Essay: Ideas and Values of Robert Pirsig as influenced by Eastern Thought with an emphasis on Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

From 2008 to 2011, I was a student at Athabasca University. I thought that it might be of general interest to convert a few of my assignments into blogs. In a Humanities course titled ‘East Meets West’, there was an assignment on this subject:

A systematic analysis of the similarities between the ideas and values of Robert Pirsig and those of Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism. Includes how he was influenced by these varieties of eastern thought with an emphasis on his book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance / An Inquiry into Values.

As in all of my assignments, it was a struggle to be both succinct and complete in my writing. The essay that I turned in looked much like this:

Robert Persig was influenced for many years by eastern thought and religion before he sat down to write his Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance[1] masterwork.  His background included an extensive education in both philosophy and religious studies.  In Zen’s prefatory Author’s Note he says that the book is not particularly factual about Zen Buddhist practice, and “it’s not very factual on motorcycles either.”  This is a book where the subtitle – An Inquiry into Values – might describe the theme better than the primary title does.

Mr. Persig was also heavily influenced by his studies of Greek philosophers and his personal descent into madness.  His attempt to meld his inner madness into a complete functional human being; reminded me of how various prophets and philosophers have meditated upon the division between body and soul, tried to explain Ying and Yang or attempted to bridge the divide between the current human plane of existence and the unknown future that awaits us after death.

Robert Persig’s Zen is fundamentally about junctures and gaps and how they are bridged.  He is not particularly interested in how a hypothesis is hatched, a plan is started or a destination is reached.  He is very interested in the process and the journey.  He puts relatively little importance on either classical or romantic ways of thinking.  He is very interested how the thinking meshes into a syncretic whole that he labels as Quality.

Though this essay is not intended as a biography or book review, a quick description of the author and his story is required to appreciate the Eastern influences.

Robert Persig was born just over eighty years ago on September 6, 1928 in Minneapolis.[2]  According to his personal story, as related in Zen, he was an exceptionally brilliant child and a gifted student.  As a teenage biochemistry student he was flummoxed when he realized that as classical science proved or disproved a series of hypotheses, each one that was knocked over would lead to an infinite number of new possible hypotheses.  As Alexander Elliot wrote, “man is not a problem solver so much he is a problem maker”.  (Elliot, Alexander "Zen and the art of what?”  p. 129)

Young Persig could not handle that his scientific study was making the world more complex rather than simpler.  What should be the “hardest part of scientific work, thinking up hypotheses, was invariably the easiest”.  As one possible theory was disproved a flood of new possibilities would become manifest.  They increased as he went along.  Phaedrus-Persig soon abandoned his study of chemical science.

This was followed by a stint in the US Army which included a posting in Korea.  There Persig received an introduction to Eastern thought.  He writes about an influential book on Oriental philosophy that he read at this point.  He says that the book compares Western and Eastern components of man’s existence and that these components correspond to classic and romantic modes of reality.[3]

After his return to the United States he rejoined the university system to study philosophy.  To polish his American studies he studied Oriental philosophy at Benares Hindu University in India.  He remained an empirical scientist but he had “been exposed to a lot”. (Persig  p. 141)

After his studies in India, Persig returned to the United States.  He taught rhetorical English at a university in Montana followed by an attempt to get his doctorate by study at the University of Chicago’s Department of Philosophy.  Through all this time he thought on the nature of Quality.  He studied the way that objective and subjective ways of thinking worked together.  He practised the art of motorcycle maintenance.  He also became quite unable to handle the reality of normal society.  In other words he became insane.

In 1960 Persig was finally admitted to a mental institution.  In 1963, he was treated with a series of electroshock procedures.  During these treatments – according to the Zen narrative – Robert Persig became separated from his earlier personality and much of his earlier memories.  He gives the name of Phaedrus to this earlier ‘insane’ personality and writes of himself in the third-person.  In a way Phaedrus can be thought as a previous incarnation of Persig the author.  Eastern religions have much to say about previous and future incarnations.

In July 1968[4] Persig headed out from the city of his birth on a journey to the West.  He started the trip with his motorcycle, his son, a couple of friends and Phaedrus.  During the course of his motorcycle journey, he leaves his friends behind, he does a lot of thinking about Quality, he unites his rational self and his irrational Phaedrus self, and he confronts the fears of his 12 year old son.

This story of this journey might be intended as a reflection of the Toaist journey of discovery to the Western mountains and the Toaist appreciation of nature.  Persig does not explicitly say this though.

