A Little-known Diary across Italy and Europe: Oumei manyou riji and the Changed Representation of the Other in Diaries of the Republican Period

This article presents and analyses Oumei manyou riji 歐美漫遊日記 [Diary of a journey in Europe and the United States], a text composed by Chen Yifu 陳一甫 (1869–1948) and his son Chen Dayou 陳達有 (dates unknown). Touching upon the reciprocal representation between Italy and China, the article highlights the unique value Oumei manyou riji has mainly from two perspectives: it was written neither by a “scholar” in the most traditional sense of the term, nor by an official envoy, and it was published in a period in which diaries were no longer considered a primary source of information on the West.