Cultural Restructuring and Tradition in Modern East Asia

Title

Cultural Restructuring and Tradition in Modern East Asia

Author

QIAN Guohong

Page

21-47

DOI

10.6163/tjeas.2014.11(1)21

Abstract

　　This thesis highlights one side of the diversity of the modernization of the two countries and their multiple structures by grasping the function and the meaning that encompass the cultural restructuring of the new tradition seen in China and Japan, and searches for the possibility of mutual understanding between the two countries in the 21st century and the deepening of Sino-Japanese solidarity.
　　Specifically, I consider and pursue the following questions. What does tradition mean to China? What special relationship is there between Confucianism and modern society? What are the modes of existence of what is called Confucianism, in Chinese society, and what are its modes of contribution to the creation of new culture? I also analyze and explain the reality and significance of Confucianism as it still survives and thrives in the creation of culture in modern China within the rapidly modernizing country.
　　In addition, not only the result of a remarkable societal change and economic development in the east Asian nations but also the interaction of such a tradition and the contemporary society are considered as part of the cultural restructuring. As an actual example, I will ascertain that there is something telling about the relationship between tradition and modernity in modern Japan and China within the concrete examples of Fukuzawa Yukichi's (1835-1901) thought and his relationship with Confucianism, and of the fashion in which Chinese intellectuals who consider the East and the West construct their views on civilization. This is indeed a line of research which leads to the rediscovery of the relationship between the creation of culture and tradition in modern East Asia. Hopefully such an approach will not only be useful for mutual understanding and mutual recognition among East Asians but will also give modest contributions and suggestions to considerations of how East Asia and World Civilization should exist in the 21st century.

Keyword

Confucianism, civilization and culture, diversity and multiple structure, cultural restructuring, the Orient and the West, tradition and modernity

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