Gu Hongming
Gu Hongming ( Chinese 辜鴻銘 , Pinyin Gǔ Hóngmíng , W.-G. Ku Hung-ming , majority name: Hongming, maiden name: 湯 生 in Chinese or Tomson in English; * July 18, 1857 , † April 30, 1928 ) was a Malaysian - Chinese Anglist, man of letters, philosopher and politician.
He also used the writer name Amoy Ku . Gu was well versed in both traditional Eastern and Western cultures and advocated Asian cultural values for Western readers. His writings, which were also published in English and German, had a strong influence on Western intellectuals' understanding of Asia.
Life
Gu Hongming was born in Penang , Malaysia in 1857 , then part of the British Straits Settlements . Gu was the second son of a rubber plantation supervisor whose family came from Tong'an, Fujian Province, China , and his Portuguese wife. The British landowner liked the ten-year-old boy so much that he took Gu to Scotland to teach him an education. At that time he was called Hong Beng ('Hongming' in Min-nan dialect). In 1873 Gu began studying English at the University of Edinburgh and graduated with a Magister Artium in the spring of 1877 . Gu then obtained a degree in civil engineering from the University of Leipzig and then studied law in Paris.
Returning to Penang in 1880 , Gu soon entered the civil service of colonial Singapore , where he worked until 1883. The exchange of views with Ma Jianzhong prompted Gu to turn to an intensive study of Chinese culture. In 1885 he went to China to serve as an advisor to senior official Zhang Zhidong for the next 20 years . Like Zhang or Lev Tolstoy , Gu was a critic of the reformist movement brought into being by Kang Youwei from 1898 onwards towards a constitutional monarchy. In 1905, Gu was promoted to chairman of the Hunangpu Water Management Board (上海 浚 治黄 浦江 河道 局) in Shanghai . He then served at the Reich Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1908 to 1910 and then assumed the presidency of the Nanyang State School - the forerunner of the Jiao Tong University in Shanghai. From this position, Gu resigned in 1911 to show his loyalty to the imperial government that was overthrown by the Xinhai Revolution . In 1915, Gu was appointed professor at Peking University, but resigned from office again in 1923 to protest President Cai Yuanpei's dismissal . From 1924 Gu taught for three years in Japan and in Japan-ruled Taiwan as a visiting lecturer in East Asian Studies. After returning to China, Gu lived in Beijing until his death on April 30, 1928 at the age of 70.
As a proponent of the monarchy and Confucian values, Gu not only kept his braid after the overthrow of the Qing dynasty , but also defended and practiced traditional cohabitation himself . In the later years of his life, Gu was increasingly considered a cultural curiosity. Many maxims and anecdotes are ascribed to him, but few of them can be confirmed. Various literary personalities such as Akutagawa Ryūnosuke , Somerset Maugham and Rabindranath Tagore were so attracted to Gu that they visited him during their stay in China. Alfons Paquet reports that on his visit to Shanghai he was able to talk to this admirer of Goethe and the Weimar Classic in "unconstrained German". In addition to being fluent in English, Chinese, German, and French, Gu understood Italian, Ancient Greek, Latin, Japanese, and Malay.
plant
To this day, no critical edition of his complete works is available. His English-language work includes:
- Papers from a Viceroy's Yamen: a Chinese Plea for the Cause of Good Government and True Civilization (1901)
- ET nunc, active, intelligent! The Moral Cause of the Russia-Japanese War (1906)
- The Story of a Chinese Oxford Movement (1910)
- The Spirit of the Chinese People (1915)
- Vox Clamantis: Essays on the War and Other Subjects (1917)
Gu did not acquire Chinese until after his studies in Europe and is said to have poor Chinese handwriting as a result. Nonetheless, his ability to use this language is well above average. Gu wrote a number of Chinese books such as the Living Memoirs on the memory of his assistantship to Zhang Zhidong. Gu also translated some Confucian classics into English, notably The Discourses and Sayings of Confucius and The Universal Order or The Conduct of Life (middle and measure). In addition, Gu edited William Cowper's epic poem "The Diverting History of John Gilpin" into a classical Chinese verse (known as 癡 漢 騎馬 歌). The following books by Gu have been published in German:
- Ku Hung-Ming [= Gu Hongming]: China's defense against European ideas. Critical essays, translated by Richard Wilhelm and edited by Alfons Paquet, Jena: Diederichs 1911 [includes u. a. "The Story of a Chinese Oxford Movement" (German translation of The Story of a Chinese Oxford Movement), pp. 28-134].
- Ku Hung-Ming [= Gu Hongming]: The spirit of the Chinese people and the way out of the war, with an introduction by Oskar AH Schmitz, Jena: Diederichs 1916 (German translation of The Spirit of the Chinese People).
- Ku Hung-Ming [= Gu Hongming]: Vox Clamantis. Reflections on the war and other things, translated by Heinrich Nelson, Leipzig: Der neue Geist 1920 (= Public Life 20; German translation by Vox Clamantis).
literature
- Huang Xingtao [黃兴涛]: Wenhua guaijie Gu Hongming (文化 怪杰 辜鸿铭 [Gu Hongming, cultural eccentric]). Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company 1995.
- Kong Qingmao [孔慶茂]: Gu Hongming pingzhuan (辜鴻銘 評 傳 [A biography of Gu Hongming]). Nanchang: Baihuazhou wenyi chubanshe 1996.
Web links
- (Chinese) biography and related articles
Individual evidence
- ↑ Akutagawa Ryūnosuke: "Excerpt from the Beijing diary" (芥川龍之介 「北京 日記 抄」) 1921.
- ^ Paquet, Alfons: "Foreword". In: Ku, Hung-Ming [= Gu Hongming]: China's defense against European ideas. Critical essays, translated by Richard Wilhelm and edited by Alfons Paquet, Jena: Diederichs 1911, pp. I-XIV, here p. XII.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Gu, Hongming |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Gǔ, Hóngmíng (Chinese) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Malaysian-Chinese English scholar, man of letters, philosopher and politician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 18, 1857 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Penang |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 30, 1928 |