Chinese Circles Research Articles

Nigel Wiseman: Modern Texts, Classics, Terminology, and Language-learning Material

Abstract In this article, I trace my career from an early interest in language that eventually led me to engage in Chinese medical translation. Born in the United Kingdom in 1954, I gained a Bachelor of Arts degree in German and Spanish from the University of Heriot-Watt, Edinburgh. Subsequent study of Chinese took me to Taiwan, China, where I gained an interest in Chinese medicine and developed a coherent linguistic approach to Chinese medical term translation, which I and various colleagues have systematically applied in the translation and compilation of numerous works spanning modern texts, classics, dictionaries, and language-learning materials. Our translation approach, though conforming to principles universally recognized by translation theorists, has proven to be highly controversial, with opponents in both Western and Chinese circles.

The intercultural experiences of Chinese international students in the UK

This paper aims to investigate a group of Chinese students’ intercultural encounters studying in two articulation programmes in one British university and analyses the barriers that seem to exist between them, home and other international students. This research is qualitative in nature. Thematic analysis of sixteen Chinese students’ interviews and reflective narratives were adopted. A core finding is that the power of the ‘Chinese circle’ provides this group with a comfortable zone but also presents a barrier to engaging in intercultural communication and developing more intercultural identities. Contributing factors to this pull of the Chinese circle include changing attitudes to English and Chinese language, negative intercultural experiences, and a lack of awareness of intercultural identity. It is suggested that universities should diversify their international recruitment, enhance intercultural education and training provided for all international students before and during their studies abroad.

