![]() ![]() Gu argued previous translations of the classics by Western missionaries were wrong and created a poor impression of Chinese culture in the West. In his translations of Chinese classic texts, he often cited Western references to make it easier for readers to understand. Gu Hongming’s “The Spirit of the Chinese People” Gu then explained how such gentleness came about, with references from both Chinese classics and Western philosophers like Matthew Arnold, Goethe and Thomas Carlyle. Later, he described “the spirit of Chinese people” as “the Chinese style of humanity” - “inexpressibly gentle” and a combination of sympathy and intelligence. Gu added that one more characteristic is essential to an understanding of the Chinese: “Delicacy to a preeminent degree such as you will find nowhere else, except perhaps among the ancient Greeks and their civilization.” The Germans are deep, broad, but not simple.” “The English are deep, simple, but not broad. “The American people are broad and simple, but not deep,” he observed. In this widely translated book, Gu pointed out that understanding the Chinese civilization requires someone to be broad-minded, simple and deep. German writer Oscar Schmitz, who translated Gu’s “The Spirit of the Chinese People” into German in 1916, wrote in the introduction that Gu “belongs to the very rare characters who are free from nationalist narrow-mindedness as well as from characterless internationalism.” In 1920s, his articles and interviews with him were also published in major American media like “The New York Times.” ![]() His writings in English were translated into German and French and were quite popular in post-World War I Germany. He held that there was “very little difference” between the East of Confucius and the West of Shakespeare and Goethe, arguing that true civilizations were distorted and threatened by false liberalism and materialism. Gu often debated with Westerners in English-language newspapers, questioning what he considered shallow modernization at the expense of culture. He was also the Confucian scholar who fascinated writers like Somerset Maugham, Rabindranath Tagore and Ryunosuke Akutagawa when they traveled to China. The strangely paradoxical image that Gu presented was the Chinese gentlemen in Leo Tolstoy’s 1906 “Letter to a Chinese Gentleman,” in which the Russian writer wrote that he was touched by the books on Chinese wisdom written and sent to him by Gu. Gu Hongming responded to students who laughed at his hairstyle My queue can be seen, and yours are in your hearts. That concept was generally considered backward and ultraconservative in the Republic of China that was founded in 1912 to replace the toppled Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). In the years of debate over the future of China in the post-dynasty period, Gu argued for a Confucian-based monarch, where the monarch would fulfill what constitutes a “saint” according to Confucian thought. “My queue can be seen, and yours are in your hearts,” he once responded to students who laughed at his hairstyle. He also dressed in traditional clothing when short hair and Western suits were already mainstream fashion. Yet despite his worldly knowledge, he wore his hair in the traditional queue style of front and sides shaved, with a long braid down the back. He studied literature, civil engineering and law in various European countries. Gu Hongming (1857-1928) was fluent in English, French, German and Russian, and was versant in Latin, Greek and three other foreign languages. The best English literature professor at 1920s Peking University was also a stalwart defender of Confucius in a time when most of his students and colleagues were drawn to new Western concepts.
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