Although to the best of my knowledge none of this year’s Ricci class has any actual ancestors buried in China, we did visit something of an honorary ancestor: Matteo Ricci. Over the last year we’ve traced his life, voyaging from Rome to Beijing, seeking fame, fortune and adventure (or at least successful research projects). Thus, it was fitting that we should pay our respects at his grave in Beijing over the Tomb Sweeping Day (清明节, Qingming Jie) weekend.
This was no ordinary Saturday morning stroll. We took photos. We swept the tomb. We took (slightly) staged photos sweeping the tomb. Since communicating with the ancestors is key, some of the Riccis decided to send Matteo tweets. The debate rages on as to what his actual twitter handle is. Perhaps it will be another few centuries before he receives them.
Hiba Sheikh: Matteo. We have traveled the world together safely. Time to see if we survive our Ricci papers.
Roohi Singh: 2 countries & 200 days later; still following age-old footsteps, trying to make sense of vastly different worlds.@MatteoRicci it’s been wild.
Luis Vargas: Was really excited to meet the one and only @Matteoricci today. However, I got there 400 years late. Womp. Womp. Womp….
Angelo Canta: @matteoriccisj Grazie! XieXie! Hoping to make u proud! #legacy
Frieda Rule: @Matteo Tomb sweep= paper that won’t make Ian Johnson weep?
While I for one am still holding out for a Mushu-like guide to spring after this visit, with or without an Eddie Murphy-voiced dragon, the experience was still quite powerful. His tomb, nestled amongst a selection of other Jesuits on a plot surrounded by a university, was a place of a certain peace and fusion. The tombstone, in both Church Latin and traditional Chinese characters (thanks, Professor Johnson, for deciphering those!), in some way encapsulated what this whole journey has been—seeking to learn about two cultures both different from our own and radically different from one another. They somehow intersect nonetheless. The trick is simply to find out how.
It may have been the burst of sunshine or the underlying euphoria of beginning a three-day weekend, but with a little over a month left in the Middle Kingdom, the last eight months (plus the months of preparation beforehand) began to merge. Rome’s hills and wine and lyrical language somehow didn’t seem quite so far away from Beijing’s dry air and (at least my) struggles with chopsticks and ever-elusive tones. At the same time, though, the world felt incredibly vast and just ours for the exploring. In this sort of moment it would have been hard to pick between Italian or Chinese food, so we finished up with a seemingly neutral third party: Russian.
By Freida Rule, Loyola University Chicago, Spring 2016 Student
This is the first American edition of Anderson’s fascinating account of Britain’s first diplomatic mission to China in 1792. By the end of the eighteenth century the East India Company had been trading with Chinese merchants for two hundred years, but in a strictly limited way.
At the dawn of the Age of Enlightenment, as the 18th century drew to a close, the Western world was eager for knowledge—driven by a philosophical movement that championed reason and science. King Louis XV of France asked for the advice of his trusted Minister of State, Henri Bertin, about how to reform the spirit of the nation, after giving it some thought, Bertin famously responded, “Sire, to inoculate the French with the Chinese spirit.”