Cultural Accommodation Summary

The arrival of the Jesuit missionaries in China during the late sixteenth century was one of the most vital moments in connecting the Western world to the Eastern world. It was rare that a person from Europe would travel to China, even as Europeans were exploring the world. Cultural exchange had existed before, but it had been slow, and the West and the East were relatively disconnected to each other. The Jesuits arrived hoping to convert Chinese to Catholicism, yet China was hostile to foreigners. Matteo Ricci attempted to circumvent this through detailed study of Chinese culture and history and trying to seem as if he is Chinese, a method often called “cultural accommodation”. Matteo Ricci’s cultural accommodation ultimately failed to quickly

In his article “The Intricacies of Accommodation: The Proselyting Strategy of Matteo Ricci,” Yu Liu argues that this was because Ricci’s interpretation of Confucian writings “depended on the manipulation of ancient Chinese texts as much as did his repudiation of it.” Ricci read Christianity into Confucianism and either ignored or rejected aspects that contradicted Christian doctrine, such as the notion of filial piety and ancestor worship. Ricci saw ancestor worship as simply teaching children to respect elders, rather than actual worship. This practice was, however, seen by other Jesuits as sacrilegious . Most Jesuits disliked Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism equally and criticized Ricci’s attempt to combine Confucianism and

In 1602, after almost twenty years, Ricci was finally invited to Beijing to see the emperor: the fourteenth Ming emperor, Emperor Wanli . However, Emperor Wanli did not summon Ricci to his court because of his Christian ideas, but because of his scientific ones: the emperor’s initial concern was about a clock brought to him by the Jesuits as gifts before their visit. Once this connection between the two was established, Wanli expressed his interest in the lives and culture of Europe. He began asking about European culture, dress, music, and traditions; Ricci showed him European religious paintings, which indulged the emperor’s curiosity, as he asked for these paintings to be replicated by his own court artists. Even though this exchange was facilitated through court officials, Ricci made a significant impact on the emperor. After this visit, Ricci was approved by the emperor and was relatively free, for a foreigner, to move around in Beijing. He quickly set to befriending as many people as he could, many of whom were scholars or