In 1874 a type of summer camp for adults was founded on the banks of Chautauqua Lake, New York.  This spawned a series of travelling road shows that combined entertainment and education.  These road shows took place over several days and became known themselves as Chautauquas.  They included lectures presented in a manner and style that would allow the ordinary citizen to understand difficult subjects. [5]  Robert Persig designed his Zen book as a form of Chautauqua meant to both entertain and elucidate.  Elliot points out that in classic Zen practise an artist or performer will follow the concept of a “masterpiece of the past” and then “as with Zen swordsmanship, archery, and tea, the whole point is in the performance itself. In the doing, that is to say, not the product.” (Eliot  p. 126)  A hundred years after that first Chautauqua show, Persig published his own skillful modern version of an entertaining presentation that also provides instruction.

Phaedrus-Persig remained an empirical scientist but he had been exposed to Eastern thought.  “He became aware that the doctrinal differences among Hinduism and Buddhism and Taoism are not anywhere near as important as doctrinal differences among Christianity and Islam and Judaism.” (Persig  p. 141)  Just a couple paragraphs later, the author says that

The illusion of separation of subject from object is best removed by the elimination of physical activity, mental activity and emotional activity. There are many disciplines for this. One of the most important is the Sanskrit dhyana, mispronounced in Chinese as "Chan" and again mispronounced in Japanese as "Zen."

In other words, the subject and object are just parts of one whole system; their interaction can be studied by contemplation and meditation, and this method of study is known as Zen.  A dictionary[6] definition says that “enlightenment can be attained through meditation, self-contemplation, and intuition rather than through faith and devotion”.  Study and activity (or the lack of such activity) are more important than prayer or faith.

According to R.Z. Sheppard’s review[7] of Zen: “Pirsig is no orthodox Zen Buddhist”. For Persig motorcycle maintenance is the equivalent of a meditative tea ceremony. 

Briefly, motor maintenance requires a good deal of quiet concentration so that the underlying principles of the engine are allowed to fill the gap between the object (engine) and the subject (mechanic). A Zen monk would say that under such conditions, the fixer and the fixed are no longer opposing objects but one reality.

Phaedrus-Pirsig never thought small. His aim was to do nothing less than revamp the whole scientific method that operated from the premise that the observer and what was observed must be separate realities. (Sheppard)

Just as the story has the major theme of Persig melding with his Phaedrus self it has a secondary theme where Persig and his son Chris, “who up to this point have seemed like subject and object, are united by what might be appropriately described as the underlying quality of familial love” (Sheppard).

One of the oriental themes is that Quality matters.  Otherwise one might simply throw things together without caring about the results.

“Those Indians and medieval men were just as intelligent as we are, but the context that they thought was completely different.  Within that context of thought, ghosts and spirits are quite as real as atoms, photons and quants are to modern man.” (Persig  pp. 33 - 34) Persig’s own ghost (Phaedrus) was real to him and belonged entirely to him.  To Persig, Phaedrus was something entirely his own.  (In a similar way, everyone has dreams that are entirely different from than those that anyone else has.  Dreams belong only to one person and one self).  Persig had a hard time giving up his personal ghost.

Persig writes about a man dividing a handful of sand into understandable parts. “This and that.  Here and there.  Black and white.  Now and then.  The discrimination is the division of the conscious universe into parts.” (Persig  p. 79) On the next page he explains that Classical understanding is concerned with the piles of sand and the classification of the same.  “Romantic understanding is directed toward the handful of sand before the sorting begins.  … It’s necessary to see that part of the landscape, inseparable from it, which must be understood, is a figure in the middle of it, sorting sand into piles… To reject that part of the Buddha that attends to the analysis of motorcycles is to miss the Buddha entirely.” (Persig  p. 80)

In a later discussion, the author writes about the Japanese state of mu. It is a way of answering a question with something other than yes or no.  He postulates that nature can have states other than the digital on or off.  There is something outside of Ying and Yang and that something is the entire whole or mu. (Persig  p. 327)

The Buddha exists independent of analytical thought but Persig says that the Buddha also “exists within analytic thought, and gives that analytic thought its direction”. (Persig  p. 81)  Persig pursued his personal ghost named Phaedrus; but he also says that Phaedrus spent his entire life pursuing “the ghost that underlies all of technology, all of modern science, all of Western thought. It is the ghost of rationality itself. … whose appearance is that of incoherence and meaninglessness.” (Persig  p. 82)  Being rational is incoherent.  The ultimate purpose of life is an impossible paradox; “one lives longer in order that he may live longer.  There is no other purpose.  That is what the ghost says.” (Persig  p. 82).[8]

The book on the surface seems to be about a physical journey across a physical world.  It is also about a journey to “the high country of the mind” (Persig  p. 125) where one has to become adjusted to the thin air of uncertainty.  The sweep of possible questions and possible answers goes on obviously much further than the mind can grasp.