漢字文化圈的弛緩與聚集 : 建設新漢字文化圈的課題

Before East Asian countries created the writing system, Chinese characters were the tool to establish the ‘Pax Sinica’. Today’s Chinese characters culture is different from that of that time. The Han nationality emigrated overseas around the 20th century, while the political and economic status of the Chinese circle increased, and the requirement of learning Chinese increased accordingly. Thus, although Chinese characters culture expanded to the non-Chinese character cultural circle, but its status has weakened in East Asia. American culture, Buddhist culture, dietary culture are constructed on the basis of the same region, religion and life. On the contrary, Chinese character culture refers to the culture using Chinese characters as writing tools, or the culture derived from Chinese characters. Therefore, if we want to grasp the essence of Chinese character culture circle, we need to study Chinese characters and Chinese character culture in depth, and its research should not only look for traces of the past, but based on them, it should study the main role of the Chinese character culture in the history of human civilization. Recently, the cultural circle of non-Chinese characters has begun to pay attention to Chinese characters, but its main purpose is to learn foreign languages. Generally speaking, Chinese learners in the cultural circle of non-Chinese characters are not as good at reading and listening as those in the cultural circle of non-Chinese characters. This shows that it is not easy to understand the Chinese character culture phenomenon other than learning Chinese characters. The more active the education of Chines e as a foreign language, the duller the traditional Chinese character education will be, which will lead to the relaxation of the Chinese character cultural circle. In addition, as the fortress of the Chinese character cultural circle, the countries in the Chinese circle also have several problems. Because of the development of information and communication technology, more and more people cannot write, and less and less attention is paid to the classics. Learning simplified characters and Pinyin helps to communicate, but this relatively ignores the cultural elements of Chinese characters. For this reason, the scope of Chinese characters is expanding now, but the depth of the Chinese characters is becoming shallow. In order to preserve the beneficial value of Chinese culture, and at the same time to build a new cultural circle of Chinese characters according to the current requirements, this paper puts forward several topics. First, the classical education of Chinese education should be strengthened. Since vocabulary learning alone cannot fully understand the implications of Chinese character culture, a teaching method based on classical literature should be established. Secondly, Chinese education should be carried out with classical literary education. It has nothing to do with modern Chinese education, which focuses mainly on spoken language, but students studying high-quality Chinese require special education in classical Chinese. thirdly, it is necessary to actively research and develop cultural factors and applications in Chinese character education. Fourth, as the Chinese characters and vocabulary differ in usage according to the change in cultural environment, a full study of them is needed. Keywords : Chinese characters, Chinese culture, Chinese characters education, Chinese education 东亚各国创造文字系统之前, 汉字是能成立“中华帝国(Pax Sinica)”的工具｡ 如今的汉字文化与当时不同, 20世纪前后汉族移居海外, 而中华圈的政治与经济地位提高了, 随之学习汉语的要求也增加了｡ 于是, 汉字文化虽扩展到非汉字文化圈, 但在东亚地区里其地位却变弱了｡ 美国文化, 佛教文化, 饮食文化是在同样的地区, 宗教以及生活的基础上建构的｡ 相反, 汉字文化指的是以汉字作为书写工具的文化, 或从汉字衍生出来的文化｡ 故若要掌握汉字文化圈的本质, 则需要深入研究汉字和汉字文化, 并且其研究不仅寻找过去的痕迹, 而且探讨当前千变万化的样子｡ 进而以此为基础, 考察汉字文化圈在人类文明史上的主要作用｡ 最近非汉字文化圈开始关注汉字, 但其目的主要为学外语而已｡ 一般非汉字文化圈的汉语学习者, 写作能力不如阅读与听说能力好, 由此可知除了学习汉字以外理解汉字文化现象也并不容易｡ 对外汉语教育越活跃, 则传统汉字教育越沉闷, 这能引发汉字文化圈的松弛｡ 此外, 作为汉字文化圈的堡垒, 中华圈国家也具有几个问题｡ 因发展信息通讯技术, 而会说不会写的人越来越多, 对古典的关注越来越少｡ 学习简体字和拼音有助于提高沟通能力, 但这相对忽视了汉字的文化因素, 因而可以说如今汉字文化圈的范围变大, 但其深度却在变浅｡ 为了保存汉字文化的有益的价值, 同时为了按当前的要求构建新的汉字文化圈, 本文提出几个课题｡ 第一, 加强汉语教育中的古典教育｡ 词汇学习不能够理解汉字文化的含义, 因而需要采用汇集古典文献资料而成的教学法；第二, 汉语教育与古典(汉文)教育并行｡ 与以口语为主的现代汉语教育无关, 需要专门教育古典文言文, 此有助于学习高级汉语的学生解决问题；第三, 在汉字教育方面研究开发文化因素与应用｡ 积极开发汉字蕴含的文化因素, 并应用于实际教育中；第四, 随着文化环境的改变, 汉字与词汇具有不同的使用法, 因而需要对其研究｡ 无论作为汉字的发源地的中国, 还是韩国, 越南和日本等汉字文化圈各个国家, 其汉字与词汇都蕴含着各国的生活内容和精神思维｡ 目前针对汉字的基本因素形, 音, 义的研究已有相当的成果, 故此后对其蕴含的文化意义需要进行更深入的研究｡ 關鍵字 : 汉字, 文化, 汉字文化, 汉字教育, 汉语教育

How to Motivate Employees’ Environmental Citizenship Behavior through Perceived Interpersonal Circle Power? A New Perspective from Chinese Circle Culture

Employees’ spontaneous environmental citizenship behavior (ECB) is a key factor in facilitating the low-carbon transition of enterprises. However, little research has focused on the impact of interpersonal interactions on ECB. To explore how ECB is affected by special interpersonal circles in Chinese organizations, we propose a new concept: perceived interpersonal circle power (PICP). From the two dimensions of PICP, leader-oriented perceived interpersonal circle power (PICP-L) and colleague-oriented perceived interpersonal circle power (PICP-C), we establish a mechanism model to explore the effect of PICP on ECB. A structural equation model was used to test our hypotheses through 332 questionnaires, and the results show that PICP-L and PICP-C differ significantly in the directions and strengths of their effects on ECB. PICP-C has a direct positive driving effect on environmental engagement behavior (EEB) and environmental helping behavior (EHB). High PICP-C can also encourage EEB via affective organizational commitment (AOC). Conversely, PICP-L has no significant effect on EEB. More unexpectedly, PICP-L has a significant negative influence on EHB. This study provides a new direction for future theoretical research on ECB, as well as a new opportunity for policy-making and enterprise management practices to promote employees’ ECB.

