The Wondrous Tales of Zhang Deyi: A Chinese Diplomat's Life Between Worlds, 1847–1919
Date of Award
Spring 2024
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
History
First Advisor
Perdue, Peter
Abstract
Zhang Deyi (張德彝, 1847–1919) was born to a poor Beijing family in the deepening dusk of the Qing Empire. From inauspicious beginnings, he rose through the ranks of the Qing’s nascent diplomatic service to become its envoy to Britain, and taught the penultimate emperor English. Over the course of eight official trips abroad, he visited upwards of eighteen countries, and documented his experiences with daily diligence in journals collectively titled the Tales of Wonder (述奇). At a time when Qing elite reared on a steady diet of Confucian classics still regarded “foreign learning” as undignified, if not treasonous and toxic, omnivorous curiosity spurred Zhang to write about not only European technology, economy, and politics, but also music and dance; museums and gardens; orphanages, soup kitchens, and animal welfare. As a Han bannerman, Zhang was born to a margin of society between the Manchu rulers and the Han majority that overthrew them in 1911. Reared through the reform institutions designed to address foreign demands, Zhang documented the boots-on-the-ground reality of impacts and responses, and the multitudinous complexities in between. He reported on issues of “modernity,” without naming them such, decades before Chinese reformers and revolutionaries rallied to those causes. Along the way, Zhang’s Tales also provided eye-witness accounts rich with the textures of everyday life in nineteenth-century Europe and beyond. This dissertation presents the first full-length biography of Zhang Deyi’s life and times in any language. It draws on Zhang’s prolific Tales, as well as other personal and professional writings. It collates these with official documents, newspapers, and the diaries, memoirs, and letters of Qing and foreign contemporaries across six languages, to reconstruct the evolving worlds and worldviews of one who traversed the interstices between Manchu and Han; China and the West; humble origins and high office; tradition, reform, and revolution.
Recommended Citation
Ru, CJ, "The Wondrous Tales of Zhang Deyi: A Chinese Diplomat's Life Between Worlds, 1847–1919" (2024). Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations. 1300.
https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/gsas_dissertations/1300
