Huang Zunxian

Huang Zun Xian after a contemporary print

Huang Zunxian ( Chinese  黃遵憲 , Pinyin Huáng Zūnxiàn , W.-G. Huang Tsun-hsien , born May 29, 1848 - March 28, 1905 ), courtesy name Gongdu (公 度), was a Chinese civil servant, scholar and writer in the late Qing period . He published more than a hundred poems. Huang was born in Jiayingzhou, a district of today's Meizhou (Guangdong) , and died there at the age of 57. His pioneering contributions made him a famous figure of his time. A foundation was established to preserve his legacy and his home is now a museum.

Youth and career

Huang was born on May 29, 1848 in Jiayingzhou into a family of the Hakka tribe . His father Huang Hung Chow was a civil servant ( Juren , Chinese  舉人 ). When Huang was three years old, the greatest land reform took place in China. As a toddler, Huang was able to recite the famous collection of poems Songs of the Thousand Scholars (Chin. Qian jia shi, Chinese  千家 und ), and as a nine-year-old he studied other poems from the Tang period . In the Taiping Uprising he lost a large part of his property. Then he applied for the post of Juren , like his father, when he in 1877 reached the required age. He prevailed against many competitors and was sent as an envoy to Tokyo , Japan. In September 1880, he published the Korea Strategy , a treatise on the lofty plans of what was then Korea . He advocated an alliance with Korea. In Japan he also worked as the editor of Japan World Magazine , dealing with aspects of Japanese medicine and observing the progress Japan had made during this period. He published his results in the book Observations in Japan (printed 1890). The Emperor Guangxu was fascinated by the work and invited Huang to personally explain his observations to him in detail. Some of the reforms initiated by the emperor were based on this book. Huang is also seen as a philosopher because he dealt with the political situation in China. He himself was influenced by enlightening philosophers, including Rousseau and Montesquieu .

In 1882 Huang was appointed Consul General in San Francisco , United States. During that time he became aware of how rich the Chinese immigrants had become and what a great asset they were to China. A poem from this period that Huang wrote about Frederick Bee , an officer at the consulate. After seven years, he returned to China to go to London in 1890 . A year later he was appointed Consul General in Singapore . There he observed how similar the Chinese overseas were to the Imperial Chinese. They were distinguished by wealth and generosity. He therefore petitioned the emperor to abolish the laws that at the time forbade Chinese overseas from returning to their homeland under threat of severe penalties. He stated that this was the way China was "chasing fish into foreign nets". The request was granted, and on January 29, 1894, Chinese overseas were allowed to return to China. In the meantime, Huang became the Salt Inspector for Hunan Province and started the Journal for Contemporary Affairs . Policy reform was widely discussed and celebrated. Huang was appointed China's ambassador to Japan. However, after the fall of Guangxu , the Hundred Day Reform failed . The Dowager Empress Cixi came to power. Huang's diplomatic career ended with the incarceration of Guangxu. He deeply condemned Cixi's coup, but was relieved that he was relieved of his diplomatic duties.

Private life

Huang (in the middle) with family members, circa 1900

Race was an important trait for Huang. As a teenager, he claimed that everyone was "made of yellow clay". Decades later, he asked, "Why isn't the yellow race the only breed in the world?" Huang loved to write poetry. He was very patriotic and once described China as a gold-paved nation. He was very popular as a poet and has even been called "the most outstanding poet among the reformers of the late nineteenth century". He was significantly influenced by Wei Yuan , Gong Zizhen , and Jin He . His grandmother was a Lady Li, whose death probably plunged him into deep grief in his childhood, as described in a poem dedicated to this grandmother's grave. Most of his poems relate to political events of the time, including events abroad, such as the presidential elections in America. In total, he published more than a hundred poems. After his death, another volume of poems, Poems from the Human Environment (人 境 廬 詩草), was published and is still popular in China today. He was a representative of the Poetic Revolution in the late Qing period. His poems include: Song of the Mountain , Cherry Blossom Festival , Fog of London , Songs of the Taiping rebels , On the way to Wuqing , and the expulsion of the visitor . In his life he was also interested in setting up schools in different countries in Asia. Huang and Liang Qichao were close friends. Huang traveled extensively to many Asian countries, preferably Malaysia . His nephew, Parkcane C. Hwang, was the founder and manager of the Bank of China in Singapore.

