Exceptional and Chinese by Wang Gungwu

Sixty years ago, Francis L.K. Hsu in his Americans and Chinese: two ways of life (1953), described the people of both countries as culturally and psychologically exceptional. Today all the talk is about two powerful countries, exceptional now in a different world. Like the book, this lecture will focus on people. Were Chinese who left China exceptional, or exceptional only after they left? Did it matter if they moved not to the West but within the region? When they remained or became Chinese, was that what distinguished them outside China? For several centuries, more than 90 per cent of them lived, worked and settled in various parts of the Nanyang or Southeast Asia. What was exceptional and Chinese about them, and what happens when China now seeks to be exceptional anew?

This talk is part of the Institute of East Asian Studies Distinguished Speaker Series.

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