China and the West

Mark Twain and China : general 1852-2000
1987
Liu Haiming : Mark Twain's first appearance on the Chinese literary scene was not in the role of humorist. The style of his humor was not easy for literate Chinese, with their different cultural traditions, to understand and appreciate. The purpose of many translations of the late Qing was to introduce the social systems and customs of other countries to the Chinese people. Twain is usually termed a humorous satirist' in Chinese literary circles. He was a great literary pioneer and the first writer successfully to express American life using the language of the American people. Twain's humor was a unification, continuation and development of the traditional language, form and content of the American west.
2010
Ou Hsin-yun : Although the actual presence of the Chinese was rare on the American East Coast in the nineteenth century, frontier writings and dramas with Chinese characters were popular, because the readers and audiences were curious about the American West. Twain exhibited his fascination with and sympathy for the Chinese through his attack on the racist practices against the Chinese in his 'Disgraceful persecution of a boy', 'John Chinaman in New York', 'Goldsmith's friend abroad again', his novel 'Roughing it,' and the play 'Ah Sin'. Twain's writings demonstrate American Orientalism as influenced not only by the American's relations with the Orient, but also by their different social ideologies and self-identification of nationality. Since Twain endeavored to understand the Chinese and protest against Western imperialism, his writings offer different perspectives on Asian people.
2010
Martin Zehr : The conclusion that Twain's observations of the Chinese, direct and otherwise, influences his writings, especially in terms of his acute awareness of the roles of race, class, and ethnicity in his characters, is inescapable. One of the less controversial statements one can make regarding his personal and literary evolution is that a change did in fact take place in his personal attitudes with respect to each of these factors, even acknowledging, that Twain is still the subject of occasional charges of racism. A review of his writings on the Chinese reveals the importance of his observations in this regard, even though they rarely constitute a prominent role in his work. Nevertheless, from the time of his first focused writings on the Chinese, during his journalistic apprenticeships in the West, it is apparent that Twain is closely noting and, unlike many of his contemporaries, choosing not to ignore the fate of these immigrants.
During Twain's lifetime, it is doubtful that his attitudes toward the Chinese ever represented anything more than a distinctly minority opinion in the United States, where the fears of 'yellow peril' or the protectionist proclivities of organized labor were continually leveraged by clever politicians into support for the official exclusionary policies against Chinese immigration beginning in 1882.