Books are usually set in different categories based on what aspect of life is their topic related to. A book “Questions of Hu” is a historical book written by Jonathan Spence, a British-American historian, who is specialized in Chinese History. Dr. Spence received a lot of positive critics by major newspapers and journals like Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, etc. This book can be considered as a product of Spence 's interest in China and its culture and history, and his passion to describe the historic and cultural traits of two cultures. Writing “Questions of Hu”, Spence gave a detailed account about relations between China and the Western people. He was frequently using biographies of prominent people to approach the history
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'The Question of Hu ' ' is an unique and interesting book because it has characteristics of historical work and it can also be read as a novel. The reason why it can also be considered as a novel is because the book has a central theme and the main character called “Hu”.
The whole story starts in France. Hu plays the main role in the story as an ordinary Chinese male, who converted to Christianity. His character is extremely interesting, but on the other hand it is complex and complicated, that claim is highly supported by the events and Hu’s experiences in the book. When Hu was 40 years old, he traveled to France as an assistant of father Foucquet. The plan was to visit Paris and Rome. His responsibility was to follow father Foucquet as the copyist. Hu is a gatekeeper of church as well. Father Foucquet is a Jesuit missionary, who spent 22 years in China doing more scholar work than missionary one. Jesuits are “members of the Society of Jesus, a Roman Catholic order of religious men founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola, noted for its educational, missionary, and charitable works, once regarded by many as the principal agent of the Counter-Reformation, and later …show more content…
This book in my opinion can be added to what we learned in class to the chapter about Imperialism. Europeans through centuries have been very imperialistic oriented, therefore they were treating other people from other cultures differently. I can clearly make a correlation between Hu and the culture of Inkas and Astecs that we learned in the class. Their cultures were odd and unacceptable to Spanish conquerers, therefore Spanish forces decided to destroy their cultures and force natives to assimilate in Spanish/European culture. Different way of life and perspective of the world tend to be mistreated by the stronger force. In Hu’s case that was Western culture, because he was being in a foreign country, which was a strange experience during that period of human history. Difference and bound between Europe and China in 18th century was stronger and more obvious than it is
'The Question of Hu ' ' is an unique and interesting book because it has characteristics of historical work and it can also be read as a novel. The reason why it can also be considered as a novel is because the book has a central theme and the main character called “Hu”.
The whole story starts in France. Hu plays the main role in the story as an ordinary Chinese male, who converted to Christianity. His character is extremely interesting, but on the other hand it is complex and complicated, that claim is highly supported by the events and Hu’s experiences in the book. When Hu was 40 years old, he traveled to France as an assistant of father Foucquet. The plan was to visit Paris and Rome. His responsibility was to follow father Foucquet as the copyist. Hu is a gatekeeper of church as well. Father Foucquet is a Jesuit missionary, who spent 22 years in China doing more scholar work than missionary one. Jesuits are “members of the Society of Jesus, a Roman Catholic order of religious men founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola, noted for its educational, missionary, and charitable works, once regarded by many as the principal agent of the Counter-Reformation, and later …show more content…
This book in my opinion can be added to what we learned in class to the chapter about Imperialism. Europeans through centuries have been very imperialistic oriented, therefore they were treating other people from other cultures differently. I can clearly make a correlation between Hu and the culture of Inkas and Astecs that we learned in the class. Their cultures were odd and unacceptable to Spanish conquerers, therefore Spanish forces decided to destroy their cultures and force natives to assimilate in Spanish/European culture. Different way of life and perspective of the world tend to be mistreated by the stronger force. In Hu’s case that was Western culture, because he was being in a foreign country, which was a strange experience during that period of human history. Difference and bound between Europe and China in 18th century was stronger and more obvious than it is