In recent ten years, with the deepening of reform and opening up, a wave of "western style" has begun to sweep across the country. Not only are there many transliteration words in Chinese, such as "modern" and "coke". Crossing western festivals has also become a fashion trend pursued by people all over the world. Take Christmas as an example. Shops decorate their shops with colorful colors, and various promotional activities follow. As for the university, I began to prepare all kinds of wonderful activities. Couples have taken to the streets, and students are in high spirits. All these phenomena reflect the strong infiltration of western culture. So when did western culture begin to permeate into China? What is its charm? Why are China people so keen on western festivals? Let's analyze it below.
In fact, the influence of western culture on China culture began in the Han Dynasty. At that time, the Roman Empire began to communicate with the Eastern Han Dynasty in China, and this way of communication was through the world-famous Silk Road. After the Tang Dynasty, cultural exchanges between China and the West became more frequent, and the most important symbol was the introduction of * * * *. At that time, * * was called "Nestorianism" in China, and its followers once grew to hundreds of thousands, which was the first large-scale infiltration of western culture into China culture. However, in the late Tang Dynasty, warlords scuffled, and the development of China declined gradually. The second infiltration was in the Yuan Dynasty. At that time, due to the influence of the Mongolian Empire, a large number of western missionaries flooded into China, the most famous of which was Kyle Polo. His "Oriental Notes" caused great repercussions in the west, and China became the Eden that the west dreamed of. The third infiltration was in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, during the western bourgeois revolution. Western missionaries entered China to preach and began to spread some advanced western technologies and ideas to China, such as Matteo Ricci and Tang Ruowang. Unfortunately, at that time, the rulers of China did not pay attention to the messages conveyed by these people, and China continued to sleep in the dream of going to China. By the time of the fourth infiltration, after the Opium War, China began to be invaded by western powers, and China became a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. At the beginning of the fourth infiltration, foreigners still instilled western religious philosophy and economic and political thoughts into China people through missionary work, but later, groups of patriotic youths became the main force to spread western democratic and scientific thoughts. The fifth large-scale infiltration was after the reform and opening up. The influx of western culture into China has profoundly changed the lifestyle of China people: China people began to drink coke, China people began to pay attention to Hollywood, China people fell in love with NBA, China people fell in love with foreign festivals, and China people's level should be measured by English. It can be seen that the influence of the fifth infiltration greatly exceeds that of the previous four, because it has completely conquered this nation.
[Transferred from Iron Blood Community/]
So what is the charm of western culture? Why did you conquer China, a country with a history of 5,000 years of civilization, so quickly? I think there are two reasons, one is our own reason, and the other is the external culture. Why do you say your own reasons are the first? We still have to look at it from a historical perspective. After the Opium War, China people began to be divided into three groups, one is conservative, the other is radical and the other is centrist. Conservatives stand for the same and continue to take the old road; Radicals advocate total westernization, believing that China traditional culture is the root of China's backwardness; The Chinese faction believes that simply introducing advanced western technology can strengthen the country and resist aggression. At first, the centrist came to power and began to carry out the so-called "Westernization Movement", but with the failure of the Sino-Japanese War, it proved that the centrist was not enough to change the status quo in China. So the radicals came to power and launched the so-called Revolution of 1911 and the New Culture Movement, and the traditional culture of China was gradually cast aside. After the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), the class struggle began for decades, especially during the Cultural Revolution, which caused serious damage to traditional culture. Due to the long-term contempt for traditional culture and traditional festivals, China people generally have cultural spiritual vacancy and cultural satisfaction emptiness. After the reform and opening up, the diversity and richness of western culture made up for the long-suppressed cultural needs of China people, so it was generally accepted by China people, especially young people, and expanded rapidly. From the reasons of western culture itself, western culture is a very particular culture, especially after the Renaissance, which injected rich and colorful elegant elements into the dim culture of the Middle Ages, so a large number of talented writers and artists such as Shakespeare and Leonardo da Vinci were born. The religious atmosphere of western culture is strong, so it puts a sacred and mysterious coat on western culture. All these reasons give China people who are seriously lacking in cultural sustenance a strong sense of freshness. It is precisely because of the above reasons that foreign cultures are popular in China at present.