The effectiveness of Confucius Institutes as a tool of China’s soft power in South Africa

The link between teaching Chinese as a foreign language and the role of China on the international stage has grown in importance since 2004 when the Confucius Institutes programme was launched. Despite the confusion that surrounds the categorisation of the relationship, Chinese circles increasingly consider the language institutes as a tool of soft power in “support of the rise of China”. The paper analyses the meaning of “cultural” soft power and attempts to measure its effectiveness in support of China’s foreign policy aims through the study of Confucius Institutes in South Africa. Based on fieldwork data, the paper unpacks the reality on the ground through a study of the process of attraction at the executive level as well as at the students’ level. It concludes that Confucius Institutes, despite attempts by a number of Chinese actors to promote their presence and activities in South Africa, can only be partially effective tools of soft power. Focusing on the modalities, as opposed to the breadth, of the engagement provides a more accurate prediction of long-term outcomes. While the initiative’s aim of exposing people to China, albeit briefly, is efficiently fulfilled, the project’s ultimate aim to support China’s rise is more dependent on the content of the interaction experience than is currently accounted for.

The Risks of Ignoring Strategic Insolvency

A moment has arrived when a great power with global responsibilities is having a crisis of confidence. Its economy has grown sluggish and it is being overtaken by a number of rising competitors. Financial pressures loom, notably the ability to keep a balance between government revenues and expenses. It is losing long-standing superioritiespsychological as well as technological and numericalin key categories of military power; this great power, whose diplomats and military leaders manage active or potential conflicts from Afghanistan to Europe with treaty alliances as far flung as Japan and Australia, confronts the need for constraints on its global ambitions and posture. This urgent reckoning has been prompted in part by a painful and largely unnecessary counterinsurgency war far from home that cost many times more than initially thought and exhausted the country's overstretched land forces.

‘Barren Soil, Fertile Minds’: North China Famine and Visions of the ‘Callous Chinese’ Circa 1920

Famine threatened the lives of over twenty million residents of north China in 1920, prompting a massive, and ultimately successful, relief effort. Scholarship on the famine has largely credited China's foreign and coastal, cosmopolitan Chinese circles with this humanitarian feat at the expense of what was in fact a surprisingly effective Chinese state apparatus that year, as well as local relief operations by many famine-stricken communities themselves. This study captures a very specific moment of US and European cultural production on ‘China’ and ‘the Chinese’ in which the great north China famine of 1920–1 occurred, to argue that our current understanding of Chinese relief culture circa 1920 remains largely a product of foreign characterization (by the celebrated likes of Somerset Maugham and Bertrand Russell) and political commentary by reformist Chinese during a period of post-May Fourth cultural turmoil. If we hold the output of these writers up to alternative original sources on events that year, it becomes clear that the historiography on China's greatest humanitarian crisis of the first quarter of the twentieth century remains insufficiently insulated from the raw discursive climate in which the crisis unfolded.

Analyzing air cargo flows of international routes: an empirical study of Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport

Air cargo demand is an important aspect of the operation and planning of private and public agencies responsible for airports. While most existing studies in this field include only geo-economic characteristics of airports and their hinterlands as explanatory variables, this study develops a gravity model of air cargo flows by trying to incorporate more factors that might influence international air cargo flows of an airport. The model is developed based on the panel data of air cargo services on scheduled routes at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport during the years 2004–2007. The results indicate that population, air freight rate and three dummy variables, including the regional economic bloc of the “Chinese Circle”(an informal partnership between Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and mainland China), the Open Sky Agreements and long established colonial links, are key determinants of international air cargo flows from/to Taiwan. These results suggest a wider array of factors needs to be considered in policy.

