The life style of Chinese scholars in the years of political turbulence ― Examinations of Li Sichun’s Jinling Diary, Wu Mi’s Diary and Hu Shi’s Diary

Abstract

After the abolishment of China’s Imperial Examination System and the founding of the Republic of China, the exterior mode of the Chinese scholars’ life, such as their academic research and ways of making a living, changed dramatically, but their real life style, including their habits, hobbies and tastes, did not show fundamental change. From the unpublished diary of an important but non-famous scholar Li Sichun of Sichuan University, with a close reference of Wu Mi’s and Hu Shi’s diary at approximately the same time, one can see that Chinese scholars kept their traditional literate life style and tastes until the 1940s. Therefore, we can make a conclusion that the social transition did not affect many scholars’ real life as profound as many present studies have claimed.