A Partial Picture: Nineteenth-Century China in the Eyes of a Fan-Koueï

Abstract:This study examines the representation of China in La Chine ouverte: aventures d’un Fan-Koueï dans le pays de Tsin (1845). Pretending to be an expert on China, the author provides a panorama of Chinese society in the late Qing. Yet, this is a fictional travel account, as the author did not set foot in China. Thus, its representations are based either on second-hand knowledge or imagination. Along with literary and visual representations, one finds a discourse permeated by the contemporary surge of colonialism and the insatiable curiosity of the West regarding Chinese culture, and how realism, vraisemblance, and imagination can be fraught with ideological implications and interpretations.