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A Little-known Diary across Italy and Europe: Oumei manyou riji and the Changed Representation of the Other in Diaries of the Republican Period

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Introduction

Travel literature in China developed in different genres, particularly in the form of “essays (記), diaries (日記), records (錄), and prefaces (序). Travel writing in these forms (except the earlier preface) made its first significant appearance in Tang times, was developed during the Song and experienced a major upsurge in late Ming times, which lasted well into the Qing.”[1]

Travel writing is one of the preferred ways of analysing the discovery process of the Other. In the case of encounters between Italy and China, this has a long history, dating back centuries;[2] the role played by travelogues and diaries is especially important in a later phase of this long journey for a variety of reasons. Diaries represent the most direct, first-hand information on contacts between the two countries which, more importantly, are firstly encounters between people. They also offer a different, more intimate, and direct perspective when compared to the very few—at least in the earliest phases of the historical encounters between China and Italy—annotations found in official and historical accounts.

It is not certain who was the first Chinese to travel to Europe, to Italy in particular. Rabban Bar Sauma (born in Zhongdu, modern Beijing, around 1220, died in 1294), a Nestorian Christian monk dispatched by the Mongols to Europe in 1287, is sometimes considered the first, even though his travel account was translated and published in the Syriac language.[3] However, notwithstanding new possible discoveries, scholars have ascertained that the first manuscript account about Italy is Luoma riji 羅馬日記 [Diary from Rome], by the Chinese convert Huang Jialüe 黄嘉略, also known as Arcadio Huang (1679–1716).[4] It is also clear that the very first account in the form of a printed travelogue was provided by the seaman Xie Qinggao 謝淸高 (1765–1821), who left his impressions in Hailu 海錄 [Records on the seas] thanks to the erudition and brush of Yang Bingnan 楊炳南.[5]

After this pioneering work, the practice of writing down personal perceptions and more-or-less official activities in the West by Chinese scholars, and most of all official envoys sent to Europe, resulted in a considerable production of diaries. Pertaining to those describing Italy, a turning point is the dispatch of the first Chinese embassy to visit the peninsula in 1867.[6] Secondary literature convincingly suggests that travels abroad by Chinese in modern times can be divided into four sub-phases,[7] encompassing the numerous cultural, social, and political changes that occurred in the world of the late Qing envoys as a result of the political upheavals and cultural revolutions of the early twentieth century. Accordingly, I suggest that diaries of this period, spanning from 1840 to 1945—from the First Opium War to the end of the Second World War—can be divided into two types based on their purpose. The first and most predominant one is the formal records of official envoys, such as Chushi taixi ji 初使泰西記 [Notes of the first mission to the West], by the official Zhigang 志剛, or Chushi si guo riji 出使四國日記 [Notes on the mission in four countries], by the diplomat Xue Fucheng 薛福成 (1838–1894), to only mention a few; this typology is sometimes referred to as “diplomatic writing.”[8] The second type is diaries closer to their first interpretation as a genre swinging “between the spontaneity of reportage and the reflectiveness of the crafted text”;[9] these were written down by unofficial envoys or people accompanying them, as exemplified by Shan Shili 單士厘 (1863–1945)’s Guimao lüxing ji 癸卯旅行記 [Notes on a journey in 1903] and Guiqian ji 歸潛記 [Notes on the retirement].[10] Shan was the first late Qing Chinese woman to record her travel abroad in such an extensive way.[11] Even though her Guiqian ji is interwoven with “a serious amount of scholarly research,”[12] her role and style of writing clearly separate it from the first typology.

The aforementioned more intimate perspective provided in diaries pertains in particular to the second and fourth stages—ranging respectively from 1875 to 1894 and from 1912 to 1945—[13] when Chinese travellers, including Kang Youwei 康有為 (1858–1927), Liang Qichao 梁啟超 (1873–1929), and Wang Tao 王韜 (1828–1897), began to embark on pleasure journeys. Wang Tao was indeed the first Chinese who travelled to Europe for personal cultivation and leisure, and his Manyou suilu 漫遊隨錄 [Casual records of my wanderings] is remarkable for its unique personal and poetic style. As for the earlier travels by Chinese officials, in fact, very few can be described as sharing intimate considerations. A peculiar case is Zhang Deyi 張德彜 (1847–1918)’s Hanghai shuqi 航海述奇 [Marvellous things travelling at sea], since it is of the diplomatic kind, but is different from the others as it is written in a very fresh and personal style.

 

1. The missing tile: Oumei manyou riji and Italy

An almost forgotten piece in this picture is Oumei manyou riji 歐美漫遊日記 [Diary of a journey in Europe and the United States], written by the Chinese scholar Chen Yifu 陳一甫 (1869–1948), courtesy name Shuzhai jushi 恕齋居士, and annotated by his son, Chen Dayou 陳達有 (dates unknown). Oumei manyou riji describes their travels across Europe and the United States, focusing in particular on the description of their stay in Italy; the latter has been selected as a case study in this article for the consistent portion of Oumei manyou riji dedicated to it.

Chen Yifu is nowadays almost exclusively known as an entrepreneur. He is particularly famous for his role in the establishment, together with his other son Chen Fanyou 陳范有 (1898–1952)[14] and the industrialist Zhou Xuexi 周學熙 (1866–1947), among others, of the Chee Hsin cement company (Qi xin yanghui gongsi 啟新洋灰公司). It is in the context of his work as an entrepreneur that Chen Yifu embarked on his trip to Europe and the United States, followed by his son.[15]

To the author’s knowledge, Oumei manyou riji has never been presented and analysed in secondary literature until now.[16] Even though Oumei manyou riji has gone almost unnoticed for decades, it has a high historical and odeporic value for two reasons: it was written neither by a “scholar” in the most traditional sense of the term nor by an official envoy—two of the most prominent categories of authors of late Qing diaries—[17]and it was published in a period in which diaries were no longer considered a primary source of information on the West.[18] Therefore, its authors had more freedom to record their impressions without any concern for official recognition or similar considerations. Also, as pointed out in the introduction, the intimate perspective provided in diaries of the fourth stage, indicated by Chen Shiru, is connoted in Oumei manyou riji particularly for its specific “individuality.”[19]

Methodological and research questions can be thus raised: are there substantial differences with other diaries, given Chen’s position as an entrepreneur? In case the answer is positive, what fresh elements and representations of Italy could his role bring and what determined them? Is there any similarity, or did the temporal distance with the first travelogues prevent them? Was it only a question of time or did the mindset of the Chinese traveller to Europe change in the first part of the twentieth century? Was there any political or historical reason for this?

By trying to answer some of these questions and raising others, as well as highlighting differences in Oumei manyou riji from other late Qing analogous texts, it is possible to appreciate its distinctiveness, getting an insight into the evolution of odeporic literature from the late Qing to the Republican period, which had such an important value in cross-cultural relations between China and the West, Italy included.

 

2. A real journey around the globe

As stated above, Oumei manyou riji was annotated by Chen Yifu’s son, Chen Dayou; Chen Yifu himself printed the text[20] that, given the forewords and annotations by other eminent personalities of the time,[21] was probably destined for the educated elite of entrepreneurs and scholars to whom Chen Yifu belonged.

Their travel started in 1935 and was a true journey around the globe. We must consider their understanding of Europe from a different perspective than that of contemporaneous European travel accounts of Italy; the latter were layered with the cultural baggage of the regional understandings of classical antiquity, which Chinese travellers obviously lacked or could partially enjoy. This situation is a mirror image of what happened to Japanese travellers visiting China: while they and the Japanese readers, given their cultural background, could somehow understand what China was at the time and what it had been in the past, this could not be applied to Westerners and their “travel narratives of East Asia.”[22]

Also, when reading Oumei manyou riji and comparing it with its European counterparts, one must remember that the expectations and the divergent understandings of the concept of civilisation contributed to shaping the perceptions of twentieth-century Italy and its people. While the association between travel and Italy, part of the ritual Grand Tour, was already established in European minds as a cultural activity,[23] in the case of Chinese travellers, the cultural and spatial distance and its consequent “alienation” tended more to stress the differences with the other culture, even though it is based on personal judgement and cultural baggage.[24]

The first part of the record begins with an account of their passage through Tianjin and Shanghai (Jin Hu tuzhong 津滬途中[25]), their arrival in Hong Kong (Xianggang 香港), Singapore (Xinjiapo 新嘉坡), Sri Lanka (in particular the city of Colombo, Gelunbu 哥侖布), India (in Mumbai, in Chinese Mengmai 孟買), and the last stage before reaching Europe, Egypt (the city of Suez, Suyishi cheng 蘇彝士城, Cairo, Kailuo 開羅, and Port Said, Bosai 波賽); Egypt was the last portion of this usual route for Chinese travellers in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s.[26] From Port Said, Chen Yifu and his son finally reached Italy (Yiguo 意國), France (Faguo 法國, which they visited three times due to their itinerary), England (Yingguo 英國), Norway (Nuowei 挪威), Sweden (Ruidian 瑞典), and again southwards to Denmark (Danmai 丹麥), Germany (Deguo 德國), Switzerland (Ruishi 瑞士), and Belgium (Biguo 比國).

After a short stay in Paris, the diary starts again from different cities in the United States (Meiguo 美國), from New York all the way westwards to San Francisco, and then on the road back again to Asia (Mei Ya tuzhong 美亞途中), stopping by Honolulu (Tanxiangshan 檀香山), various cities in Japan, and leaving from Kobe (Shenhu 神戶) to finally go back on the road from Shanghai to Tianjin (Hu Jin tuzhong 滬津途中, this time in a reversed order). Their passage in Europe, therefore, touched nine countries, on which Chen provided different information. However, the most consistent portion of the diary is dedicated to Italy. In fact, of the 232 pages of the work—only considering the body text—thirty are devoted exclusively to Italy. The decision to dedicate so much space to the country is not by chance: since 1933, discussions about fascism were already in fashion in China, with numerous publications in the journal Shenbao 申报 reflecting this interest.[27] Also, a few descriptions by the Chens are specifically devoted to the political movement, as will be seen later in the text. The date of writing of Oumei manyou riji is also an important temporal coincidence: a few months later, in 1937, Italy was going to sign the Anti-Comintern Pact, putting China and Italy in antagonist positions, so the Chens’ travel would have been more problematic. The choice to focus this article on Italy is connected to all these factors: other than recent numerous studies conducted on the cultural cross-representations between China and Italy, the temporal and historical frame of Oumei manyou riji is instrumental to better describe the process of mutual discovery.

As stated in the preface to the diary, dated the third month of the twenty-sixth year of the Republican era, the Chens’ journey started when Yifu was almost seventy years old, and he decided to bring his son Dayou to visit Europe and the United States for about one year (“一甫觀察年近七旬慨然率其少子達有出遊歐美諸國近一年”).[28] An important motivation for the travel was represented by their appreciation for Western achievements in scientific development; this is a leitmotif of the first wave of diaries written by Chinese travelling to Europe and the United States. To this, the Chens add another topos found in relevant previous works as well—not as common as the other, though: the exquisiteness of the European and American manufactured goods (“近日歐美各國科學之猛進製造之精奇”). The trip to Europe was a heavy burden for Chen Yifu, according to his account, given his older age and the distance covered (“體力不健不能勝舟車之遠勞”). More importantly, the Chens regret the fact that the obstacles of communicating in a foreign language, both in its oral and written forms, hindered the good intentions of social communication with local people: this prevented them from investigating their “spirit” (“語言不通不能盡交際之善意文字不悉不能考民族之精神[…]”).[29]

From a cultural perspective and the study of the Other, one of the most important focuses in travel diaries is the description of what appears as oddities in the eyes of the writer, when trying to convey a powerful sense of alterity and estrangement to the reader.[30] Again, in the preface, the Chens find three particularly “bizarre” points of their journey in the West: sceneries, languages, and people (“有三奇曰景奇曰文奇曰人奇”).[31] When reflecting on Italy, the Chens explain in the preface that through the Italian Renaissance it was possible to best see the various strengths and weaknesses, successes, and failures of the past and present of the peninsula (“以義大利之民族復興今昔異情強弱殊勢最足令人棖觸蓋古今成敗興衰之理[…]”).[32]

 

3. New itineraries of careful visitors: images and descriptions of Italy

Oumei manyou riji has another peculiarity distinguishing it from previous diaries mentioned above: its iconographic apparatus, including various pictures of Italy. There are a variety of photos from the city of Venice, occupying the biggest portion, perhaps given its frequent comparison with the city of Suzhou,[33] including the Bridge of Sighs and pigeons in Saint Mark’s Square (“威尼斯太息橋,” “聖馬可廣場之飛鴿”),[34] one in Verona close to Romeo and Juliet’s tomb (“威郎那城羅米俄與祝麗愛特墓前”), two in Milan, with its famous Cathedral (“米蘭大教堂”), two in Florence, including Ponte Vecchio (“佛羅侖司費西歐橋”), three in Rome, comprising the Stadio dei Marmi (indicated as Stadium of the fascist youth of Rome, “羅馬法西斯蒂青年體育場”) and Saint Peter’s Basilica (“羅馬聖彼得大教堂”), the Leaning Tower of Pisa (“比薩斜塔”), Mount Vesuvius (“威蘇維亞火山”), and finally various views of Pompeii (Pengpai 彭湃). The focus on the latter might be influenced by other itineraries travelled before by Chinese scholars: an example is Yidali youji 意大利遊記 [Notes on a journey in Italy] by Kang Youwei, in which there is very consistent stress on the description of Pompeii. More generally, however, the trip by Chen and his son was less inspired by earlier travelogues and contemporary ones as well, which somehow tended to shape and later codify the places to visit while in Europe; Norway and Sweden, for example, were not among the most common destinations. By way of illustration, the journey by Ying Yining 應懿凝 (1907–1999), recorded in Ouyou riji 歐遊日記 [Diary of a journey in Europe],[35] included the Czech Republic, USSR, and England, among other destinations.