Persig compares the Zen Buddhist practise of “just sitting,” and the motorcycle maintenance practise of “just fixing”. (Persig  p. 303)  When a person cares about what he is doing he must break out of the separateness between a person and his work.  “Peace of mind produces right values, right values produces right thoughts.  Right thoughts produce right actions and right actions produce work which will be a material reflection for others to see of the serenity at the center of it all.” (Persig  p. 304)

As the book continues, it introduces more and more influence by classic Greek and Western philosophy.  There are discussions of Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Thoreau and Poincaré.  Persig finally pulls the East and West into the same philosophical space, “Quality! Virtue! Dharma!” he declares are simply different words for the same concept. (Persig  p. 386)

While studying this book for this essay, I came to realize all the ways that the author was heavily influenced by Buddhism – especially the concepts of the Japanese Zen tradition.  Robert Persig tried to combine Western classical thought and Eastern romanticism.  He tried to meld the art of doing and the state of just being.

I saw little in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance that was influenced by Hinduism or classic Confucianism.  I found places where it might have been influenced by Taoistic concepts of a journey through life and the reverence of nature and natural surroundings.  Persig did not directly refer to the teachings of Hinduism, Confucianism or Taoism.  He does write a lot about Greek philosophical concepts.

He showed that the universe is not just Ying / Yang or black / white or good / evil. There is also an overriding Quality, Virtue or Buddha quality that stands outside, and also consists of, the entire whole.  (Some things in this plane of existence are a somewhat difficult for human beings to fully grasp and understand).  He did all this in a Chautauqua that teaches difficult religious and philosophical concepts while entertaining with a good story.

Bibliography and references used in this Essay

Eliot, Alexander  "Zen and the art of what?"
Eastern Buddhist 9.1 (May 1976): pp 124-130.

Gregory, Dave  “Unit 2 / Robert Persig’s Quest for Quality”
Humanities 360: East Meets West Study Guide
Athabasca, AB

Lin Yutang. (ed) The Wisdom of China and India
New York, NY: The Modern Library, 1955.

Pirsig, Robert M. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values
New York, NY: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2005.

Schuldenfrei  “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”
Review of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Originally printed in Harvard Educational Review, vol 45, no 1 February 1975

Sheppard, R.Z. “The Enormous Vrooom”  Time
New York, NY  April 15 1974
Review of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Steiner, George "Uneasy Rider"  The New Yorker
New York, NY  April 15 1974
Review of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Toynbee, Philip  “Voyage of Discovery.”
Review of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Original printed in The Observer no 9561 October 17, 1974.

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[1] This book will be referred to from here forward as Zen.
All the Zen references here are to the 2005 edition as detailed in the bibliography.

[2] The general biographic details of Robert Persig’s life are based on the endnotes of the 2005 Zen edition.

[3] Persig says that the book he read was The Meeting of East and West by F. S. C. Persig.  Interestingly enough, he doesn’t mention the subtitle, An Inquiry Concerning World Understanding, which might have influenced Zen’s subtitle: An Inquiry into Values.

[4] Coincidentally, this journey occurred in the summer 40 years ago when Persig was almost exactly half of his current age

[5] Details on the Chautauqua movement are from http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/traveling-culture/essay.htm.

[6] From www.thefreedictionary.com definition of ‘Zen’

[7] Sheppard, R.Z. “The Enormous Vrooom”  Time Magazine

[8]  In Zen religious practice such a paradox, containing aspects that are inaccessible to rational understanding, is known as a koan and used as a subject of mediation.

Essay: Similarities and Differences between Buddhism and Taoism

Much of my time from 2008 to 2010 was spent taking courses at Athabasca University. One Humanities course was titled ‘East Meets West’. I thought it might be of general interest to convert some of my essays into blogs. This example looked at the question: 

What are the most fundamental similarities and differences between Buddhism and Taoism?

Buddhism and Taoism have many similarities with some fundamental differences.  They were both based on the teachings of two particular master sages born in Asia more than 2500 years ago.  They are both concerned with the correct paths for right-thinking people and both preach simplicity and contemplation.  Yet Taoism is more concerned with the riddle of life here and now while Buddhism is more concerned with breaking the eternal cycle of pain and suffering.  Taoism’s basic teachings are mystical aphorisms for contemplation; while Buddhism presents many laws and precepts that can be followed to affect a person’s karma or destiny.

