SUN YAT-SEN AND CHINESE HISTORY
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One day, a fellow student picked one of the volumes at random and questioned Sun on its contents. It is reported that the student was surprised to discover that young Sun Yat-sen had read the work thoroughly. In this fashion then, is built the image of the revolutionary whose knowledge of his own nation's past was firmly grounded.
Yet if anything at all is clear about Sun Yat-sen's career, it should be that he had no real proclivity toward history. Aside from the required Chinese part of his curriculum at Queen's College in Hong Kong, an interest in history seems to be lacking completely in Sun's formal education, which in any case eventuated in a medical degree. But even if there was some interest in Chinese history, as manifested in his hiring of the tutor, it is even more evident that his historical curiosity was not matched by an equal amount of critical acumen as he internalized what he read of it. These then are basic considerations to be taken in hand from the beginning. Any question of the influence of nationalism momentarily aside, Sun's lack of interest in history led to a ready and unquestioning acceptance of the Chinese schoolboy's idealistic self-image of Chinese history, as taught among Western subjects in colonial Hong Kong. This left him without the slightest concern for the possibility of alternative interpretations of questionable historical points or problems, and also led to unabashed carelessness with respect to the accuracy of historical references.
Only in this way can one explain the surprising and numerous overly-facile historical generalizations and outright errors to be found even in the most cursory reading of Sun's writings. Perhaps the simple comment by Sun that Marco Polo “occupied an official post under Genghis-Khan, of the Yuan dynasty,” might be overlooked even though it contains a double error (since Marco Polo served under Kubilai Khan, and there was as yet no Yuan dynasty in the time of Genghis Khan), because it is of such little importance. But Sun's claim that Cheng Ho visited all the islands of the ocean (ostensibly the Pacific) "and even reached San Francisco" certainly merits some notice. Incidentally, Sun was amiss on the date for this supposed expedition as well. Sun was much taken with the pat concept of China's irresistible assimilatory capability, and on more than one occasion referred to it. He noted that China was never "enslaved" by foreign invaders but on the contrary the latter “were assimilated by the Chinese as easily as the moving of
SUN YAT-SEN AND CHINESE HISTORY
111
One day, a fellow student picked one of the volumes at random and questioned Sun on its contents. It is reported that the student was surprised to discover that young Sun Yat-sen had read the work thoroughly. In this fashion then, is built the image of the revolutionary whose knowledge of his own nation's past was firmly grounded.
Yet if anything at all is clear about Sun Yat-sen's career, it should be that he had no real proclivity toward history. Aside from the required Chinese part of his curriculum at Queen's College in Hong Kong, an interest in history seems to be lacking completely in Sun's formal education, which in any case eventuated in a medical degree. But even if there was some interest in Chinese history, as manifested in his hiring of the tutor, it is even more evident that his historical curiosity was not matched by an equal amount of critical acumen as he internalized what he read of it. These then are basic considerations to be taken in hand from the beginning. Any question of the influence of nationalism momen- tarily aside, Sun's lack of interest in history led to a ready and unquestioning acceptance of the Chinese schoolboy's idealistic self- image of Chinese history, as taught among Western subjects in colonial Hong Kong. This left him without the slightest concern for the possibility of alternative interpretations of questionable his- torical points or problems, and also led to unabashed carelessness with respect to the accuracy of historical references.
Only in this way can one explain the surprising and numerous overly-facile historical generalizations and outright errors to be found even in the most cursory reading of Sun's writings. Perhaps the simple comment by Sun that Marco Polo “occupied an official post under Genghis-Khan, of the Yuan dynasty," might be over- looked even though it contains a double error (since Marco Polo served under Kubilai Khan, and there was as yet no Yuan dynasty in the time of Genghis Khan), because it is of such little impor tance, But Sun's claim that Cheng Ho visited all the islands of the ocean (ostensibly the Pacific) "and even reached San Francisco" certainly merits some notice.2 Incidentally, Sun was amiss on the date for this supposed expedition as well. Sun was much taken with the pat concept of China's irresistable assimilatory capability, and on more than one occasion referred to it. He noted that China was never "enslaved" by foreign invaders but on the contrary the latter “were assimilated by the Chinese as easily as the moving of
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