Generally speaking, Sinology, also known as Sinology or China Studies, refers to the traditional culture and scholarship of China. Chinese studies include China's ancient philosophy, history, religion, literature, customs, textual research, ethics, traditional Chinese medicine, agriculture, martial arts, geography, politics, economy, painting and calligraphy, music, architecture and many other aspects.
The concept of "Chinese studies" came into being in19th century. At that time, the improvement trend of "western learning spreading to the east" was in full swing. In order to oppose western learning, Zhang Zhidong and Wei Yuan put forward the concept of "middle school" (Chinese studies), and advocated that "middle school should be the body and western learning should be used" in order to learn western civilization and restore Confucian classics in Han Dynasty.
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In modern times, the so-called "Sinology" was considered by some scholars to have originated in Japan. In the middle of the Edo period, some people in the Japanese ideological circle, such as Tian Chunren of the Netherlands, advocated studying Japanese ancient books to understand the local culture, so they were called "Sinology".
During the May 4th Movement, Chen Duxiu and others launched the New Culture Movement, blaming China's backwardness and beatings on the feudal system for two thousand years, and blaming Confucius and the Four Books and Five Classics for putting forward radical slogans such as "Down with Kongjiadian".
However, in the later stage of the movement, Hu Shi and others put forward the slogan of "sorting out the national heritage" and advocated the slogan of "studying problems, introducing theories, sorting out the national heritage and recreating civilization", trying to find an organic combination of Chinese and Western civilizations from China traditional culture and find a way out for China's new life.
1934, Zhang founded the Zhang Guoxue Research Society in Suzhou, and gave a summary explanation of Chinese studies. Zhang's remarks were recorded and sorted out, and books such as On the Balance of National Heritage, An Introduction to Chinese Studies and Zhang Taiyan's Lectures on Chinese Studies were published, which had a great influence in the 1920s and 1930s.
Zhang divided the so-called Chinese studies into five parts: primary school, Confucian classics, history, philosophers and literature, from which we can see his definition of the scope of Chinese studies. In addition, Hu Shi, Gu Jiegang, Qian Mu and others also have various expositions on "national studies", "national quintessence" and "national quintessence".
Since the spread of western learning to the east, in order to distinguish western learning from middle school, the concept of "China's traditional ideological and cultural studies" has appeared. 1949 after the founding of new China, with the criticism of Hu Shi's comprador philosophy and bourgeois idealism, as well as previous literary criticism movements, "Sinology" as a slogan or noun has basically disappeared.
Only after 1980s, with the rising trend of thought of "Love China" and the slogan of "The Rise of China", especially the spread of Confucius Institutes overseas and the constant performance of memorial ceremonies for Confucius in China, "Sinology" became more and more popular at home and abroad.
Baidu encyclopedia-Chinese studies