12.Wei Yuan and His Illustrated Survey of Foreign Nations

In the 19th century many Chinese intellectuals came to the conclusion that China dropped far behind the West.These intellectuals started the movement of studying the West and they took it upon themselves to spread the Western knowledge among common people.Wei Yuan (魏源，1794-1857), with his great work Illustrated Survey of Foreign Nations (《海国图志》), was one of these intellectuals.

Before the Opium War, Lin Zexu (林则徐，1785-1850)was sent to Guangdong as a tough governor to stop the opium trade.In order to understand foreigners better, Lin Zexu ordered foreign books and newspapers to be translated into Chinese and he directed the editing of Survey of the Four Continents (《四洲志》), a book of the geography and history of the world outside China.Lin Zexu gave Wei Yuan a copy.And Wei Yuan went on to write his own book of foreign lands by it.

The Illustrated Survey of Foreign Nations went much further than Lin's book in introducing the religion, laws and customs of different nations.The main goal of the book is“mastering barbarian techniques in order to control the barbarian, ”in other words, by learning the Western methods, the Chinese could finally take back again the control of the world.Employing over 100 different sources, this book covered history, politics, geography as well as different kinds of technological inventions such as steam powered ships, land mines and other new weapons.The book also broke new ground in covering topics as religion, customs, education and trade.

Generations of Chinese had been kept away from learning of the world outside China and this book was the first view of the new world. In the earlier contact with Westerners through the Jesuit missionaries, the common Chinese failed to get the impact of them.Before the Opium War even those people in the top class did not know where Great Britain was, neither about how the British had come to rule the seas.This book put an end to this short of information with detailed maps and draws, as well as long enough explanations.

In 1852 when this book was re-published, it paid more attention to how Western powers controlled the trade and how their political systems, especially capitalism, helped the Western countries grow onto the first place of the world.

New Words and Expressions

Exercise One

Directions:Decide whether the following statements are true or false.

1.Wei Yuan translated Survey of the Four Continents.

2.Lin Zexu had some foreign books and newspapers translated into Chinese.

3.Lin Zexu helped Wei Yuan write and publish The Illustrated Survey of Foreign Nations.

4.Chinese people started to know the world by The Illustrated Survey of Foreign Nations.

5.The Jesuit missionaries had made great impact on the Chinese society.

Exercise Two

Directions:Answer the following questions.

1.What did the Chinese intellectuals start to do in the late 19 th century?

2.What was Lin Zexu's job in Guangdong?

3.What was The Illustrated Survey of Foreign Nations aimed to show?

4.How did the Chinese people understand the world before The Illustrated Survey of Foreign Nations?

5.What did Wei Yuan do in the second edition of The Illustrated Survey of Foreign Nations in 1852?