So how should we face this growing "ocean current"? Some people think that foreign cultures should be completely resisted. Last year, doctors from more than a dozen famous universities boycotted Christmas, which was a concrete manifestation of a comprehensive boycott. Some countries attach great importance to their own culture and have strong resistance to foreign culture. For example, in France, the French have a headache about the infiltration of English, and often create some French words to replace English words. However, most people still hold an understanding and tolerant attitude towards the influx of foreign cultures. China's culture is a culture produced by continuous integration, so the inclusiveness of culture is a major feature of China's culture. For example, there is a very interesting phenomenon abroad, that is, there are few countries where several religions are popular without conflict. China, on the other hand, has Buddhism, Taoism and Taoism, and the sects are not single. Take Buddhism as an example. There are both Zen Buddhism and Tantric Buddhism, but there is no sectarian conflict in China. In addition, China people's beliefs are also very tolerant, that is, they believe in both bodhisattvas and immortals. An obvious evidence of mixed belief is the exchange of Taoist immortal system and Buddhist immortal system in The Journey to the West. This is extremely rare in foreign literary works. Therefore, tolerance is the biggest feature of China culture. Therefore, I think that in the face of the rolling ocean currents, we should be tolerant, but we should not forget our unique traditional culture. The Japanese have done a very good job in preserving traditional culture and treating western culture, so we should learn from Japan how to protect our traditional culture. In recent years, South Korea has used China's neglect of traditional culture to declare the Dragon Boat Festival, a traditional festival in China, as a cultural heritage of South Korea, which is a great shame for the people of China. Therefore, when we accept foreign cultures, we can't give up everything and keep our splendid culture for 5,000 years in our own hands. Revitalizing national culture is our greatest responsibility now.
Western literature in the 20th century compressed the past culture and literature, and opened up the future culture and literature, which to a great extent made a reference for China's modern literature and cultural model. The influence of western literature on China culture and literature in the 20th century mainly occurred in two aspects: on the one hand, it impacted and transformed China's human nature and social and cultural structure; On the other hand, it transformed China's classical aesthetic concept. Extending to the late 20th century, the cultural confusion and thinking of western literature gave China literature and culture a holistic and reflective enlightenment. The single historical tendency of literature and the single cultural quality of literature are destroyed in the modern cultural context, which will make people accept the influence of foreign literature from the overall perspective of culture and think about the cultural image provided by the history of China in the 20th century.
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First, the overlap from literature to history.
Thinking about the relationship between China's cultural modernity and foreign literature has triggered a series of problems in the process of China's literary culture and China's social modernization. Modernity itself is relative to tradition, but it means many paradoxes. There are internal and external causes, both realistic and historical, both modern and classical. The modernity of China literature combines China traditional culture and western culture. The translation, introduction, research and criticism of foreign literature itself is a kind of cultural rewriting, which is imitated and rewritten by China's literary works after being specialized, professionalized and filtered by different humanistic spirits. The modernity theme of western literature may be completely rewritten in China literature. This rewriting of modernity produces the modernity of China literature itself, such as the China pursuit and classic description of Li Jinfa's symbolic poems and avant-garde historical novels. As cultural factors, foreign literature directly related to China's literature, society, culture and history, as well as foreign literary works that have been imitated and rewritten, have had an impact on China's culture and history, and they are themselves a manifestation of this cultural history.
For the world and China, modernity is a condensed human image and a long historical process, because modernity is not completely divorced from history and tradition, but suddenly produced alone, and it broke out in a specific time and space by squeezing the pursuit of human beings for thousands of years. Modernity has become an important issue in the social development of China in the 20th century. China society in the classical era was not as modern as that in the western countries hundreds of years ago, and China's modernity was inspired by the image of western modernity. The modernity of western literature actually helped and promoted the modernization of China literature to a great extent, which made China literature avoid unnecessary mistakes, shortened time travel and greatly enriched the expansive variation of China literature in space. The compression of previous literature and the development of future literature by western literature in the 20th century, to a great extent, made a modern reference for China's literary and cultural model, so that China literature can gain useful experience without spending too much money. The situation of cultural exchange and dialogue in the 20th century gave China literature the possibility and opportunity to gain foreign literature and cultural experience, which in turn turned into a historical motive force, which in turn played the essential role of human beings in history, thus promoting the process of China's modernization and China's historical leap.
