Visiting Professor of East Asian Studies Richard Kagan specializes in the study of China and Taiwan. After retiring from his position as a professor at Hamline University in 2005 and writing and traveling in the interim period, he started teaching the East Asian Studies course “History of Taiwan” at Wesleyan this semester. Professor Kagan sat down with The Argus to discuss his favorite books about China, civil rights, and relating to people of different cultures.

 

The Argus: What’s on your bookshelf? What’s your favorite book about China?

Richard Kagan: My favorite book on Chinese history was [written by] Etienne Balazs, a French Hungarian.

My favorite journalist is Jonathan Mirsky. He combines three things. The first thing is that he is a tremendously good observer of the language. He used to teach Chinese and is very fluent and understands how to interview somebody to get them to talk. He is very magnificent at reading or remembering Chinese history from the 1880s until present. He is just like an encyclopedia, but a very analytical one—very focused on the specifics and how they fit the past. He also has a theoretical and intellectual view of what are the values that all of us are trying to look for…what does this mean for the quality of life, what does this mean for human beings, what does this mean for our future?

The other person, who is much better at political theory and historical methodology is Friedman…[who] writes about political science, China and Taiwan today, and the political system, and inequality of life issues. He lived in a peasant village for a year and half and lived in a mine or cave for a while to investigate mushroom production. He is very earthy and doesn’t take himself too seriously.

 

A: What Chinese literature do you find most interesting?

RK: I particularly like the writing of Sima Qian, [in particular] his letter to Ren An, which is a classic. I like Jonathan Spence’s translation—I didn’t read the Chinese—of the Kangxi Emperor. The man [Kangxi] was just…so human. The way he wrote…is just beautiful and brings tears to your eyes.

The other person I like a lot is Chen Duxiu. I like a lot of his stuff [written] in the May Fourth Movement.

 

A: What books do you recommend to those who know little about China?

RK: I guess one of the most popular people…is Jonathan Spence. He is very good at [writing about] modern China. He is easily available to read in his language—he’s a Brit. I favor Asian writers or European writers…the problem is that a lot of the American writers are so professional and so narrow. They don’t reach out like Jonathan and Friedman. These people are always trying to relate specifics they’ve seen to the universal issues, oftentimes spiritual issues, religious, and the quality of life issues.

 

A: How did you become interested in the subject of China?

RK: My family is in Los Angeles and they helped a lot of refugees who were in Harbin or Shanghai come out of China after the war, or even some during the war…[The refugees] brought a lot of Chinese and Japanese artifacts, statues, and furniture. So I was always interested in that. In Los Angeles, we had Japanese friends who [were taken] off to [internment] camps…[I had] a lot of concerns about them. I was very young at the time, and that was another world for me.

I also had a professor at Berkeley, and I was very close to him. He dealt with the intellectual issues in China in the 19th and 20th century. When he talked, he brought China alive, in the sense that he didn’t just talk about China—he talked about European history and some religious history. He opened up China, not just as some unique or oriental window, but a window that was really about all of us. That’s what I liked about it.

 

A: Do you feel connected to the fate of China?

RK: Not so much the fate of China, but definitely trying to find out what the spiritual and intellectual issues they are dealing with and how they related to me. For instance, the ’60s was a very strong period of civil wars, and the history of the Chinese and American [people] was one of denials of civil wars.

Here in America, we talked about civil rights for African Americans and the rights for women. And China seemed to be participating in struggles to release people from the shackles they were in, intellectual and political and social.

I went to Taiwan in 1965to 1967, and when I was there, there were two main issues. One was civil rights. I was in a country under marshal law…and we were involved in the war with Vietnam, in Asia, Korea, we had a war in Japan. It didn’t seem that we had enough information about it to deal with. It was wrong, not open. The more I looked into these issues, the more I related to the issues of colonies trying to find freedom. And China fits into that—they were under Japanese and Chiang Kai Shek. It all fits in the civil rights. We just ignored it.

 

A: How do you, as an outsider to China, overcome the struggle of understanding the mindset of a group of people sharing a different cultural background?

RK:  I ran a company and I’ve been to Mississippi, the South. I found very similar difficulties [laughs]. I feel [at ease] with some people. The ease I feel has very little to do with the geography, but depends on what their career is and what level they’re on, the level of culture and education. There are highly cosmopolitan people…in China today.

…What I do, and what I tell my students to do [when I take them to China] is to find people who are your counterpart….When I took students there, I did magic tricks in a park. There were so many people and there must be someone who knows English or magic. You end up with this relationship or this bond.

You also have to be very careful of talking about topics that are sensitive; that’s also true in America…you just have to relate to them in a way that you can still find things out, but you don’t have to go head-on.