The first spot described by the Chens in Italy is Brindisi.[36] The ship they were travelling on stopped in the port city, but since there was an important military base located there, they were not allowed to go ashore. The Chens therefore spent those two hours walking on the ship’s deck; after that, they headed to Venice, the first city in Italy where they could actually disembark.

The Chens provide extremely accurate information about the architecture of the city, the weather, the temperature, and much more; this is a peculiarity of the diary, not only for Venice. For example, they go into detail about the mosaics and how they were created,[37] the origin of the Bridge of Sighs, the “Paradise” painted by the well-known artist Tintoretto (1518–1594) in the Doge’s Palace, as well as descriptions of natural landscapes, such as Venice Lido, occupying a total of almost three pages. After leaving Venice, Chen and his son headed to Verona, annotating all the names of the cities they passed by. Their arrival in Verona[38] is a chance to describe the plot of Romeo and Juliet as composed by Shakespeare, and the Verona Arena, modelled after the Colosseum in Rome and originally destined for fights between humans and beasts. After a short stay in Lake Garda, Chen and his son carried on their journey across Italy, describing the smoothness of the road that made them travel up to “ninety kilometres per hour.”

Oumei manyou riji is entangled with much information about the industries of the country visited, as well as historical facts. For example, after visiting Lake Garda and arriving in Como, the Chens state that all the facilities in Italy had astonishing features, demonstrating its production capacity (“意國諸事業其故作驚人之舉以示其創造能力”).[39] Narrating their stop in Lake Maggiore, the Chens present the Stresa Conference, reporting the news that Benito Mussolini arrived there piloting a seaplane by himself, astonishing the people in attendance. We do not know the actual source of this news, but Chen Yifu and his son probably gathered it from local newspapers; the archive of the Istituto Luce actually includes a picture of Mussolini arriving on the lake on April 14, 1935, the date of the meeting.[40] The Chens even describe the place where the encounter between Mussolini, Pierre Laval, and Ramsay MacDonald took place, given the importance this had for the situation of Europe (“三強首領齊集此室一言一動關係歐洲全局”).[41]

Their following destination was Milan, the industrial and communication centre of Italy (“意大利商業及交通中心”). An important portion of the description of the city is dedicated to the Duomo, the opposite square, and the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. It is important to point out how some trivial facts attracted the Chens’ attention more than one would expect from our contemporary and Western perspective. For example, the Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci is hardly mentioned, while the fact that passengers waiting at Milan railway station, the most important in Italy, were not bothered by the bad weather since the station was covered and they could visit an array of “extremely clean” shops while waiting for their train (“中央車站一觀是站新建居全國第一車停站內旅客無風雨之苦前爲大廳均係商店小販但極清潔”),[42] is dedicated considerable space. This is most likely due to Chen’s mixed background, both as a businessman and as a man of culture, as also explained further on.

Leaving Milan, Chen and his son visited the Certosa of Pavia, where they were stared at by the children studying as seminarists, who presumably had never seen Asian faces before; the order was restored by a superior, who prevented Chen and his son from being encircled by the curious children. After a visit to the Certosa and its relevant description, they proceeded to Florence, which is “362 kilometres” in distance from Milan, as they record in extreme detail, almost the same distance between Shanghai and Nanjing, but not without first stopping in Bologna.

The first impression of Tuscany is that, while every single city in Italy always comes with an antique flavour, this is especially true of Florence (“意大利無論何種城市均不能完全脫其古香古色之風味而佛羅侖司尤甚焉”).[43] Like contemporary tourists, Chen and his son visit the markets where leather products are sold. As in other passages of Oumei manyou riji, details such as this are intermingled with information on the culture, for example the fact that Florence was the linguistic and artistic centre of Italy. During their Italian stage of the trip, Chen and his son were travelling with a total of six people,[44] probably with the addition of a local guide and porters, even though it is not possible to ascertain all of their identities.[45]

A passage in the diary[46] lets us infer that the Chens derived a portion of their information from a local guide in English. In fact, they always provided English renderings of the toponyms and anthroponyms, especially phonemic loans and names that might be unfamiliar to the Chinese reader. In the case of Florence’s Fountain of Neptune, the English explanation in brackets “by Bart. Ammannati” is not conveyed at all in the Chinese text; this might be a simple mistake which, as in many other cases of textual research, is more revealing than explicit statements.

In Siena, Chen and his son visited the Duomo, explaining that the façade was never accomplished according to its initial plan, given the Great Plague that almost killed half of the population of Europe during the fourteenth century.

 

4. Going South: the inconvenience of the language and the simplicity of gestures

After a brief stop in Viterbo, the Chens arrived in Rome. In the capital city, the driver needed to repair some springs (tanhuang 彈簧, perhaps dampers) of the vehicle in which they were travelling. This cost eighty liras (lier 里耳) and, luckily enough, the driver was able to speak Italian, even though he was not Italian himself. It was exactly the language, according to the Chens, that represented the most inconvenient thing about their travel in Italy (“意大利之不便也”). On the other hand, when the driver again asked a person riding a bicycle for directions, the person stopped immediately and, with polite language and courteous expressions, indicated where to go; that was the convenience of Italy (“騎腳踏車者車夫問途立即停車婉言指示此意大利之便也”).

A visit to Rome could not leave the Vatican (“教皇宮”) out of consideration. For the Chens, the Vatican was not only a small independent State; since long ago, the Pope represented the spiritual leader of every country in Europe (“在昔教權極盛時代教皇爲全歐洲人民精神領袖”). After a careful description of the Vatican Museums and the most important works stored there, including the Sistine Chapel,[47] Chen and his son proceeded to visit other monuments such as Saint John Lateran and the Holy Stairs.[48] It is here that a comparison is drawn in Oumei manyou riji between Italy and China or, to put it in their words, “East and West”: pilgrims go up the stairs on their knees, chanting their prayers, similar to the Chinese visiting temples, kowtowing at each step; this really was East and West mirroring each other (“教徒膝行而上口中仍喃喃有詞頗似我國拜廟一步一叩首者誠東西互映矣”).

After this passage, we read one of the many direct interventions of the narrator’s voice. In fact, the actual diary’s writer says that he followed his father and their other travel companion, Mr. Sun 孫 (“隨父與孫君[…]”), to the Capuchin Crypt, where skulls of dead bodies are kept. This stylistic feature is not surprising: it was Chen Yifu who asked his son to write down the diary,[49] therefore direct interventions of Chen Dayou in the flow of the text should be deemed natural. One woman (or more—the Chinese text does not clarify this) was travelling with them in Italy, and the driver was wondering if she might be frightened by this sight.

The city of Rome struck the Chens for the number of cars, trams, and the fact that sounding the horn was not allowed unless necessary, otherwise drivers would get fined—this was also true for other countries in Europe and the United States.[50] Another comparison between these two distant worlds is found in Oumei manyou riji when visiting the Trevi Fountain—Rome was known as the city of fountains (“羅馬有噴泉城之稱”). If one were to toss a coin in the fountain, he was destined to go back there once again; superstitions were the same in the “East and West” (“投幣其中則人將復回迷信傳說東西同也”).

Following a visit to numerous other spots, such as the Basilica of Saint Paul,[51] the convoy saw the most famous monument in Rome, the Colosseum (“鬥獸場 (Colloseum)[sic]亦羅馬最著古物”). A tour of Piazza Venezia[52] and Via dei Fori Imperiali is an example of how the Chens interpreted the figure of Mussolini, perhaps not foreseeing the immediate consequences of his foreign politics, also for China. The Chens state that Mussolini was the initiator of many new endeavours in Italy, praising his role in paving Via dei Fori Imperiali (“意大利新興事業爲墨氏一人包辦世無否認者而其對於發掘保存古物亦不遺餘力最近新闢之皇家大路[…]”). The beauty of the relics stored there is a chance again to draw a comparison with the Chens’ motherland, but this time it is not a flattering one.[53] They regret that many archaeologists arrived in China and only brought with them whatever they excavated, demonstrating that their country did not focus at all on relics; this was something the Chinese needed to pay attention to (“我東方四千年古國所以保存古物之方法果何在乎[…]我國當局宜注意也”).

After sightseeing various places on the outskirts of Rome, one of the Chens’ travel companions, Mr. Sun, decided to head to France, while the others followed the path South, towards Naples, and then back Northwards; they agreed to meet again in Nice.[54] The day after, they had the chance to see young fascists on the road, boys holding arms and singing fervid songs, accompanied by girls. Once again, the Chens’ conclusion was not positively predictive: they were fascinated by this sight and invited their Chinese fellows who supported disarmament as the basis of world peace to deeply reconsider their ideas (“高唱裁軍之成績世界和平之根基歟我國當猛省也”). The depiction of Mussolini, his deeds, and more generally the representation of fascism, is an extremely original element in Chinese travel writings that the author plans to investigate further in the future. As already highlighted in section 2 of this article, at the time there was a strong fascination for fascism in China, and its perception was influenced by the Italian propaganda abroad—Galeazzo Ciano, Mussolini’s son-in-law, worked as consul general in Shanghai in 1930, a few years after his work as secretary of legation in Beijing in 1927.

Through Oumei manyou riji it is also possible to see how the perspectives of the authors of travelogues and diaries completely changed, compared to the first Chinese travellers in Europe. While in the first phase most Chinese were shocked by European habits, particularly physical contact between women and men, banned according to Confucian etiquette,[55] the Chens were somehow surprised when two women were not allowed into the Abbey of Monte Cassino because their sleeves were “only a little bit short,” adding that the two could not help but go back in the car and wait. Furthermore, the Abbey of Monte Cassino represents a chance to draw a further comparison with their own country’s government: a small earthquake struck twenty-five years before[56] and slightly damaged the Abbey, which was able to receive financial aid from the Italian government for reconstruction. That was common in Europe and the United States, but in China it was not a frequent practice (“則常得政府補助與我國不同”).

 

5. From Naples to Pompeii: the last phase of a long stay

Upon reaching Naples,[57] where the Chens are taken aback by dinner being served from seven p.m. or half past seven p.m., they have their first direct interactions with locals. A man able to speak English asked them where they were heading and talked about the local scenic spots. The group spoke for a while, until the Chens realised that the young man was planning to beg them for money. They reluctantly gave him two liras, asking themselves why youngsters would do such things (“何青年有爲者而爲此下流行徑也”).

As demonstrated in the previous paragraphs, the Chens frequently use Oumei manyou riji to present the reader with what they consider the most salient differences between China and Western countries. In Naples, they noticed the presence of a “taximeter” (“價目表”)[58] in cars for tourists that allowed the client to pay based on distance, so there was no fear of being cheated (“表中標出登車祗告以地名即可無被欺之虞”). This was also true for Europe and the United States, while back in China one had to bargain on the price. The comment on this peculiarity—at least in the Chens’ eyes—is not surprising, given that the Chens recorded the price of many services and goods during their trip. The pervasiveness of such information is peculiar to Oumei manyou riji, compared to other travelogues mentioned, and is evidently related to the entrepreneurial background of its authors.

A visit to Solfatara and Pompeii is the next step in their journey,[59] followed by Amalfi.[60] The Chens describe lemons as an extremely common product in this area, such that each person dining can have half, while in China, when eating Western food, one could consume only one-tenth. The tour to Mount Vesuvius[61] is a chance to recall the last big eruption, which took place in April 1906, with its inauspicious consequences. Earthquakes and volcanoes have indeed always been a topic of much interest for Chinese travellers and their descriptions of Italy.[62] Naples is the final step southwards before returning to Rome, where another accompanying person, Mr. Xia (“夏君”), is mentioned, and a tour to the last of the four Basilicas in the capital city, Santa Maria Maggiore.[63]

On their way back northwards, the group visited Pisa and the Leaning Tower.[64] This time a comparison praising China is drawn: the walls of the city of Pisa are extremely low, set against the magnificence of those in China (“城垣猶存惟甚矮小無我國城垣之雄壯”),[65] while Genova is compared to Hong Kong for its slopes. It was in the afternoon of the eighteenth day that they left Italy.[66] The last record at the border gives a first-hand insight into the historical atmosphere of the time: the guard inspecting their passports asked them if they were Japanese, to which the Chens replied, “We are Chinese.” They had heard, in fact, that Europeans and Americans would ask Orientals first if they were Japanese (“歐美人士欲問華人抑日人必先問是否日人”).

