Sowing the Seeds of Change: Chinese Students, Japanese Teachers, 1895-1905 (review)

Reviews 107 natural science" (p. 18), strictures which she regards as confining and hegemonic. In her conclusion, Farquhar suggests some ofthe ways in which this invaluable study will aid historians of Chinese medicine. She correcdy judges that after reading diis impressive work, historians will no longer be able to approach the history of Chinese medicine only as a history ofideas. Because Farquhar has so persuasively demonstrated the significance of the clinical encounter in the ongoing formation of Chinese medical ideas and practice, historians will henceforth want to pay much more attention to the extensive archive ofdoctors' individual case records. Farquhar's investigation ofthe three published case records suggests die ways historians might proceed in analyzing such sources. The complexity ofissues raised by Farquhar, the intriguing comparisons she makes between biomedicine and Chinese medicine, and her elaborate attention not only to theorybut to the day-to-daypractice ofChinese medicine makes fascinating reading for all interested in Chinese medicine. This book should be read more widely, diough, because it raises significant philosophical and metiiodological issues for all scholars engaged in the comparative study ofscience and medicine. Carol Benedict Williams College mm Paula Harrell. Sowing the Seeds ofChange: Chinese Students, Japanese Teachers, 1895-1905. Studies ofthe East Asia Institute, Columbia University . Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992. 290 pp. Hardcover $39.50. Just after China suffered a humiliating defeat in the first Sino-Japanese War, Chinese students flocked to Japan in increasing numbers. First there were only thirteen , in 1896, but their numbers swelled so that by 1906, a year after the RussoJapanese War, eight thousand to nine diousand Chinese students—perhaps many more—were studying in Japan. An agreement between the governments ofJapan and China enabled this migration ofstudents. The Chinese were now interested in learning from other countries, while the Japanese had visions ofgreater collaboration between Japan and China in a world dominated by the Western colo- ~,™r, ,t-nial powers.© 1995 by Universityr ofHawai'i PressPaula Harrell tells the fascinating story ofthese Chinese students in diis unprecedented full-scale study-abroad venture. Japan itselfhad just begun to take pride in its modern school system, only recendy established in 1872 by die Meiji 108 China Review International: Vol. 2, No. 1, Spring 1995 government and one that was based on Western educational models. Studying in Japan was much more affordable for the Chinese than going to Europe or America for studies, and Japanese were Asians whose achievements in modernizing their nation after the Meiji Restoration were already apparent. Harrell describes how impressed the Chinese first were with Japanese schools that made their Qing counterparts look so crude and backward by comparison. Modern-style formal education was seen as a thoroughly pragmatic enterprise in Japan, a means for developing a strong nation while promising a better livelihood for those who advanced in the system. Through their experience of Japan , Chinese students began to see die need to view education more as a utilitarian enterprise, and they became increasingly dissatisfied with the backwardness of their own educational institutions in meeting the challenges of imperialism. This briefbut important interlude oflarge-scale study abroad in Japan led to students becoming increasingly critical of tiieir own leaders. Harrell writes, "Quite clearly after 1903, many of China's 'best and brightest' were using their talents to defy rather than shore up the regime in power" (p. 144). In the relative security of Japan, they developed a reformist stance toward tiieir own country, while at the same time they also developed strong anti-Japanese attitudes. The program thus resulted in attitudes contrary to what the governments ofboth countries had intended when diey embarked on their joint educational venture. Incidents widi Chinese officials in Japan added to die perception of the incompetence oftheir government officials. Furthermore, the Chinese students, as Harrell shows, did not often receive the kind ofrespect that Sun Yat-sen received from his influential Japanese friends; instead they had a different experience, which resulted in a feeling of resentment toward the Japanese. The students often encountered condescension from their hosts, who often looked upon diem as inferiors from a backward society. The students also saw die Japanese ventures in East Asia at that time as clearly imperialistic...