自19世纪60年代以来,来华日本汉学家渐多,他们在中国游记中建构了“古代中国与现实中国”的对立模式。这些中国体验成为近现代日本汉学家中国观转变的重要契机,游记文本中呈现的“古代中国与现实中国”“中国与日本”的双重结构体现了日本汉学家殖民话语的建构过程。在游记文本中,近现代日本汉学家通过其所谓对中国文化的“乡愁”与前现代“中国时间”体验的描述,凸显了现实中国的“反常”特质,建立了假借历史论说当下的中国叙事策略。这一叙事策略以古代中国为幌子,实则为中国符号缺失的自说自话,暴露了近现代日本汉学家中国言说背后的东方主义实质。

Since the 1860s, more and more Japanese sinologists came to China, and they constructed the opposing mode of “Ancient China & Modern China” in their Chinese travel notes. These Chinese experiences have become an important opportunity for the transformation of Japanese sinologists? view of China in modern times. The dual structure of “Ancient China & Modern China” and “China & Japan” presented in travel texts reflects the construction process of the colonial discourse of Japanese sinologists. Through their so-called “nostalgia for Chinese culture” and the description of “Chinese time” with pre-modern color, Japanese sinologists highlight the “abnormal" characteristics of modern China and establish the narrative strategy of talking about current China under the pretext of “history”. This narrative strategy, under the guise of “Ancient China”, is actually a “self-talk” of the absence of Chinese symbols, exposing the essence of orientalism behind the Chinese narrative of modern Japanese sinologists.