Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Academic Autobiography"
Click here for the other posts in this Round and Square series on John King Fairbank's autobiography:
II—On the Farm with John Fairbank and Chen Pu
II—On the Farm with John Fairbank and Chen Pu
I begin with a text that John King Fairbank knew
well. Indeed, it is interesting to see
the prominence Fairbank rightly gives agriculture in his last book, China: A History. Pictures of labor in the fields dot the text in a way that makes a reader of his other books wonder where this "angle" was earlier in his career. In the extended quotation below, the eleventh century “agricultural thinker”
Chen Pu writes of farming technique, topography, finance, and labor. Above all, though, he concentrates on the
farmer himself, and his need to focus on his work almost to the exclusion of
all else. If you want to farm well, you need a single-track mind.
If something is thought out carefully, it will succeed;
if not, it will fail; this is
a universal truth. It is very rare that a person works and yet gains nothing.
On the other hand, there is never any harm in trying too hard. In farming it
is especially appropriate to be concerned about what you are doing. Mencius
said, “Will a farmer discard his plow when he leaves his land?” Ordinary
people will become idle if they have leisure and prosperity. Only those who
love farming, who behave in harmony with it, who take pleasure in talking
about it and think about it all the time will manage it without a moment’s
negligence. For these people a day’s work results in a day’s gain, a year’s
work in a year’s gain. How can they escape affluence?
a universal truth. It is very rare that a person works and yet gains nothing.
On the other hand, there is never any harm in trying too hard. In farming it
is especially appropriate to be concerned about what you are doing. Mencius
said, “Will a farmer discard his plow when he leaves his land?” Ordinary
people will become idle if they have leisure and prosperity. Only those who
love farming, who behave in harmony with it, who take pleasure in talking
about it and think about it all the time will manage it without a moment’s
negligence. For these people a day’s work results in a day’s gain, a year’s
work in a year’s gain. How can they escape affluence?
As to those with many interests who cannot concentrate on
any one and who
are incapable of being meticulous, even if they should come by some profit,
they will soon lose it. For they will never understand that the transformation
of the small into the big is the result of persistent effort. To indulge in pleasure
and discard work whenever the chance arises and to meet matters only when
they become urgent is never the right way of doing things. Generally
speaking, ordinary people take pride in having prosperity to indulge in
temporary leisure. If there should be a man who remains diligent in
prosperity, everyone else will mark him as a misfit, so great is their lack of
understanding![1]
are incapable of being meticulous, even if they should come by some profit,
they will soon lose it. For they will never understand that the transformation
of the small into the big is the result of persistent effort. To indulge in pleasure
and discard work whenever the chance arises and to meet matters only when
they become urgent is never the right way of doing things. Generally
speaking, ordinary people take pride in having prosperity to indulge in
temporary leisure. If there should be a man who remains diligent in
prosperity, everyone else will mark him as a misfit, so great is their lack of
understanding![1]
It has become plain to me that my initial approach to
Fairbank and South Dakota was wrong—that by focusing on direct connections
to South Dakota, I had missed the broader picture, a hint of which can be found
on the very first page of Chinabound
and is echoed throughout the rest of the book.
Fairbank sought a field he could tend, a field in which he
could grow as a person and build something of his own—a place where he could be out...standing...in his field.
After reading Chen Pu’s little treatise, the rhetoric of Fairbank’s Chinabound is startling. He was trying to build something, and the corporate body was Chinese studies in the United States.
After reading Chen Pu’s little treatise, the rhetoric of Fairbank’s Chinabound is startling. He was trying to build something, and the corporate body was Chinese studies in the United States.