We can find the constant appearance of western literature in the great historical transformation, artistic transformation, human nature variation and cultural pursuit of the whole history of China in the 20th century, especially in the late 20th century. The influence of western literature on China literature in the 20th century mainly occurred in two aspects: on the one hand, it impacted and transformed China's human nature and social and cultural structure; On the other hand, it transformed China's classical aesthetic concept. On the one hand, it conforms to the nature of China's classical literature, and it is very important to convey the information of western civilization in this change. On the other hand, it is inconsistent with the nature of China's classical literature, showing a poetic concept of pure artistic aesthetics divorced from social history, rather than China's classical poetic concept of ethical politicization.
China literature, directly influenced by foreign literature, originated in the 20th century, closely combined with China's historical process, China's social changes, China's cultural thought and China's national soul, and gave birth to China's historical utilitarian literary tradition in the 20th century. Western literature first appeared in China after the opium war. At the beginning of the 20th century, critical realism was first and most introduced to China. Deng Shichang and the officers and men, with the armored ships of Beiyang Navy crashing down in the rough waves of the Yellow Sea, people expected the roar of hard armored ships and heavy artillery to defend the country, but at that time all this was gone, so the voice of saving the country by culture appeared. China classical literati realized that the failure of the Sino-Japanese War was not only a political and military failure, but also a cultural failure, so they took the initiative to break the cultural isolation and narcissism and tried to reform, which led to the modern revolution of novels and poems. The failure of the Reform Movement of 1898 made China cultural people further realize that to save the country, we must first save people's soul and quality with culture. Lu Xun's cry of "save the children" produced China's first vernacular novel imitating the voice of western humanity. Guo Moruo's fire of self-immolation destroyed the old world and the old soul, and created the most influential poetic style in China. Here we can see the direct influence of foreign literature. The mainstream development of China literature is always accompanied by the changes of modern society in China. Under the background of war and revolution, foreign literary works that China needs most and have the most direct realistic relationship with China society can be selected at any time. In China literature in the late 1970s and early 1980s, in view of the destruction of human nature during the Cultural Revolution, human nature and humanitarianism under the influence of western literature were strongly highlighted, and at the same time, a large number of foreign works emphasizing humanitarianism were reintroduced or emphasized.
This shows that from Lu Xun's works in the early 20th century to the 1970s and 1980s, China's humanistic spirit was integrated with the western humanistic spirit. The arousal and main expression of this humanistic spirit is accomplished by literature as the main body, or transferred to China's literary works, or directly expressed by western literary works. The change and process of human nature in this kind of literature shows the great influence of western literature on the social and historical development of China, which has become one of the hidden driving forces for the historical development of China.
On the other hand, foreign literary thoughts and works that pursue pure artistic aesthetic standpoint have influenced the modernity of China's history. It can be said that without the influence of western philosophy of art and a large number of people who accepted, thought, followed, implemented and changed this aesthetic standpoint throughout the 20th century, China's real journey of literary and cultural modernization would not have happened, nor would it have changed the survival concept and artistic appreciation interest of a large number of China people at the same time.
Second, the call of purely aesthetic figures.
The influence of the modernity of western literature on China culture is not the absolute confrontation and rejection of China's existing literature, culture and social traditions, but the communication and dialogue between China reality and western literature, and between China literature and western literature, thus integrating and influencing the modernization process of China culture and literature, liberating China literature from its own modernity and transforming the tendency of literary aesthetic independence and artistic autonomy from a single cultural aesthetic consciousness expressing its wishes.
From the very beginning, China literature has established a cultural aesthetic consciousness bearing the tradition. There is no western tradition of pursuing artistic independence and seeking aesthetic realm with pure artistic content. All the important works of China's classical literature, except the works of a few writers such as Qu Yuan and Li Bai, almost all establish their aesthetic realm with their cultural connotations. China's aesthetic standpoint of classical culture forced the mainstream tradition of China literature to change only in a limited artistic space. Classical writers in China, first of all, classical intellectuals, should have the mission feelings of caring for the country and the people, rather than the aesthetic feelings of independent art. The unique quality of China classical literati's cultural and artistic integration lies in the issue of secular power, that is, to serve the country and save the country is to make an appearance and enjoy the eternal love. This is inconsistent with western tradition. Western artists, from ancient Greece to Renaissance to modern times, have always been relatively independent, and he can become an independent and free artistic creator without involving the power system. The aesthetic tradition of China's classical literature and the quality of literati limit the possibility of re-creation of China's literature. Therefore, poetry has always been the main style of China literature, which is convenient for literati to express their feelings and wishes in time. Because of the close relationship between literati and power system, the fate of classical literati fluctuates at any time due to the rise and fall of their official positions, and poetry is also convenient to express this kind of life feeling and the change of life state. China's classical literature has always been dominated by poetry, and "the sky remains unchanged, the Tao remains unchanged". The essence of literature is unchanged, but it has different manifestations in the transformation of poetry variants: songs of the Book of Songs, poems of Han and Wei Dynasties, poems of Tang and Song Dynasties, and zaju of zaju. After pushing a form to absolute maturity, each poetic style blocks its own way of continuous development, making it impossible for future generations to surpass this poetic style and have to seek it. Especially the appearance of novels, which happened after the Ming and Qing Dynasties, can't enter the room as mainstream literature. Literati and scholars regard authentic literary works as poems. Strictly speaking, the modern poetic style initiated by Guo Moruo continues this tradition. The form of classical poetry has changed into the form of vernacular poetry, which is the biggest change, but his poetic consciousness based on culture still has the classical nature.
