Self-cultivation, martial-prowess, health and beauty : a study on the body thoughts in late Qing and early republican China = 修身、尚武、健美 : 清末民初身體觀念研究

Abstract

Based on three case studies—Liang Qichao, Qiu Jin and Cai Yuanpei, this study explores the body concepts and body practice of the Chinese intelligentsia in late Qing Dynasty and early Republican of China, from three aspects respectively: self-cultivation, martial-prowess, as well as health and beauty. At that time, faced with the dual crises of the nation and Chinese civilization, progressive intellectuals gradually realized that the “people” was the subject of the future politics, and thus devoted themselves to various reconfigurations of the “body”. The “New Citizens” Movement represented by the “citizens of a military nation” (junguomin) ideology was one example. Such transformative movements of the body not only profoundly influenced the historical process of modern Chinese revolution and enlightenment, but also remolded Chinese people’s body concepts to a considerable extent. Existing scholarship tends to approach this wave of body reconceptualization from the perspective of political utilitarianism such as nationalism. By exploring these intellectuals’ “thoughts” and “practices” concerning the body, this thesis offers a reading beyond this utilitarian view, stressing how they exhibited humanistic concerns with inspirations from traditional Chinese thought especially Confucianism. This thesis applies the concept of “body subject” raised by Yang Rubin in his study of ancient Confucian views on the body to late Qing Chinese intellectuals, so as to emphasize their vigilant attention to the body thought, and also the tension between the “body subject” and “external world” in which they lived. The study argues that, in thinking about how the Chinese body can be remodeled, the intellectual elites in late Qing China, in addition to responding to the pressing crisis of China’s survival, tried to tackle the issue surrounding people’s body and mind from a secular perspective. “Self-cultivation”, “martial-prowess”, and “health and beauty” demonstrate three different aspects Liang Qichao, Qiu Jin and Cai Yuanpei pursued respectively within the “citizens of a military nation” context. The thesis posits Liang’s body notions represent the “early operational stage” campaign. His oscillation between “self-sacrifice” and “self-cultivation” was a continuation of the Neo-Confucian traditions of mind theory in the Song-Ming period, implying a “counterbalance” with “body subject” to the “external world”. Qiu Jin, a representative of the “medium-term practice stage” of “citizens of a military nation”, can be considered a national hero who used body as a means of enlightenment. Her life trajectory illustrates a breakaway of conventional gender boundary and a shift of female body toward revolution. As for Cai Yuanpei, a representative of the “later transition stage”, his attention to the workers’ education displays an effort of balancing the body-mind relationship of “body subject” in modern society in order to adapt to drastic changes in the “external world”. Their different readjustments of the body and mind in coping with late Qing’s socio-historical change provide us with valuable historical experience to better resolve the problems of modernity in China.