中国的传统与转型》第一章.ppt

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1、China:Tradition and TransformationLecturer:Liew Jien中国的传统与转型SWUFEv请加入 “中国的传统与转型”群：122646115。v谢谢合作！1.The Settings of Chinese History vFor the people of the West the most important facts about China are,vfirst,the vast numbers of people who live there;vSecond,their very different ways of life,which ha

2、ve throughout history distinguished them culturally Westerners;vand third,the rapid growth and change that they are experiencing.1.1The Land,Peoples,and Languages of East AsiavChina is the ancient source and today the bulk of one of the great areas of civilization,which in recent years we have come

3、to call East Asia.vWhen Europeans first traveled far to the east to reach Cathay,Japan,and the Indies,they naturally gave these distant regions the general name“Far East”.vAmericans who came westward across the Pacific might,with equal logic,have called it the“Far West”.vFor the people who live ther

4、e,however,it is neither“East”nor“West”and certainly not“Far”.vA better term for the area is“East Asia”,which does not imply the outdated notion that Europe is the center of civilization.1.1.1 The Natural Environment vOne determining influence on East Asia civilization has been its relative isolation

5、 from the other great civilizations of mankind.vSeparated by great distances and formidable mountains and deserts,it developed distinctive cultural patterns that have been retained in large part until today.vFor example,the modern writing system of all the rest of the world derive ultimately from a

6、single series of inventions made in West Asia.vOnly in East Asia is there a writing system-the Chinese-which is based on entirely different principles.vThe home of early East Asia civilization in North China was very much more isolated than were these other early centers.vOn one side stretched the s

7、eemingly boundless Pacific.On the other side rose the tremendous central massit of Asia-the Himalayas,the Tibetan Plateau,more than ten thousand feet high,and the huge mountain chains that radiate from this roof of the world.vNorth of this massif lie the vast deserts and steppes of Central Asia-cold

8、,inhospitable,and all but impassable for early man until he domesticated the horse and camel.vSouth of the massif the rugged mountains and jungles of Southwest China and Southeast Asia are an even more formidable barrier.vIn ancient times this tremendous impediment of terrain and climate stretching

9、from the artic wastes of Siberia to the jungles of Malaysia inhibited the free movement of men.vEven today this barrier is crossed by only two railway lines and only a very few roads.vThe climate of East Asia,like that of India,is determined largely by the great land mass of Asia.vIn winter the air

10、over Central Asia,far removed from the ameliorating influence of water,becomes very cold and heavy,flowing outward and bringing cool,dry weather to the southern and eastern fringes of the continent.In the summer the reverse takes place.vThe air over Central Asia warms up and rises,and moist oceanic

11、air rushed in to take its place,dropping a heavy load of water on the continental fringes.vAs a result of these monsoon winds,most of East Asia and much of India have ample rainfall during the best growing months.vThis abundant water supply combined with the hot sunshine customary at these latitudes

12、,far to the south of Europe,permit intensive cultivation and,in many placed,two crops per year.1.1.2 The PeoplesvThe area from the great Asian barrier eastward is for the most part the domain of Mongoloid man,while the area west of the barrier,including the greater part of India,most of the area of

13、Islamic civilization,and the full zone of Western civilization,is the home of white or Caucasoid man.vThe origin of the races of mankind is still an unknown story.One of the predecessors of modern man in East is Peking Man,whose skeletal remains were discovered in a cave near Peking in 1927.vLiving

14、about 400,000 years B.C.,he had tools,used fire,and was a hunter.vHe also had certain physical features that are characteristic of Mongoloid man than of the other modern races.vMore recently a still earlier precursor of Mongoloid man,dating back some 6000,000years,has been found at a site in Lan-tie

15、n,near Sian in northwest China.vThe range of skin color among Mongoloids,from very light in the North to dark brown in southern areas such as Indonesia,is clearly a product of environment,as is the comparable color range in the so-called white race.vThe other distinctive features of Mongoloids man a

16、re straight black hair,relatively flat faces,and dark eyes.1.1.3 The Sinitic LanguagesvThe significant human divisions within East Asia,as in the West,are primarily linguistic rather than racial.vIn both East Asia and the West there is a common misconception that these linguistic differences corresp

17、ond to racial divisions,but in fact there is no more a Chinese or Japanese race than there is a German or Hungarian race.vThe largest linguistic division in East Asia is Sinitic(or Sino-Tibetan)family of languages,which is comparable to the great Indo-European family that spreads over most of Europe