Market-Driven Trading Blocs in East Asia: Empirical Evidence from 1980 to 2000

In this paper we apply the gravity model to provide empirical evidence of market-driven trading blocs in East Asia for the period from 1980 to 2000. Special attention is paid on the role of mainland China’s openness in shaping East Asia’s trade pattern. Several trading blocs are empirically supported from the regression. (1) Firstly, there is significant evidence of a trading bloc within a Chinese circle, including Taiwan, Hong Kong, and mainland China. Although trade flows between Taiwan and mainland China were severely suppressed before 1987, the Chinese circle as a whole is highly integrated in terms of trade, indicating the important role Hong Kong plays as a trading agent in the Chinese circle. (2) The East Asian bloc appeared in the late 1980s and became more and more significant in the early 1990s. Although the bloc phenomenon in East Asia weakened right after the Asian crisis, it re-fostered again a few years later.

The Role of Power Struggle and Economic Changes in the ‘Heshang phenomnon’ in China

One of the most talked-about topics among Chinese intellectuals and Western China observers in the past few years has been the six-part television seriesHeshang(River Elegy). After its first broadcast in June 1988 through the national television network Zhongyang dianshitai (China Central Television, or CCTV in short), the film caused immediate shockwaves throughout China, marking the climax of the so-called ‘wenhua re’ (cultural fever). It was re-played through the CCTV in August, and some local stations aired it even more than twice. twice. Videotapes of the series have been circulating widely among overseas Chinese circles. Total number of viewers was reported to be over 400 million [Lee 1989]. The script appeared in various editions, and much attention has been paid to the ideological dimension of the film.

The Chinese Protests of 1989: The Issue of Corruption

The correlation between rapid socioeconomic change and increased corruption in a modernizing society has been examined by Samuel Huntington and James Scott, 1 and the disruptive and delegitimizing potential of corruption has also been noted by scholars. But corruption has yet to be studied as a key factor destructive of the Chinese political order in general and catalytic to the protests of 1989 in particular. To ignore this issue is to fail to grasp a crucial motivating and mobilizing force of the 1989 movement as a popular rebellion. The frequent neglect of the corruption issue, I suggest, is due partly to an uncritical acceptance of some Chinese reformers' view that corruption bashing is reform bashing, and partly to a related insensitivity to the complaints prevalent among various Chinese circles during the past few years. Thus, for all the attention given to the events of 1989, we have yet to account for the unprecedented size and spontaneity of the involvement in Beijing and the support outside. Changing political outlooks of intellectuals and students cannot account for the support from those who were politically conservative. Particularistic concerns of workers are insufficient to explain the rare alliance between workers and students. Cumulative effects of the weakening of political control provide few clues to explain why many members of the remaining control systems were supportive of the protests. Lastly, the fractionating of party unity during the crisis explains the sustained length of the demonstrations, but not their scope. The

International Payments of Postwar China

AT the close of the Pacific War, it appeared that China might be able to stabilize her economy and her balance of payments. Though the Communists were in revolt, it did not appear that dealing with them would be an exhausting experience. During the war, China had built up a foreign exchange balance of US$9oo million, and her credit was fairly good. She had every expectation of receiving financial support from the United States in reconstruction. The UNRRA program, of which China was to be a major beneficiary, had begun. Lend-lease was continuing into the postwar period. The relatively undestructive reoccupation of coastal China and Manchuria encouraged some optimism in Chinese circles over the benefits to be obtained from seizure of Japanese assets in China and from reparations. It was expected that the recovery of Manchuria and Formosa would strengthen the national economy. The inflation, though serious, appeared manageable since it was not believed that liquidation of the Communists would be a particularly expensive undertaking. This optimism did not last long. Upon the resumption of foreign trade, it became clear that basic disequilibria were forcing the Chinese deficit in the balance of payments' to become ever greater. The military situation in China seemed to improve for a while, but after the failure of the Marshall mission it deteriorated and the war effort absorbed up to 70 per cent of the national' budget. Deterioration of the taxation system and other sources of revenue forced the government to finance its expenditures by printing money. Hyper-inflation resulted.