Morning Session

People were already gathering half an hour in advance in the foyer andmain auditorium on the second floor of West Sub-building of Guanghua Towers when I arrived for the morning’s session. Names and faces were flashed on thetwo large screens either side of an illuminated stage, and a large red bannerproclaimed proudly the events we were all milling in so early to see: theofficial founding of Fudan’s International Cultural Research Centre.

       The Centre aims to bringtogether talent from across the spectrum of Fudan’s faculties and to put itselfforward as a platform for members of these institutions to organize their ownnational and international events. It was encouraging to see familiarProfessors, not just from the faculties of Literature and History, but alsoPhilosophy and Sciences, spilling in over the next thirty minutes. The resultwas a hubbub of excited conversations, greetings and long-time-no-sees – aplatform before anything had even begun. Come nine o’clock, these voicesquietened down as we welcomed to the stage our host for the day, Professor JinGuangyao, who handed the honour to Fudan University’s Vice-Principal YangShangli of introducing the theme of the day’s discussion, ‘Culture andMeaning’, together with welcoming to the stage our first guest-speaker,Professor Chen Lai, Head of Philosophy at Tsinghua University, Beijing.

       Professor Chen proceeded tospeak on his chosen topic – the culture and spiritual attitudes of China’s three‘ancient eras’ Xia, Shang and Zhou. Basing his argument on developments inGerman philosophy on the spirit of a shared culture and people, ranging fromSchiller to Hegel and beyond, Professor Chen put forward a complex model formodern Chinese national identity. Schiller’s original argument had groundGerman and European nationalism in the cohesive power of a religious ethic – anidea which gave inspiration to Professor Chen’s formulation of the Chineseinstance, a model scarce seen in which politics and religion are fundamentallyintertwined. We learnt how this combination, so rarely seen in world history,could be traced back as far as China’sShang dynasty, lasting from the middle of the second to early in the firstmillennium B.C.

       It was this early culture,Professor Chen argued, that set the tone for what followed in two thousandyears of Imperial China, from the Qin dynasty that united it all to the Qing thatsaw the end of Emperor-statehood. The audience was reminded in Professor Chen’swords how the ‘culture’ that we were looking back, reflecting upon andestablishing a relevancy for the present was inextricably bound together withthe very facts of a Chinese sense of hierarchy and values. Showing sensitivityto the growing influence of anthropological approaches to studies in Chinesecivilization, progress in which already represents a significant collaborativeeffort between Chinese, Japanese and Western scholars, Professor Chen explainedhow this was all fundamentally glued together by the fabric of the Chineselineage – from emperor to commoner certain facts of kinship have largely heldtrue ‘under Heaven’. China’sreligious commitment to values of the family – filial piety for example, wereargued to emerge naturally from this vast melting pot.

The other great thread throughChinese civilization, and a common point with other world civilizations,Professor Chen located in Weberian terms of the ‘rationalization’ of society,which could be witnessed as an inevitable progress after the succession of theShang by the Zhou. Staking this dividing line allowed the final touches to beadded to a formulation of central Chinese culture, what Professor Chen referredto throughout as the Chinese ‘Great Tradition’, that would accompany us in ourthinking and debate throughout the day.  

Next, we welcomed to the stageMartin Kern, Professor of Chinese Literature at Princeton University,and it so happens an authority on the period of Chinese history immediatelyfollowing the era Professor Chen had discussed. Professor Kern first expressedhis best wishes for the present and future of the Centre, emphasizing the greatopportunities that have come naturally to Fudan as the top university in Shanghai – internationaltalent, the feeling of having a place in the world, the willingness and cultureto interact with those of differing opinions. The last, Professor Kern pointedout, is not only difficult to achieve but also most precious of all. Peopleresearching history and letters with complete sincerity do not come together toreach conclusive agreements about an immortal history, rather they more oftenthan not have to come together, at least with our knowledge of history andhistorical literature as it stands today, in order to disagree, debate, andslowly move forward.