Buddhism is generally based on the teachings of a very real person named Siddhartha Gautama.  The dates for his birth and death are commonly given as 563 BCE to 483 BCE.  He became known as a Buddha or the Awakened One after his personal enlightenment.  His teachings were written down by others a few hundred years after his death.  While different schools of thought – such as the greater vehicle of the Mahayana Tradition and the Zen monks with their contemplative puzzles – have interpreted and expanded Buddha’s teachings in many ways, these schools are all based on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama.

In Siddhartha’s early life he had lived a pampered life hidden from the pain of others.  Later, he spent years struggling with ritual and ascetic practices without ever overcoming the suffering of human existence.  Finally he sat under a tree, meditated, cleared his mind and looked within himself.  With his insight he saw the folly of struggle and realized the middle path.  He overcame the temptations of Mara.  He saw all that there was to be known and was ready to take the path to the ultimate stage of Nirvana; but he hesitated.  He was now ready to leave this earth of dirt and suffering but in the past he had pledged to bring peace to the world.

The Buddha realized that there many who would welcome his message of the way to overcome pain and suffering; he knew that there were many who could overcome Samsara or the eternal wheel of birth, death and reincarnation.  He stepped back from the brink and began to teach others his Middle Way.

 Taoism is based on the writings and ideas of Lao-Tse (604-531 BCE), who was said to be a contemporary of Confucius. Some scholars have disputed the existence of a single historical person; since, once again, his teachings were written down and reinterpreted a few centuries after his death.  Chuang Tzu was the most famous interpreter and recorder of the teachings of Lao-Tse

Lao-Tse saw himself as the Old Master showing others the path to contemplation and enlightenment.  Just as Siddhartha Gautama stopped on the path to enlightenment, Lao-tse stopped on his path to the Western mountains.  At the urging of a gatekeeper, Lao-Tse stopped for three days and wrote the small book of teachings that would bear his name.  This book illustrated the methods for people to achieve inner peace and calmness.  Like the teachings of Buddha, his words seem simple and at first glance many of his concepts seem quite easy to understand. In practice though it has been quite hard for people to understand and follow his simple words.

Neither Buddhism and and Taoism spend much time worrying about the details of earthly existence.  The disciple Malunkyaputta[1], noted a number of points that the Buddha had not discussed.  These included whether the world is eternal or infinite and if the soul exists without the body.  Buddha said discussing these moot points is like a man who has been shot with an arrow and then does not want it taken out until he has learnt the name and caste of the man who wounded him.  Buddha said that “I have not explained what I have not explained… and what have I explained?”  He had explained misery, “the origin of misery, the cessation of misery, and the path leading to the cessation of misery have I explained”.  Everything else was of much less importance.

Buddha’s offerings to his disciples included an Eightfold Path and the Four Noble Truths.  He provided practical hints for meditation.  Other earthly details were not for him to worry about.  For his disciples, the knowledge of details was to be achieved through self-awareness, observation and meditation.

Similarly, Lao-Tse taught the power of repose and acceptance.  He said that great things are achieved by becoming as tranquil as still water.  He warned about gaining too much useless knowledge.  He wrote that the “reason that it is difficult for the people to live in peace / Is because of too much knowledge.”  He was a master of keeping things simple.  As it is written in one translation:

I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and in thoughts, you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies, you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.[2]

Perhaps the biggest difference between these two religious paths is that Taoism seems more concerned with what is happening here and now.  Lao-Tse provided advice for governors regarding their relations with their country’s people.  He was concerned with living with the Tao of nature in the world we currently inhabit.  Buddha is concerned with stopping the endless cycle of reincarnation.  He was more concerned with inner peace and what comes at the end of this current existence.  His advice to princes and kings is simply to give everything away and prepare for the next world.

Buddhism is concerned with achieving a state of Nirvana or perfect peace of the mind.  Taoism is concerned with achieving acceptance of the nature of Tao which is the fundamental nature of the universe.

In conclusion, both Lao-Tse and Buddha taught the power of inner peace, acceptance and contemplation.  Buddha was more concerned with escaping from the pain of this world.  Lao-Tse was more concerned with overcoming by acceptance and the lack of struggle.

References used in this Essay

Lin Yutang. (ed) The Wisdom of China and India
New York, NY: The Modern Library, 1955.

