Scholars › Philosopher / Thinker
Chen Tianhua
Hunanese student in Japan whose vernacular tracts Sudden Awakening and Alarm Bell spread revolutionary ideas and who drowned himself in protest in 1905
A thatched pavilion open on three sides stands among tall bamboo; one person sits with their back turned at the veranda rail beside a zither and a stack of bamboo slips, while a stone path runs to a calm pond reflecting clouds and distant hills.
Also known as Zi Xingtai · Zi Guoting · Hao Sihuang
Chen Tianhua, courtesy names Xingtai and Guoting, pen name Sihuang, came from a poor family in Xinhua, Hunan, and studied at the Qiushi Academy in Changsha and elsewhere. He went to Japan on a government scholarship in 1903, joined the student volunteers protesting Russian occupation of Manchuria, and that year wrote two tracts in the style of popular ballads, Sudden Awakening (Meng huitou) and Alarm Bell (Jingshi zhong), which circulated widely at home. The next year he returned to help Huang Xing found the Society for the Revival of China and plan a rising in Changsha that never took place, then went back to Japan, joined the Revolutionary Alliance in 1905 as a secretary and wrote for Minbao. When the Japanese education ministry issued regulations restricting Chinese students that year and the students went on strike, he left a final testament and drowned himself in the bay at Omori, Tokyo, on 8 December. His body was brought home the following year and buried on Yuelu Mountain at Changsha.
Life and times
Dates 1875 CE–1905 CE