 

Conclusion

Oumei manyou riji is an essential hidden piece in the mosaic of how the Other is represented in the cultural exchanges between Italy and China, analogously to previous travelogues, diaries, and other accounts that await to be discovered. The diary was recorded by Chen Dayou, and therefore, he also contributed to the final result, at least with personal stylistic features. This partial double voice of the diary’s narrators, father and son, which sometimes patently emerges to the surface, is one of the most original stylistic features of this diary, compared to other travelogues composed in late Qing China and the Republican era, some of which are mentioned in the article.

We can also affirm that Chen Yifu’s role was different from his predecessors, but at the same time it shared common points. His position was not limited to his activity as an entrepreneur; similarly to the traditional figure of cultured Chinese officials, he was perfectly integrated into the cultural circles of his era. This double dimension is demonstrated by the postfaces to Oumei manyou riji, written by a variety of authors of different backgrounds: Yang Shounan 楊壽枏 (1868–1948) was himself an entrepreneur, but also a poet and politician, while Jin Liang 金梁 (1878–1962) was a literatus and important official; Wang Xitong 王錫彤 (1865–1938), in turn, was known mostly as an entrepreneur, while Zhao Yuanli 趙元禮 (1868–1939) was a calligrapher and poet, as well as a political figure. All these versatile figures demonstrate the variety of the Chens’ personal connections, and at the same time a shift in the background of the authors of travelogues: before the collapse of the Qing dynasty, it would be impossible to read a text such as Oumei manyou riji. In fact, it has already been demonstrated that the first testimonies of China by Italian travellers were mostly left by missionaries and scholars, not by merchants,[67] who were not interested in literary legacies. Apparently, however, the circulation of Oumei manyou riji was somehow limited to educated scholars, including those who wrote prefaces and annotations for the text. As already mentioned, Oumei manyou riji was published by Chen Yifu himself, and perhaps the changed perception and attitude toward China by Italy, to which a consistent portion of the diary is devoted, and its government, after 1937, prevented the publication by major publishing houses and consequently its diffusion among wider circles of readers.

By describing Europe, devoting so much time and pages to Italy, and making comparisons with their own country, the Chens are following the paths other travellers had walked before them. It should be noted that a description of the other culture is frequently carried out in the form of contrast and, almost always, is also a “self-description or self-definition.”[68] What is different in Oumei manyou riji is the perspective provided by the Chens, also given their background; there is a shift in the focus of the descriptions recorded in Oumei manyou riji, for example in the cases of the prices or the episode of the women’s sleeves. What remains in common with most of the previous travelogues is the admiration for some aspects of Italian culture and the space dedicated to the description of monuments and landscapes. As for the Chens’ appreciation of Italian contemporary circumstances, such approval would probably not remain the same, at least from a political level, just a few months after the publication of the diary, given the global context and its historical evolution. A temporary and ideal end to this process of re-discovery of the Other, reciprocally enacted by Italy and China and started almost one century before, would come in the years immediately after the publication of Oumei manyou riji. Luckily, the drive for the discovery and curiosity of the Other, motivated by different ideals, pushed the Chens and all their predecessors to set out on such a long journey. More importantly, the desire to help readers with reciprocal comprehension made them leave a durable mark in the form of a diary, right before this—temporary—halt. The world awaits other texts such as Oumei manyou riji to be discovered, further allowing us to see how our predecessors looked at each other and, perhaps, better understand ourselves.

 

References

Bertuccioli, Giuliano, and Federico Masini. Italia e Cina. Bari: Laterza, 1996. Reprint, Rome: L’Asino d’Oro, 2014.

Brezzi, Alessandra. Note per un dono segreto: il viaggio in Italia di Shan Shili. Rome: Editrice Orientalia, 2012.

Brezzi, Alessandra. “L’immagine dell’Italia nei resoconti di viaggio cinesi all’inizio del XX secolo.” In Atti del XIII Convegno dell’Associazione Italiana Studi Cinesi: Milano 22–24 ottobre 2011, edited by Clara Bulfoni and Silvia Pozzi, 87–97. Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2014.

Casalin, Federica. “Investigating the Introduction of Italian Culture into Late Qing China through Some Foreign Travel Diaries (1867–1897): What Culture? About What Italy? By What China?” In Italy and China: Centuries of Dialogue, edited by Francesco Guardiani, Gaoheng Zhang, and Salvatore Bancheri, 199–215. Florence: Franco Cesati Editore, 2017.

Castorina, Miriam. “Italian Women in Chinese Eyes: An Analysis of Some Late 19th– and Early 20th-Century Chinese Travel Accounts and Their Perception of Italian Women.” In Exchanges and Parallels between Italy and East Asia, edited by Gaoheng Zhang and Mario Mignone, 25–43. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020.

Chen, Kekuan 陈克宽, and Chen Kejian 陈克俭. “Yanghui Chen” zhuanlüe “洋灰陈”传略 [Brief biography of Chen family, the masters of concrete]. Shanghai: Shanghai sanlian shudian 上海三联书店, 2001.

Chen, Shiru 陳室如. Jindai yuwai youji yanjiu—1840–1945 近代域外遊記研究——1840–1945 [Research on modern travelogues abroad – 1840–1945]. Taipei: Wenjin chubanshe 文津出版社, 2008.

Chen, Yifu 陳一甫. Oumei manyou riji 歐美漫遊日記 [Diary of a journey in Europe and the United States]. 1937.

Day, Jenny Huangfu. Qing Travelers to the Far West: Diplomacy and the Information Order in Late Imperial China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Eggert, Marion. “The Sorrow of the Traveler: Melancholy in Chinese Travel Narrative.” Paper for the Bonn Conference on Melancholy and Society in China, July 1995. 1995.

Findeisen, Raoul David. “In the Hutong of Naples from Chinese Travelogues of the Republican Era.” Cina 28 (2000): 89–106.

Fogel, Joshua A. The Literature of Travel in the Japanese Rediscovery of China: 1862–1945. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996.

Harbsmeier, Michael. “Allocentrism and Alterities. Ultra-Short World History of the Genre of the Travelogue.” Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften 14.2 (2020): 205–233.

Hester, Nathalie. Literature and Identity in Italian Baroque Travel Writing. London: Routledge, 2008.

Hu, Ying. “‘Would That I Were Marco Polo’: The Travel Writing of Shan Shili (1856–1943).” In Traditions of East Asian Travel, edited by Joshua A. Fogel, 144–166. New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2006.

Jin, Jing 金靖. “‘Yanghui Chen’ fuzi yu guojia tushuguan shanben tecang ‘洋灰陳’父子與國家圖書館善本特藏” [Chen father and son, masters of concrete, and the special collection of rare books in the national library]. Wenjin xuezhi 文津学志 5 (2012): 329–340.

Langford, Rachael, and Russell West (eds.). Marginal Voices, Marginal Forms: Diaries in European Literature and History. Amsterdam; Atlanta: Rodopi, 1999.

Pfister, Manfred (ed.). The Fatal Gift of Beauty: The Italies of British Travellers. An Annotated Anthology. Amsterdam; Atlanta: Rodopi, 1996.

Rossabi, Morris. Voyager from Xanadu: Rabban Sauma and the First Journey from China to the West. Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2010.

Tola, Gabriele. “Transcultural Mediterranean in the History of Chinese Travelogues: Oumei manyou riji as a Case Study.” Nordicum-Mediterraneum 19.1 (2024): http://doi.org/10.33112/nm.19.1.3

Wakeman, Frederic Jr. “A Revisionist View of the Nanjing Decade: Confucian Fascism.” The China Quarterly 150 (1997): 395–432.

Widmer, Ellen. “Foreign Travel through a Woman’s Eyes: Shan Shili’s Guimao lüxing ji in Local and Global Perspective.” The Journal of Asian Studies 65.4 (2006): 763–791.

Wu, Xixiang 吴熙祥. Yanghui shijia—Chen Yifu, Chen Fanyou fuzi qiusuo shiye jiuguo zhi lu 洋灰世家——陈一甫、陈范有父子求索实业救国之路 [The family of cement: Chen Yifu and Chen Fanyou seeking the path to save the nation with the industry]. Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe 上海人民出版社, 2010.

Xie, Yong 謝泳. Hegu luan fanshu—Xie Yong yuedu biji 何故亂翻書——謝泳閱讀筆記 [Why should we wantonly leaf through books: Xie Yong notes on reading]. Taipei: Xiuwei zixun 秀威資訊, 2008.

Xu, Minglong 许明龙. Huang Jialüe yu zaoqi Faguo hanxue 黃嘉略与早期法囯汉学 [Huang Jialüe and the early French sinology]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju 中华书局, 2004.

Ying, Yining 應懿凝. Ouyou riji 歐遊日記 [Diary of a journey in Europe]. Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju 中華書局, 1936.

 

Endnotes

[1] Marion Eggert, “The Sorrow of the Traveler: Melancholy in Chinese Travel Narrative,” Paper for the Bonn Conference on Melancholy and Society in China, July 1995 (1995), 4.

[2] Giuliano Bertuccioli and Federico Masini, Italia e Cina (Bari: Laterza, 1996. Reprint, Rome: L’Asino d’Oro, 2014), 37 and following.

[3] See also Morris Rossabi, Voyager from Xanadu: Rabban Sauma and the First Journey from China to the West (Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2010). 2–3 and 117–138.

[4] Xu Minglong, Huang Jialüe yu zaoqi Faguo hanxue (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2004), 23 and passim.

[5] Bertuccioli and Masini, Italia e Cina, 226.

[6] Federica Casalin, “Investigating the Introduction of Italian Culture into Late Qing China through Some Foreign Travel Diaries (1867–1897): What Culture? About What Italy? By What China?” in Italy and China: Centuries of Dialogue, ed. Francesco Guardiani, Gaoheng Zhang, and Salvatore Bancheri (Florence: Franco Cesati Editore, 2017), 201.

[7] Chen Shiru, Jindai yuwai youji yanjiu—1840–1945 (Taipei: Wenjin chubanshe, 2008).

[8] Jenny Huangfu Day, Qing Travelers to the Far West: Diplomacy and the Information Order in Late Imperial China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 221.

[9] Rachael Langford and Russell West (eds.), Marginal Voices, Marginal Forms: Diaries in European Literature and History (Amsterdam; Atlanta: Rodopi, 1999), 8.

[10] See its annotated translation in Alessandra Brezzi, Note per un dono segreto: il viaggio in Italia di Shan Shili (Rome: Editrice Orientalia, 2012).

[11] Ellen Widmer, “Foreign Travel through a Woman’s Eyes: Shan Shili’s Guimao lüxing ji in Local and Global Perspective,” The Journal of Asian Studies 65.4 (2006): 767.

[12] Hu Ying, “‘Would That I Were Marco Polo’: The Travel Writing of Shan Shili (1856–1943),” in Traditions of East Asian Travel, ed. Joshua A. Fogel (New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2006), 150.

[13] According to Chen Shiru, Jindai yuwai youji yanjiu.

[14] See Wu Xixiang, Yanghui shijia—Chen Yifu, Chen Fanyou fuzi qiusuo shiye jiuguo zhi lu (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 2010). Other information on Chen’s family can be derived from Chen Kekuan and Chen Kejian, “Yanghui Chen” zhuanlüe (Shanghai: Shanghai sanlian shudian, 2001).

[15] Jin Jing, “‘Yanghui Chen’ fuzi yu guojia tushuguan shanben tecang,” Wenjin xuezhi 5 (2012): 330.

[16] References can be found in Xie Yong, Hegu luan fanshu—Xie Yong yuedu biji (Taipei: Xiuwei zixun, 2008), 48–49, and Jin Jing, “‘Yanghui Chen’ fuzi,” 330–331.

[17] See also the statements on the different typologies of genres adopted by officials and scholars listed in Alessandra Brezzi, “L’immagine dell’Italia nei resoconti di viaggio cinesi all’inizio del XX secolo,” in Atti del XIII Convegno dell’Associazione Italiana Studi Cinesi: Milano 22–24 ottobre 2011, ed. Clara Bulfoni and Silvia Pozzi (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2014), 87–88.

[18] Casalin, “Investigating the Introduction of Italian Culture,” 201.

[19] Chen Shiru, Jindai yuwai youji yanjiu, 312.

[20] Jin Jing, “‘Yanghui Chen’ fuzi”: 330.

[21] Jin Jing, “‘Yanghui Chen’ fuzi”: 331.

[22] Joshua A. Fogel, The Literature of Travel in the Japanese Rediscovery of China: 1862–1945 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), xv.

[23] Nathalie Hester, Literature and Identity in Italian Baroque Travel Writing (London: Routledge, 2008), 4.

[24] Miriam Castorina, “Italian Women in Chinese Eyes: An Analysis of Some Late 19th- and Early 20th-Century Chinese Travel Accounts and Their Perception of Italian Women,” in Exchanges and Parallels between Italy and East Asia, ed. Gaoheng Zhang and Mario Mignone (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020), 31.

