by Dr. Xurong Kong
My latest project is on musical instruments. Several popular Chinese musical instruments were from Central Asia such as pipa, harp, flute. I am curious to find answers to the following questions: how did the Chinese elite accept them? how did they transform them? what did this transformation impact on Chinese writing, history, and culture? If the Trump Administration did not suspend Fulbright Scholarship to China, I would work at Beijing University next spring to collect data and consult scholars in the fields of archeology, Dunhuang studies, philology, music, and literature. Unfortunately, the program is suspended till further notice, but this suspension won't stop my research project.
The Fulbright project aims aims to explore the first wave of globalization brought by the Silk Roads through the lens of Chinese literary writings during the third century. This project focuses on the period between 196 and 317 C.E., beginning with General Cao Cao’s capture of the Emperor Xian of Han and ending with the movement of Eastern Jin’s capital to Jiankang (modern Nanjing). This period witnessed the decline of the powerful Han Empire and the rise of the Sima clan as it gradually gained power in Cao-Wei’s time and eventually unified China into the newly formed Jin Dynasty. Afterward, the locus of Chinese culture was forced to move southward by “barbarian” incursions in the north and west.
The third-century also witnessed the end of the first globalization brought by the Silk Roads. Zhang Qian’s trips to the Western Regions laid the foundation for establishing the Silk Roads. Afterward, new ideas, unique commodities, and various people passed along these trade routes. That once busy traffic seemingly ended during the third century when a plague contributed to the fall of the Han and the Roman Empires, and it surged again during the Tang Dynasty. Because of these interruptions, the early influence of the Silk Roads upon China, particularly during the third century, is often ignored by historians and literary critics.
Surviving literary works from that period, however, includes an impressive number of yongwu fu or rhapsody on objects, describing exotic plants, animals, and crafts. These descriptive poems record the cultural exchanges with distant peoples whose goods, ideas, and technologies entered China via the Silk Roads.
The Silk Roads have received ample attention, but few scholars connect this first globalization to literary writing. Similarly, a growing interest in the study of early medieval Chinese literature seldom mentions the influence of the Silk Roads. Only a few books combine classical Chinese literature and cross-cultural studies. For example, Tamara Chin’s Savage Exchange: Han Imperialism, Chinese Literary Style, and the Economic Imagination (Harvard, 2014); Tian Xiaofei’s Visionary Journeys: Travel Writings from Early
Medieval and Nineteenth-century China (Harvard, 2012). One ends in the early years of the third century and the other begins in the fourth century; thus, together they overlook the third century.
My book project will directly and specifically deal with third-century Chinese writing and exchanges along the Silk Roads. Outstanding features of this project include:
· Uses literary writing to explore the influence of global exchanges
· Brings attention to the importance and features of a forgotten and misunderstood genre
· Analyzes nearly 30 previously untranslated poems on exotic music instruments
· Provides a more complete picture of the civilization of early medieval Chinese civilization
This book project also attempts to resolve the following puzzles: Why did Chinese elites embrace exotic goods but deny their foreign roots? Why did rhapsody on objects become prosperous during the third century and then decline during the fourth century? What was the impact of this early period of Chinese society and writing? The answers to these questions will reveal a more comprehensive picture of the third century’s cultural and literary developments.
In contrast to modern scholars who regard rhapsody on objects as meaningless and unattractive writings intended merely for writing practice, my argument is that they were used to express the profound interest and excitement of learned men for foreign objects. Therefore, these forgotten writings bear witness to the cultural exchanges between China and other civilizations.
With access to cultural exchanges and the ability to embrace new goods, the rhapsodists of the third century defined and refined the terms of the exotics, and enriched the scope of Chinese literature. Their writings proudly acknowledged foreign goods while transforming them into hybrid Chinese objects in the popular imagination. As important political figures, they surely did not miss the great opportunity to eulogize and legitimize the power of their rulers by describing various exotic goods with verisimilitude. Their writings therefore naturally but profoundly reveal a culturally diverse but politically and locally Sino-centric society.
This dualism vividly annotates Confucian Chinese Order, the sovereign-vassal relationship, as the diversity represented by tributary goods from foreign kingdoms landing at the Chinese court was meant to confirm the place of the Chinese ruler within this Sino-centric world order. This dualism explains the connection between the rise and fall of rhapsody on objects and political unity: rhapsody on objects reached its zenith during the third century when the Wei and Eastern Jin needed literary support for Wei’s political ambition to unify China and for Jin’s unified central power; the genre declined during the fourth century when China was disunified and when imperial power was decentralized. This dualism continued and had an impact on how China projected itself and communicated with others in the global setting. The style in which ancient Chinese intellectuals described their encounters with foreign cultures made it possible for Chinese elites to collectively and deliberately sanitize foreign elements from the goods and ideas imported into China.
The study of rhapsody on objects automatically locates China in a global setting, and provides a multi-perspective image of China and its relationship with the world.
As a scholar of classical Chinese poetry, I have published peer-reviewed articles in Journal of American Oriental Societies, Early Medieval China, and other leading journals; have translated two historical books for China Book company: Selections from Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government 資治通鑑選譯and Selections from the History of the Later Han 後漢書選譯. I am also an educator, which encourages me to keep thinking about how to connect what happened in the past with what is happening in our own time.
~Dr. Xurong Kong