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1. EinleitungWenn es sich trotz der langen Forschungstraditionen seit Max Weber und Georg Simmel schwierig gestaltet, einheitliche Kriterien für die Definition dessen zu finden, was in Europa als Stadt gelten soll, so ist dies angesichts der Vielfalt der Erscheinungsformen in den nichteurop. Weltregionen schlicht unmöglich [2]. Allerdings ist es sinnvoll, Jürgen Osterhammels Minimaldefinition zu folgen: »Eine ›S.‹ ist eine Weise, Raum gesellschaftlich zu organisieren« [3. 355].In fast allen Weltregionen bildeten sich lange vor dem Kulturkontakt mit den Europä…

1. Einleitung Chines. Porzellan, japan. Lackwaren, Keramik aus Korea – die Einflüsse ostasiat. Motive, künstlerischer Ausdrucksformen, Materialbearbeitungen und Ornamente auf die nzl. Entwicklung der europ. K. waren vielfältig und vielfach von großer Inspirationskraft (Chinoiserie). Weniger bekannt ist die Einwirkung europ. Werke auf die K. in China, Japan und Korea. Am sichtbarsten kam die europ. K. mit der Architektur nach Ostasien: Markante Beispiele der Sakralbaukunst der Jesuiten waren die 1602 nach dem Vorbild der Jesuskirche ( Il Gesù) in Rom errichtete Kirche des Hl…

1. Begriff Der im Deutschen erstmals um 1630 nachgewiesene Begriff M. leitet sich vom portug. mandarim her, das wiederum auf das malaiische menteri und Sanskrit mantrin (»Minister«, »Ratgeber«; von Sanskrit mantra, »Rat«) zurückgeht. In dieser Bedeutung wurde der Ausdruck zuerst von den Portugiesen für Angehörige der chines. Amtsträgerschicht verwendet und in der Folge in viele andere europ. Sprachen übernommen. Später wurde der Begriff auch auf andere Elemente der chines. Kulturwelt übertragen, namentlich auf die im nordchines. Dialekt gesp…

1. EinleitungSeit der Verbreitung von Marco Polos spätma. Reisebericht galt China in Europa als Land blühenden Handels und Reichtums. So wurde es noch zur Mitte des 18. Jh.s als »irdisches Paradies« charakterisiert [1. vi] und erläutert: »Der Handel in China besteht in Golde, Silber, Edelgesteinen, Porcellan, Seide, Kattun, Gewürzen, Rhabarber und andern Apothekerwaaren, Thee, lackirten Sachen und dergleichen. Der Handel der Provinzen unter einander ist dermaßen groß, daß sie keine auswärtige Vertreibung ihrer Waaren nöthig haben« [5. 8 f.]. Ähnlich äußerte sich der Qing-Kai…

1. Bedeutung Das heutzutage weltweit verbreitete chines. Yin- Yang-Symbol zeigt einen S-förmig geteilten Kreis, dessen Hälften schwarz (für Yin) und weiß (für Yang) gestaltet sind, mit einem weißen bzw. schwarzen Punkt inmitten des »Kopfes« der jeweiligen andersfarbigen Kreishälfte. Seine Popularität erklärt sich aus der Anschaulichkeit, mit der die perfekte gegenseitige Ergänzung zweier Gegensätze – Yin steht für die Erde und das Dunkle, Weiche, Weibliche; Yang für den Himmel und das Helle, Harte, Männliche – augenscheinlich gemacht wird.Das Gegensatzpaar Yin und Yang trat…

1. Introduction Chinese porcelain, Japanese lacquerware, Korean ceramics - the influences of East Asian motifs, forms of artistic expression, uses of material, and ornamentation on the development of European art in the early modern period were many and varied, and often powerfully inspiring (Chinoiserie). However, the impact of European works on the arts in China, Japan, and Korea is less well-known.The most visible manifestation of European art in East Asia was in architecture. Striking examples of Jesuit sacred architecture included the Church of St.…

1. Introduction The understanding of history and the resultant historiography depend for the most part on a European self-image that was concerned to impose a certain interpretation and order on the past in accordance with European norms and categories (Eurocentrism).Outside Europe, however, such concerns had no part to play for much of the early modern period. Rather, many different views of history held sway, distinct not only from the European, but also from each other. Although European techniques and conventions were certainly a…

1. Introduction The beginnings of a project to “conquer nature” that became apparent in European science and technology from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and the sense of superiority this engendered, distorted views of the accomplishments of non-European civilizations (World perception) [2. 81 ff.]. This was particularly true of perceptions of and attitudes towards the countries of Asia and the “Orient” as a whole (Orientalism). During the 16th and 17th centuries, this region of the world had found its way to an albeit volatil…

1. Historical significance The Rites Controversy is the name given to the long quarrel of the 17th and 18th centuries over the Jesuitmission in China, and more precisely the Jesuit missionary concept of accommodation. One important component was the question of how far Chinese converts (Conversion between faiths) should be allowed to practice the rites of the Confucian ancestor cult. The Rites Controversy also marked the end of the period of “third contact” (after early cultural contacts…