18、 and much of the Islamic and Indian zones of civilization.vThe sinitic family of languages occupies a very solid block in the center of Asia,covering all of China proper,Tibet,Thailand,Laos,most of Buema,and perhaps Vietnam.vWithin the Sinitic group,Chinese is by far largest linguistic subdivision,C

19、hinese-speaking people have been in North China since the earliest recorded times.vThey have spread by emigration and also have assimilated culturally and linguistically allies groups.vIn time they came to occupy almost the whole of China proper and more recently Manchuria,much of Inner Mongolia,par

20、ts of Sinkiang,most of Taiwan(Formosa),as well as Chinese sectors in Southeast Asia,particularly Malaysia,where Chinese now constitute more that 40per cent of the population,and Singpore,where they are the great majority.vIn the course of this expansion the Chinese language divided into several mutu

21、ally unintelligible languages,as distinct from one another as Spanish from Italian,or Swedish from German.vChinese proper,which has been called Mandarin,is spoken as mother tongue by more people than any other language in the world.vIts various dialects cover all North China and most of Central and

22、Southwest China.vAlong the coast from Shanghai southward to the Vietnam border,the Chinese-type tongues,usually miscalled“the Chinese dialects”,are all quite distinct from Mandrin.vThere are the“Wu”dialect of the Shanghai area;the“Min”dialect of Fukien,subdivided into Fukienese and the“Amoy”dialect;

23、Hakka in several widely scattered area;and finally,Cantonese.vThese various coastal“dialects”are also the languages of Taiwan and the Chinese communities in Southeast Asia.vCantonese is the language of most Chinese communities in the United States.vModern Linguistic Map of East Asian1.2 Chinas Geogr

24、aphical SettingvChina is geographically a less united area than either the traditional zone of Western civilization or India because it lacks the easy communications made possible by the Mediterranean or by the great plains of the other regions.vThe North China Plain is much smaller than that extend

25、s across North India,to say nothing of the still greater North European Plain or the American Middle West.vChina is broken up into a sort of checkerboard by two intersecting sets of parallel mountain chains.vOne major inland chain runs from southwestern China northeastward through Shansi and western

26、 Manchuria.vA parallel coastal range extends from Canton northward to the Yangtze and then reappears in the Shantung Peninsula and again in the mountains along the Koran-Manchurian border.vIntersecting these two southwest-to-northeast ranges,three parallel mountain chains spaced at roughly equal int

27、ervals protrude from west to east toward the Pacific.vThe southernmost chain creates the watershed dividing the West River system of the Canton region from the Yangtze Valley.vIn the extreme north another east-west range divides North China from the Mongolian plateau.vBetween these two the important

28、 Tsinling range,the eastward extension of the Yangtze and the Yellow Rivers and(together with the Huai River)marks the boundary between North and South China.vThis cross-hatching of mountain ranges has created a number of distinct geographical regions.vIt has given rise to problems of economic and p

29、olitical unity and has determined military strategy.1.2.1 River SystemsvThe great rivers of China water the centers of habitation which lie within the mountain ranges.vThe Yellow River is some 2700miles in length.vAfter it enters the North China Plain about 500miles from the sea,it crosses a board f

30、lood plain built up over the ages by its own silt.vThe river bed here slopes only about one foot per mile.vIn the summer flood season the waters from the great treeless mountain ranges to the west bring with them a heavy deposit of yellow silt which gives the river its name.vSince the Yellow River c

31、onstantly builds up its own bed,from earliest times Chinese administrators have had to construct dikes to keep it within its channel.vOrdinarily the waters of“China Sorrow”move across the plain within these dikes between ten and forty feet above the level of the surrounding land.vA single breach in

32、the dikes may spread a few inches or feet of water over hundreds of square miles and cut millions of farmers off from their sustenance.vYears may elapse before flood-ravaged lands can be cultivated again.vMeanwhile famine will have followed upon the flood.vProfile of the Yellow River.vThis diagram i

33、s a cross section with the vertical aspect greatly exaggerated.vIt shows how during flood season the rises between its dikes above the level of the countryside.vThe Yangtze is a larger river than the Yellow.vIt is 3200 miles in length,with a catchment basin twice as large and receiving twice as much