I was born in 1907 in Huron, near where Hubert Humphrey
was born at about
the same time. One could stand in the corn on the side of town and see it
waving in the fields on the other side. From the top of a rise under the big sky
of the plains one could look farther over the quarter sections and farmsteads
and see man more in control of nature than anywhere else in the world. Later
on, when I was choosing a career, Chinese studies seemed like a limitless
opportunity, stretching away to an unknown horizon, waiting to be explored
and cultivated.[2]
the same time. One could stand in the corn on the side of town and see it
waving in the fields on the other side. From the top of a rise under the big sky
of the plains one could look farther over the quarter sections and farmsteads
and see man more in control of nature than anywhere else in the world. Later
on, when I was choosing a career, Chinese studies seemed like a limitless
opportunity, stretching away to an unknown horizon, waiting to be explored
and cultivated.[2]
Reading the passage above made me realize that, even
though South Dakota figures in only minor ways in his life, the vision that
comes from it is very real. This need
not sound ethereal, either. Fairbank’s
memoirs, like Chen Pu’s treatise, are practical, focused, and downright driven. John King Fairbank “worked the field” as he quite self-consciously built
an academic and policy-making structure in the United States. Even a skim of Chen Pu’s text will show that
the two authors valued similar human qualities and did not quite understand
those who were less driven and (as they saw it) somewhat more dilettantish. Indeed, neither really understood having any other interests at all beyond cultivating the field (as we shall see).
My fascination with Fairbank has grown, so to speak, in the course of
my studies over the years. In this series of posts, I will give a sketch of some of the major
“field-building” themes in Chinabound, but they are part of a broader project that looks at the way that academics build careers (and "fields") around them. And build Fairbank did, producing 57 books,
140 articles and essays, as well as numerous reviews. He is responsible for the development of a research center at Harvard (now named after him), and for training several
generations of China scholars. Indeed,
almost everyone in the field can trace his or her “origins” back to the
research center that Fairbank, with the help of others, built at Harvard. There are six degrees of Fairbank throughout the field (and most are much closer than that).
When he began, there were almost no well-trained scholars
in even the major universities (Chicago was an exception, with the sinologist
Herlee Creel, and both Yale and Columbia had people in place). By the 1950s, most major universities had
professors of Chinese studies and, in several waves of production that owed as
much to world affairs as Harvard training, today even quite small colleges
often have positions in Chinese studies.
A case in point is my own institution, Beloit College. On a faculty of 100 we have over a dozen professors who work with Chinese sources and have published on Chinese themes, doing research in history,
anthropology, economics, education, art history, political science, music, language and literature, religion,
philosophy, mathematics, and English. All (one way or another) can trace their Chinese studies “ancestry” back to Harvard, and the
program John King Fairbank, Edwin Reischauer, and others built in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s,
1960s, and 1970s.
In this series of posts, we will deal with one prominent theme in Fairbank’s
memoirs—the cultivation of talent—especially Fairbank's very self-conscious cultivation of his own talents, his cultivation
of others (both colleagues and students), and finally his cultivation of texts, maps, and supporting materials
as he sought to create a body of knowledge and series of institutions that would
outlast him and make a permanent impact on the United States’ understanding of
China. As you proceed, you will see that I am a bit more ambivalent than Fairbank about the meaning of it all. I find it odd, for example, that his memoir was published just five years after Edward Said's Orientalism, yet contains nary a paragraph that so much as hints at the irony of it all. On the other hand, John King Fairbank built that, and he had help from all over the country and the world. He is unafraid to give credit to all who helped him.
Except, perhaps, to his native South Dakota.
Click here for the other posts in this Round and Square series on John King Fairbank's autobiography:
Notes
Except, perhaps, to his native South Dakota.
Click here for the other posts in this Round and Square series on John King Fairbank's autobiography:
[e] Impact RF |
[1] Patricia Ebrey, Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook (New York: The Free Press, 1993), 188-189.
[2] John King Fairbank, Chinabound (New York: Harper Collins, 1983), 4.
[2] John King Fairbank, Chinabound (New York: Harper Collins, 1983), 4.
Bibliography
Ebrey, Patricia. Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook. New York: The Free Press, 1993.
Fairbank, John King. Chinabound. New York: Harper Collins, 1983.
Fairbank, John King. Chinabound. New York: Harper Collins, 1983.
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