[25] Page numbers start over again in different sections of the books, such as prefaces, index, and body text. Quotations from the pages are given only for the prefaces and body text of Oumei manyou riji.

[26] Raoul David Findeisen, “In the Hutong of Naples from Chinese Travelogues of the Republican Era,” Cina 28 (2000): 90. See Gabriele Tola, “Transcultural Mediterranean in the History of Chinese Travelogues: Oumei manyou riji as a Case Study,” Nordicum-Mediterraneum 19.1 (2024): http://doi.org/10.33112/nm.19.1.3.

[27] Frederic Jr. Wakeman, “A Revisionist View of the Nanjing Decade: Confucian Fascism,” The China Quarterly 150 (1997): 426.

[28] Chen Yifu, Oumei manyou riji (1937), preface, 1A. From here on, for clarity, the author explicitly records quotations from Oumei manyou riji when the quotation is on a page different from the previous one; therefore, in case the quotation in question is not pointed out, it is intended as appearing on the same page as the previous one.

[29] Chen Yifu, Oumei manyou riji (1937), preface, 1A–B.

[30] Michael Harbsmeier, “Allocentrism and Alterities. Ultra-Short World History of the Genre of the Travelogue,” Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften 14.2 (2020): 209.

[31] Chen Yifu, Oumei manyou riji (1937), preface, 1B. It would be interesting to explore the evolution of the concept of qi 奇 from Ming travelogues, where it evolved to mean outstanding, extraordinary, or exquisite, and its connotation in the Chens’ words: one might translate it, freeing Greenblac’s argument on “marvelous possessions” from the European explorers’ colonial greed and violence, as “wonders.”

[32] Chen Yifu, Oumei manyou riji (1937), preface, 2A.

[33] This comparison was curiously presented, perhaps for the first time, in another diary by Li Shuchang 黎庶昌 (1837–1897) in his Xiyang zazhi 西洋雜志 [Miscellaneous notes on the West], as stated in Bertuccioli and Masini, Italia e Cina, 279.

[34] Chen Yifu, Oumei manyou riji (1937), unnumbered.

[35] Ying Yining, Ouyou riji (Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, 1936).

[36] Chen Yifu, Oumei manyou riji (1937), 13A.

[37] Chen Yifu, Oumei manyou riji (1937), 13B.

[38] Chen Yifu, Oumei manyou riji (1937), 14A.

[39] Chen Yifu, Oumei manyou riji (1937), 15A.

[40] Given the almost complete conformity of the archive of the Istituto Luce and of Oumei manyou riji, it is less probable, even if it cannot be excluded, that the information was told to Chen by the local guide, who could speak Italian.

[41] Chen Yifu, Oumei manyou riji (1937), 16B.

[42] Chen Yifu, Oumei manyou riji (1937), 17B.

[43] Chen Yifu, Oumei manyou riji (1937), 18A.

[44] Chen Yifu, Oumei manyou riji (1937), 18B.

[45] Further on, in Chen Yifu, Oumei manyou riji (1937), 19B, it is also specified that the driver, chefu 車夫, was not Italian, but he could speak Italian without problems.

[46] Chen Yifu, Oumei manyou riji (1937), 19B.

[47] Chen Yifu, Oumei manyou riji (1937), 20A.

[48] Chen Yifu, Oumei manyou riji (1937), 20B.

[49] Jin Jing, “‘Yanghui Chen’ fuzi“: 330.

[50] Chen Yifu, Oumei manyou riji (1937), 21A.

[51] Chen Yifu, Oumei manyou riji (1937), 21B.

[52] Chen Yifu, Oumei manyou riji (1937), 22A.

[53] Chen Yifu, Oumei manyou riji (1937), 22B.

[54] Chen Yifu, Oumei manyou riji (1937), 23A.

[55] Bertuccioli and Masini, Italia e Cina, 227.

[56] That might either refer to an earthquake that happened in the area on December 29, 1910, or to one that struck the south of Rome on April 10, 1911.

[57] Chen Yifu, Oumei manyou riji (1937), 23B.

[58] Chen Yifu, Oumei manyou riji (1937), 24A.

[59] Chen Yifu, Oumei manyou riji (1937), 24B.

[60] Chen Yifu, Oumei manyou riji (1937), 25B.

[61] Chen Yifu, Oumei manyou riji (1937), 26A.

[62] Bertuccioli and Masini, Italia e Cina, 32–35 and 272.

[63] Chen Yifu, Oumei manyou riji (1937), 26B. The Chens describe the church and report the legend according to which the gold plate in the roof was part of the first batch brought by Christopher Columbus from America.

[64] Chen Yifu, Oumei manyou riji (1937), 27A.

[65] Chen Yifu, Oumei manyou riji (1937), 27B.

[66] Chen Yifu, Oumei manyou riji (1937), 28A.

[67] With the well-known exception of Marco Polo, as stated in Bertuccioli and Masini, Italia e Cina, 38.

[68] Manfred Pfister (ed.), The Fatal Gift of Beauty: The Italies of British Travellers. An Annotated Anthology (Amsterdam; Atlanta: Rodopi, 1996), 4.

Transcultural Mediterranean in the History of Chinese Travelogues: Oumei manyou riji as a Case Study

New article (double blind peer review),

Introduction

The Mediterranean[1] is commonly perceived not only as the cradle of Europe, but also as a conceptual region that cannot be enclosed by the traditional idea of national borders;[2] the region may be indeed better defined by its natural delimitations.[3] Even though its symbolic meaning for European societies is well acknowledged, very few studies have attempted to investigate the perception of the Mediterranean by the Chinese people, exploring its formation, development, and relevance. More specifically, this article aims to assess if and to what extent the Mediterranean came to be described and perceived as a transcultural space in China, taking as a case study a fundamental but unknown travelogue, Oumei manyou riji 歐美漫遊日記 [Diary of a journey in Europe and the United States]. Given that the Mediterranean has been defined not as “un passage, mais d’innombrables paysages. Non pas une mer, mais une succession de mers. Non pas une civilisation, mais des civilisations entassées les unes sur les autres,”[4] it would be difficult to aim for an all-encompassing representation in the limited span of an article. For this reason, I decided to focus on the description in Oumei manyou riji of relics both as cultural finds and comparison examples. In fact, as brilliantly described by Predrag Matvejević, “Mediteran nije samo zemljopis”[5] [the Mediterranean is not only geography] and should be described adopting other perspectives than mere geographical ones. Even though descriptions of people might work as well for the purpose of this article, I decided not to concentrate on those provided by Chen Yifu and Chen Dayou, since they are one of the most difficult themes when dealing with the Mediterranean.[6]

The choice of both Oumei manyou riji and the Mediterranean as a focus is not a coincidence. The former is a fundamental milestone in the late Qing and Republican era odeporic production. The authors of this travelogue, almost unknown in present secondary literature, are Chen Yifu 陳一甫 (1869–1948) and his son Chen Dayou 陳達有 (exact dates unknown); they were not literati or diplomats, as were most of the authors of previous travelogues of this period, but were known in the first place as entrepreneurs. They were, however, well integrated into the scholarly milieu of the epoch: famous personalities, such as Yang Shounan 楊壽枏 (1868–1948), Jin Liang 金梁 (1878–1962), and Zhao Yuanli 趙元禮 (1868–1939), wrote the prefaces and annotations for Oumei manyou riji. Both this integration in the world of scholars and the entrepreneurial formation account for the specific role of Oumei manyou riji. As evidenced in secondary literature,[7] Chen Yifu’s background was strongly linked to his historic era, and consequently this was true also of his (and his son’s) travelogue: he was a renowned patriotic entrepreneur in a semi-colonial China and dedicated his life to revitalising his country mainly through industrial development.

The Mediterranean, on the other hand, has always been intimately linked to China. It was Marco Polo, a Mediterranean, who discovered and presented China to his Western contemporaries;[8] we shall see further on in this article the connection between Polo’s city of birth, Venice, and China. Furthermore, previous research has already drawn a fruitful comparison between the historical layers of the Mediterranean and those of China.[9]

  1. The first steps toward Europe

According to research by the anthropologist David Tomas,[10] cross-cultural contact contributes to the formation of spatial zones between opposing cultures, particularly “when cultural elements, such as material artefacts and human bodies, are deployed against or are projected into alien territories.” These zones between cultures can be indeed described as transcultural spaces; even though such spaces are difficult to perceive, given their transitory nature, and are the “ephemera of cultural contact,” they are worth studying for a variety of reasons. In fact, they penetrated the Chinese cultural layers, also thanks to the contribution of the first explorers of the Song and Yuan dynasties, continuing with the Jesuit and Protestant missionaries, until the production of travel diaries, especially after the first Chinese diplomatic mission to the West in 1866.

As for the transcultural representation in Oumei manyou riji, before switching to artefacts and cultural relics, we shall start the analysis of the representations of Chen Yifu and Chen Dayou’s trip with one of the most noteworthy relevant topics: food. Food is indeed considered a transcultural commonplace par excellence and “has long been used as a powerful means to establish and maintain relationships with individuals and groups.”[11] Chinese people travelling with the Chens felt the necessity to bring their own chef, since there were many Chinese on the ship from Shanghai to Europe (Chen 1937, p. 9B:[12] “此外有華廚一人專作華餐蓋我國旅客甚多也”). Even though in Oumei manyou riji we can read different descriptions of travellers from China integrating well with others on board the ship, they all felt the need of keeping food as a connection with their motherland; indeed, cookbooks were an instrument used in European colonies to retain ties with the motherland, as well as for group solidarity,[13] and this was no exception.[14]

As hinted above, one of the peculiarities of the diary is the distinct cultural and working background of the Chens when compared to authors of previous travelogues;[15] this discrepancy is projected in many representations of foreign cultural and material landscapes within Oumei manyou riji. For example, Chen Yifu and Chen Dayou’s entrepreneurial experience is mirrored in the descriptions of the ship they were travelling on, with numerous data and technical terminology about engineering aspects of their travel, such as fuel consumption and boat parts, or details about the speed of different means of transport they were moving with. This information was provided by the authors in brackets in English.

Oumei manyou riji is also representative of the social stratification and the view that Chinese travellers thought Westerners had on the topic. The Chens, in fact, describe in detail the classes in which the ship was divided, focusing in particular on the presence of many Indians (“印人”). Among them, they reflect Chinese people’s surprise at the fact that men wore earrings and women had rings or pearls on their noses. Also, according to the author of Oumei manyou riji, as the section close to the infirmary was extremely dirty, all passengers passing near it had to hold their noses, given that “Westerners pay utmost attention to hygiene” (Chen 1937, p. 9B: “有統艙均下等社會人士其中印人甚夥男多帶耳環女有穿鼻孔以環或珠者艙內污穢最奇者船上醫室即在其旁旅客莫不掩鼻而過西人最重衛生”).

Oumei manyou riji can be read as a source of historical information, provided by Chen Yifu and his son through the prism of their travel account. They mention (Chen 1937, p. 10A) a picture taken by a certain “賀公使,” conceivably a reference to the general He Yaozu 賀耀組 (Ho Yao-tsu, 1889–1961), who was ambassador to Turkey between 1934 and 1936. Allusions to other political figures are scattered throughout the travelogue: “張賀二公使” includes a reference to perhaps Zhang Jingjiang 張靜江 (Chang Ching-chiang, 1877–1950) or most likely to Zhang Huichang 張惠長 (Chang Wai-jung 1899–1980), ambassador to Cuba from 1935 to 1937.

Of course, as on a modern cruise, the authors of the travelogue also enjoyed moments of leisure: they focus in particular on a night-time dance party (Chen 1937, p. 10B) in which we read about a wonderful Asian woman and an Italian man dressed as an Arabian dancer moving on the stage (“某華女士飾旗裝甚華麗盧夏二女士亦均參加九時奏音樂舞者登場紙條紛飛亟形熱鬧尤以一意國男子作阿拉伯舞者最為出色”). “Transcultural masquerades” as well are “characterized by mimicry, alterity, and the tensions and pleasures,” which are associated with the cultural diversity of the age of colonialism.[16] The Chens thought this masquerade was worth recording in their travelogue, perhaps because it could convey a feeling of exoticism to attract more readers.

  1. The Mediterranean as a cultural landscape

The real immersion in the atmosphere of what we commonly perceive as the Mediterranean starts after their arrival in Cairo. The Chens focus on the climate of the capital city and its Egyptian museum (Chen 1937, p. 11A), where a lot of relics on display strike the Chinese travellers’ attention. The authors carefully describe the rationale behind the idea of mummies (“古物多種陳列門前多石棺石像均極龐大樓上有木乃伊[Mummy]多具埃及人信靈魂不滅之說”), including notes on the process of preservation of bodies and of sarcophagi. The Chinese travellers are particularly struck by the sarcophagus of “Tutan Khamen.” We find in this passage for the first time a storytelling technique often used in Oumei manyou riji: the analogous products back in the Chens’ motherland, China, would pale in comparison with the exquisiteness of the techniques of Egyptian objects and artefacts (“製造之巧妙雕刻之精緻直使我東方古國退避三舍”).[17] At times, as shown later in the article, this technique is applied instead to point out weaknesses of Western artefacts or values, providing examples of transcultural comparisons and highlighting the Chens’ mixture of pride and confrontation towards their own culture.

