The "Westernization Movement" in the 1860s adopted the strategy of "Chinese culture and Western use", which not only placed "foreign guns and foreign artillery" at the commanding heights of culture, but also broke the "Huazunyi" "humble" concept. In the late Qing Dynasty, literati, intellectuals, and ordinary people gradually got rid of the arrogance of the "Chinese-Barbarian distinction", and the title "Yiren" was gradually replaced by "foreigner". Perhaps the original word "foreign" contained contempt and disdain, but the first and second Opium Wars gradually elevated the status of the word "foreign" to the point where it surpassed "hua". "Foreign" increasingly represents advancement, civilization, and trends. To a certain extent, "foreign" has achieved cultural conquest.

While "foreign guns and artillery" were praised by the late Qing government, a large number of things labeled with the word "foreign" poured into China, replacing "original" things in various fields. The Chinese began to accept some Western lifestyles and entered into the daily lives of the literati and gentry. The original so-called "obscene tricks" were resisted and criticized by the literati and gentry. Ge Yuanxu's "Miscellaneous Notes on Traveling to Shanghai" lists a large number of "foreign goods" in Shanghai: Japanese cars, foreign water dragons, foreign clothes, foreign soaps, foreign umbrellas, foreign pens and other items have become daily necessities for Shanghai urban residents. The earliest and largest newspaper in China, "Shenbao", has a full page full of advertisements for foreign cloth, foreign medicine, etc. It is said that during the Tongguang period, "there was almost no Chinese family that did not use some imported foreign goods."

So, how did the "foreign" terms that spread throughout the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China gradually disappear from Chinese people's concepts?

On the eve of the founding of New China, Shanghai's "Xinmin Evening News" devoted itself to finding the "foreign worship" mentality in the details of Shanghai people's lives and criticized it: "In the market with the strongest colonial atmosphere, many cunning merchants , in order to mislead people, they often use English as labels...Among the various cram schools in Shanghai, English cram schools are the most common." "The greatest tragedy of colonial peoples is the loss of their own language and language. culture". "Foreign" concepts filled every field after the founding of the People's Republic of China, satisfying people's living needs, but suffocating the country's production and development. Therefore, if you want to develop your own economic system, you must get rid of "foreign" concepts in your thinking and life.

For example, two cigarette advertisements appeared in the "Xinmin Evening News" advertisement, "Pegasus" and "Double Ax" cigarettes. The biggest similarity between the two advertisements is that on the packaging box There is no English word, while other brands of domestic cigarettes are full of foreign words. In addition, in terms of policy, the government is willing to eliminate "foreign" from the daily life of Chinese people: "In order to celebrate the victory of the Chinese people's anti-feudal blockade struggle and carry out in-depth patriotic propaganda," the business community decided to change the past "foreign candle" to As a "mining candle", "Xinmin Evening News" announced very optimistically that this approach shows that China has escaped the fate of a semi-colony and marks the death of imperialist power in China. Of course, in times of extreme material scarcity, unilateral announcements may be overly optimistic. Until 1964, when China was basically self-sufficient in petroleum products that had always relied on imports, newspapers happily said that the surname "foreign" for "oil" would soon be abandoned forever.

The vigorous de-"foreign" and "colonial" movements in the early days seemed to be all about "foreign terms", but this also brought about a problem: we can use "foreign fire" "matches" can be replaced, "foreign oil" can be replaced by "kerosene", and "foreign nails" can be replaced by "iron nails". The names of these products themselves have colonial and semi-colonial overtones, and it is very effective to eliminate their "foreign flavor". Necessary, but what should we use to replace plant names such as "tomato", "onion" and "acacia tree"? Or what can be used to replace the transliterated words such as "coffee", "sofa" and "tank"? "Xinmin Evening News" believes that foreign oil and foreign cloth are industrial products. The emergence of such terms not only marks the economic aggression of imperialism but also marks the backwardness of China's industrial system. Now we have a brand-new industrial system. Foreign oil and foreign cloth It is natural that other nouns are replaced. However, "onions" and "acacia" only mark their place of origin and reflect the achievements of our country's working people in introducing foreign varieties. They are not considered "favoring foreigners", nor can they be said to be a disgraceful thing.

Of course, the disappearance of the term "foreign flavor" from the minds of the Chinese people is not caused by advocacy and propaganda alone. This is gradually replaced on the basis of learning and saving. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, "the atmosphere of hardship and simplicity gradually took shape in Shanghai, and the windows of large stores became bland and unremarkable.

There are fewer and fewer people wearing suits, while more and more people are wearing Chinese tunic suits. The most ambitious Shanghainese began to learn to use new terms, and also grasped the meaning of the people and cadres. ” Social concepts generally believe that if a person cannot popularize his or her life interests, he is like a tail that cannot be cut off, and popular cultural interests need to be cultivated through group life.

Urban People How to participate in group life is through learning. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, "learning" became a new social trend. Various newspapers launched learning columns one after another, and some vocabulary gradually entered the minds of the people, even on the streets. It can be seen that words such as criticism, self-criticism, and self-criticism have become common words in daily communication. "Everyone is keen on learning, busy with learning, and gets changes and comfort in learning. Learning has become as important as work." A variety of learning, new concepts such as "match", "iron", "kerosene" and other words are introduced into the minds of ordinary people, and they are accepted and used.

On the other hand, the concept of conservation. It also contributed to the formation of new trends. Before liberation, due to the turmoil and material shortages, the Kuomintang also repeatedly proposed the concept of frugality before and after the founding of the People's Republic of China: telling the poor to tighten their belts. The rich waste as much as they like; they ask the people to eat porridge and soup, and eat delicacies from the mountains and seas themselves; they pretend to be frugal, but in fact they spend money like water. The thrift after the founding of the People's Republic of China is the real frugality: the bosses and the people live freely and do not interfere, and they use their own paper. Time and again, an envelope was turned over and over again. This "altruistic" thought has greatly changed the extravagant social atmosphere. Many "foreign-flavored" products themselves are representatives of bourgeois hedonistic culture, so when the trend of frugality is prevalent. , representatives of this hedonistic culture are naturally rejected by the public.

The concept of "foreign oil", "foreign fire", "foreign pen", "foreign paper" and other terms being far away from the Chinese people is not an overnight process. , has been used for decades, and until the 1990s, it still existed and was used in the minds of the vast majority of rural areas and some elderly people in China. For the new generation of people born in 2000 and 1910s, these terms may have become history. But in the 1940s and 1990s. In the eyes of the generation born in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, these terms may be the past that cannot be returned, they are childhood memories.