What is Chinese studies? What does it contain?

Sinology can be translated as "Guo Xue" or "Sinology" (meaning China or Sinology).

1. In a narrow sense, sinology refers to China's traditional culture and scholarship with Confucianism as the main body.

2. At present, Sinology generally refers to a unique and complete cultural academic system based on pre-Qin classics and philosophers' studies, including Confucian Classics in Han Dynasty, Metaphysics in Wei and Jin Dynasties, Neo-Confucianism in Song and Ming Dynasties, Han Fu in the same period, Parallel Prose in Six Dynasties, Poems in Tang and Song Dynasties, Yuanqu, novels in Ming and Qing Dynasties, historiography in past dynasties, etc.

Therefore, in a broad sense, China's ancient and modern culture and scholarship, including history, thought, philosophy, geography, politics, economy, painting and calligraphy, music, astrology, traditional Chinese medicine, astrology and architecture, all involve Chinese studies.

Sinology originally refers to national universities, such as imperial academy and imperial academy. Sinology refers to the theory of learning, which originated from the historical period of western learning spreading to the east and cultural transformation in the late Qing Dynasty. Originally called "middle school", it was later renamed "Chinese studies". It rose at the end of 19 and the beginning of the 20th century, and flourished at 1920s. In Chinese mainland, after the Cultural Revolution, the freedom of thought and learning gradually recovered, and the academic space of China traditional culture gradually expanded. Since 1980s, "Chinese studies" have been revived.

Under the influence of western learning in the twentieth century, the development of Chinese studies has obviously been greatly impacted. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the idea of "learning from the middle school as the body, learning from the west as the application" and "practical learning" rose, and the word Sinology was put forward because of western learning. Sinology is regarded as "the soul of China" by traditional scholars in China. After the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty and the founding of the Republic of China, various new western thoughts were introduced into China. Under the influence of the New Culture Movement and the May 4th Movement, the Westernization School despised it as "the quintessence of Chinese culture", so many middle schools called it "the study of national heritage", and those who maintained traditional culture called it "the study of national quintessence". Xue Heng School prospers the quintessence of Chinese culture, but it often doesn't pretend to be Chinese studies.