The Chens complain about the lack of time to properly appreciate the museum and its contents in Cairo. After a short break in the hotel, the convoy proceeds to visit other relics, including the pyramids and the Sphinx. On the journey from their hotel to their destination, the travellers had to pass through a portion of desert and change cars for camels; Oumei manyou riji adopts this break from the cultural immersion in the Egyptian landscape—both natural and cultural—to provide a description (Chen 1937, p. 12A) of the temperament of camels and linguistic considerations as to why in Chinese pyramids are called jinzita 金字塔, also furnishing detailed information on their measurements, as was typical with the Chens’ entrepreneur background.

According to the traditional vision that pyramids were essentially either the embodiment of Egyptians’ mathematical knowledge or the representation of historical authority,[18] the Chens analyse them as products that were built so the power of the Pharaoh could be perceived concretely by his subjects (“小民望而生畏其君主威權可見一斑”).

The stay in Egypt is distinguished by the insistent mention of the unfavourable weather conditions, for example when travellers had to step off the camels and strongly felt the heat. After paying a gratuity, they were allowed into the pyramid, where they finally found refreshment from the scorching temperature while the guide, who could speak English, explained the interiors (Chen 1937, p. 12A).

Once the convoy finished visiting Cairo, it headed for a boat to Port Said, in which we read a description of men wearing hats and women with black veils on their heads, similar to Chinese Buddhist nuns; the Chens compare them to Western sisters (“此處男子多著土耳其式帽穿寬大長袍類我國僧侶女多頭披黑紗由後觀之略似西洋女教士”).

An important portion of the convoy’s passage in Egypt is significantly devoted to the description of the Suez Canal, which passengers learnt about through a small booklet they purchased (“散步波賽街中購得運河略圖一冊附有簡短說明對混合之歷史略得梗概”). Even though the Suez Canal cannot be considered a relic, it is indeed a fundamental leg for Chen Yifu and Chen Dayou as Chinese travellers: the Suez Canal is one of the two doors to the Mediterranean and also served as privileged access to the sea for many Chinese travellers to Europe after 1869.[19] As reported in detail in Oumei manyou riji, the booklet narrated the history of the canal: after conquering Egypt, Napoleon once planned to excavate the canal in order to connect the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. However, given a mistake in the measurement,[20] the feat could not be accomplished. It was the French diplomat and entrepreneur Ferdinand de Lesseps (1805–1894) who would promote and complete the construction, which the authors provide specific information on, including depth, width, and measurement. Before that, communications between Europe and Asia could pass only through the Cape of Good Hope. As was typical with their practical backgrounds, the Chens detail the shortened distances between various cities in the two continents before and after 1869 and, most of all, the cost of the construction. According to the Oumei manyou riji, half of the financial capital was provided by the French and half by “Mohommed Said” (sic.: in Chinese 賽氏, Chen 1937, 12B), a reference to the Egyptian political figure Mohamed Sa’id Pasha (1822–1863). Control, however, was soon gained by England; in fact, by December 1875, the British government became a large shareholder of the Suez Canal Company, owning forty-four percent of the shares, only one percentage point less than France.[21]

According to Chen, most of the boats crossing the canal were consequently those of France and England, but some were also from the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Norway, Japan, the USA, and even the extremely small Free City of Danzig. Compared to the number of foreign vessels, Chinese boats were never seen crossing the Suez Canal, as supposedly confirmed to the Chens by a long-standing local worker (“於一八六九年所過船舶以英法為多荷德意挪日美次之即蕞爾坦澤自由市亦有船隻通過獨具有萬餘里海岸之我國竟付缺如無怪有工作於該河數十年者竟以未見我國船隻為異也”). As seen in other examples throughout this article, complaints by the authors on China’s attitude compared to other visited countries are not uncommon in Oumei manyou riji. At times, therefore, not only the Mediterranean, but more generally the West, is used both as a transcultural paradigm and a cross-cultural comparison example to point out the weakness of their native land. The opposite is also true: instances where Chen Yifu and Chen Dayou’s commitment and pride for their native country point to deficiencies in the places they visited are not uncommon (see, among others, Chen 1937, 27B: 廣場之東舊時城垣猶存惟甚矮小無我國城垣之雄壯: “Ancient bastions are located East of the square, but rather short and small; they cannot compare to the magnificence of bastions in my country”).[22]

  1. Italy as the main Mediterranean goal, between cultural relics and comparisons

Other than Egypt, the main representative of the Mediterranean in Chen Yifu and Chen Dayou’s Oumei manyou riji is Italy; a substantial portion of the diary is devoted to the peninsula for a variety of personal and historical reasons.[23] The authors describe Italy as the cradle of beautiful landscapes (“人言意大利為藝術淵藪信不誣也”; Chen 1937, p. 13A); the first detailed introduction to the country is about Venice and the Doge’s palace (“總制府”).

Venice is presented as the city of water, with no signs whatsoever of chariots (“有澤國之稱出門除步行外概須乘船無車馬踪跡,” Chen 1937, p. 13A), and as the first city in order of importance in Italy and Europe as well. That is why, as the saying goes, you can skip visiting Rome, but you cannot miss sightseeing in Venice (“意大利之本冠全歐而威尼斯又為豪商富賈所集故有甯不遊羅馬不可不遊威尼斯之諺語,” Chen 1937, p. 13A).[24] This infatuation for the city of Venice is a pervasive topic in Chinese literature and related textual production, starting at least from the fourteenth century and the well-known account of Marco Polo (1254–1324); in fact, the Italian city has been long compared with the Chinese city of Suzhou. Even though the presence of bridges in the latter[25]—although at times overestimated in numbers—makes the comparison plausible, there is a subtle difference in the way Suzhou itself was interpreted: while Europeans perceived it mainly through the comparison with Venice, Chinese, Japanese, and other East Asians could “appreciate Suzhou on its own terms—or rather, in terms of its preeminence in scholarly Chinese culture […].[26] The opposite, however, is not true for Chen Yifu and Chen Dayou’s travelogue: Venice is not examined in comparison with Suzhou, but only for its personal beauty and cultural relics. In Oumei manyou riji the Italian city is particularly praised for its mosaics (“文石”): with their different colours and patterns, mosaics are an Italian specialty, as the Chens put it, making the buildings of Venice similar to oil paintings (“以各色碎石砌成各種花樣如人物花鳥建築等遠觀與油畫無異[…]此為意大利特產發源於茲地”; Chen 1937, p. 13B).

Like contemporary tourists, the members of the convoy are fascinated by the antiquity of Venice’s buildings, St. Mark’s Church in particular, dating back to the eleventh century, according to the authors’ information (“聖馬可教堂即有十一世紀物,” Chen 1937, p. 13B). An interesting switch in the narration can be read here: “隨父親及俞君[…]” [following my father and Mister Yu…]. We might infer that the whole diary is narrated from the point of view of Chen Dayou, reporting the words his father Yifu dictated, and that only at times the paternal figure emerges; however, we do not know who the Mister Yu referred to is.

The description of St. Mark’s Square is extremely detailed. The Chens emphasise it as the most flourishing and beautiful part of Venice, and dedicate a careful representation of the square itself, St. Mark’s Campanile, its peculiar pigeons, and the general atmosphere of the city (“鐘樓造於十五世紀[…]飛鴿成羣畧不畏人飼之則就手中來食[…],” Chen 1937, p. 13B). They particularly refer to the fact that on Sunday nights only music in the square could be heard, given that the musical penchant of Italian people was higher than all other countries. The Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari is the next step of their visit to the city; as usual in Oumei manyou riji, the authors detail the time of completion of the church and information on the relics stored inside, such as the heart of the artist Antonio Canova (“意人音樂興趣獨高於各國也[…]此處最華麗教堂之一意名雕刻家坎喏瓦[…]葬心於此,” Chen 1937, p. 13B).

The bridge of Rialto elicits enthusiastic appraisals from father and son, particularly for its barrel vaults; the Chens heard from unspecified sources that the bridge has five to six hundred years of history, and the visit is a chance to buy some mosaics, as well as witness the glassblowing process taking place on the bridge stalls (“利奧爾陀橋[…]有窗頂形[…]當場製各器皿以示作法,” Chen 1937, p. 13B). Most of the workers of these stalls were women and their craftsmanship was so excellent that an expensive table could be sold for ten thousand liras, corresponding to approximately twenty thousand custom gold units,[27] literally leaving people breathless (“往觀製花邊者多女工價亦奇昂一大桌布花樣為某名人設計售十萬里耳合我國二萬元左右令人咋舌,” Chen 1937, pp. 13B–14A).

The description of St. Mark’s Basilica the following day follows the same pattern seen in Oumei manyou riji: it was built during the ninth century, but restored in the eleventh. In the passage we see for the first time in the travelogue an appreciation of Western cultural relics for their supposed resemblance with Oriental counterparts: the five cupolas on its top have an “Oriental feeling” (“圓頂五尊頗具東方氣象,” Chen 1937, p. 14A). This was due perhaps to the presence of four horses, brought from Constantinople and moved to Paris by Napoleon for only a short period; the fact that they were moved to other places during the First World War was an epitome of their value (“四銅馬立門上騰躍如生一二零四年由君士但丁堡[…]以此拿破崙曾移至巴黎但不久即歸還歐戰時亦將四馬藏避他處可証其寶貴,” Chen 1937, p. 14A).

The convoy also visited the Doge’s palace, with its famous painting “Il paradiso” [The paradise], probably the largest one in the world. The last stop before a visit to the Lido is St. Mark’s Campanile. In this case, it is a hotel that is used as an example: the Excelsior, a new building in the Lido. There is a discrepancy, however, in the dates of construction reported in the travelogue: while it is true that the Excelsior opened in 1907 or 1908, in 1937 a new place was built close to it to host movie screenings, one of the most advanced movie theatres in Italy at that time and a success for the hotel as well.[28] The magnificence of the building, as well as the completeness of its interiors, filled Chen Yifu and Chen Dayou with regret that there was nothing comparable in similar seaside resorts in China, such as Qingdao and Beidaihe (“我國青島北戴河諸地即無類此者,” Chen 1937, pp. 14B).

  1. History, literature, and other considerations on the road to France

The journey of the convoy to Verona, passing by Padua and Vicenza, is a chance for the Chens to describe in careful detail the history of Romeo and Juliet, from the tragic plot to their burial site, to the history of the Verona Arena, compared with Rome’s Colosseum. As read earlier in this article, this is not the first time that Chen Yifu and Chen Dayou mix various literary, historical, and broadly-defined cultural elements in Oumei manyou riji; their travelogue is a testimony of both the places visited and their relevant cultural heritage. This should come as no surprise, since according to previous research, recording travel experiences can open various discourses on the others: “Fondamentalement discours sur l’Autre, regard sur l’hétérogène, le récit de voyage offre donc la perspective exaltante et démultipliée de l’ouverture sur les discours des autres.”[29] This enriches the travelogue, even though it makes it depart from its original heuristic intention: “le voyage livresque qu’il effectue le constitue en genre littéraire mais le détourne de sa mission première et heuristique, qui est de rendre compte du monde nouveau découvert.” This link with reality makes the travelogue a factual text, keeping at the same time connections with fiction: “Ainsi, alors même qu’il est ancré dans le réel, le récit de voyage—genre dit «factuel» (Genette)—entretient des liens avec la fiction.”[30]

After crossing the border between France and Italy, in which to the Chens’ surprise there was not much difference in the landscape, with the exception that Italian roads were better equipped (“入法竟後沿途風景與意相同公路及其設備較差或意多新築之路” Chen 1937, p. 28A), the convoy arrives in Nice. Chen Yifu and Chen Dayou take note of the extremely high prices of local meals, with the cost of a meal equivalent to one month of school meals in China (“每餐可敷余在國內學校一月飯費”).

