213
BOOK REVIEWS
Full Circle: A Life with Hong Kong and China
Ruth Hayhoe
Introduction by Mark Bray and Ora Kwo
Comparative Education Research Centre, The University of Hong Kong
Hong Kong, 200
ISBN 962 8093 31,2
276pp.
HK$200/US$32
Few westerners in history have become as knowledgeably inculturated into respect for China and Chinese ways as Ruth Hayhoe has, or achieved her high level of trilingual Chinese skills.
Centuries ago, the Jesuits adopted Chinese ways in order to convert China to Roman Catholicism. Some wore Chinese clothes and traveled in state like Confucian scholar-administrators, borne in palanquins preceded by attendants carrying their books. In the end, the Roman hierarchy thought they had gone too far, and the Order was suppressed.
Hayhoe wears the occasional mandarin collar, has written or edited several books and numerous articles, which could well be borne in state, and for just over four years, as a senior member of the educational hierarchy, enjoyed an official car in Hong Kong. But her avowed purpose is sometimes the opposite of that which compelled the Jesuits in the past. She wishes to bring Chinese knowledge (pp. 126, 251) -- and 'Asian ways of knowing' (pp. 20, 239) -- to the rest of the world. At other times, she looks for an equal balance; for, ‘an ideal set of relations between China and western countries, characterised by mutuality and ordered around the values of autonomy, equity, solidarity and participation.' (p. 117)
This Autobiography gives a description of how Hayhoe's inculturation took place and also expresses the illumination she found when writing this account of selected strata of her life. Although she tells us that when she left Canada for her first visit to Hong Kong, in June 1967, 'China meant nearly nothing to me' (p. 64), elsewhere she explains that, as she wrote this book, she came to feel that all her
213
BOOK REVIEWS
Full Circle: A Life with Hong Kong and China
Ruth Hayhoe
Introduction by Mark Bray and Ora Kwo
Comparative Education Research Centre, The University of Hong
Kong
Hong Kong, 200
ISBN 962 8093 31,2
276pp.
HK$200/US$32
Few westerners in history have become as knowledgeably inculturated into respect for China and Chinese ways as Ruth Hayhoe has, or achieved her high level of trilingual Chinese skills.
Centuries ago, the Jesuits adopted Chinese ways in order to convert China to Roman Catholicism. Some wore Chinese clothes and traveled in state like Confucian scholar-administrators, borne in palanquins preceded by attendants carrying their books. In the end, the Roman hierarchy thought they had gone too far, and the Order was suppressed.
Hayhoe wears the occasional mandarin collar, has written or edited several books and numerous articles, which could well be borne in state, and for just over four years, as a senior member of the educational hierarchy, enjoyed an official car in Hong Kong. But her avowed purpose is sometimes the opposite of that which compelled the Jesuits in the past. She wishes to bring Chinese knowledge (pp. 126, 251) -- and 'Asian ways of knowing' (pp. 20, 239)
of knowing' (pp. 20, 239) -- to the rest of the world. At other times, she looks for an equal balance; for, ‘an ideal set of relations between China and western countries, characterised by mutuality and ordered around the values of autonomy, equity, solidarity and participation.' (p. 117)
This Autobiography gives a description of how Hayhoe's inculturation took place and also expresses the illumination she found when writing this account of selected strata of her life. Although she tells us that when she left Canada for her first visit to Hong Kong, in June 1967, 'China meant nearly nothing to me' (p. 64), elsewhere she explains that, as she wrote this book, she came to feel that all her
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.