A Partial Picture: Nineteenth-Century China in the Eyes of a Fan-Koueï.

This study examines the representation of China in La Chine ouverte: aventures d'un Fan-Koueï dans le pays de Tsin (1845). Pretending to be an expert on China, the author provides a panorama of Chinese society in the late Qing. Yet, this is a fictional travel account, as the author did not set foot in China. Thus, its representations are based either on second-hand knowledge or imagination. Along with literary and visual representations, one finds a discourse permeated by the contemporary surge of colonialism and the insatiable curiosity of the West regarding Chinese culture, and how realism, vraisemblance , and imagination can be fraught with ideological implications and interpretations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]