Professor Kern proceeded to pointout some small examples from his own experience to better illustrate the valueof ambitious research projects in the ‘international sense’, perhaps simply afunction of the excitement and intellectual energy produced between people.Professor Kern’s own excitement at least was visible in his description of anew project envisioned by himself and Classics Professor at Princeton University.Hitting on the coincidence between the birth date of the Roman HistorianSallust and the death date of the Han dynasty historian Sima Qian, theyspontaneously decided to organize a comparative reading course in the works ofthe two, to see what new and exciting ideas in terms of the history, literatureand values of either culture could be produced in that most fertile environmentof young minds, old hands and innovative approaches to text.

However, Professor Kern’s speechtook a dramatic turn at this point, from extolling the virtues of some aspectof Western education to lamenting his own field’s negligible contribution toChinese studies. We seem to have constantly been taking without giving, hepondered, as well as in certain respects constantly unable to work out pointsof disagreements, perhaps because they occur at such great distances, betweenour Chinese counterparts. At the same time, there is the threat of Westernsinologists’ own isolation from other faculties in any university, making theneed for better and stronger connections with China and Chinese research.

Fudan’s opportunity, then, could notbe greater or more urgently in needing of being pressed forward. Progress hasbeen made already – Professor Kern pointed jokingly at himself, almost indisbelief that he was scheduled to also give a series of lectures during hisstay at the university, which he said would have been unthinkable as recentlyin ten years ago. And as one of a few foreign faces in the audience I also feltan exciting new sense of belonging. Perhaps such a feeling is natural undersuch circumstances – or perhaps it is the start of a longer journey ofre-examining and rethinking Chinese culture and literature. So it was with hopeto spare but most of all earnest encouragement that Professor Kern left thestage.

From the perspectives offered byexperts on Xia, Shang and Zhou to early Chinese literature, we came next to aspeech by Professor Chen Sihe, of Fudan University, an authorityon modern literature. And from a speech that had reflected on the work needingto be done by members of the foreign community working in and on China,Professor Chen’s speech offered the opposite instance of a comment by aneminent Western professor that had set his mind thinking along lines relevantto the topic of the day.

Several years ago, he began,Professor Chen had hosted Professor Wolfgang Kubin (a famous German Sinologist)in a lecture series at the university. At the time Kubin had asked a questionthat Professor Chen had, in his own words, simply laughed off with a few casualremarks, but one that returned to him time and time again: why does Chinaset up Confucius Institutes and not Lü Xun Institutes?

Professor Kubin had asked another,most important question in the process – how does China intend to link its present,past and future? And behind this there was, Professor Chen continued, theinevitable problem of China’sexpression of itself to the outside world.

The remainder of Professor Chen’slecture was a meditation on the issues thrown up by these three questions.First he emphasized that looking at questions in modern China in isolation is nowadays a misleading andmeaningless task – the effects of China’s entry into the WTO andSeptember 11 on the Chinese economy and Chinese life are proof enough. Themissing link in our formulation, Professor Chen suggested, might be understoodas simply the ‘tradition of modernity’. There exists, Professor Chen argued, afundamental difference between what Chen Lai may have called the‘great-tradition’ of Chinese culture, which can be felt thousands of years inthe past, and the ‘modern renaissance’ that began in the second half of thenineteenth century and has been with us ever since. As for Lu Xun, heinstinctively understood in his famous AMadman’s Diary the complexity of the human condition – at the same time asChina was increasingly pushing for complete revolution and castigating the pastas the time when ‘people ate people’ it was necessary to reformulate the termsunder which the anarchic impulse was controlled. And as for literature andfilms ever since – Professor Chen gave the example of the recently releasedZhang Yimou film The Flowers of War –they have in small and big ways failed to reflect the same levels of ideas andvalues with the gradual infiltration of Western values into the world ofChinese thought and actions. In some senses, as Professor Chen Zihe felt afterwatching the film, this has led to Chinese people both misrepresentingthemselves to themselves as well as the outside world whose non-comparabilitywith Chinathey continue to uphold. As different from the ‘Confucius Institute’ of thepresent and past, Professor Chen left us with the wish that we set up aplatform for a deeper exchange of ideas at the level of this new ‘world’ stagein the years to come.