A visit to the Casino de la Jetée, dismantled only a few years after their visit to Europe, was their next stop after a short break in the hotel. As soon as they got inside the building, the visitors were asked about their ages. Mister Xia, one of the members of the convoy, replied twenty-one, since according to the regulations, people under that age were not allowed inside. The authors describe the one-hour tour inside the casino and some of the attractions, including dance representations—this is also a chance to compare them to the relevant shows in China, this time to the detriment of the latter (“跳舞雖無奇特然較在我國所觀者華麗多矣” Chen 1937, p. 28B). A more involved visit to the Monument aux Morts, honouring the fallen of the First World War, is brushed off with few characters: “原路歸經旅舍至歐戰紀念牌” (We went back on the same road, passing by the hotel and stopping at the Monument aux Morts). The visit to the city of Nice is concluded with climatological considerations about the Mediterranean; Nice is in fact known for its Mediterranean climate among the Chinese, even though there were different opinions in other accounts of the time, particularly pertaining to the city’s famous “vent de Bise.”[31]

Conclusions

In Oumei manyou riji, the Mediterranean appears at first glance as a collection of places, more than a unitarian, even if fluid, entity. Chen Yifu and Chen Dayou’s background as entrepreneurs justifies the presence of technicalities and description of infrastructures; their “hidden” role as scholars, however, surprisingly entails descriptions of cultural and immaterial landscapes of the cities visited, from Egypt to Italy to France, from Port Said to Nice to Venice. The pattern used for the descriptions of historical landscapes and cultural relics in the travelogue is indeed almost the same throughout the text: a brief introduction, with historical information highlighting the old history of the relic itself, and considerations about the cultural and historical novelty of the place visited. Most of the time, however, this was only meant to arouse the reader’s interest more than out of a sense of pure exoticism—and comparisons from different perspectives and different outcomes with similar products in the motherland. It is exactly the last point that makes it possible to consider the description of the Mediterranean in Oumei manyou riji as “transcultural”: at times, these comparisons take the form of the authors using the countries visited as an epitome to point out what they consider weaknesses of their motherland, at times weaknesses—from various perspectives—of the Western countries visited.

The transcultural production depicted, including cultural artefacts and relics, is an extremely complex matter: “the space of transcultural art is not Euclidean, but interstitial—between cultures, experience and imagination, memory and loss, desire and anxiety, and dream and reality.”[32] The art described by the Chens places itself exactly at the intersection between two or even more different cultures, the imagination, experience, and expectations of the traveller and the entrepreneur, and of the Chens’ desire for their country to imitate—or reject—the places and relics they saw.

On the other hand, contrary to the tangible artefacts and cultural relics presented in Oumei manyou riji, the contact zones produced by travel narratives are imaginary. These zones can be described as “atopia,” a term that Roland Bartes indicated as a product of texts: “le système est en lui débordé, défait.”[33] The atopic space of transcultural arts has spatialities and temporalities that “may offer cultural self-criticism or a momentary interrogation […]”:[34] this was exactly the case of the Chens’ descriptions of Europe, and the Mediterranean in particular, with self-criticism and interrogations for a possible model for China, as well as judgements and suggestions on the Western countries visited.

Chen Yifu and Chen Dayou’s travels can indeed be considered a mixture of three of the five steps in the so-called “游历的五生型式 (five shengs pattern of experoutination)”:[35] the “industrial experoutination” (shengye 生业), the “idealistic experoutination” (shengsi 生思), and the “trade experoutination” (shengyi 生易). Although it most likely started due to the first intention, in order to study the industrial technologies of Western countries, Oumei manyou riji resulted in a pleasant and culturally-connotated text, particularly pertaining to the Mediterranean section of the travels, to which most of the text is dedicated. This is mostly due to the father and son’s background and the unique era China was going through at the time: in the semi-colonial era after the Opium War, China’s view of the West was especially complicated. The fear and shame brought by the defeat in war and colonisation, the admiration of new technology, and the yearning for a modern society form a mixture of pride and confrontation towards the Chens’ own culture. Chen Yifu was a patriotic entrepreneur and philanthropist in this era, and his determination and contribution to revitalise China through industrial development are renowned and evident within the written characters of Oumei manyou riji.[36]

More generally, the two “worlds” presented in this article, the Mediterranean and China, were always connected; in fact, they were two of the main passages in the travels around the Old World. However, until the nineteenth century, there was an imbalance between the European knowledge of China, and the knowledge of Europe and the Mediterranean by the Chinese people.[37] The odeporic production put into records starting from the first mission to Europe in 1866 tried to successfully fill that gap. The admiration, and at times criticism, by the father and son recorded in their travelogue and analysed in many episodes above is derived exactly from this discrepancy and the complicated historical factors of China’s history in the second half of the nineteenth century and the first part of the twentieth century.

 

References

Abulafia, David. The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Barthes, Roland. Le plaisir du texte. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1973.

Ben-Zaken, Avner. Cross-Cultural Scientific Exchanges in the Eastern Mediterranean, 1560–1660. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010.

Bescherer Metheny, Karen, and Mary C. Beaudry (eds.). Archaeology of Food: An Encyclopedia. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.

Braudel Fernand. La Méditerranée: l’espace et l’histoire. Paris: Flammarion, 1985.

Cabanas, Edgar, Razak Khan, and Jani Marjanen. “Travellers: Transformative Journeys and Emotional Contacts.” In Encounters with Emotions: Negotiating Cultural Differences since Early Modernity, edited by Benno Gammerl, Philipp Nielsen, and Margrit Pernau, 61–84. New York: Berghahn Books, 2019.

Carroll Peter J. Between Heaven and Modernity: Reconstructing Suzhou, 1895–1937. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006.

Centre de recherche sur la littérature des voyages. Miroirs de textes: récits de voyage et intertextualité. Nice: Publications de la Faculté des lettres, arts et sciences humaines de Nice, 1998.

Chen, Yifu 陳一甫. Oumei manyou riji 歐美漫遊日記 [Diary of a journey in Europe and the United States]. 1937.

Codell, Julie F. (ed.). Transculturation in British Art, 1770–1930. Reprinted edition. London; New York: Routledge, 2016.

Harrison, Robert T. Gladstone’s Imperialism in Egypt: Techniques of Domination. Greenwood Press: Westport, London, 1995.

Leininger, Madeleine. “Transcultural Food Functions, Beliefs, and Practices.” In Transcultural Nursing: Concepts, Theories, Research & Practice, edited by Madeleine Leininger and Marilyn R. McFarland, 205–216. New York: McGraw-Hill Education. Third edition, 2002.

Liu Shanling 刘善龄. “Zhongguoren chu she Suyishi 中国人初涉苏伊士” [The first Chinese to cross the Suez Canal]. Xungen 寻根 (2002) no. 3: 25–29.

Matvejević, ‎Predrag. Mediteranski brevijar. Zagreb: Grafički Zavod Hrvatske, 1990.

Matvejević, ‎Predrag (Silvio Ferrari, trans.). Mediterraneo: un nuovo breviario. Milano: Garzanti, 1993.

Matvejević, ‎Predrag (‎Heim, Michael Henry, trans.). Mediterranean: A Cultural Landscape. Berkeley; Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999.

May, Jan Andreas. “«Queen of the Arts» — Exhibitions, Festivals, and Tourism in Fascist Venice, 1922–1945.” In Creative Urban Milieus: Historical Perspectives on Culture, Economy, and the City, edited by Martina Heßler and Clemens Zimmermann, 209–227. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.

M’Culloch, John Ramsay. A Dictionary, Geographical, Statistical, and Historical of the Various Countries, Places, and Principal Natural Objects in the World. Vol. III. London: Longmans, Green, and Co, 1866.

Tignor, Robert L. Capitalism and Nationalism at the End of Empire: State and Business in Decolonizing Egypt, Nigeria, and Kenya, 1945–1963. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.

Tola, Gabriele. “An Unknown Diary Across Italy and Europe: Oumei manyou riji and the Late Chinese Rediscovery of the Other.” Nordicum-Mediterraneum 20 (in press) no. 1.

Tomas, David. Transcultural Space and Transcultural Beings. Reprinted edition. New York: Routledge, 2018.

Wang, Yi-Wen, Christian Nolf. “Historic Landscape and Water Heritage of Suzhou Beyond the Tourist Gaze.” In Suzhou in Transition, edited by Beibei Tang and Paul Cheung, 42–86. London; New York: Routledge, 2021.

Wu Bihu 吴必虎, Huang Shanhui 黄珊蕙, Zhong Lina 钟栎娜, et al. “Youli fazhan fenqi, xingshi yu yingxiang: yi ge yanjiu kuangjia de jiangou 游历发展分期、型式与影响：一个研究框架的建构” [Phases, patterns, and impacts of youli (experoutination) development: building a research framework]. Lüyou xuekan 旅游学刊 – Tourism Tribune 37 (2022), no. 3: 50–67.

 

 

Endnotes

[1] ‎This article was conceived from a conference panel, organised by Prof. Renata Vinci for the AISC (Italian Association for Chinese Studies) biennial meeting, held at Sapienza University of Rome in September 2023.

[2] ‎Predrag Matvejević (‎Michael Henry Heim, trans.), Mediterranean: A Cultural Landscape (Berkeley; Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999), 10 and passim.

[3] David Abulafia, The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), xxiii–xxiv.

[4] Fernand Braudel, La Méditerranée: l’espace et l’histoire (Paris: Flammarion, 1985), 8.

[5] ‎Predrag Matvejević, Mediteranski brevijar (Zagreb: Grafički Zavod Hrvatske, 1990), 13.

[6] ‎Predrag Matvejević (‎Silvio Ferrari, trans.), Mediterraneo: un nuovo breviario (Milano: Garzanti, 1993), 60.

[7] Gabriele Tola, “An Unknown Diary Across Italy and Europe: Oumei manyou riji and the Late Chinese Rediscovery of the Other,” Nordicum-Mediterraneum 20 (in press) no. 1.

[8] Braudel, La Méditerranée, 75.

[9] Braudel, La Méditerranée, 157.

[10] David Tomas, Transcultural Space and Transcultural Beings (Reprinted edition. New York: Routledge, 2018), 15. I would like to thank Dr. Michèle Thériault for providing me a copy of this text.

[11] Madeleine Leininger, “Transcultural Food Functions, Beliefs, and Practices,” in Transcultural Nursing: Concepts, Theories, Research & Practice, ed. Madeleine Leininger, Marilyn R. McFarland (New York: McGraw-Hill Education. Third edition), 205.

[12] For the sake of legibility, quotations from Oumei manyou riji are pointed out in this article without the addition of a footnote for each.

[13] Karen Bescherer Metheny, Mary C. Beaudry (eds.), Archaeology of Food: An Encyclopedia (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), 116.

[14] Other examples of transcultural comparisons, including Rome’s Holy Stairs and Trevi Fountain are examined in Tola, “An Unknown Diary Across Italy and Europe.”

[15] Tola, “An Unknown Diary Across Italy and Europe.”

[16] Edgar Cabanas, Razak Khan, Jani Marjanen, “Travellers: Transformative Journeys and Emotional Contacts,” in Encounters with Emotions: Negotiating Cultural Differences since Early Modernity, ed. Benno Gammerl, Philipp Nielsen, Margrit Pernau (New York: Berghahn Books, 2019), 70.

[17] The chengyu used by Chen, tuibi san she 退避三舍, means to withdraw one she (a unit of measurement roughly corresponding to thirty li 里) in order to avoid confrontation.

[18] Avner Ben-Zaken, Cross-Cultural Scientific Exchanges in the Eastern Mediterranean, 1560–1660 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), 114–115.

[19] Liu Shanling, “Zhongguoren chu she Suyishi,” Xungen (2002) no. 3: 25–29.

[20] A ten-metre difference between the two was wrongly calculated; see Robert T. Harrison, Gladstone’s Imperialism in Egypt: Techniques of Domination (Greenwood Press: Westport, London, 1995), 42.

[21] Robert L. Tignor, Capitalism and Nationalism at the End of Empire: State and Business in Decolonizing Egypt, Nigeria, and Kenya, 1945–1963 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 42.

[22] Tola, “An Unknown Diary Across Italy and Europe.”

[23] Refer to Tola, “An Unknown Diary Across Italy and Europe.”

[24] The saying, of which I was not able to trace the Italian version, presumably derives from one of the travel books Chen Yifu and Chen Dayou consulted or from the guide that was accompanying them and other travellers during the trip.

[25] Yi-Wen Wang, Christian Nolf, “Historic Landscape and Water Heritage of Suzhou Beyond the Tourist Gaze,” in Suzhou in Transition, ed. Beibei Tang, Paul Cheung (London; New York: Routledge, 2021), 69.

[26] Peter J. Carroll, Between Heaven and Modernity: Reconstructing Suzhou, 1895–1937 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), 4.

[27] The currency issued in China at the time of travel, known in Chinese as guanjinyuan 關金圓.

[28] Jan Andreas May, “«Queen of the Arts» – Exhibitions, Festivals, and Tourism in Fascist Venice, 1922–1945,” in Creative Urban Milieus: Historical Perspectives on Culture, Economy, and the City, ed. Martina Heßler, Clemens Zimmermann (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 220.

[29] Centre de recherche sur la littérature des voyages, Miroirs de textes: récits de voyage et intertextualité (Nice: Publications de la Faculté des lettres, arts et sciences humaines de Nice, 1998), X.

[30] Centre de recherche sur la littérature des voyages, Miroirs de textes, XI.

[31] John Ramsay M’Culloch, A Dictionary, Geographical, Statistical, and Historical of the Various Countries, Places, and Principal Natural Objects in the World, vol. III (London: Longmans, Green, and Co, 1866), 437.

[32] Julie F. Codell (ed.), Transculturation in British Art, 1770–1930 (Reprinted edition. London; New York: Routledge, 2016), 9.

