The Encounter of China with the West

The Europeans and the Chinese ultimately were cultures that rejected one another, but this came after years of what I call a hesitating regulated acceptance of the west on the part of the Chinese that was ultimately doomed from day one. The Europeans at first revered and were intrigued by the very different Chinese culture but these feelings would not last. Later in the eighteenth century the Europeans in due course rejected the Confucian way of thinking. These feelings seemed to be mutual as the Chinese overall never accepted Christianity and the west’s way of thinking. In this paper, I will give you reasons why I feel that these two cultures never accepted one another’s train of thought.

The first critical factor that I believe was most influential in the Chinese’s rejection to the English way of life was China’s superiority complex. The Chinese were very ethnocentric and truly believed that Chinese culture was superior to all other cultures. With this being said; Why would the Chinese listen and accept another’s culture that wasn’t as good as their own? That’s just it; they wouldn’t accept it at all.

The next major reason why the Chinese rejected Western culture and Christianity was the skepticism and agnosticism of Confucian thinkers. Confucian thought had a lack of religious emphasis, and the Jesuit priests believed that this is where they could inter twine Christianity with Confucianism. There was still a strain of religious skepticism in Confucianism that caused many literati to reject the mystical elements of Christianity like the virgin birth, incarnation, the miraculous healings, the resurrection, and the trinity. This skepticism among literati held back the widespread acceptance of Christianity.

Another source of anti-Christian feeling was based on the Chinese fear of subversion. This issue came to the forefront after the Manchu came into power in 1644. The Manchu were military conquerors who only made up a tiny minority in the vast population of China. They lived in a perpetual state of anxiety over threats to their control of the majority population. It was the missionaries’ foreign status and their association with aggressive Portuguese and Dutch traders on the southeast coast of China that raised the fear of subversion. This fear limited the spread of Christianity because the Manchu watched over China to ensure there was no subversive movement that would overthrow their control. They watched over their land like a hawk, and never let any one movement get too powerful.

Another basis for anti-Christian feeling was widespread concern among the Chinese populace that Christian churches might upset the harmony of nature. The Chinese had a firm belief in geomancy, or fengshui (wind and water). Fengshui involves the belief that one’s fortune can be enhanced by constructing buildings, homes, and graves in harmony with the physical surroundings. On the other hand, one can suffer ill fortune if these sites are built in opposition to geomantic forces. Location, terrain, foundation, surroundings, streams flowing past the site, and direction or orientation are the forces examined in fengshui. The aim is to determine the most harmonious placement of the building in relationship to these forces, which, in turn will produce the most favorable experience for the occupants. The construction of Christian churches was sometimes believed to violate the harmony of the area, and was thought to bring misfortune for those Chinese who lived and worked nearby.

Yet another basis of anti-Christian feelings directed to the European priests was the fear that they would seduce Chinese women. This was the case among more wealthy families, in which women were more secluded in the home. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Christian churches were often built with separate chapels for women. If there was only one chapel they would split the times between the men and women and the men were not to even look in while the women were in church. This gave the priests access to the women and the Chinese fears of sexual seduction loomed. Even though the seduction stories were exaggerated they were not groundless. This mistrust of the priests is a factor that steered people away from the westerners.

The final basis of anti-Christian feeling was the belief that the missionaries practiced some form of alchemy. Daoist alchemy in china involved two very different goals. One was an attempt to transform base metals into silver, and the other was an attempt to create an elixir of immortality. The substance was most commonly known as Mercury. When Ricci taught Christian immortality in China, many people confused it with Daoist immortality. The confusion was reinforced when Portuguese traders bought large quantities mercury in Canton and shipped it to Japan and India and to the Americas, where mercury was used in the Mexican and South American mines to smelt silver. Beginning in the sixteenth century, Spanish ships crossed the Pacific Ocean carrying silver in the form of Mexican silver dollars. Massive amounts of New World order silver entered China via Spanish ships at Manila and Portuguese ships at Macau. Since the Portuguese and Spanish boats on which this mercury was shipped out of China returned carrying silver, many Chinese conclude that the Europeans and missionaries were practicing alchemy. This showed the Chinese that Christianity was related to Daoism, which hurt the popularity.

Europeans were influenced by china because they regarded Chinese culture as superior, and they were receptive to borrowing from china, or at least until the eighteenth century. This is when the European feelings of admiration quickly turned to detestation, and in this next section I will explain why.

The first rejection of Chinese culture was the Europeans attitude toward same sex love. Ricci’s perception of widespread sodomy was shaped by his widespread exposure to sophisticated urban life among literati in Nanjing and Beijing, where same sex activity was concentrated. The harshness of Ricci’s criticism of sodomy among the Chinese males needs to be viewed in light of the Counter-Reformation campaign against homosexuality that had been conducted by the Roman Inquisition under Pope Paul IV (1555-1559) during Ricci’s childhood. His comments about sodomy showed European Homophobia during the Counter-Reformation period. And yet Homosexual acts like sodomy was widespread in Italian cities such as Florence, Venice, Rome, and Naples. This reflected that sodomy was not practiced by a subgroup of homosexuals, but by many young men and boys as a phase preceding heterosexual adulthood, which commonly began with marriage around thirty years of age. Prior to the Counter-Reformation