Professor Prasenjit Duara, of theNational University of Singapore, followed with a short speech that in manyways offered an informed and experienced international China observerand researcher perspective and reflection upon the problems that had concernedProfessor Chen Sihe. Professor Duara has been consistent in maintaining theobstacles presented by nationalism to the creation of a sophisticated andtruth-bearing modern history – and it was these which he attempted to place ina cross-national perspective during his speech. As Professor Chen had mentionedrepeatedly China’s inevitable place in the world and alongside others acrossthe globe, so did Professor Duara insist on understanding all contemporaryproblems and questions as inherently international, and the very idea ofnationality being in this sense something to be transcended and reflected uponfrom this standpoint.

The final speaker of the day wasProfessor Wu Xiaoming, of Fudan’s Department of Philosophy, who spoke gave anambitious speech, despite his insistence that he was an ‘amateur’ to thedebate, titled ‘The Return of Youthfulness to Chinese Culture’. He thanked theemcee, Professor Jin Guangyao, for helping events run so smoothly throughoutthe day, and for giving an ‘amateur’ the chance to speak on such an excitingtopic.

The idea of a ‘Return toYouthfulness’, Professor Wu Xiaoming began, was raised as early as 1818 byHegel with reference to the renaissance and spring of the German peoples.Professor Wu offered us a brief description of the circumstances under whichand work to be done for the reinvigoration of Chinese culture as a specificcontext. If the last two speeches had served to bring back tradition into thediscussion, then Professor Wu succeeded in stressing the need to understand andreinvigorate the textual evidence that forms the tradition as it stands.

Professor Wu ended his speech bybringing in the question of modernization and China’s own natural path toreinvigoration. In some respects, as he noted, the idea of a ‘return to youth’has gone hand-in-hand with certain Chinese perceptions of a modernizing Chinasince the last days the Qing dynasty – this great impulse only accelerated withthat dynasty’s collapse and the founding of countless journals and societiesfor the reinvigoration of Chinese culture, most of them by young journalists,students, entrepreneurs and thinkers. At the same time, however, this has nevermeant that the great energy of this movement can guarantee an overall feelingand direction towards reinvigoration – within this great opportunity we findboth danger and promise. Professor Wu ended his speech with the hope that theopportunities brought forth by the new wave of international conferences,events and establishments like the one formally coming into existence that daywould serve to bring together in new and exciting ways the elements that wouldpush closer to realization his own vision.

Afternoon Session

In contrast to the ordered run ofspeeches in the morning session, in the afternoon members of the audience hadin addition a round-table discussion to look forward to, as well as the formalfounding of the institute. Each speech from the morning had offered some of itsown basic ingredients for constructing a basis upon which reflection couldoccur, perhaps after everybody had enjoyed a good lunch!

By one-thirty in the afternoon ourdelegates and guests were seated and ready for the much anticipated remaininglectures and ceremonies. Party Secretary for the University, Zhu Zhiwen, Deanof Fudan University, Yang Yuliang, and Xu Lin, Chair of Hanban International,were the first to give short speeches in honour of the occasion. All threehonoured guests expressed both great pride in the achievements of Fudan andanticipation for the future. Mrs. Xu Lin’s speech was greatly enjoyed by many,being as entertaining as it was informative. Following this, members of thepress and students armed with cameras hurtled stage-front to catch a snap ofDean Yang Yuliang and Hanban Chairperson Xu Lin unveiling a commemorativeplaque, signaling the formal founding of our institute.

