Chinese virtue

Chapter 1 Translator's Preface
From the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century, it was the era of social turmoil in China and fierce collisions between Eastern and Western ideas.At that time, many Western missionaries came to China to promote Christian ideas to the Chinese people.One of the missionaries was Arthur Henry Smith, whose Chinese name was Ming Enpu, and he had been in China for more than 40 years.Ming Enpu wrote many books during his stay in China, introducing China and Chinese people in his eyes to the world, and this book is one of them.

This book focuses on the characteristics of Chinese people in various aspects, or national character, and interprets Chinese people from multiple perspectives such as face-saving, time concept, public welfare, and sympathy.The book talks about the advantages of many Chinese people, but more of them are the defects in their national character.After the book was published in European and American countries, it once became the main channel for the Western world to know China, and became one of the most read works by foreigners living in China.In the United States, it is the most influential work on China.Before World War II, this book was also an important material for Japan to study China.

In modern China, there was a trend of thought to transform the national character. Lu Xun, as a representative of it, once solemnly recommended this book to the people of the country.Lu Xun's own thinking was greatly influenced by this book, and he mentioned many times that he had absorbed the viewpoints in this book.Although Lu Xun did not fully agree with the views in this book, he admitted that this book is of great value for Chinese people to reflect on their own nature.

Ten days before Lu Xun's death, he wrote such a statement: I still hope that someone will find out Smith's "China's Human Temperament".After reading these things, we should introspect, analyze, understand which points are right, change, struggle, work hard on our own, but do not ask for forgiveness and praise from others, to prove what kind of Chinese are.

The attitude of the Chinese toward this book can be divided into two factions. One faction, like Lu Xun, hopes to seek some nourishment and lessons from the book to promote self-improvement; Modern scholar Gu Hongming, as the representative, holds a completely critical attitude towards this book.Gu Hongming once refuted Ming Enpu's views in many of his works, and also satirized Ming Enpu as "not qualified to make irresponsible remarks on the issue of Chinese nationality".

From an objective point of view, in this book, we can not only see the author's affirmation of the Chinese people's hard work and perseverance, but also find that the whole book reveals a condescending attitude.

This is closely related to the era background of China where the author lived at that time.The author lived in China at the time, at the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China. The Qing government was corrupt and incompetent.

In the early years of the Republic of China, facing the dilapidated China and the shackles of traditional feudal ideology, the Chinese did show characteristics such as insensitivity, ignorance and ignorance.Therefore, the Chinese shown in the author's eyes have a lot of national inferiority.The author did not write from the standpoint of sympathy for the Chinese in some plots about the wanton invasion of China by the great powers, but it was the author's writing style that vividly showed the reasons why China was "backward and beaten" at that time.

However, judging from the social background at the time and Ming Enpu's position, this is inevitable.

When we look at this book, we should neither accept it as a complete surrender, nor reject it completely and fiercely. Both ways are biased.It is better to use the method of critical absorption, using this book as a mirror, to reflect the characteristics of oneself, so as to learn from oneself.

This book was first published in 1890. Although it has been more than a century since now, some of the issues involved in the book still exist today.Although contemporary China has undergone earth-shaking changes, the vision of more than 100 years ago is still beneficial to us now.

There are two versions of the original book, one of which is abridged.Our Chinese translation follows the unabridged version in order to fully present the author's thoughts.

(End of this chapter)