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The Heritage of T'ien Hsia, All-Under-HeavenT'ien Hsia Monthly 天下月刊 first appeared in 1935, at the height of Republican China's 'era of openness'. Based in Shanghai until the editors fled to Hong Kong following the Japanese invasion, the English-language journal T'ien Hsia reflected a positive relationship between the patriotic aspirations of some members of a Western-educated intelligentsia and a generous spirit of cosmopolitanism. Many of the authors featured in the pages of the journal aspired to be an equitable part of the world community; they were close observers of and commentators on recent developments in Euramerican culture while also paying due attention to the major cultural trends of their own world. In this issue of China Heritage Quarterly we focus on T'ien Hsia Monthly and avail ourselves of that distant era of openness to (re-)introduce our readers to the concept of T'ien Hsia—that of an ecumenical but principled spirit of global engagement that thinking Chinese people aspired to in an earlier age. We will be introducing relevant work from the magazine in future issues of China Heritage Quarterly under a dedicated heading in the menu bar. That bygone spirit, or at least an aspiration in its favour, is today shared by many members of the global Chinese community. It is also one that enlivens the thinking of those who are positively involved with the burgeoning presence of China on the world stage. In this year of commemoration and sombre reflection (see our March and June issues), the endeavours of the editors and writers of T'ien Hsia Monthly also deserve reconsideration by those interested in the mixed and contested heritages of Chinese culture and thought. By evoking t'ien hsia (and we consciously employ the Wade-Giles spelling used in the Republican era) we invariably will encounter other, and less palatable, dimensions of the work, in particular the revived statist-Confucian concept of tianxia 天下, as well as the ways that the Chinese party-state and thinkers in its thrall attempt to articulate views of a new world order for themselves and others. In the Features section of this issue we mourn the passing of three figures who have been mentors, an inspiration and friends of those of us related to the China Heritage Project of The Australian National University. We also offer Sun Fo's 孙科 'Forward' from the inaugural issue of T'ien Hsia. The tenor of Sun's remarks resonate with views today that contrast with the virulent strains of fomented Chinese nationalism, something that has been such a public feature of that country's international presence, in particular since March 2008. We also feature an essay by C.L. Hsia 夏晉麟, a noted lawyer and diplomat of the Republican era. An oral history interview by Sang Ye 桑曄 from the upcoming book The Rings of Beijing reflects the life of a man who lived outside the mercurial realm of the ever-changing political fashions of the People's Republic. In Articles, John Minford discusses how major victory celebrations were marked in ancient times, offering thereby an interesting perspective on the 1 October 2009 mega-event in Tiananmen. Professor Emeritus Anthony Yu has kindly allowed us to publish a memoir of his education with his grandfather and the Beijing-based film-maker Andrea Cavazzuti has given us permission to reproduce the film that he and Carlo Laurenti made on the 1999 grand celebration in Beijing, The Future is Served. We also reprint an article on nomads by Owen Lattimore from the first issue of T'ien Hsia. It offers some historical context to more recent borderland issues in China. Michael Dutton and Deborah Kessler take up the issue of how Australia can be literate in an 'Asian future'. In this section we also include another oral history interview by Sang Ye related to the legacy of the Great Leap Forward of the late 1950s and early 1960s, one that continues to spread heartbreak and sorrow half a century after the event. In New Scholarship we introduce Critical Han Studies, an undertaking involving numerous scholars who are thinking about, debating and analysing one of the most often used but little studied aspects of the Chinese presence: the Han. The work of scholars like Thomas Mullaney, Mark Elliott and James Leibold, whose writing we feature here, as well as the efforts of their colleagues similarly engaged in Critical Han Studies, adds an important dimension to our appreciation of what tianxia has meant, and what it may mean in this new millennium. It is a rare pleasure to be able to publish work from a Manchu writer, and we do so in the form of Mark Elliot and Elena Chiu's translation of Jakdan's 扎克丹 preface to selected stories from Pu Songling's Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio 蒲松齡 聊齋志異. We also introduce an upcoming book by Claire Roberts on the friendship between the artist and art historian Huang Binhong 黃賓鴻 and the translator Fou Lei (Fu Lei 傅雷). I am grateful to Janos Batten for scanning material from T'ien Hsia Monthly and illustrative material from another 1930s magazine, Yuzhou Feng 宇宙風, edited by Lin Yutang 林語堂. Again, Lois Conner has again generously allowed us include some of her wonderful work in this journal, and her images of Mongolia accompany a reprinted essay by Owen Lattimore in Articles. As ever, Jude Shanahan has been understanding, patient and forgiving as she has designed this latest issue of China Heritage Quarterly. The December 2009 issue will be guest edited by Duncan Campbell, and it takes as its focus the heritage of traditional libraries (cangshu lou 藏書樓). |
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