ABSTRACT
The picturesque has its origins in war and a refusal to understand the enemy: our enlightenment about Asia actually came to us first from irritated missionaries and from soldiers. Later came travellers – traders and tourists – who are soldiers that have cooled off. Pillaging is called shopping, and rape is practised onerously in specialized shops. But the basic attitude has not changed: the natives are killed less frequently but they are scorned collectively, which is the civilized form of massacre; the aristocratic pleasure of counting the differences is savoured. ‘I cut my hair, he plaits his; I use a fork, he uses chopsticks; I write with a goose quill, he draws characters with a paintbrush; I have ideas which are straight, and his are bent: have you noticed that he is horrified by movement in a straight line, that he is only happy if everything goes sideways?’ This is called the game of anomalies: if you find another one, if you discover another reason for not understanding, you will be given a prize for sensitivity in your own country. You must not be surprised if those who in this way reconstruct those who resemble them, like a mosaic of irreducible differences, then wonder how anyone can be Chinese.
