I am interested in doing research on pre-historic China, and my main concern is the interaction between ancient Chinese political power and regional culture. In the past, researchers have explained the process of cultural communication from a Sino-centric point of view, and since the 1980s, mainland Chinese academics have been stressing the concept of “pluralism.” In reality, the problem with these ways of explaining how Chinese civilization originated is that they all overlook the conceptual and evolutional process of the forming of “China.” I think about ancient Chinese history in terms of the way it is formed.
I brought this to my actual research work by studying how the ancient civilization of the Chengdu Plain was able to enter huaxia, and applied that to my master’s thesis. Initially I was able to understand through documents and archaeological findings how unique and highly developed the Chengdu Plain was in terms of ancient civilization, and the discoveries at Sanxingdui provided another basis for this as well. In the future, further progress on my thesis will basically be focused on why the dazzling civilization of the ancient kingdom of Shu was already forgotten during the Western Han Dynasty.
For long-term research, I plan to start from ancient Chengdu Plain and reach out in two directions: one is to compare the ancient Chengdu Plain civilization with that of central China and the lower reaches of the Yangtze River; and the other one is to head south and compare it to the ancient civilization of Yunnan, Vietnam, and other areas in Southeast Asia.
I am interested in doing research on pre-historic China, and my main concern is the interaction between ancient Chinese political power and regional culture. In the past, researchers have explained the process of cultural communication from a Sino-centric point of view, and since the 1980s, mainland Chinese academics have been stressing the concept of “pluralism.” In reality, the problem with these ways of explaining how Chinese civilization originated is that they all overlook the conceptual and evolutional process of the forming of “China.” I think about ancient Chinese history in terms of the way it is formed. 