Novak, Philip. The World's Wisdom: Sacred Texts of the World's Religions
San Francisco, USA: HarperSanFrancisco 1994

Tao Te Ching as translated by Stephen Mitchell Tao Ching
Harper Perennial; compact edition
(Quotation from this translation was retrieved
from http://www.mindfully.org/Tao-Te-Ching-Lao-tzu.htm [Link is now Broken])

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[1] This paragraph largely based on Page 63 and 64 of The World’s Wisdom.

[2] Stephen Mitchell translation chapter 67.

Essay: Western influence and penetration into late nineteenth century China

Much of my time from 2008 to 2010 was spent taking courses at Athabasca University. I thought that it might be interesting to turn a few of my assignment essays – such as this one – into blogs. 

One  course was titled 'The Pacific Century'. The assignment was “An Examination of Western influence and penetration into China from mid-nineteenth century to the eve of the Chinese Revolution in 1911”. The following is what I submitted. (My instructor was quite dismissive of some of my conclusions about outside influences; but I found little to change during my most recent re-edit).

Introduction

By the middle of the last decade of the nineteenth century Chinese society and the Chinese political system were at a tipping point.  I suspect that a visitor to the typical Chinese village in 1894 would note little obvious change from the way that things had appeared a century before.  The average citizen was still dressed much as before, Christian converts were few and the language and educational systems were little changed.  The Chinese world was changing underneath though and greater change was to come.  

At the summit of the Chinese system, great upheavals were about to happen that would modernize the entire society.  Once the political structure cracked at the top change came to the very depths of Chinese society.  In the Confucian view of society, when the leadership changed the rest of society naturally followed.

Fundamental change was caused by direct political and economic forces originating with the powers of Europe and North America.  Other changes were pushed by internal Chinese influences or from external Asian sources – especially from Japan.  Even these changes from Asian causes were just a second-hand version of Western modernization.  The people pushing the hardest from inside Chinese society were all Western educated and Western influenced.

This essay discusses they types of change in Chinese institutions from the mid-nineteenth century to the eve of the Revolution of 1911.  The emphasis is on the ways that Western powers and ideas altered Chinese political power.  When not otherwise noted, many of the ideas here are based on the assigned course textbook[1].

Classification of change

There is a tendency to classify events and movements into tidy decades and eras.  Therefore, one might think that there was a steady progression through the First and Second Opium Wars to the Boxer Rebellion and then the Chinese Revolution.  According to this simple way of viewing events, history happens in neat decade by decade chunks.  History rarely does happen in such a tidy manner.  There was no five-year plan or ten-year plan for change.  Much of what happened in China during this period was not planned “progress” or “modernization” but simply a reaction to external events.

In another classification system, individual events of Chinese history were matched by individual foreign sources.  One observer might say that the Opium Wars were planned by the British government to force open trade and conquer territory.  Someone else might say that the Japanese government had a central policy of conquest against China in 1894-95.  In actual fact Chinese history was much more complicated, misunderstandings were common and events all seemed to be happening at once.  In some cases a person might be executed for their liberal views and just three or four years later those same views were being used as a blueprint to change all of society.

In an American pamphlet written in 1895 there is a section titled Modern Progress and Enterprise.  Examples of this “modern progress” are listed.  The pamphlet goes on to provide perceptive classifications for these changes:

(1) Compulsory, or those necessitated by force or treaty obligations.  The compulsory occupation by the allies, in 1860, of the imperial capital was followed by a treaty which gave commerce and missions the right of unmolested access to the entire land.
(2) The semi-compulsory changes, or those initiated with a view to adjustments.  The Chinese knew that the treaty must be fulfilled, and that in reorganizing their government they could not do better than copy the strong points of their late adversaries.   Hence, the innovations of foreign military camps, arsenals, customs, schools, coast surveys, etc.
(3) Spontaneous-voluntary changes.  International relations become cordial.  The press is called into acquisition, newspapers and books are translated.  China has become conscious of her wants; a mint, banks, post-offices follow.
(4) Imperial or those which define the position and policy of the country.[2]

When studying Chinese history of this era it is important to realize that change happened all through this era and people saw it happening.  China was not a homogeneous society walled of from the world.  At mid-century the most perceptive people in the Imperial government knew that change had to happen.  By the end of the century the need for change was apparent to almost everyone.  The need for self-strengthening seemed obvious.  Picking the correct path to national strength was far more controversial.

