The American Image and the Chinese Image in the Chinese-American literature of the late Qing Dynasty

This paper attempts to sort out several imaginary models of America and China in Chinese-American literature of late Qing Dynasty by reading Yung Wing's My Life in China and America,Lee Yanphou's When I Was a Boy in China and The Miserable Society by an anonymous author.Firstly,America and China in Yung Wing's autobiography are pictured respectively as a civilized nation and a backward one.Secondly,America and China in Lee Yanphou's autobiography are portrayed as an alien nation and a poetic one respectively.Thirdly,America and China in On Driving Away Visitors and The Miserable Society are described as a perfidious country of racialism and a country in distress separately.The literary imagination of the other and oneself on part of Chinese residents in America in late Qing Dynasty has established several models of America and China in Chinese-American literature of later eras.