The change or invariability of literary form marks the change of a literary aesthetic concept. Western literature, on the one hand, mainstream literature has no absolute uniqueness in the adoption of literary style, and it has constantly changed into various forms in the process of its literary development, such as ancient Greek dramas and myths, epics, knight lyrics, citizen novels and so on. On the other hand, any literary form is not absolutely mature, so it is always enriching and changing, forming a situation in which modernism and postmodernism coexist and even revel.
It is the influence of western aesthetic concepts that has led to the fundamental changes in China's modern and contemporary literature. For literature, if the relationship between human culture and history, literature and history is similar, then the most important differences and characteristics are reflected in the aesthetic tradition and form of literature. Therefore, if western literature, like other western cultural achievements, has influenced the historical process of China, then the most important thing is not the ideological information carried by western literature, but the change of China's literary form and aesthetic concept. Of course, the form and content of literature are integrated, and it is precisely because of this that the influence of western literary works on China's literary works and China's aesthetic needs has really affected China's ideological and cultural process, and then influenced China's historical and social process. This is the characteristic of literature as art, which may make people enjoy art and accept aesthetics first, and then further enhance their spirit and fly over their souls. Whether the form or content of a work of art influenced people first may be a problem that art psychology can never tell. But in any case, the formal characteristics and aesthetic expression of literary works are the root of their influence on people, and also the reason why they enjoy special cultural existence in human history. Therefore, in fact, in the historical process of China in the 20th century, western literary works had a great social and historical impact, which not only directly affected people's actual life behavior, but also changed the aesthetic and artistic concepts of China literature and China people, and once again transferred to the potential resources for the historical development of modern China.
In the 1920s, influenced by French symbolism, impressionist painting and Renaissance romanticism, Li Jinfa wrote poems with strong symbolism in China. These poems were contrary to the poetic atmosphere of China at that time. They pursue the aesthetic expression and ideal realm of life and the exquisite and pure lyric expression in artistic form. Later modern poets Xu Zhimo, Dai Wangshu and later "Nine-leaf Poets" also had this tendency. This tendency to pursue the pure aesthetic unity of art and life broke out in China's avant-garde novels in the late 20th century. Inspired and encouraged by contemporary western writers who pay attention to form and aesthetics, avant-garde novelists pursue a formalistic novel, trying to make soul promotion, ideal pursuit and life reality simultaneously realize romance and aesthetics in the novel.
From the impact of Li Jinfa's symbolic poems on China's aesthetic principles to the wanton realization of western aesthetic principles in avant-garde novels, it indicates that the aesthetic concept of western literature and the concept of China people's existence have changed at the same time. The aesthetic concept is fundamentally integrated with the concept of life, and literary works are the artistic realization of life and the aesthetic promotion of the soul. When the literary works with obvious influence of western literature are adapted into movies, the aesthetic concept has been transformed into the concept of life and verified in the mass media. Among the large number of China people, only a few can really accept these films from the aesthetic and life concepts, but the obvious western life consciousness and social consciousness revealed in these films, such as the Freudian expression in Ju Dou, have a universal and possible coincidence with the western concept of existence and civilized attitude.
Thirdly, the narrative of cultural and literary images.
In the late 20th century, the confusion of western culture and thinking about literature gave China literature and culture a holistic and reflective enlightenment. The single historical tendency and single cultural quality of literature are destroyed in the modern cultural context, which will involve the relationship between the basic historical tendency of literature and the basic quality of literary expression and culture.
