Chen Jitong (; 1851–1907),

courtesy name A courtesy name ( zh, s=字, p=zì, l=character), also known as a style name, is an additional name bestowed upon individuals at adulthood, complementing their given name. This tradition is prevalent in the East Asian cultural sphere, particula ...

Jingru (), also known as Tcheng Ki-tong, was a Chinese diplomat, general, scholar, and shipbuilder during the late

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...

. Chen was born in Houguan, now in present-day Minhou,

Fuzhou Fuzhou is the capital of Fujian, China. The city lies between the Min River (Fujian), Min River estuary to the south and the city of Ningde to the north. Together, Fuzhou and Ningde make up the Eastern Min, Mindong linguistic and cultural regi ...

. In 1869 he started to study the

French language French ( or ) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European family. Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. French evolved from Northern Old Gallo-R ...

at the school attached to the Fuzhou shipyard. In 1875 Shen Baozhen sent thirty Chinese students, from the training school attached to the Foochow Arsenal to study shipbuilding and navigation in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

. In 1876, Chen Jitong was selected to go to Europe and he wrote a book on his impressions after his return to China the following year. He subsequently served on a number of important positions in the Qing foreign service. While serving as a diplomat in France, he wrote several famous works in French, becoming the first

Francophone The Francophonie or Francophone world is the whole body of people and organisations around the world who use the French language regularly for private or public purposes. The term was coined by Onésime Reclus in 1880 and became important a ...

Chinese author. In 1891, he was dismissed from all official positions and settled in

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

. Following China's defeat in the

First Sino-Japanese War The First Sino-Japanese War (25 July 189417 April 1895), or the First China–Japan War, was a conflict between the Qing dynasty of China and the Empire of Japan primarily over influence in Joseon, Korea. In Chinese it is commonly known as th ...

, he served as foreign minister of the short-lived

Republic of Formosa The Republic of Formosa was a short-lived republic that existed on the island of Taiwan in 1895 between the formal cession of Taiwan by the Qing dynasty of China to the Empire of Japan in the Treaty of Shimonoseki and its being taken over by ...

Writings

* -- Tcheng-ki-tong,
Les Chinois peints par eux memes
' Paris: Levy, 1884.

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

* --
Journal d'un mandarin: lettres de Chine et documents diplomatiques inédits
' Paris: Plom, 1887.

* --
The Chinese painted by themselves.
' Translated from the French by James Millington. London: Field & Tuer, 885? * -- Tcheng-Ki-Tong, ''Chin-Chin or The Chinaman at Home''. Tr. R. H. Sherard. London: A. P. Marsden, 1895. * --
Contes chinois
' Paris: Levy, 1889.

References

*Yeh, Catherine Vance. "The Life-Style of Four Wenren in Late Qing Shanghai." ''Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies'' 57, no. 2 (1997): 419–70. * Ke Ren, "Chen Jitong, Les Parisiens peints par un Chinois, and the Literary Self-Fashioning of a Chinese Boulevardier in Fin-de-siècle Paris", ''L'Esprit créateur'', Volume 56, Number 3, Fall 2016, Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 90–103.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Chen, Jitong 1851 births 1907 deaths 19th-century Chinese diplomats Ambassadors of China to France Writers from Fuzhou Politicians from Fuzhou 1895 in Taiwan Sciences Po alumni Chinese expatriates in France Chinese shipbuilders French-language writers from China