Today’s colloquial understanding of kowtowing (derived from the Chinese term ketou, “touching the ground with one’s forehead”) as a self-abasing expression of respect and a gesture of submission dates back to a honorific Manchu ritual introduced in the context of the tribute system of the Qing Empire (1644-1911). In this rite, which was carried out three times in a row, the salutant or supplicant would throw himself to the ground, touching it thrice with his forehead (Chinese san gui jiu kou), while keeping the befitting distance from the dignitary - not only the Emperor, b…

1. European awareness and perceptions The Great Wall of China (Chinese:  wan li changcheng, “Ten Thousand-Mile Wall”) was, in Europe from the second half of the 16th century, known, marveled at, and described as “the world-famous Wall that divides the Empire of China from Great Tartary” [1. 1614] (Chinese world).The much-quoted remark that the Great Wall is more imposing than all the Seven Wonders of the World put together derives from the Jesuit missionary Ferdinand Verbiest (1623-1688) [4. 206]. Enlightenment scholars (e.g. Voltaire) made comparisons with the Pyramid…

1. Introduction The term cultural contact was long taken to mean the meeting of different cultural units that was homogenous and static in themselves. Modern approaches to an understanding of the concept proceed on the basis of a different idea of culture, seeing it as a “self-woven web of meaning” [3. 9] in human consciousness, subject to perpetual change in dynamic processes of the construction of symbols. Interpretations are thus made both individually and collectively, and these give rise to meanings and identities. This interpretation br…

1. Introduction The palace eunuch was a long tradition in China, probably dating back as far as the 8th century BCE, even though castration was contrary to the religious principle intrinsic to ancestor worship - securing the succession of generations by producing heirs. Appointing palace eunuchs in the Chinese Empire was therefore a practice strictly confined to the imperial court. The eunuchs’ central task was serving the women of the imperial harem. Over the course of time, however, t…

1. Europe 1.1. TermThe term economic ethics refers, first, to the attitudes that underlie actions in the individual economy; secondly it describes normative notions of right and just economic activity. The setting of social standards in economic activity does not necessarily coincide with actual practices; divergences give cause for economic-ethical reflection.How a particular economic ethics becomes effective in the economy is evident on the basis of the question of the connection between economic-ethical notions and the relevant economic ord…

1. Background and history “As your Ambassador can see for himself, we possess all things. I set no value on objects strange or ingenious, and have no use for your country’s manufactures” [3. 340] – this brusque dismissal of British hopes for a relaxation of trade conditions by the elderly Qianlong Emperor formed the centerpiece of the letter George Macartney was given at the end of his 1793 mission to the Chinese court to submit to King George III of Great Britain. Other British requests, also denied, concerned a permanent emba…

1. TermThe term “Taoism” (or “Daoism,” following the pinyin transliteration in general use today), which originated in the 19th century, has two senses. It denotes the philosophical teachings associated with the sage Lao Tzu (Laozi, Lao-Tze, 6th/5th centuries BCE), which are named after the  tao or  dao (Chinese “way,” often also translated as “logos,” “method,” “nature,” or “meaning”), but which – in contradistinction to other rival philosophical schools of ancient China (5th-3rd centuries bce) – also embrace the two concepts of the complementary principles of  yin and yang (…

1. MeaningThe Chinese yin-yang symbol as it is known around the world today consists of a circle divided along a sigmoid line into black ( yin) and white ( yang) halves, with a white and black dot in the center of the “head” of the half of the opposite color. Its popularity derives from the clarity with which it illustrates the perfect complementarity of twin opposites: yin  representing the earth, darkness, softness, and femininity,  yang  the heavens, light, hardness, and masculinity.As a philosophical concept of the interplay of primal polar-opposite cosmic forces that…

1. Concept and principlesThe term Neo-Confucianism refers in a strict sense to the Confucianism of the period from the Song to the Ming Dynasties (10th–17th centuries CE), and in a broader sense to the tradition of thought that originated in the transition from the late Tang to the Song Dynasty (9th/10th centuries), coalesced under the Song (960–1279), and dominated Chinese intellectual life until the end of the Ming Dynasty (mid-17th century), extending its influence across the whole of East Asia …

1. OverviewThe term Overseas Chinese (Chinese huaqiao[11. 26–30]) denotes in general people of Chinese background who live outside China (the People’s Republic, Hong Kong, and Macao) and Taiwan, whether temporarily or permanently, or families that have done so over many generations, displaying sometimes strong ethnic and cultural assimilation and correspondingly loose ties with the Chinese homeland. The imprecision of the term is further exaggerated in that it refers to a variety of patterns of emigra…

1. European perceptions and reporting In early modern perceptions and reporting of China, the Grand Canal, the longest artificial waterway in the world, was ranked second only to the Great Wall among manmade structures. Enlightenment-era historians affirmed that the canal “overshadows everything that one might call wondrous of this nature in Europe” [1. 17]. Marco Polo had already told of the wide, deep canals that connected rivers and lakes and that themselves seemed like a great river [4. 312]. Yet information about the Grand Canal in European reports was for the mo…