Abstract:

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.

Key words: sinologist, Chinese travel note, Chinese narrative strategy, orientalism