Questions for Essay One

作文答题1

Within the perimeters of the questions below, share your thoughts on inter-cultural interactions. No less than 500 words. 

• Having read both Smith and Lu Xun who never met, what is wrong with China and how are the views of Smith on national characteristics expressed in Lu Xun’s fiction? What strikes you as different between the two writers, their language, their ethnicity, profession, or culture to which they belonged? 
• James Y. Liu, in his book The Interlingual Critic, argues that, “The problems of interpretation facing an intralingual critic are formidable enough: they become doubly so for the interlingual critic, since to the problems due to differences between historical periods are added those due to cultural and linguistic differences. The interlingual critic has to make a decision as to what basic attitude he should take toward such differences, and the decision will determine the kind of interpretation that he will offer. It is not an easy decision to make, for even within a single cultural and literary tradition there can be conflicting schools of hermeneutics.  . . . With regard to the interpretation of Chinese literature, the critic has a similar set of attitudes to choose from: Sino-centrism, Eurocentrism, cultural relativism, cultural perspectivism and trans-culturism. I am avoiding the term “cultural chauvinism” or “ethnocentrism” so that the critic’s own cultural and ethnic identity need not be called into question.” Which hat would you give Arthur Smith, Fukuzawa, the authors of Chinese Exclusion Act, Guo Songtao, Zou Rong, and Lu Xun, and why?