The Reading Review of the Chapter4

香山亭

Reader:
谢嗣婷

Reading Time:
第五周

Reading Task:
Chapter4

Summary of the Content:
Ku Hung-Ming employs the fictionalized figure of "John Smith" to symbolize self-proclaimed "enlightened" Western merchants, missionaries, and colonizers. Proud of their materialism and military supremacy, they utterly fail to grasp the essence of Chinese culture. Instead, they attempt to "reform" China through brute force, exacerbating the clash between Eastern and Western civilizations.

Evaluation:
Ku Hung-Ming employs the symbolic figure of "John Smith" to satirize Western colonizers who, while self-righteously proclaiming their "civilization", exhibit barbaric behavior. Through masterful use of irony and hyperbole, he exposes their hypocrisy. For instance, his scathing remark that Westerners "spread Christianity with Maxim guns" lays bare the inherent contradiction between violence and "civilization."
Moreover, Ku's English prose is deeply influenced by the Victorian essay style— marked by rigorous sentence structure, refined rhetoric, and frequent citations of Western literary giants such as Shakespeare, Goethe, and Carlyle. By wielding the intellectual arsenal of the West itself, he turns their own cultural canon against them. This approach made his arguments particularly formidable to Western readers, as his critiques were rooted in the very traditions they revered.
Ku Hung-Ming argued that Western civilization relied excessively on force, commerce, and law, while lacking genuine moral foundations. He caustically remarked: "What Europeans call 'progress' is nothing but better cannons and faster ways to make money." In contrast, the essence of Chinese civilization lay in "moral cultivation" (as exemplified by Confucianism), which emphasized harmony and propriety rather than brute power.
He exposed how Western colonizers cloaked "plunder and control" under the noble pretext of "spreading civilization." For instance, Britain launched the Opium War under the guise of "free trade", yet shamelessly posed as a "bearer of civilization." Ku's incisive critique of such double standards laid bare the true nature of colonialism.

Reflection：
Ku Hung-Ming critiqued the Western colonizers' "materialism-first" mentality, asserting that true civilization must be rooted in moral and spiritual cultivation. In today's consumerist society, have we too become "John Smith-ified"? For instance: chasing after high salaries, luxury brands, and social media validation while neglecting inner refinement (such as reading, self-reflection, and family bonds); measuring life's worth by utilitarian standards (income, academic degrees) rather than moral character or wisdom.
Ku exposed how the West masked hegemony under the banner of "civilization" —a phenomenon still visible today. Some blindly idolize Western lifestyles while disparaging their own traditions (e.g., diluted Lunar New Year celebrations versus exuberant Christmas festivities). In this era of globalization, we must preserve cultural identity and confidence, engaging with foreign cultures dialectically-neither rejecting them wholesale nor losing ourselves in blind admiration.