       Fudan’s institute takes itsmain inspiration fromPekingUniversity’sInternational Foundation for Chinese Studies, founded in 2009. This scheme hasbenefited continually from the support of organizations like Hanban. The workthat begins today is in one sense adding the second link to a projected chainof major projects for educational advancement and change on the national andinternational level. In this spirit, which means both inviting friends fromafar and going boldly out ourselves, we then welcomed the Chairman of thePeking University Foundation, Professor Rong Xinjiang, to give a speech of hopeand encouragement from his ‘older-brother’ work unit. Various otherdistinguished guests gave their own short speeches, some entertaining andanecdotal, others serious and informative – Professors Prasenjit Duara, MartinKern, Michael Friedrich and Ma Jianfei all offering their words for theoccasion.

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Chen Fangzheng of theHong KongChineseUniversitykicked off the afternoon’s lectures with an informed interdisciplinaryexploration of Western and Chinese systems of thought over the past centuries.Professor Chen emphasized both the extent of the scientific basis of Westernprogress in the longue-durée andoffered a sympathetic and thought-provoking account of the gradual penetrationof these ways of thinking into the modern Chinese mind.

At this point the baton was passedtoFudanUniversity’s very own Ge Zhaoguang,whose speech wove the new themes to be reassessed in Professor Chen’s speechinto his own, more historically structured narrative. Titled ‘BetweenEnlightenment and Culture: Difficulties and Choices’, Professor Chen’s lecturetook us through a number of ‘betweens’ – Chinese and Overseas Chineseintellectuals, changing Western views of the Chinese experience, and thefundamental difference between a religious Occidental mode and transcendentEast-Asian mode of thought – on a road to a new recognition of our historicalerrors and the possibility of making strides desperately needing in ourconception of modern, and pre-modern Chinese culture.

       These two lectures rantogether much to the audience’s satisfaction, and Professor Ge’s parting words,that we were not meant to come out with any more trite  plain expressions on the nature of China’sfive-thousand years of civilization, set a new level of seriousness that wouldbe come to the fore in the round-table discussion to come. Before this,however, there was the small matter of inviting the Dean of Fudan University,Professor Yang Yuliang, to offer his own opinions, congratulations andencouragement.

       Professor Yang’s career asin the Natural Sciences, he joked, might be called the study of change (huaxue) without the culture (wenhua) involved. Despite these jocularopening remarks, Professor Yang brought a crucial ingredient to the wholereassessment we were looking for in offering a novel way for us in thetwenty-first century to order culture, religion, the economy and the world ofChina into a system that is easily threatened by the overlaps he has had thechance to experience in his capacity as Dean. Professor Yang’s speech, perhapsas it is did from an informed observer’s opinion, seemed to speak a language ofconciliation and new thoughts for progress that transcended many of thecultural problems under discussion throughout the afternoon. Our task, inwhatever direction the reassessment under Fudan’s new organization will take,is not a scientific one, but rather a reassertion and rebuilding of a cultural modelon its own terms. It is also one of bringingChinaback to its natural place inthe world of academic exchange and learning.

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The day ended with a round-tablediscussion headed by Professor Li Tiangang. Professor Li’s opening remarksstruck a chord of honest reflection that was typical of the day and wouldpersist through the conversation to follow. The task ahead involvesfundamentally no difference between East and West, North and South; it shouldbe conducted with confidence and in a charitable spirit between people workingwith a common will to the enterprise of reassessment and rediscovery.

The atmosphere gradually took on amore constructive tone, as Professors one after another offered support andadvice and suggestions on how we could move beyond the lecture hall to theclassroom. Comments were forthcoming from all corners in the discussion thatensued. Michael Friedrich, Professor at theUniversityofHamburg,offered words of encouragement and support on behalf of non-Chinese sinologistsand historians across the world. We learnt from representatives ofBeijingUniversityon the exciting work done tocollect Japanese scholarship and Chinese original sources currently beingundertaken. Many Professors offered suggestions on the generation comingthrough the ranks and acquiring their degrees – what could we do for them? Howcould the sense of responsibility be transmitted from this generation to thenext?