Chinese Characteristics

Arthur H. Smith, D.D., was born in Vernon, Connecticut and graduated from Beloit College before serving with the Wisconsin infantry for a few months during the Civil War. A college friend called Smith an accomplished storyteller and "the funniest man I ever knew."After he attended Andover Theological Seminary, in 1872 the American Board of the Commissioners for Foreign Missions sent him and his wife, Emma Jane Dickenson, to China. They lived in the north China village of Panjiazhuang for several decades, aspiring to fit in as "natives." Arthur Smith steeped himself in Chinese classical literature and folklore, leading to a stream of articles and books, including Proverbs and Common Sayings from the Chinese (1886; 1916); Village Life in China: A Study in Sociology (1899); and China in Convulsion (1901), a two-volume study of the Boxer Uprising.

出版者:EastBridge

作者:Arthur H. Smith

页数:342

出版时间:2003-3

价格:USD 29.95

装帧:Paperback

isbn号码:9781891936265

图书标签:中国人中国中国研究A.H.Smith传教士文化社会Sinology

Chinese Characteristics (1894) was the most widely read American work on China until Pearl Buck’s The Good Earth (1931). It was the first to take up the task of analyzing Chinese society in the light of "scientific" social and racial theory.

Written as a series of pungent and sometimes comic essays for a Shanghai newspaper in the late 1880s, Chinese Characteristics was among the five most read books on China among foreigners living in China as late as World War I and it was read by Americans at home as a wise and authentic handbook. The book was quickly translated into Japanese and just as quickly into Chinese. It was accepted by the Chinese — and has maintained its authoritative status for over a century — as the quintessential portrait of the Chinese race drawn by a Westerner.

Lu Xun, the most prominent Chinese cultural critic of the early twentieth century, urged his students to study and ponder Smith’s message, which was very widely debated in Chinese student circles. Within the last decade (the 1990s), two different, new translations of Smith’s book were published in China and both editions have enjoyed wide distribution and readership. In the West, particularly since World War II, Chinese Characteristics has been widely quoted (though seldom read) as an example of Sino-myopia and Orientalism. Despite such Western pseudo-intellectual bias, Smith’s arguments retain the power to provoke critical introspection among Chinese and, for the honest, among Westerners as well.

读后感

一个独具慧眼细读中国经典的人，能在字里行间读出许多拐弯抹角地表达出来的欺骗、推诿和谎言。 ———明恩溥 《中国人的气质》是自己读的明恩溥第二本作品，他的另外一本译介过来的作品是《中国乡村生活》，他是一个传教士，在鲁北传教长达三十余年，在与中国接触过程中，对中...  

在西西弗囫囵吞枣的把书一口气看完了，不可谓不痛快。 在打开这本书之前，请你注意！如果你是怀着逮出妖魔化中国的心理抠作者字眼的话，请止步！ 作者作为一个来中国传教的美国人，在中国生活了50余年。可以说在一个离他的上帝大老远，而且放眼望不到一个同胞的地方渡过了大半...  

讨论中国人的民族性的声音多少年来不绝于耳，咱不说远的，就说说近一些的。无论是鲁迅、胡适、林语堂，还是柏杨、龙应台、三毛，当然，这都是明着说的。放在作品里说的就更多，金庸老先生从古代说，莫言从乡村说，钱钟书从知识分子身上说等等等等，但是，关起门来咱自家人...  

在西西弗囫囵吞枣的把书一口气看完了，不可谓不痛快。 在打开这本书之前，请你注意！如果你是怀着逮出妖魔化中国的心理抠作者字眼的话，请止步！ 作者作为一个来中国传教的美国人，在中国生活了50余年。可以说在一个离他的上帝大老远，而且放眼望不到一个同胞的地方渡过了大半...  

用户评价

非常独特的看中国文化的视角，虽然有失偏颇但有独到之处！

Many misunderstandings in a kind view.

No student of history, no observant traveller who knows human nature, can fail to be impressed, to the point of deep awe, with the thought of the marvellous restraining power which Chinese morality has exerted upon the race from the earliest times until now. Whereas other nation have depended upon physical force, 蔡尼斯 have depended upon moral force.

有趣之处在于，许多来自西方的评价认为一来作者传教士的身份和有限的经历使书中的观点有失偏颇，二来时过境迁，书中内容早已不适合描述现今的中国；而很多中国人却认为，书中所描述的特性如今依然存在，仍然需要反思和自省。

本书是鲁迅先生的灵感来源。青年人读一读有个心理准备，你要去社会上即将和什么样特性的人相处，都在本书中有描绘。