Seeing China

Abstract This article uses material examples of clothes and houses to show that the gaze of foreigners had a significant power to shape Kang Youwei's 康有為 (1858–1927) perception of China and was deeply implicated in Kang's national and cosmopolitan aspirations. How China was perceived on the international stage influenced Kang's proposal for a clothing reform and then his objection to it, his assessment of Chinese houses, and his notions about China's material modernity and a world community. Looking back at China from abroad during his travels, Kang employed the gaze to provoke shame, a quality deemed not only crucial for bringing about reforms but also indispensable for maintaining integrity in the future world of great unity.