Due to the explosive advancement, extension and expansion of humanities in various fields in the 20th century, historical civilization has unpredictable depth and marginal connection, and the whole human culture has formed a huge system. Any subsystem or individual part of this system is different from other parts and subsystems, and at the same time they are interrelated and influenced each other. In this cultural context, literature has gained unprecedented cultural expansion and formed various interpretations and trends of cultural literature. Western literature produced under this background has rich cultural connotation and extensibility. Due to the formation of cultural literature, the western literature in the19th century and the first half of the 20th century turned from one-way to multi-direction, but they all focused on the cultural questioning of human life, survival and situation, rather than the simple history or ideological history. This cultural thinking and interpretation of literature will inevitably affect China literature and culture.
If we look at China's literature, culture and society in isolation, we will naturally find that it is in a self-system and a huge cultural structure. China culture, foreign literature in the historical process and China literature in the 20th century are all in the historical process and cultural structure of the whole mankind. The modernity of China literature is of course the modernity of China history and the modernity of human culture.
The cultural nature of literature can reflect the whole cultural image from the inside of literature, and can also examine the significance of literature from the relationship between literature and other cultural styles and artistic styles. Advocating pluralistic, interactive and holistic literature from the cultural level has a macro-historical effect on China society and culture which is about to enter the 2 1 century. It will make people accept foreign literature and its influence on China literature from the perspective of culture as a whole, think about the cultural image provided by the history of China in the 20th century, think about and discover the requirements and possibilities of China society and culture in the 2nd/kloc-0th century, and think about and develop the historical process of human culture as a whole.
From the perspective of cultural literature, the literature of an era lies in the culture, and the culture of an era is a divided whole, and different parts will talk, cross and penetrate each other, but the literature of an era pays more attention to the connection between literature and other cultural tribes. The whole foreign literature, especially the whole European and American literature, had an impact on the dating landscape of China culture in the 20th century, and penetrated into China culture in the 20th century, not just China literature in the 20th century. Every ordinary China person may not realize that China's secular culture, elite cultural consciousness and life concept are greatly influenced by western literary works, and the cultural spirit brought by western literary works has penetrated and passed down to China people's life consciousness and cultural concept bit by bit. For example, the enlightenment spirit expressed by Lu Xun in his novels and the promotion of humanistic spirit in some literary works in the late last century, Zhang Ziping's writing on the conflict between love and civilization in the 1920s, and Lin Bai's writing on the transformation of personal love into life feelings all happened in western literary works at the earliest, and China people gradually adapted to this concept of life and its literary writing.
Foreign literature has exerted external influence on China's literature, culture and society, from the initial direct influence on reality to the later internal influence on the form and structure of literary works; From individual literature evaluation to batch translation of complete sets of texts; From the study of sporadic works, to the study of literary schools and ideological trends, and then to the introduction and introduction of different modern western cultural ideological trends, it finally formed a huge shadow and strategic impact on China literature and culture in the late 20th century, and turned the relationship between China literature and foreign literature into a cultural overall control and multi-interaction. Cultural literature triggered by western literature puts literature in the grand cultural structure as a whole to observe and stimulate the cultural function of literature, but its basic point still lies in the uniqueness of literature itself. If we ignore the characteristics of literature itself, we can't really stimulate the cultural function of literature.
The cultural function of literature comes from various cultural methods produced in the study of western modern literature, and also from the pursuit of cultural significance in western modern literary works. The so-called cultural literature mainly includes two aspects: one is the cultural interpretation of literary meaning and the cultural nature of literary theme itself. The cultural significance of literature is essentially the cultural expansion and extension of the theme of classical literature. The interpretation of literary meaning is the enrichment, expansion and variation of European classical interpretation methods, especially the paradoxical and marginal significance of literary works produced by various cultural methods, which formed the peculiar landscape of foreign literature in the late 20th century. In China, the traditional interpretation methods and concepts of China should be applied. Second, the stimulation of various cultural ways has produced new literary ways, new artistic features and new expression space. These new literary samples are usually anti-traditional. For human beings, their main significance may lie not in the richness of classical literature, but in the richness of enlightenment literature, such as Allen Rob-Geyer's painting technique, Borges' maze technique, Thomas Pynchon's fragment technique, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s sci-fi technique, etc., and electronic technology is very important to human beings.