[33] Roland Barthes, Le plaisir du texte (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1973), 49.

[34] Codell, Transculturation, 10.

[35] Wu Bihu, Huang Shanhui, Zhong Lina, et al. “Youli fazhan fenqi, xingshi yu yingxiang: yi ge yanjiu kuangjia de jiangou,” Lüyou xuekan 37 (2022), no. 3: 61–62.

[36] This aspect is thoroughly analysed in Tola, “An Unknown Diary Across Italy and Europe.”

[37] Wu Bihu, Huang Shanhui, Zhong Lina, et al. “Youli fazhan fenqi,” 55.

Timo Koivurova, QIN Tianbao, Sébastien Duyck & Tapio Nykänen (eds.), Arctic Law and Governance: The Role of China and Finland (London: Hart Publishing, 2017)

Book review (editorial review), , , , , , , ,

This edited collection of essays is the product of a two-year project to assess and compare Chinese approaches to the Arctic with Finnish and/or EU approaches. These three entities are quite distinctive in population, politics and power and hence are not an obvious triumvirate. Nevertheless, the books’ chapters draw out interesting points of comparison. China is a relative newcomer to international relations and economic development in the Arctic. Backed by both military and economic clout, it triggers concerns amongst Arctic inhabitants and other stakeholders regarding its ambitions. Such worries are not helped by China’s closed political decision-making and limited official statements on its Arctic policies. This project, therefore, aims at increasing knowledge and understanding of China’s interests and expectations in the region.

The introduction to the book provides a good summary of the analyses that follow in the self-standing chapters which are themselves grouped into three Parts: Chinese Perspectives; Comparison between Finland and China; and Comparison between the EU and China. As a collection of essays, the book does not have a single or overarching thesis as such but a number of common themes are identified in the introductory and concluding chapters (by the 4 editors). One repeated them is climate change and pollution. Climate change is not coming to the Arctic: it is already here. China is the World’s biggest fossil fuel consumer and responsible for 29% of global greenhouse gas emissions (the EU, 11%). However, black carbon – a short term climate forcer – in the Arctic comes mostly from Europe. Europe is also a more significant source of the persistent organic pollutants (POPS) that end up in the Arctic (7). Another theme is economic development: even if the rights to exploit natural resources lie with the Arctic States and the peoples within them, the viability of doing so pivots on demand – and that demand is predominantly Chinese and European (8.)

The chapters go a long way to making up for China’s decision not to publish a comprehensive Arctic strategy or make regular and clear statements about its Arctic plans. China is not necessarily to be blamed for this: China is a lot more significant in the Arctic than the Arctic is for China, even if the book demonstrates that Chinese interest (and interests) in the Arctic have grown swiftly in recent years.

QIN Tianbao and LI Miaomiao’s chapter, “Strengthening China’s Role in the Arctic Council” calls for an official Chinese Arctic strategy but is itself rather more candid than an official State policy document is likely to be and as a result, probably more useful. The two authors make a rather bold proposal that China become a fully-fledged member of the Arctic Council (42), which will raise a few eyebrows amongst the more territorially sensitive of the Arctic States. Let’s just say that an official, published Chinese Arctic strategy is the more likely of the two scenarios in the near-term!

Ren Shidan turns to Chinese Arctic research and points to, amongst other things, frustration with Russia regarding access (53). She argues for freedom of research in the Arctic and rejects arguments that Chinese research is a foil for long-term plans to strip the region of resources. However, her concerns regarding Norway’s interpretation of the Svalbard Treaty (concerns shared by a number of European states) turn the chapter back to resource development (55-57).

Julia Jalo and Tapio Nykänen identify Chinese priorities in the Arctic based on World Affairs (a government-controlled magazine and unofficial mouthpiece). Only nine articles on the Arctic have been published since 2004 (indicating that the Arctic is still a relatively peripheral zone in Chinese politics). However, eight of these articles were published in 2008 or later, peaking when Chinese sought and accepted its seat as an observer at the Arctic Council in 2013, suggesting that interest is growing. The authors recognise that China is often viewed as a ‘threat’ in the Arctic, especially by those taking a classical realist approach, but they conclude that either China is indeed playing down its real intentions or that (more likely in their view) China is genuinely concerned about climate change and other environmental problems in the Arctic. In either case, they agree with QIN Tianbao and LI Miaomiao that a published strategy would help to clarify the situation.

Xiaoyi Jiang and Xiaoguang Zhou then consider maritime sovereignty and rights in the Arctic, looking in particular at the potential of the Northern Sea Route as an alternative to (or at least a supplement to) the Malacca route – even if they also note that Chinese shipping companies are adopting a ‘wait-and-see’ approach (96). They comment that China “has virtually no influence on the decision-making process at ministerial meetings” (of the Arctic Council)(90) and, like the other Chinese contributors, note that China is trying to be viewed as a partner in the Arctic rather than a threat (95).

Part II brings us to Finland with Lassi Heininen’s assessment of Finland, the EU and China and the asymmetry between them. Climate change – and China’s potential to take a lead role – is once again a key theme (107). Heininen sees common interests in shipping (Finland builds; China ships) (109); scientific research; resource governance and international cooperation (129). However, Finland and China also have shared interests in resource development in the Arctic (Finland produces; China buys) (118-120).

Tapio Nykänen presents the other chapter in this Part, using critical geopolitics to explore how the Arctic is framed in Chinese and Finnish Discourses. He agrees with the other writers that China is trying to build trust in the Arctic, seeking to present itself as a constructive partner (137). He analyses China’s position as a self-declared ‘near-Arctic state’, pointing out that geographically, it is extremely far from the Arctic Circle but arguing that instead it is geocritically close (140). Nykänen recognises China’s contributions to Arctic science but sees a political undercurrent to this: science is a ‘door’ through which China can claim a legitimate interest in Arctic governance (140).

Chapter Eight (Timo Koivurova, Waliul Hasanat, Piotr Graczyk and Tuuli Kuusama) is based on interviews with participants in the Arctic Council system, Chinese officials and scholars. It produces original, qualitative research on China’s position within the Arctic Council and identifies issues that would be unlikely to be uncovered by looking only at official publications. For example, the authors report that some Chinese officials are unhappy with the Nuuk criteria on observers (169)). They also identify a problem in the delegations which both lack continuity and do not always match the mandates of the working groups (175-177).

On fisheries, Sébastien Duyck sees shared interests in China and the EU – both being major fisheries jurisdictions and being outsiders seeking to ensure that their industries are considered in any new regime for the Central Arctic Ocean (Chapter IX). China, Duyck points out, is a ‘developing country’ and positions itself as a ‘leader’ of the G77 (196). Its policies on fisheries differ from the EU, being more defensive of High Seas freedoms and rational use, compared to a more conservationist (or even preservationist) orientated EU (197-198).

Adam Stepien considers China’s and the EU’s respective engagement with indigenous peoples. China maintains the questionable position that it has no indigenous peoples inside of China (222).  On the one hand, this means that China is not unnecessarily concerned with establishing precedents that could complicate matters at home (cf its position on international straits and Arctic shipping) but on the other hand, means that it has no experience and limited understanding of the stakes for indigenous people. China talks the talk (for example supporting indigenous rights in the UN – as long as it is clear that they don’t apply to or in China! (223)) but its engagement is uncoordinated and inconsistent (216). Environmental impacts are once more brought to the fore as Stepien explains that European and Chinese emissions are a major threat to indigenous communities (210-211). The EU, recognising the Sámi as the only indigenous people within the EU itself, has a more proactive stance on Arctic indigenous peoples and is, in theory, supportive of indigenous rights (218). That does not mean, however, that the EU always gets things right.

Nengye Liu and Kamrul Hossain address navigation in the Arctic and highlight the dependence of China’s economic strategy on shipping (243). The Northern Sea Route (less so the Northwest Passage) holds the promise of faster, cheaper shipping untroubled by the politics of alternative routes but, for now, this is still only a promise. While the shipping companies take things cautiously, the government has published the first Chinese guidelines on Arctic shipping (244). Like Xiaoyi Jiang and Xiaoguang Zhou, they note that China did not get involved in the development of the Polar Code and wonder if Chinese delegates to the IMO could take a more active role (247). They also suggest that China work alongside Japan and South Korea to promote (and defend) its shipping interests at the Arctic Council (249).

The concluding chapter by the four editors draws together the main findings of the contributions, reiterating the centrality of climate change and the consequent expectations of a natural resources boom (253-254). They note the resistance of the Arctic Eight to (too much) non-Arctic State involvement and how the Arctic Council system keeps the most powerful outsiders – like the EU and China – relatively subdued (261). Like most recent academic work on the Arctic, the final conclusion is that the answers are there and can be reached peacefully. International law has the answer to most questions; and for the others, it has processes by which to find, peacefully, those answers.

Although a number of writers call for a Chinese Arctic policy or strategy, this book gives us much more than any state policy every could. The original research and analysis by both Chinese and European scholars helps readers understand the dragon and, hopefully, fear it less. Nevertheless, there are subtle differences in approaches, with the Chinese authors tending to play down China’s resource ambitions and emphasise science and environmental concerns with some of the European contributors implying that China’s scientific contributions are driven by those very resource ambitions. I would wholeheartedly recommend this collection to anyone working on international law, international relations or economic development in the Arctic. Well edited, it is an accessible read for students as well as more seasoned academics. Even were the Chinese government to respond to the call to publish a formal strategy, it will not replace the excellent scholarship in this book.

Herman Salton, Arctic Host, Icy Visit: China and Falun Gong Face Off in Iceland (Saarbrücken: LAP Lambert Academic Publishing, 2010)

Book review (editorial review), , , , , , ,

Review by Aníta Einarsdóttir

In June 2002 the President of the People’s Republic of China went to Iceland for an official visit. Consequently, some practitioners of Falun Gong, among many others, booked flights to Iceland at the same time, with the airline Icelandair. Somehow, by means still unknown, since Falun Gong keeps no list of its members itself, the Icelandic government had a blacklist of all these actual and presumed Falun Gong members that they believed to be going to Iceland to protest against the Chinese president and the Chinese government’s alleged human rights violations. The people that were on this blacklist were either denied visas, embarkment onto their booked flight, or arrested at the international airport in Iceland and asked all kinds of questions about the purpose of their visit and their personal beliefs. Many of those eventually admitted into Iceland were then arrested and held in a school near the airport, not knowing what was going on and, like everybody else on the blacklist, wondering how their names got on such a list, which no one ever got to look at, except authorities and flight-personnel. The people that were kept in custody at the school were released after being forced to sign an agreement with the authorities about restricted areas and a peaceful stay in the country.

The people of Iceland do not seem to know very much about these events that in so many ways breach the rights of the people travelling, and if there is anything they know it is the little that the newspapers of Iceland, themselves much influenced by the Icelandic authorities at the time, chose to publish. This year, 2012, will be the tenth anniversary of these events in Iceland and it is therefore about time for the Icelandic people to consider and discuss what has been hidden from them and how such a limited access to public information has been inconsistent with the values of 21st century. The Icelandic government managed so extraordinarily to lower the dignity of Iceland and its international reputation, by bending over for the Chinese government, and the people of the country need to be informed of events of this nature.

The book Arctic Host, Icy Visit is about Falun Gong and various events that happened all over the world after the ban of the movement in China in 1999, but the main idea of the book came from the events in Iceland in June 2002. The book gives precise and detailed information, from the founding of Falun Gong until China’s massive campaigns to try to ban its exercise in the 20th and 21st century, both in China and elsewhere.

It took the author, Herman Salton, eight years to write and publish this book, i.e. from 2002, when he began his inquiries after the events in Iceland, until 2010, when the book was released. This has given him a very long time to gather a lot of sources, some of which very good and reliable. He uses old and recent newspaper articles, books written by Falun Gong members and founders, and judgments made by the Icelandic authorities, for instance the Ombudsman. However, despite all the effort put into the bibliography of the book, it is difficult to verify all sources, since Salton refers to a lot of interviews that he personally conducted with Falun Gong members who, for instance, are talking about what they have been through, either with the Chinese government or other governments and authorities. These sources might be valuable, but it can be hard for the reader to evaluate them, since they are made personally by the author. They also take only the side of Falun Gong members, leaving out any other side of the stories, like that of the Chinese and Icelandic authorities.

Given that Salton indicates in the beginning of the book that he writes it for the people of Iceland – “To The People of Iceland Whose Decency and Sense of Democracy Continue to Be a Source of Inspiration” – for them to be able to be informed about events that nobody has talked about or that have been suppressed by the government, it is written in a way that catches the reader’s attention right away from the first page. The author tells the reader a story, not like a novel but like a documentary. He also writes in an English that should be understandable for most people.