Death and legacy

Huang escaped imprisonment after the Guangxu coup by fleeing to his hometown of Jiayingzhou, where he died on March 28, 1905. Huang is famous for saying the sentence, "我 手寫 我 口 ， 古 豈能 拘 牽, when he was twenty." ! " (Wo shou bi wo kou, gu ji neng bao qian), roughly translated, this means that it is right to express your feelings whenever you feel like them, and in the language you speak (as opposed to the then common Mandarin ). In addition, the term 文明 (wen ming) is used for the first time as a term for "civilization". His body was desecrated and thrown away during the Cultural Revolution. Therefore, one of the goals of the Huang Zun Xian Foundation in Hong Kong is to find the remains. Huang is also said to be the first to stand up for the human rights of Chinese migrants. An exhibition in honor of his successes was designed in 1991 . Descriptions about him by 130 artists were issued in it. Huang's former home in Meizhou was designed as a museum. the garden is also presented as an example of the beauty of the "Lingnan style".

See also

• Liang Qichao
• Tan Sitong
• Kang Youwei
• Zhang Zhidong

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Lee: Golden Dragon and Purple Phoenix: The Chinese and Their Multi-Ethnic Descendants in Southeast Asia. 2013, p. 271.
2. ↑ Xu, 1989, p. 3.
3. ↑ Kenichiro Hirano: Interactions among Three Cultures in East Asian International Politics during the Late Nineteenth Century: Collating Five Different Texts of Huang Zun-xian's “Chao-xian Ce-lue” (Korea Strategy) . Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved July 21, 2013.
4. ↑ Huang, 2008.
5. ↑ CS Yao: On Huang Zunxian's research in Japanese medical history . China Medicinal Journal, January 1990 (Chinese).
6. ↑ Lee, 2013, p. 272.
7. ^ ^{A b} Maxwell K. Hearn, Judith G. Smith: Chinese Art: Modern Expressions . Ed .: Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY) Department of Asian Art. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001, ISBN 978-0-87099-983-3 , pp. 281 f . ( books.google.com -… Published on the Occasion of the International Symposium Chinese Art: Modern Expressions Held on May 19, 2001 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).
8. ↑ Lee, 2013, p. 272.
9. ↑ Research, 2007, p. 1.
10. ^ Research, 2007, p. 601.
11. ↑ Xu Qianji: European Enlightenment in the Chinese context . The art of enlightenment. Retrieved July 21, 2013.
12. ↑ Zunxian Huang: 人 境 庐 诗草 笺 注 . Xianggang Books. 1973. Retrieved September 2, 2014.
13. ↑ Lee, 2013, p. 273.
14. ↑ Schmidt, 2007, p. 36.
15. ↑ Lee, 2013, p. 274.
16. ↑ Schmidt, 2007, p. 41.
17. ^ Frank Dikötter: The Yellow Virtues . In: Axess . 
18. ↑ Golden Dragon and Purple Phoenix: The Chinese and Their Multi-Ethnic Descendants in Southeast Asia, p. 476.
19. ↑ Gang Bian: Premier shows tenacious grasp of key data and love for literature . In: China Daily , June 30, 2006. 
20. ↑ Schmidt, 2007, p. Vii.
21. ↑ Schmidt, 2007, p. 146.
22. ↑ Merle Goldman: Modern Chinese Literature in the May Fourth Era . Harvard University Press, 1977, ISBN 978-0-674-57911-8 , pp. 27 f . ( books.google.de ).
23. ^ SF Chung: Borders of Chinese Civilization: Geography and History at the Empire's End . In: The Historian via HighBeam Research , September 22, 1998. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved July 20, 2013. 
24. ↑ Schmidt, 2007, p. 143.
25. ↑ Huang, 2008, p. 2.
26. ↑ Huang Tsun-Hsien . Dartmouth.edu. Retrieved July 20, 2013.
27. ↑ Schmidt, 2007, p. 45.
28. ↑ Schmidt, 2007, p. 214.
29. ↑ Huang, 2008, p. 2.
30. ↑ Schmidt, 2007, p. 218.
31. ↑ Schmidt, 2007, p. 151.
32. ^ K. Scott Wong: The Transformation of Culture: Three Chinese Views of America . American Quarterly. 1996. Retrieved July 21, 2013.
33. ↑ Lee, 2013, p. 478.
34. ↑ Schmidt, 2007, p. 36.
35. ↑ Lee, 2013, p. 476.
36. ↑ Lee Chin Seng: Notable Gifts to Chinese Library . In: NUS Linus , November 2003. Archived from the original on June 23, 2007. 
37. ↑ Mr. Parkcane C. Huang . In: The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser , June 15, 1937, pp. 9f. 
38. ↑ Lee, 2013, p. 474.
39. ↑ Schmidt, 2007, p. 44.
40. ↑ Lee, 2013, p. 474.
41. ↑ 中國 現代 文學 史 / Zhong guo xian dai wen xue shi . 秀 威 資訊 科技 股份有限公司 Xiu wei zi xun ke ji gu fen you xian gong si, 2010, ISBN 978-986-221-435-0 , p. 52 f . (Chinese, books.google.com ).
42. ^ Wenming Liu: The Spread of the European Concept of "Civilization" to Japan and China and Its Localization . Global history. 2011. Archived from the original on March 3, 2014. Retrieved September 2, 2014.
43. ↑ Lee, 2013, p. 477.
44. ↑ Lee, 2013, p. 474.
45. ↑ Lee, 2013, p. 477.
46. ↑ Diplomat at large . In: The Straits Times , January 16, 1991, pp. 8f. 
47. ↑ Recommended Routes . Meizhou Government. Archived from the original on February 10, 2013. Retrieved July 20, 2013.
48. ↑ Meizhou City . South China University of Technology. Archived from the original on November 4, 2013. Retrieved July 20, 2013.
49. ↑ Jingxi Xu: Leave winter behind . In: China Daily . 

