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The Middle Kingdom, Cathay, and China
Suen Sen Kit, Eric (Class of 2021)
I am not a person who excelled in reflection-writing or who is disposed to retrieve old memories, yet I still feel obliged to crystallizing those fading moments and sparkling thoughts through my pen, as if I am clenching the flowing sand on my palm. Oftentimes, I think that each one of us is like a grain of sand. Although it is us who came together and formed the impressive beach—our respective country and culture—there is always an abyss between how every single sand feels and how the visitors perceive the beach in its entirety. And yes, I am one of the sand, and China is the beach. My existence is infinitesimal, and my experience with China is extremely regional, but unbeknownst to me, there can be thousands of facets of China depending on the stances of beholders.
I would like to first use one of the names of China, the “Middle Kingdom,” to suggest an ethnocentric perspective of viewing China from the inside. It is connected to the century-old pride of one’s own history, political system, and civilization. Although the overemphasis on ethnocentrism should be averted, the self-confidence nationwide sometimes can serve as the basis of leadership and glamor in a world of states. Located on one of the most lively frontiers between China and the rest of the world, Hong Kong occupies a strategic position of gaining a special experience within China, and as the jewel in the crown, the University of Hong Kong (HKU) has established key connections with many prestigious universities in mainland China, such as the Peking University (PKU), Tsinghua University, and so forth. Thanks to the opportunity kindly provided by the teachers of China Studies and the University, I was able to go to the renowned Peking University in Beijing for the summer program “China’s Diplomacy and International Relations” in my second year, and exchanged thoughts on the trajectory of China’s future foreign policy with the professors and students there.
On my journey northward, there was no doubt that I was surprised by the technological advances and economic boom achieved by mainland China over mere decades. Despite some aspects that I did not agree with, such as impetuous urbanization, environmental pollution, and ultra-nationalist sentiment, I was still enlivened by the resurgence of patriotism, the proud sense of belonging, and the daring efforts devoted by China to returning to its central place. I used the word “resurgence” because I have been away from the political center, or the Northern China, for the most of my life—I was born in Southwestern China and later moved even more southerly to Hong Kong, so I am used to my marginal status and have experienced constant hiatuses in receiving the mainstream ideology upheld by the central government. Nevertheless, when the professor at PKU introduced the recent accomplishment of the state and workers in extending the 4G network to the most part of Xinjiang, and especially when I heard the PKU students saying that they were going to study hard for the country and they had confidence in their future, I was still very much moved by such affirmations. This was a kind of beautiful “propaganda” that made me emotional.
Another sobriquet of China is “Cathay,” which I adopt here to indicate the viewpoints outside of China. This name denotes not only a conceptual discrepancy between how the actual individual Chinese and the sinologists outside think about this country but also a temporal gap between how people viewed and imagined the so-called “China” five or six centuries ago and now. Despite the fact that the word “Cathay” was associated with the Khitan people and the nomadic culture in the north of China and Central Asia, I was tantalized by its liminal attribute mirroring different facades of China that were both close and far-flung and both familiar and foreign. As a regional studies discipline, the China Studies major at HKU is especially committed to expanding the possible understanding of China and re-discovering the dusted diversity in Chinese history. Only after I took this major and its courses did I start to see a kind of China that was both alien and breathtaking.
I would love to preach to anyone who is interested in China that this country is not just about Han Chinese but also the Manchus, Mongols, Uyghurs, Tibetans, Southwestern indigenous tribes, etcetera. While it is easy to equate the conspicuous Han majority with “China,” it is also crucial for us to consider how these non-Han ethnic peoples and beyond co-shaped the core of “Chinese-ness” or “Zhonghua/Chūka 中華” along with the Han. As an outstanding example that bespeaks how the external standpoints can enrich our knowledge or simply feelings toward China, one of my Japanese friends at Kyoto University once told me that the modern China also has its state title (guohao 國號), which had been a historical tradition for centuries (like Yuan 元 and Ming 明) but, I considered, stopped existing after the demise of the Qing dynasty. Interestingly and astonishingly, he thought that the current state title of China is Hua 華 (meaning “resplendent and prosperous”) because the Chinese diaspora tend to call themselves huaren 華人, which, he believed, was a very good word choice.
I was overwhelmed with complex emotions after hearing my friend’s interpretation because while I had been mourning for China’s disavowal of the tradition of using state titles as a result of modernization, this Japanese guy was applauding for a well-selected Chinese character and paid attention to what it meant. Meanwhile, with the Chinese language as my mother tongue, I had never given the endonym huaren a second thought; on the other hand, my friend, as a Japanese person who uses Chinese characters as a borrowed tool, skillfully and beautifully isolated the characters and spotlighted the meaning of each of them. After talking with him, I now have a refreshing take on the extra flavor of the character hua as well as what kind of expectations the Chinese people in different places and historical periods had entertained for themselves.
I personally believe that “China,” as any kind of ideas in the world, is intrinsically unknowable—it can be a certain group of people, a language, or simply a dream conceived by divers humans. This is why it is always an adventurous and fulfilling journey to study China. After four-year undergraduate training in China Studies, I feel that this major held me back, calmed me down, and bestowed on me a more detached attitude. I have learned that instead of clinging to my own language and culture, sometimes it is better to forget them for a while in order to discover more. I found that although it is important to learn to appreciate our own country and culture, a detached mindset can be vitally helpful for us to embrace all the possibilities offered by others, or fathom out simply the diversity within our own culture in the past, which in many cases had been furtively buried into oblivion due to the process of modernization.
Without a doubt, I have gained a lot from my China Studies major. The major vouchsafed me ample opportunities and challenges that have cultivated my confidence and my trait of leadership; the charismatic professors gave me invaluable encouragements and have set a very high academic standard on which I could continuously model myself; my indelible encounter with the knowledge and people of China Studies at HKU, in general, has transformed me into a multi-lingual and multi-cultural person who is positive to the possibilities of not only other people but also myself. Yes, every one of us is a mere grain of sand on the beach. We are indefinitely small, but inside each of us, there is a universe. I feel that China Studies is one of the exact keys to the cosmos both within and outside of us, and I am sincerely inviting you here and now to join us for a stunning academic journey to Sinology—a world that is ever-shifting and ever-rewarding.
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