Author ｜
Kean-fung Guan
Abstract ｜
This study discusses how Chinese authors, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, questioned the political encounters and cultural crises through the shaping and representation of the exotic image of “Africa.” Such materials to present the image of “Africa” reflected the mutual discrimination between “ego” and “the other,” “native” and “exotic,” as well as “China” and “world,” in which the corresponding relationship between writers’ “ego” and the described “the other” was hidden. According to multiple text materials, including news reports, geography books, historical biography, travels, textbooks, poetry, and images, four subtitles of “division of Africa,” “deduction of blacks,” “customs of African,” and “exploration of Africa” were classified to discuss the “Africa” image narrated by authors in the late Qing dynasty and the reflected “China.” From the image of foreign country, rich research contents were hidden in such Africa image, which did not simply copy the reality of foreign country, but also reflected on political encounters, cultural circumstances, and ideology of China watchers. The presentation of “Africa” was not so much a narration of “Africa” but rather as the symbolic performance of self-culture.
keywords ｜
Africa, foreign country, image, late Qing, the other