literature

• Khoon Choy Lee: Golden Dragon and Purple Phoenix: The Chinese and Their Multi-Ethnic Descendants in Southeast Asia . World Scientific, Singapore 2013, ISBN 978-981-4383-43-1 .
• JD Schmidt: Within the Human Realm: The Poetry of Huang Zunxian, 1848–1905 . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2007, ISBN 978-0-521-03666-5 ( books.google.de - reading sample).
• 徐永 端 [Xu Yongduan]: 黄遵宪 [Huang Zunxian] (=  Zhongguo gu dian wen xue ji ben zhi shi cong shu. ). 上海 古籍 出版社 [Shanghai Historical Collection Publishing], Shanghai 1989, ISBN 7-5325-0569-3 (Chinese).
• Zhongguo shi xue hui, Zhongguo she hui ke xue yuan, Jin dai shi yan jiu suo: 黄遵宪 研究 新 论: 纪念 黄遵宪 逝世 一百 周年 国际 学术讨论会 论文集 / Huang Zunxian yan jiu xin lun: ji nian Huang Zunxian shi shi yi bai zhou nian guo ji xue shu tao lun hui lun wen ji . 社会 科学 文献 出版社 [Scientific Society Publishing], Beijing 2007, ISBN 978-7-80230-579-3 , Huang Zunxian yanjiu xinlun 黄遵宪 研究 新 论 (English for example: Collected Papers of the International Scholarly Conference Commemorating the Hundredth Anniversary of Huang Zunxian's Death).
• 黄遵宪 [Huang Zunxian], Xu Cao: 黄遵宪 诗选 [Huang Zunxian shi xuan] (=  Gu dian shi ci ming jia. ). Zhonghua shu ju, Beijing 2008, ISBN 978-7-101-05916-8 .

Web links

Commons : Hakka  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Hakka - An Important Element of Chinese Culture. Asiawind
• Charles Piton: On the Origin and History of the Hakkas. In: The China Review. 2, 1873-1874, pp. 122-126.

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Chinese. Huang is the family name here, Zunxian is the first name.