the pain to other people. The pain was essentially not documented.
Under the patriarchal society, pain is like a sign of grounding women into this society. Women’s voices were often muted, yet only the physical pain gave them value/making them understand their place in society.
Women depend on their future on well-embroidered symbols, which are hidden and being stepped under their feet. And it is also sad that they can only depend on their future on abstract symbols– under the patriarchal system they don’t have anything real to grapple with. And when a mother passes on her good wishes to her daughter, she inflicts pain on her. But a girl won't understand that this physical pain is just a start. The patriarchal society is invisibly forcing the mothers to train their daughters to fit into the man-dominated social system.
Slide 30: shoes for aged women and funeral shoes.
Dark blue is the color for aged women.
Symbol: crane– longevity; bat– fortune; ladder– ascending to heaven.
Slide 31-32: chastity tablets– used to memorize women’s chastity and integrity
Yet the women’s pain and dreams are never documented. The story is in what’s missing.
A New York Times article, commented on Xi’s policy for pushing women back into the home, calling on them to rear the young and care for the old. The work, in the words of Mr. Xi, is essential for “China’s path to modernization.”
I was born during the one-child policy, and I have seen how the policy changed throughout the years. However as the years passed, there are no major female decision-makers in the party, and Xi didn’t mention anything about women at work– how to improve the environment and change gender inequality
In conclusion, pain in the foot-binding process is not documented– but modern Chinese women still feel the pain. As time passes, the pain may become less physical, but in society and government’s narratives, women are still finding their own value and voices in society.
Digging deeper into the materials, I keep seeing myself in women’s stories: although I'm standing out of their time and trying to tell the story from a distance, in modern society, I still feel the pain, but in another form: there are still a lot of social restrictions and expectations imposed on women, they are like invisible lotus shoes restricting our wills and abilities to explore and learn.
I used to see foot binding as a notion/ something that only existed in a certain time period. But now that I know the details, I think the process speaks to me a lot: I’m not taking my own movements/feet for granted, rather I reflect on the importance of my feet: I’m using my feet/movements to step into my own understanding of beauty, to pursue what I want to. But women with binding feet, are stepping into the physical and social restriction, formed in men’s notion of beauty. Our lives interweave with each other, continually creating new understandings and significance.
In the vast expanse of Chinese classical literature, the Ci poetry of the Tang and Song dynasties stands as a testament to the depth of human emotion and the pinnacle of artistic expression. This literary form, renowned for its rich tapestry of lyrical beauty and musical resonance, has enchanted countless scholars and enthusiasts across generations. Amidst this backdrop of cultural and historical significance, a unique exploration has unfolded through the esteemed lecture series by Professor Ye Chia-ying, housed within the East Asian Special Collection of the John Hay Library. In this project, I immerse oneself fully in the lectures and cultivate a profound appreciation for the beauty of Tang Song Ci poetry.
Embarking on this journey represents more than just an academic pursuit; it is a venture into the soul of Chinese poetry, guided by the unparalleled insights of Professor Ye Chia-ying. The lectures, a prized element of the John Hay Library's special collection, span a comprehensive range of discussions on the Ci form's evolution, its thematic diversity, and the myriad poets who have shaped its legacy. This personal exploration is an opportunity to connect with the essence of Ci poetry, uncovering its layers of meaning, emotion, and historical context through a series of guided learning experiences.
At the heart of this project lies the educational goal of bridging linguistic and cultural divides, allowing for a deeper engagement with the intricate beauty and historical depth of Ci poetry from a non-native Mandarin speaker's perspective. The initial phase of the project involved an in-depth engagement with Professor Ye Chia-ying's lectures, where key themes and insights served as beacons of understanding in the vast ocean of Chinese classical literature. This foundational stage was crucial in setting the direction for a journey of discovery and appreciation.
As the exploration progressed, the focus remained on absorbing the richness of the content, reflecting on the poetic nuances, and historical contexts that Professor Ye Chia-ying masterfully elucidated. This approach allowed for a personal interpretation of the lectures, fostering a connection with the material that transcends the conventional academic study. It became an intimate dialogue with the past, facilitated by the wisdom and passion of Professor Ye Chia-ying.
The culmination of this project is marked by the transformation experienced through the journey. It signifies the awakening of a deep-seated appreciation for Tang Song Ci poetry, inspired by the insights gained from Professor Ye Chia-ying's lectures. This exploration has not only enriched understanding but has also opened new vistas of cultural empathy and intellectual curiosity.
This initiative serves as a testament to the transformative power of learning and the pivotal role of digital archives like the John Hay Library's East Asian Special Collection in making such journeys possible. By delving into the emotional and intellectual depths of Tang Song Ci poetry, guided by the esteemed Professor Ye Chia-ying, this project invites others to embark on their own explorations, fostering a global appreciation for the timeless beauty of Chinese classical literature.
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