Ch'ien Mu | |
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| Born | (1895-07-30)30 July 1895 |
| Died | 30 August 1990(1990-08-30) (aged 95) |
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| Ch'ien Mu | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Traditional Chinese | 錢穆 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 钱穆 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Traditional Chinese | 賓四 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 宾四 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Ch'ien Mu orQian Mu (Chinese:錢穆; 30 July 1895 – 30 August 1990) was a Chinese historian, philosopher and writer. He is considered to be one of the greatest historians and philosophers of 20th-century China. Ch'ien, together withLü Simian,Chen Yinke andChen Yuan, was known as the "Four Greatest Historians of Modern China" (現代四大史學家).
Ch'ien Mu was born in Qifang Qiao Village (七房橋,lit. 'Seven Mansions Bridge Village') inWuxi,Jiangsu Province. He was from the prestigious Qian (Ch'ien) family inWuxi, with his ancestor said to beQian Liu (852–932), founder of theWuyue Kingdom (907–978) during theFive Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. Ch'ien's biographer Jerry Dennerlien described his childhood world as the "small peasant cosmos" of rituals, festivals, and beliefs held the family system together. He received little formal education, but gained his knowledge on Chinese history and culture through traditional family school education and continuous self-study.[1]
At eighteen years old, Ch'ien began his teaching career as a primary school teacher in his hometown. In 1930, he was hired as a lecturer inYenching University following a recommendation and invitation by famous historianGu Jiegang. Ch'ien continued teaching at several other universities, includingTsinghua University andPeking University, until 1937 when Peking (now Beijing) wasoccupied by the Japanese army.
In 1937, to escape the Japanese invasion and ensure students could continue their studies, Peking University, Tsinghua University, and Nankai University relocated south and formed Changsha Temporary University in Changsha and laterNational Southwestern Associated University inKunming andMengzi, two cities inYunnan Province. During this time, the entire young generation was preoccupied with a single question: Does China have hope?[2]
The following year, the Ministry of Education of China required all higher education institutions to make "General History of China" a compulsory course for first-year students. However, there was no suitable textbook available.[3] Encouraged by his colleagueChen Mengjia,[4] Ch'ien wrotethe Outline of National History (國史大綱) while carrying out his teaching duties. In this work, he conveyed a powerful message: China would not fall. He argued that its endurance stemmed from a "civilizational power" grounded in a belief in core values. Many students were inspired.[5]
In 1949, amid the victory of theChinese Communist Party in theChinese Civil War, Ch'ien moved toBritish Hong Kong atChang Ch'i-yun's suggestion. With help from theYale-China Association, along withTang Chun-i, Tchang Pi-kai and other scholars, Ch'ien co-foundedNew Asia College.[6] He served as the president of New Asia College from 1949 to 1965. This college has graduated many great scholars and outstanding members of various communities.[example needed][tone] Ch'ien resigned from presidency after New Asia College became a member college ofThe Chinese University of Hong Kong and moved toMa Liu Shui. Publicly, he reasons that he wanted to devote more time to his scholarship, but in private revealed that he felt that the college had lost its freedom and might eventually disappear.[7] He then foundedNew Asia Middle School as a non-profit-making Chinese secondary school at the former campus of the college.[8] Ch'ien later received honorary doctorates fromYale University and theUniversity of Hong Kong.[9]
He taught at theUniversity of Malaya inKuala Lumpur before returning to Hong Kong.
Ch'ien relocated toTaiwan in October 1967 after accepting an invitation from PresidentChiang Kai-shek, in response to the1967 Hong Kong riots. In 1968, he was selected as a member of theAcademia Sinica, which remedied a little his lifelong regret for not being able to be elected as a member of this Institute in the first election in 1948.
He was given land in Waishuangxi in theShilin District to build his homeSushulou (素書樓) while continuing as a freelance academic researching and giving lectures at universities in Taiwan.
Ch'ien retired from teaching in 1984. After becoming one of the three constituent colleges of theChinese University of Hong Kong, in 1978 New Asia College inaugurated the Ch'ien Mu Lectures in his honor.[10]
On 1 June 1990, twoDemocratic Progressive Party politicians,Chen Shui-bian andChou Po-lun, accused Ch'ien of occupying public land as the nature of gifting the land for Sushulou by Chiang Kai-shek to a private citizen was deemed to be illegal. Ch'ien and his wife moved out of Sushulou and relocated to a high-rise apartment in downtown Taipei City.
Ch'ien died on 30 August 1990, a little less than three months after being forced to move out of Sushulou. Many of Ch'ien's supporters condemned the practice Chen and Chou of using Ch'ien for scoring political points against theKuomintang. Both Chen and Chou have since apologized for the damages of their accusations towards Ch'ien, and Sushulou is now the location of theCh'ien Mu Memorial.
In 1992, he was buried in his hometown Wuxi, by the shores ofLake Tai.
Ch'ien wrote extensively on Chinese classics, history and Confucian thought. Unlike many 20th-century Chinese intellectuals influenced by theNew Culture Movement of the 1910s who were fundamentally skeptical of traditional Chinese thought and Confucianism, he insisted on the importance of traditional values of Chinese culture. By the time of his death in 1990, his objections to the rejection of tradition of Confucianism had gained wider credence, partly through the influence of his student at New Asia College,Yu Ying-shih.[11]
Ch'ien Mu was an extremely industrious and prolific scholar who had about 76 works published during his life, which exceeded 17 000 000 words in total. After his death, his complete works were collected and edited into 54 volumes, published in 1994 by Linking Publishing Company in Taipei. In 2011, a revised edition of his complete works was published in Beijing by Jiuzhou Publishing Company in traditional Chinese characters.
Representative works:
Critics of Ch'ien's ideas, such asLi Ao, tend to focus on his superficial knowledge of non-Chinese currents of thoughts when he wrote his treatises oncultural studies, and his lack of objective,scientific method-based, defense of traditional Chinese culture.Wong Young-tsu [zh] condemns Ch'ien's own bias as "19th century traditionalist" in his "A Comment on Ch'ien Mu's Treatise on Chinese Scholarships During the Qing Dynasty" (錢穆論清學史述評) for being unable to view 19th century currents of thoughts with contemporary (20th century) perspectives. It could be argued, however, the opposition is based upon the critics' support of the New Culture Movement's legacies, which Ch'ien explicitly rejected.[12][13]
Another recurring theme from Ch'ien's critics, from the 1930s onwards, concerns his defense of traditional Chinese political system, headed by a monarch but with the government filled by examinations-based mandarins, as a representative form of government, as a simplistic fantasy.
Ch'ien Mu was also criticized for having invested in too many different academic fields. For example, his research on Chinese Literature was considered as "unprofessional". His work on Daoism andZhuangzi :Zhuangzi Zuan Jian 莊子纂箋 had also drawn him criticisms for long.
| Academic offices | ||
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| Preceded by College established | President ofNew Asia College 1949-1965 | Succeeded by Ou Tsuin-chen |