Wars, Rebellions and Upheavals

The Opium Wars seemed have been caused more by mercantile considerations than any central British governmental military plan.  There were vast sums of money to be made in trading Indian opium for Chinese textiles and silver.  Old established companies such as the East India Company were competing with independent traders such as Jardine Matheson and the always scrappy Americans.  Relatively minor incidents with a few brawling soldiers, or some insults against Lord Napier, were relayed back to the British parliament.  Hot-headed British politicians took sides and insisted on reparation and forced opening of trade.  Soon a small British fleet returned to extract punishment through force of arms.  By the end of the process huge reparation payments were owed to the west, Hong Kong was ceded, extraterritoriality was the new norm, and foreign trade was open to all European traders.

The Americans and French and Germans soon jumped on the bandwagon and demanded the same rights and profits for their sides.  Much of history happens when small events create landslides of change.  Policies are well rarely planned and often were slapped together in reaction to events as they unfold.

For someone politically aware in the 19^th century Chinese administration it must have seemed like the country was constantly under attack.  There were at least a dozen[3] different rebellions, uprisings or wars between just 1840 and 1900.  China was rich in resources and people but lacked military strength.  The government forces were strong enough to suppress internal revolts but even so these could drag on for years.

The worst case of internal rebellion – the Taiping Revolt from about 1853 to 1864 – was a violent upheaval in Chinese society that dragged on for more than a decade.  By the time it was over more than 20 million people had died.  The leader of this madness received visions and commandments from “his elder brother Jesus” and from the Christian god after he read some Christian proselytizing literature[4].  I expect that if he had never received those Western religious tracts he probably would have had another native source for his visions; but having visions based on ancient Chinese sources would not likely have been so provocative and revolutionary in nature. 

While wars with foreign powers were limited in both time and area, they brought more profound changes to Chinese society.  They did not last long because the Imperial government was so weak militarily.  Defeat happened fast.  The biggest check on the foreign military forces was the squabbling between the Western powers.  One suspects that if other events such as the Franco-Prussian war and the American Civil War had not happened during this same period, the Western powers would simply have had a friendly conference and divided China among themselves like a big apple pie.

The Western approach was greed and free trade at any cost.  Whenever there was a chance to approach events in a moderate manner of compromise and accommodation the decision was taken to send in gunboats, flatten a town or two and then force a result quite out of proportion to the insult that started the war.

In Japan the Meiji government was far more successful than the Chinese administration at changing their society and embracing the Western way of doing things.  By 1894 their armed forces had weapons as modern as any European army and navy.  In the Sino-Japanese war the Japanese forces triumphed in both Korea and Manchuria.  The imposition of an “Asia for Asians” policy on Japan’s bigger neighbour was a triumph of Western armament, training, tactics and knowledge.

By the end of the century it was obvious to almost everyone in China that changes were required.  It was not yet obvious what those changes were and how the country could unite to make them happen.  In the Confucian system when the top leadership changes the rest of society should naturally follows along.  Unfortunately, in China at the end of the Qing Dynasty it was far from obvious just who the leader was.  The emperor might have progressive ideas, but the Empress Cixi was the true power behind the Mandate of Heaven.  Even if both of them could agree on a plan of action there was a vast conservative bureaucracy and noble family establishment.

Western Culture, Education and Religion

There were many Christian missionaries working in China.  Missionary work was supposed to uplift the Chinese people from their “heathen state” but there were few actual converts.[5]  The missionaries set up colleges, hospitals and universities.  Their students included such prominent people such as Chiang Kaishek and Sun Yat-sen.  In the midst of Western commercial greed these schools provided a place for free discussion of political ideas and the need for change.

Eventually many students travelled abroad or had western educations.  Sun Yat-Sen attended college in Hawaii and Hong Kong.  Chiang Kaishek’s education included military academies in both China and Japan.  Even Japanese education in those years was quite Western influenced.  In many ways Japanese education was just an extension of Western education.  The Japanese people, and especially the Japanese military, were eager students of Western knowledge and thinking.  In the new century many Chinese intellectuals and future politicians went abroad to learn foreign ideas and concepts.

Industrialization, transportation and trade

There were certainly some Chinese government officials who realized early that change was required if China was going to stand up to outside forces.  A prime example was Li Hongzhang.  By the 1860’s he was governor general of Tianjin and gradually became the de facto Foreign Minister of China.  “Li understood as well as any Japanese leader the urgent need for his nation to adapt Western learning if it was to survive.”[6]  Progress was slow though and reactionary forces were strong.  The true power at the top of the nation was the Empress Dowager Cixi.  “To maintain herself in power and to ensure that political control did not devolve to the provinces, the Dowager Empress allowed the reactionaries in her court to block all reforms on a national scale, including those proposed by Li”[7].

