"Dislike" comes from the sense of cultural superiority, while "misfortune" means having to accept the humiliation of "bumping into a door". The complex emotions and keen perception of female students may be more real than the "changes that have never happened in 3,000 years" written by scholars and officials at that time. Trading ports and unequal treaties brought about the metabolism of China society in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, and also made foreign scholars re-examine the foreign world.

Liang Qichao recalled that he passed by Shanghai when he was 18 years old. "After reading Ying Huan Lu Zhi, I realized that there are countries on five continents." 1908, when I was studying at Zhangxiao Primary School in Pingxiang, Jiangxi Province, I not only "believed that the earth is not flat, but spherical", but also knew that "saints are not only in the east, but also in the west".

Four years later, in 19 12, when Mao Zedong taught himself at Dingwangtai Library in Hunan, he "saw the map of the world for the first time and became interested in it." He was surprised to find that on this huge map, China is only a corner, while Changsha is only a small place. And his hometown Shaoshan, can't be found at all.

According to the research of Hunan historians, in the Sino-British Tianjin Treaty 1858, "Yi" began to replace "Yi" to describe this country in western Thailand. Compared with China's ancient appellations of "Dongyi, Xirong, Nanman and Beidi", the objective expression of the word "Wai" greatly reduced its disdain.

However, in the war, Wenner advanced step by step, which reflected China's retreat from the "world" in the late Qing Dynasty.

The preface of Qian Zhongshu's narrative anthology "Going to the World" compiled by Zhong Shu is the most obscure: "China's" going to the world "is actually" the world going to China "; We opened the door and went out because someone knocked at the door outside, crashed into it, and even broke in and jumped out of the window. " Later, in the late Qing Dynasty, scholars had to admit that when the western countries were "civilized" but "barbaric", the concept of "the world" brought a rather fierce impact. No wonder Qian Zhongshu said "go out"? That's right. Can we leave it without going to it? Even if you don't want to, you seem to be dragging a chain and a ball under your feet. You must go to this world because you can't leave it, even if your feet have wings. '

Since the "world" is inevitable, China urgently needs to revise itself on the scale of the "world" in order to be accepted by the "world".

At that time, there was an extreme view that China people were inferior to westerners in race, and only by "teaching the same species" with westerners could they become weaker and stronger in the future.

1902, Liang Qichao declared excitedly that the 20th century will be "an era of marriage between two civilizations" and said that "other western beauties will be able to raise beautiful children for my family and make my family prosperous." In Hunan Daily, Nai also strongly advocated improving the quality of the people through "yellow and white people": "If the yellow and white people are male or female, they are big and strong, and Wen Xiu is clever."

On the contrary, the complete exclusion that accompanied the Boxer Rebellion represented another extreme world view. Zhou Zuoren recalled: "For the first time, I agreed with the view that a river beach' killed the ocean', which was advocating xenophobia." This bad aspect is chauvinism, but there are also good aspects, namely national revolution and anti-imperialism. "

At the same time, the "world" in the minds of different readers is so complex and diverse.

However, as Jiang Menglin saw, "Tathagata came to China on a white elephant, while Jesus Christ flew in a shell." Therefore, although China people try to "go out", they still have doubts about the western "world".

Yang Du, a native of Hunan, also realized that all countries in the world were "civilized" at that time; From the outside world, this is barbaric. "。 In fact, this is not Yang Du's personal impression. Wang Tao, a student studying in Europe, said: "Westerners are modest, kind and honest, willing to work in their own country and abide by the law; I changed my behavior as soon as I arrived in China. There are two people before and after. "

Zhang Taiyan also reprimanded these "people who create freedom and equality in their own country are the ones who achieve the least freedom and equality in other countries."

Therefore, Yang Du advocated that China might as well "form an alliance with barbarism" in order to achieve the goal of "standing side by side with the barbaric world".

However, only the logic of the law of the jungle dominates the "barbaric world". Such a world is destined to be just a "jungle world", only admitting success or failure, not talking about right or wrong.

19 14 years, Hu Shi, who was studying at Cornell University in the United States, wrote in his diary: "As a world figure, patriotism is a gentle humanitarianism." In Hu Shi's view, the world was created by "all nationalities", but the thought and behavior of "our country will expel other countries, and our species will expel other countries" deviated from the value of civilization. Therefore, Hu Shi compared China to a "sleeping beauty" rather than Napoleon's "sleeping lion". "When you are awake, the world should be shocked." Because he believes that "the ancient oriental civilization will contribute to the world one day and should be taught through cultural relics rather than force."

In the past hundred years, Hu Shi has written The Song of Sleeping Beauty. Today, China issued the slogan "One World, One Dream". Looking back on the past century, the imagination, experience and speech of the "world" triggered by the modern history of "knocking on the door" may have a different flavor in the minds of China scholars.