34、 rainfall.vIt is also navigable,as the Yellow River not.vSteamers as large as 10,000 tons can in season ascend 630 miles to Hankow and smaller vessels another 1000 miles.vIn flood season the river rushes through the famous Yangtze gorges above Hankow at fourteen knots,and special steamers are requir

35、ed to make the ascent.vJoined by a great network of tributaries,the Yangtze itself carries an enormous volume of silt into the China Sea,extending the Shanghai delta at the rate of about one mile in seventy years.vBig lakes serve as storage basins for the lower Yangtze.vEven so,the rainy season may

36、raise the water level as much as forty or fifty feet between the dikes.vDisastrous floods are not infrequent.1.2.2 ClimatevChina lies far south of most of Europe.vPeking is south of both Naples and Madrid;Canton is in the same latitude as the Sahara Desert.vChina is further south than the eastern ha

37、lf of the United States,with Peking corresponding to Philadelphia,Shanghai to Mobile,and Canton to Havana,Cuba.vThe greater land mass to which China belongs gives it a more markedly continental climate,with much lower winter and somewhat higher summer temperatures than at corresponding latitude in t

38、he United States.vPeking in July can be as hot as Cairo and in January as cold as Stockholm.vChina is a battleground between cold,dry,continental air and warm,humid,oceanic air,which brings it most of its rainfall.vDuring the summer this sea air reaches further into the continent,sometimes as far as

39、 Mongolia.vMost of the South receives more than sixty inches of rainfall a year.vThis ample water supply can be used not only for irrigating rice fields but also for transportation.vNavigable streams and canals cover most of the central and lower Yangtze basin.vIn marked contrast,the Northwest recei

40、ves less than the twenty inches minimum rainfall necessary for farming unirrigated lands and has little or no water transportation.vOne important climatic boundary is the Tsinling Mountains.vSouth of the Tsinling rainfall for the most part is over forty inches,making possible the irrigated rice econ

41、omy that supports two-thirds of the Chinese people.vNorth of this boundary stretch brown,parched lands used for dry field farming and traversed by cart or wheelbarrow tracks.vAnother climatic boundary is between the farming areas of China proper and the steppe lands to the north that are too lightly

42、 watered to support any sort of agriculture.vThis has been sharply demarcated by the Great Wall,which the Chinese erected to defend themselves from their northern neighbors,pastoral,Altaic-speaking nomads.vGeologists speculate that in the last Ice Age the frozen interior of Asia sent forth tremendou

43、s winds which deposited the fine loess soil that covers about 100,000 square miles of Northwest China.vThe Yellow River has spread some of this soil over the Northwest China Plain as alluvium.Fortunately the loess makes a fertile soil.vIn a region of light rainfall,it has remained unleached;that is,

44、its mineral substances have not been percolated out by the constant passage of water through it.vNorth China,however,despite its fertile loess,balances dangerously on the edge of famine.The growing season is short;precipitation is light and highly variable.vUntil the introduction of irrigation by el

45、ectric pump,the Northern peasant faced a constant threat of drought.vIn the last 1800 years more than 1800 famines have been recorded.vSouth China soils have been leached by the heavier rainfall of that area.vMoreover,only 15 per cent of its uplands are flat enough for cultivation.vBut since most of

46、 the area produces two crops a year,South China has a denser population than the North and higher standards of nutrition.1.3 Chinas Traditional Economy and SocietyvChinas greatest natural resource has always been her Agricultural land.vIt is understandable therefore that climate and terrain have hel

47、ped shape the economic and social institutions of Chinese life.vAlthough the historical records of China,like those of most other countries,generally neglect the life of the common people,we can sketch certain features that have been typical of the life of the Chinese masses.vFirst of all,Chinas vas

48、t population,now roughly four times that of the United States,must get its food supply from a cultivated area about one-half the size of that of the United States.vThe 80 per cent of the populace who live upon the soil and till it have been barely able to produce a food surplus adequate to maintain

49、the other 20 per cent.vThey have not been able to afford the raising of animals for food,aside from the scavengers,pigs and chickens.vAnd because of the lack of animals,peasants have largely depended on human excrement,or“night soil,”for fertilizer.vAt best,Chinese agriculture has always been a prec

50、arious business.vSecondly,Chinas economic life has been labor-intensive,that is,strongly dependent upon human muscle-power.vThe agricultural cycle requires the lavish use of human energy.vIn growing rice,for example,seed is thickly scattered in nursery beds.vMeanwhile winter crops are harvested in t