晚清旅日士大夫的日本妇女印象

The Impression on Japanese Women of Chinese Literati in Late Qing Dynasty

晚清时期,中国士大夫留下数量众多的日本游记。在他们笔下,日本妇女社会生活与中国相比呈现出巨大差异。她们出入公共场所,热衷于社会交往;婚姻基本自主,婚俗崇简务实;开始接受良好的教育,并成为生产领域的重要力量。妓女职业虽夹杂一些庸俗下流的东西,但已从中蜕变出近代意义上的娱乐业。所有这些,均从一个侧面折射出日本的近代化历程。而中国士大夫并没有认识到上述变化的真正意义。对他们来说,从这些方面学习日本无疑是一种触及灵魂的痛苦。这也预示着中国的近代化,仍然还有漫长的道路要走。

After the Meiji Restoration＇, great changes have taken place in Japanese women＇s social life. They accessed to public places and were keen on social communication. They could marry the person of their own choice and the wedding was simple and pragmatic. They began to receive a good education, and became an important force of production. Though contained some vulgar things, a modern entertainment industry had produced in the prostitute occupation. All of these reflected Japanese modernization from an- gle. However, those Chinese literati could not realize the significance of these changes. For them, learn- ing from the West in this aspect was undoubtedly a soul pain. This also indicated that China＇s road to modernization still had a long way to go.