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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
5 pages in length. "It is entirely appropriate to the course of our own exploration that the first Western work devoted mainly to China should be evasive and problematic." And so sets the mood of Jonathan D. Spence's "The Chan's Great Continent, China in Western Minds," a compilation of historical works that reflect the Western – if not skewed – perspective of China's cultural, political and social existence. Composed of an Edward Saidian viewpoint, the student will want to note that Spence's book encompasses the fundamental basis upon which Said's entire argument is founded; indeed, there is no question that while delivered in an entertaining fashion, The Chan's Great Continent, China in Western Minds is rife with Saidian implications of Orientalism that help the reader understand the different between true Chinese history and Western exaggeration. Bibliography lists 4 sources.
Page Count:
5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: LM1_TLCchan.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
And so sets the mood of Jonathan D. Spences The Chans Great Continent, China in Western Minds, a compilation of historical works that reflect the Western - if not skewed
- perspective of Chinas cultural, political and social existence. Composed of an Edward Saidian viewpoint, the student will want to note that Spences book encompasses the fundamental basis upon
which Saids entire argument is founded; indeed, there is no question that while delivered in an entertaining fashion, The Chans Great Continent, China in Western Minds is rife with Saidian
implications of Orientalism that help the reader better understand the different between true Chinese history and Western exaggeration. "If much of Polos account was thus designed as a mixture
of self-promotion and oblique criticism of Western meanness as contrasted with Eastern opulence and openness, then other aspects of his description may have had similar polemical or moralistic intent.
His book might have been designed in part as a commentary on his own native city, as much as an accurate representation of life in China" (Spence PG). Orientalism
represents a form of prejudice that has existed since the time of Marco Polo, a traveler who brought back with him the supposedly authentic reports of Chinese culture. As
it turns out, however, Polos accounts are marred with self-aggrandizing elements that clearly serve to either falsify or severely embellish upon the information found in his chronicles, a point that
stands to discredit the uniqueness attributable to Chinese culture in exchange for the Western interpretation of how China appears to be. Properly defined, Orientalism represents "a manner of regularized
(or Orientalized) writing, vision, and study, dominated by imperatives, perspectives, and ideological biases ostensibly suited to the Orient" (Orientalism #2). Western civilization has long looked upon other cultures as being
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