Still, even if the book gives good information written in a clear and understandable way, it is not written in a very critical way. The reader of the book should be aware of this and read it with an open mind and exercise caution regarding the author’s interpretation of the events. As mentioned before, he interviews many Falun Gong practitioners and therefore gets their side of all stories, that is, telling all the good things about the practicing of Falun Gong and insisting upon the “innocence” of their activities. He tries, even though he is struggling with it because of his opinion of the matters, to write somewhat from the governments’ side as well, but it is mostly in an ironic way, letting the reader know that despite excuses from the authorities, their actions are wrong. It might be because it is hard to get in touch with governments on these matters, because they know of their wrongs and are therefore not willing to discuss them. There might also be no excuses from the governments’ side and therefore the only information to give is that coming from the Falun Gong practitioners.

There is one chapter of the book that stands out from all the other good chapters, which is the legal chapter. The book might give a good idea of all the things that are wrong in the governments’ behavior, both the Icelandic government as well as any other government that has done similar things. But for a person that knows the law, especially European and International law, it is rather a confusing chapter. The author erroneously conflates European law and the European Convention on Human Rights throughout and the analysis is superficial, when not simply inaccurate.

This book gives good information but there is always, especially because the author almost only takes Falun Gong‘s side in these matters, more than meets the eye. It is obvious though that the Chinese government has an enormous impact on the whole world, and tries to ban Falun Gong everywhere. At the same time, other governments are aware of the influence that the Chinese government has, and may be aware that their own actions are unjustifiable and therefore try to avoid discussions about these matters. They hide the truth and give no comments on their behavior. Salton´s book takes the reader on a journey all around the world, informing them about the things that not many people seem to know of and digs up sources and information that seem to have been somewhat hidden.

 

 

Review by Tiantian Zhang

It was after an eight-year-long delay following the controversial event that the book Arctic Host, Icy Visit: China and Falun Gong Face Off in Iceland by Herman Salton was published. Salton was then an officer at the Icelandic Human Rights Center, among other roles. In this book, the author focuses on a 2002 event where a certain group of people, namely Falun Gong practitioners, were ordered by the Chinese government to be banned to enter Iceland before and during the visit of the Chinese President. In-depth research was made and opinions given by the author, along with a detailed review of the event.

The series of events that was thought to tarnish Iceland’s long and well-respected reputation in human rights history is briefly summarized in the foreword and introduction, and then further described in Chapters 3 and 4. It happened in early June 2002, when the President of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Jiang Zemin, planned to make his visit to Iceland. In the author’s description, what happened before and during the President’s visit was ”unforeseen,”and “bizarre, even burlesque.”. Practitioners of a Chinese “spiritual movement,” namely Falun Gong, were barred from Iceland with various methods. Those methods, including denial or withdrawal of their visas to Iceland, interrogation and refusal of entry at airports before boarding Iceland-bound planes, cancellation of their hotel room reservations and secret monitoring of their activities, are listed and submitted in evidence by the author as major breaches of human rights by the Chinese government and interference with Iceland’s sovereignty. What makes these actions stand out, however, is the fact that they were ordered by the Chinese government, but assisted and partly conducted by Icelandic government.

Being a Chinese citizen who has lived in Iceland for 3 years and majored in law for more than 5 years, I find it quite difficult to offer a conclusive evaluation of the events. In order to be able to give an objective opinion, I realize that a better understanding and in-depth investigation are required before I start judging the events, given my limited knowledge, which is probably colored by my experiences in both countries. After a comprehensive search for information from different media and publications, I would like to say that I have to hold a quite unique view on the Falun Gong movement, the 2002 event and its meaning, and the book as a whole.

By simply looking at the cover and reading the title of the book I sensed immediately a subtle hint of criticism in the main theme. The cover displays a picture of police cars under a gloomy semi-dark sky, giving an impression of heavy and solemn atmosphere along with the title “Arctic Host, Icy Visit.” I indiscreetly came to a conclusion that the book I was going to read could be categorized into a certain stereotype of books and publications, namely those typically critical publications dealing with human rights issues whenever the Chinese government is involved. Mere criticisms of the government’s well-known bad manners ignoring or infringing human rights are not the most outstanding characteristic of such publications. Instead, the criticisms and analysis always lead to the same conclusion, which is a routine of blaming the Chinese government for interference with other states’ sovereignty and abuse of its rising political and economic influence. However, the author manages to give some inspiring information and thoughtful conclusions after a careful examination of the 2002 event.

From what I know about the government by living more than 20 years under its regime, I have not much doubt in the truthfulness about their radical actions in Iceland as told in the book. Nor does it surprise me that the actions and orders were actually operated and carried out by the Icelandic government, whom I suppose to have quite some experience in barring foreigners from the country from my own experience. Information from various sources including newspaper reports, individual interviews of practitioners, witnesses and officials, reports from international human rights organizations, and letters by the Minister of Justice all support the story as reported by Salton. The author provides a considerable amount of information in chapters 3 and 4, covering important particulars and details.

However, one of the major flaws in this book lies in the characterization of Falun Gong. The author has made an attempt to give a concise and in some level accurate portrayal of Falun Gong in Chapter 2, but his view is apparently limited, if not totally biased, by the sources that he could access and lack of direct contact with of the innocently self-profiled organization. Appearing to be a “meditation exercise” in origin, Falun Gong is no longer merely a spiritual or religious group. The author makes a relatively objective introduction but fails in accuracy. It is not to be blamed because Falun Gong’s image is profiled drastically differently in international media compared with the Chinese domestic media as well as with what people have observed, not to mention inconsistency within the Falun Gong group itself.

I agree with the author about the anti-scientific and confrontational character of Falun Gong, which are pointed out in the book, but about their nature and non-violent history I have to hold a different opinion. On 23rd January 2001, some Falun Gong devotees committed self-immolation at the Tian’an Men Square. A similar incident took place once again in Beijing on 16th February of the same year. The incidents were reported by Chinese domestic media and were witnessed by Beijing’s citizens. Even though huge controversy emanated from these incidents and Falun Gong claimed that the tragedy was completely planned and manipulated by the Communist Party (CCP), the truth remains undiscovered. These two events came as a huge shock and had a widespread influence at that time, but were not mentioned at all in the book. It is valuable and important information to consider because it was just a year before the event in Iceland. If the incidents as reported in China were true, then the Chinese government’s concerns and bans would be viewed as more reasonable and understandable, even if of questionable legality.

Besides, as the author also noticed, the anti-government character of Falun Gong is obvious to the public. Radical criticisms and literal attacks towards the Chinese government, especially the CCP, are expressed explicitly in their books, official website, newspapers and flyers. As far as I know, almost every Chinese relative and friend of mine has received propaganda from Falun Gong anti-government movements, most commonly emails, mobile phone messages and home phone calls with recorded tape speeches. It is difficult to conclude that this organization is “peaceful in essence.” However, no matter how the nature of Falun Gong is and what the purpose of their movement is, there is inadequate justification for the Chinese government’s actions according to law. Human rights were breached and no excuses or attempts should be made to excuse their unlawfulness. Still, a crucial error is made when the author tries to analyze the legal challenges and legal assessment concerning this event: he refers to the European Convention on Human Rights as European Union law even though the former is under the auspices of the Council of Europe and is quite distinct from the European Union’s institutions. Further, Iceland has long been a party to the former treaty, but is not (yet) a member of the European Union at all.

When reaching its conclusion, the book approaches a routine of emphasizing freedom of association, speech, assembly and expression, and claims that the Chinese government used its political and economic influence to interfere with Iceland’s sovereignty. Meanwhile it also makes an interesting point that Western States are used to look at China’s human rights issues through colonial eyes, with a paternalistic attitude and teacher-pupil template, and try to use human rights as negotiation tools. But what I would like to add is that it is also important to realize that the fear of the West from the supposed threat from a rising power is usually attributable to lack of communication. China’s blockage of media is worsening the case.

With relatively satisfying accuracy and objectivity, this book gives the 2002 event and its background a through introduction and provides a reasonable conclusion. But throughout the whole book, it shows the typical Western superiority complex of a “peaceful, scarcely populated, proudly independent and highly civilized” state (juxtaposed against China) and the pity of its tainted reputation in human rights by the government and its “obedience” to another political power. But I would take a bold guess that the possibility cannot be ruled out that the Icelandic government was aware of the consequences of potential protests, and was not completely unwilling or even forced, as the book has implied, to carry out and assist the actions reported. Welcoming hundreds of radical protestors to its soil to carry out their activities with unforeseen consequences, the Icelandic government, or any other government that cares about its peace and security, was not very likely to favor this idea. But being forced and having to obey another irresistible power to breach human rights unwillingly seems more forgivable. If that was the case, Iceland should really be concerned to protect its sovereignty and remain “one of the most liberal states” and “proudly independent,” but it must stand firmly on its position and take responsibility for its own decisions and actions.

P.S. The author of this book has provided a reply to the reviewers in issue 8(1) of Nordicum-Mediterraneum: http://nome.unak.is/nm-marzo-2012/vol-8-n-1-2013/51-book-review/351-review-response

Johann P. Arnason & Kurt A. Raaflaub, The Roman Empire in Context: Historical and Comparative Perspectives (Chichester: Wiley & Sons, 2011)

Book review (editorial review), , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Editor argues that while much has been written about Rome, relatively less has attempted to analyze Rome comparatively. As a sociologist and not a historian, this reviewer cannot comment on this claim, but I do appreciate the comparative methodology. In fact, Arnason, the primary editor and author of the “Introduction” is a historical sociologist, who discusses the implications of Greco-Roman analyses on sociological and social theory. While the comparative perspective may be useful for drawing out separate variables between civilizations, there is the inverse danger of redefining variables broadly enough to make those comparisons – but at some cost of precision of the terms. There need to be nuances on all sides which weaken the overarching comparisons. It is essentially the qualitative problem of a small “n,” familiar to the social sciences. This methodological problem is noted several times, but does not stifle the writings.

The first section analyzes Rome’s growth through three essays. Raaflaub looks at Rome’s growth from city state to Mediterranean empire, through a thorough discussion of the particular components of the axial age in Rome. Flaig argues that the ruling elite in Rome eventually become powerful and detached enough that traditional forms of accountability and control waned, and with it their legitimacy among the ruled. The sets up the revolutionary crisis Flaig discusses in relation to other Roman scholars. Cohen and Lendon discuss the relationship of communication and authority between the center and the periphery in Rome. Their comparator is medieval kingships and the authors are seeking to understand the strength or weakness of the political structure as evidenced through these communications.

The volume then traces through the transformation and “decline” of Rome. Ziolowski’s chapter discusses the final crisis faced by Rome – the “Total Crisis.” His argument is that the crisis was more a catalyst to longer building internal problems, individually which would be mere nuisances. These internal problems fell under the rubric of an institutional trap created by the specifically Roman interpretation of ruling legitimacy. Stroumsa argues that among the cultural transformations at the end of the Roman era, the very concept of religion changed. Not simply from pagan to Christian or from poly- to monotheism, but also the rise of religious intolerance which melded violence with state power which made imperial tolerance impossible. Fowden draws an illustration of the larger world of late Rome, showing how Islam as well fits into the picture. His argument contextualizes not just the world of late Rome, but also of contemporary academic understandings of the era, not the least of which is the discussion of “transformation” versus “decline.”

The following section focuses on three of Rome’s successor civilizations. Becher discusses the Franks, Haldon the Eastern Empire, and Robinson Islam. The chapter analyzing Islam makes the argument that at least some of Rome’s developments such as urbanization, epistemologies, and philosophical reflection, were adopted by the growing Islamic civilization. An interesting comparison also exists with the role of religion and politics in the growth of civilization.

The Fourth section includes explicit comparisons with Assyria, China, and Iran. Liverani discusses the Assyrian case to contrast the relationship of the urban center to the empire. Lowe looks to China for the role of its internal administration and penal policies, with some focus on the higher prevalence of bureaucracy in the Chinese case. McDonough studies the Sassanid Empire as a comparator despite being a contemporary rival to Rome. Similarities include rule over several centuries and over a disparate variety of geographies. Fibiger-Bang makes the final comparisons to the Ottoman Empire and the Mughals seeks to discuss vast empires underneath a single ruler – but in distinct contrast to the European examples which were all much smaller states. There may have been a ruler in the European cases, but these were all much more local monarchies.

The final section discusses theoretical implications of the volume, trying to sort out the elements of state, empire, and civilization in Rome. Arnason argues that these three elements form a unique constellation in the Roman case, but the singular uniqueness of Rome is exactly what methodologically requires a comparative perspective. Without a comparative perspective, these variables are not going to be adequately isolated. The Wagner essay that closes the volume addresses the question of whether there is sufficient connection between ancient Rome and modern Europe to draw a continuous line of civilization from the former to the latter.

The appeal of the volume for this reviewer lies in the breadth of the chapters included and with the attempt to include sociologically relevant comparative methodologies. These chapters start with Rome’s transition from city state to empire and its expansion, through its decline, and into its successor regimes, with comparative and theoretical discussions finishing the volume. As a work of comparative sociology, it is interesting to see rigorous sociological methodologies applied to a historical case so easily popularized. As a work of sociology, it is refreshing to go beyond the identity politics which comprise so much of the discipline as of late. It may be the case that this comparative methodology will be less interesting to traditional historians, and it is most definitely the case that this volume is too advanced for anything like an introduction to Roman history.