中欧社会论坛 - China Europa ForumThe Unimaginable and Immeasurable? China’s Visions of the Pacific – Needham’s Views Re-examined
in The perception of maritime space in traditional Chinese sources
Authors: M. Torck
Date: 2006
Published by edited by A. Schottenhammer and R. Ptak, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, pp.141-152
This text focuses on the question of the relationship between China and the Pacific, more specifically, it addresses the question: “Did pre-modern Chinese have a notion of a vision of the Pacific Ocean?” The area appears not to have formed part of the Chinese sailors’ sphere of action until the 19th century and the coming of the Westerners, and concepts that go together with it are rather hypothetical and the region is also likely to provoke legendary stories. When, by Song times, at least some superficial knowledge of countries that lay in the extreme southeast was present, what possibly lies beyond this periphery remained unknown – or was at least not commented upon in literature. Mathieu Torck remarks in this respect that: “the Pacific region seems to be boundless, devoid of any point of reference, physically and, as it seems, also mentally so that one can easily get lost.” It is an intriguing question in how far this Chinese attitude towards the Pacific is rooted also in traditional Chinese philosophical concepts.