The Question Of Hu Analysis

The Question of Hu reconstructs an extraordinary episode of the initial contacts between Europe and China. Jonathan D. Spence tells the story of John Hu, a Cantonese convert to Catholicism, who entered the service of Jean-François Foucquet, a French Jesuit missionary, as translator and servant. Foucquet took him with on his return to Paris in 1722, but Hu's strange behavior abroad motivated his confinement in an asylum for the mentally ill. From French, British and Vatican archives, the author attempts to reconstruct a narrative on the supposed insanity of the Chinese servant from his controversial relationship with the Jesuit father in the context of cultural selection between Europe and Asia, each society with different beliefs of "faith, madness and moral obligation."

Hu is a man who followed the Far Eastern tradition, always dedicated to his family with whom he lived. At the time he had the opportunity to work for Foucquet he decided to put aside his religious thoughts and convert to a completely different ideology with which he could open more possibilities abroad. He started in China as a translator, until he went with his mentor to Europe.

The Western executive tries to solve the problem through planning and foresight, while in Asia they rely on improvisation or social trickery; Western thought values facts, the Eastern executive follows intuition rather; In Europe or the USA people choose the best alternative among those planned, while in Asia several solutions are tested to see what works; A Westerner resorts to examples to specify the objectives to achieve, the Eastern is more inclined to employ metaphors. In short, the deductive thinking of the West examines material reality while the Eastern takes into account changing circumstances and different social