The living tree

de Weiming Tu

The underlying themes of this volume are the relations between a central cultural core, situated in China, and the various peripheral communities around the world where large numbers of Chinese have settled, and the way those relations have changed over time. What does it mean today to be Chinese? These questions have many dimensions, which are addressed in varied ways by eleven of the leading scholars of Chinese intellectual life from several parts of the globe. In the twentieth century, China experienced a level of cultural confusion it had never before known. One product of the turmoil was an unprecedented rate of emigration. Another was the challenging of traditional Chinese culture by several Western ideologies, including Marxism. The whole concept of modernity, with all its ambiguities, had profound effects on many aspects of the Chinese world, both in China and abroad. These essays attempt to illuminate how the events of the twentieth century in China affected the Chinese living outside China and suggest important reciprocal influences.