From the Opium War in 1842 to the Pacific War in 1942, exactly one hundred years passed. It seems that both the beginning and the end of this century were shrouded in the darkness of continuous warfare, but the book Flowing Through the Century: From T'ou-Sè-Wè to Zhuxianghui, written by Mr. Yao Peng, a collector of modern publications, not only tells of many lesser-known people and events but also portrays the ideas and thinking that the Catholic Church brought to China during its golden period of expansion.
As we turn the pages of this 1,300-page masterpiece, the history of the Catholic Church's exploration and thought process in China through its publications over the past century or so becomes much clearer. In the hundred years between the Opium War in 1842 and the Pacific War in 1942, the Catholic Church established a number of publishing houses in different parts of the country, such as the Shanghai T'ou-Sè-Wè Press and Victory Press, Ho-Kien, and published some 6,800 books. While the books published were mainly used for missionary work or sacraments, there were also many books on the study of Eastern and Western cultures; Chinese texts were also translated to help Westerners understand Chinese culture and the Chinese world. In addition, the customs and real-life scenes of many of China's ethnic groups were recorded by missionaries who traveled to China's frontiers as they preached.
Mr. Yao Peng, the author, who has collected the documents over the years, selected more than 1,000 representative and important documents and formed this masterpiece with a logical order as the outline and a chronological order as the sequence.
The book is in two volumes with a total of 60 chapters, covering various types of books published in China by missionaries, as well as documents related to Chinese culture published overseas from 1842 to 1942. It includes teaching materials, academic monographs, tool books, newspapers, and magazines, as well as some valuable manuscripts and rubbings of stone engravings. It also contains commentaries on the documents of the Jesuits and other missionaries, as well as further information on Sinology topics such as the translation of Chinese historical texts, laws and decrees, and the interpretation of folk customs and social phenomena. A significant number of maps of cities and waterways drawn at the time are also included.
The book sketches the reality of how missionaries lived and worked in China, and presents the important development in the history of sinology from “missionary sinology” to “professional sinology.”
Born in Beijing in 1956, Mr. Yao Peng graduated from the Department of Philosophy at Fudan University and received his Master's degree in the History of Western Philosophy from the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. A renowned philosopher, historian, and religious historian, he has devoted himself to the study of Chinese Catholic history and the historical documents of Chinese Christianity.
- Translated by Joyce Leung
