The Protean Image of Plant Life

Abstract This article aims to shed light on the image of plant life attributed to Chinese civilizational stillness in cross-cultural encounters and imaginations in modern times. The author shows how the same image has had different cognitive values and cultural meanings. The article begins with an investigation of Hegel's negative portrait of China as vegetative other and then a consideration of Du Yaquan's 杜亚泉 affirmation of the vegetalism of Chinese civilization and its healthiness. It moves on to a reading of plant image in Lu Xun's 鲁迅 writing across different genres and elucidates his nondichotomous and more resilient understandings of plant life. Along the path of tracing the disparate concepts nestling in the image of plant life, the author also discusses other important cultural figures, such as Zhou Zuoren 周作人, Karl Jaspers, Chen Duxiu 陈独秀, and Zhang Taiyan 章太炎. By invoking a central image of plant life, the author attempts not an exceptionalist and representational claim but an illumination of its protean nature. The large philosophical question of interest is the intersectional question of China's emergence as a modern nation.