Book description
In contrast to the economic and cultural dominance by the south and
the east coast over the past several centuries, influence in China in
the early Middle Ages was centered in the north and featured a
significantly multicultural society. Many events that were profoundly
formative for the future of East Asian civilization occurred during
this period, although much of this multiculturalism has long been
obscured due to the Confucian monopoly of written records.
Multicultural China in the Early Middle Ages endeavors to
expose a number of long-hidden non-Sinitic characteristics and
manifestations of heritage, some lasting to this very day.
Sanping Chen investigates several foundational aspects of
Chinese culture during this period, including the legendary unicorn
and the fabled heroine Mulan, to determine the origin and development
of the lore. His meticulous research yields surprising results. For
instance, he finds that the character Mulan is not of Chinese origin
and that Central Asian influences are to be found in language,
religion, governance, and other fundamental characteristics of Chinese
culture. As Victor Mair writes in the Foreword, "While not
everyone will acquiesce in the entirety of Dr. Chen's findings, no
reputable scholar can afford to ignore them with impunity."
These "foreign"-origin elements were largely the
legacy of the Tuoba, whose descendants in fact dominated China's
political and cultural stage for nearly a millennium. Long before the
Mongols, the Tuoba set a precedent for "using the civilized to
rule the civilized" by attracting a large number of sedentary
Central Asians to East Asia. This not only added a strong pre-Islamic
Iranian layer to the contemporary Sinitic culture but also commenced
China's golden age under the cosmopolitan Tang dynasty, whose
nominally "Chinese" ruling house is revealed by Chen to be
the biological and cultural heir of the Tuoba.
"Chen's work is a useful corrective and provides a nuanced
perspective on China's history and culture in the first millennium C.
E."-Peter B. Golden, Rutgers University
Sanping Chen is an independent scholar.
