<Note>The Confucian Temples of Nagasaki: A Study of the Early-Modern and Modern Eras in China and Japan

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  • <研究ノート>長崎の聖堂と孔子廟 : 日中の近世と近代
  • 長崎の聖堂と孔子廟 : 日中の近世と近代
  • ナガサキ ノ セイドウ ト コウシビョウ : ニッチュウ ノ キンセイ ト キンダイ

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Abstract

Heretofore, in discussions of the Confucian temples of Nagasaki, the earlymodern Nakajima Seidō, known as the Japanese Confucian temple at Nagasaki, alone has attracted the attention in the academic world. Today the Kongzi Miao, the Chinese Confucian temple in Nagasaki, is chiefly famed as a tourist destination. The two have been the objects of completely different concerns, and thus the relationship between the two has never been fully addressed. However, this paper makes clear that the building of the Kongzi Miao was a project of the Qing government and that it was seen as a replacement and continuation of the Japanese "early-modern" Nakajima Seidō. After the 1880s, Qing foreign establishments were under the control of overseas Chinese on a global scale, and because the functioning of the Nakajima Seidō at Nagasaki in Japan since the "early modern" period was seen as useful. The Kongzi Miao was run jointly by the Shizhong School and like the Nakajima Seidō, it functioned as an educational institution. Both officials and merchants prayed at the Kongzi Miao built by the authorities, children could study at the school, and its financial operation was supported by Chinese merchants. At this time, there was the parallel movement of Kang Youwei's radical reform movement of Confucianism. Confucianism was to be converted into a religion like Christianity, Confucian temples were to be transformed into the equivalent of churches, and mission schools were to be built, and the children of both the gentry-literati and ordinary people would become their responsibility. The Kōbe Chinese School and the Yokohama School were in fact established. The aim was the unity and creation of a national citizenry as in the advanced Western nations, and to organize overseas Chinese so they could be mobilized politically. Both Japanese Confucianism and Western Christianity lay behind the construction of Nagasaki's Kongzi Miao and the Kang Youwei's radical reform movement of Confucianism, though their beginnings differed. However, as "early-modern" Japan and Western modernity were nearly identical when viewed from China, one can see that they aimed at the same goal of creation and unity of a national citizens citizenry. The historical categories of "early-modern" and "modern" in Japan and China, as in Nagasaki's Kongzi Miao, but also the compartmentalization of the "modern" and "early-modern" are surely issues that will provide an opportunity to reconsider the entire study of Japanese and Chinese history that has nearly been terminated.

Journal

  • 史林

    史林 101 (6), 967-984, 2018-11-30

    THE SHIGAKU KENKYUKAI (The Society of Historical Research), Kyoto University

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