By the 1890s new railways and industrialization were being created.  This progress happened especially in the foreign concessions and was imposed from outside.  “The Russian, French and German railway concessions put at the service of the country badly needed transportation facilities without cost and entirely at the risk of the foreign interest involved.  But, Chinese noted that the government of each country was working closely behind its nationals.  In fact, private finance served as a mere mask in deference to the decencies of diplomatic usage”[8].  These facilities were the result of laissez-faire capitalism.  These were not benevolent missionary works designed to improve the general welfare of the Chinese peoples.

Change and Revolution

After the violent events of the Boxer Revolution there was a period known as the Hundred Days when it seemed like peaceful fundamental change could actually happen.  The most prominent philosopher of this period was Kang Youwei.  He read a wide range of contemporary Western thinkers.  His books promoted an optimistic vision of a strong world where every man and woman was equal.[9]

Kang promoted a strong democratic China based on Confucian ideals and loyalty to the emperor.  As quoted by Spence, he warned against revolution “If we now seek to purchase liberty at the price of infinite suffering, it may not be attained after seventy years, and even if it is, what will have happened to our ancestral country?”Sun Yat-sen – perhaps because of his many youthful years outside China – took an “utterly different approach, and decided that the Manchu regime would have to be overthrown before China could be strong”. [10] Both men wanted to strengthen China using Western ideas and methods.  Many of Kang’s idea for change were tried in 1908; but in 1911 Sun’s revolutionary ideas triumphed.  Kang’s vision seems to me more complete, universal and enduring.

Conclusion

During the pre-revolutionary period the forces of conservatism were based on Chinese tradition while the forces of liberalism and change were based on Western ideas.  After the Chinese revolution and the short-lived Presidency of Sun Yat-Sen, the lives of the common people did change, though not always as expected and not always for the common good.

In the twenties, Chinese society was broken into petty provinces with individual governors.  Each was directly influenced by Russia, Japan and the Western powers.  Rampant Western Capitalism ruled the great cities.  Western technology allowed factional fighting to sweep over the countryside.  The Western political concepts of both communism and democracy were taught throughout the country.  The strongest factions were those with the best Western technology.

Bibliography

Baker, John Earl  Explaining China
London:  A. M. Philpot Ltd., 1927

Borthwick, Mark  Pacific Century: The Emergence of Modern Pacific Asia, 3rd Ed.
Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2007.

Gracey, J.T. Rev.  China, (Outline missionary series), 7^thAmerican Ed. Revised
Rochester, New York: J.T. Gracey ‘Publisher’, 1895.

Gracey, J.T. Rev.  China in Outline
Rochester, New York: J.T. Gracey ‘Publisher’, 1900.

Seagrave, Sterling  Dragon Lady: The Life and Legend of the Last Empress of China
New York:  Vintage Books, 1992

Spence, Jonathan D.  The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution 1895-1980
New York:  The Viking Press, 1981

Spence, Jonathan D.  God's Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan, 1^st Ed.
New York:  W.H. Norton and Company, 1996

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[1] Borthwick: The Pacific Century

[2] This is taken from J.T. Gracey’s 1895 pamphlet on China where he quotes the ideas spoken by Rev. Young J. Allen at the Shanghai Missionary Conference of 1890.

[3] Borthwick The Pacific Century Map 3.2

[4] Spence God’s Chinese Son

[5] In 1890, according to Dr. Gracey (Gracey 1895) there were only 37,287 Protestant “communicants” in a population of approximately 300 million.  He takes care to note that one out every three people on earth was Chinese.

[6] Borthwick The Pacific Century p. 134

[7] Borthwick The Pacific Century p. 135

[8] Baker Explaining China p. 212)

[9] Spence The Gate of Heavenly Peace chapter 2

[10] Spence The Gate of Heavenly Peace p. 16

Essay: Judging a Book by its Cover

I took an Athabasca University English Composition course a decade ago. I thought that it would be interesting to turn some of my assignment essays -- such as this one -- into blogs.
I have moved since I wrote this but my books have accompanied me to my new home:

My Edmonton apartment feels a bit cramped; perhaps there are too many bookshelves? Their contents vary from software manuals to great literature. Many of the shelves are stuffed with the accumulated flotsam and jetsam from my foreign travels. These books are valued literary friends. In many instances though, they are judged by their covers even while the contents remain unread. They shout out to be opened and have their contents read; but how do I choose?

