A Case Study of the Intellectual Signs of Birds in 17th-Century China

Keywords: birds, China, 17th century, history of geography
Abstract Type: Virtual Paper Abstract

Abstract

Birds frequently occurred in the life of late imperial Chinese people: they served as pets for entertainment or as subjects of literary works. Yet little attention was given to how early modern Chinese people used birds as examples to explain their indigenous geographical theories. In this research, I will examine the case of a naturalist named Qu Dajun (1630-1696), whose twenty-seven-fascicle encyclopedia called The New Introduction to the Cantonese Regions (广东新语, Guang Dong Xin Yu) was credited as a valuable primary source in the Chinese history of ornithology and geography. This research aims to delineate the process by which a 17th-century Chinese literary scholar managed to develop seemingly plausible explanations that fit into the theoretical model of traditional Chinese cosmology of the “Five Elements” and the “Yin-Yang” duality based on his observation of the birds’ physical appearances and biological behaviors, and how he relates both of them to the geographical environment of Canton. The preliminary finding of this research demonstrates how 17th-century Chinese scholars attempted to explain their local geographical phenomenon with observations of routinely seen animals.