I have travelled far from Canada. When I planned foreign trips, the destination was rarely a particular country but instead an experience or perhaps a person. I did not set out to visit India but rather I set out to go “around the world” and then filled in the gaps. Going to Australia – at least on my second and third visits – was represented by a certain friend from the beach more than any desire to see the Outback. Rather than planning for East Asia, I was making efficient use of the airplane ticket rules; cramming in every possible stopover. But then, once I had arrived in some new country, the destination became interesting and I would gather travel guides, atlases and history tomes. I have read more about countries after I left them for the final time than I ever read before my first arrival.

Many of my favourite books were discovered at bargain prices in the back bins of dusty bookstores. Others are more recent eBay discoveries. When I have time for pleasure reading I browse my shelves for something interesting. But which unread book will it be? I enjoy books where cultures and civilizations intersect. Perhaps something about Western travellers in China will be a good choice tonight?

How about an imposing thick volume: Borderlands of Eternity embracing ''Across China on Foot'' by Edwin J. Dingle? (Dingle) Hmmm. A peak inside reveals that Edwin John Dingle was the “Founder of the Science of Metaphysics” and the original publication date is 1911. A page flip reveals photos of walking trips through Burmese mountains and boat travel on the upper Yangtze River. Fascinating I am sure, but this doorstop of a volume is rather too thick, embracing as the cover declares, two books in one.

Maybe I should attempt Behind the Ranges, Fraser of Lisuland, Southwest China by Mrs. Howard Taylor. (Taylor) First published in 1944, this appears to be the earnest and sober biography of missionary James Outram Fraser. (He certainly looks earnest and sober in the preface photograph). A label inside the front reveals that it was “Awarded to Arnold Fenton” by a Sunday school in 1959. I wonder if young Fenton read it himself and what life-lessons he gleaned from its pages. It covers the same interesting geographic area as the Dingle volumes, so I must someday give it an earnest and sober read.

Something with less heft would be a better choice. A Thousand Miles Of Miracle in China is described on its cover as “Extraordinary, Absorbing, Thrilling”. The title page reveals it as a 1904 personal account “by Archibald E. Glover, M.A. (Oxon.), of the China Inland Mission”. There are detailed maps and some photos of the nineteenth century Boxer Rebellion. The chapter titles promise high-adventure: “A Hairbreadth Escape”, “Travelling to the Execution” and “Left to the Mob”. (Glover) I do suspect that its Christian sermonizing might be too heavy for my current taste.

No, I think that something slightly more modern and somewhat less earnest will be better. Here is the novel Nanking Road by Vicki Baum published in 1939. The cover has a lovely impressionistic sketch of old Shanghai’s main shopping road. The hotel in that scene looks quite like the one where I stayed during my own Shanghai visit in 2000. While I have not read her books, I do know that Ms. Baum’s Grand Hotel was a big thirties hit. The 805 page length does seem a bit intimidating and I am not sure I want to spend weeks enmeshed, as promised, in the lives of a “multi-millionaire who began life as a rickshaw coolie”, “a celebrated gynaecologist flying from Nazi persecution” and a wealthy Englishman “dabbling in espionage”. (Baum)

Perhaps a view of Asia by an Asian will be tonight’s final choice. I own a copy of The Silent Traveller in Japan by Chiang Yee. From the forties to the seventies, Mr. Chiang wrote a series of Silent Traveller books illustrated with personal pen sketches, poetry, calligraphy and pithy observations. A couple years ago, I quite enjoyed reading his Silent Traveller in San Francisco. He noticed things out of the ordinary and met such interesting people. So the Silent Traveller it will be. Pushing back my keyboard, I leap into the first sentence: “I have paid Japan four visits so far…” (Chiang) and I continue reading long into the night.

Works Cited

Dingle, Edwin J.  Borderlands of Eternity embracing “Across China on Foot”.  Bristol, England & New York, NY: J.W. Arrowsmith & Co., 1911.
(Copyright 1939 Edwin John Dingle)

Taylor, Mrs. Howard  Behind the Ranges, Fraser of Lisuland, Southwest China. London, UK: China Inland Mission, 1944

Glover, Archibald E.  A Thousand Miles of Miracle in China. 

London & Glasgow: Pickering & Inglis, 1904.

Baum, Vicki.  Nanking Road. 

London, UK: Geoffrey Bles, 1939.

Chiang Yee. The Silent Traveller in Japan.  New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co. 1972