The Sinological Turn in Studies of the History of Material-Cultural Exchanges among Sea Islands in Ancient China and New Approaches： A Review of American Sinologist Edward H. Schafer’s Shore of Pearls and Mirages on the Sea of Time

As the author of The Golden Peaches of Samarkand， a seminal work on the history of Sino-foreign material and cultural exchange history， the American sinologist Edward H. Schafer has long received widespread attention， while his two other studies of ancient Chinese islands are still little known. Shore of Pearls： Hainan Island in Early Times published in 1970， was introduced to China in 2020. As the aftereffect of The Vermilion Bird： T’ang Images of the South， it received little response after its publication. Another work， Mirages on the Sea of Time： The Taoist Poetry of Ts’ao T’ang， was his last work in his later years and has not yet been translated into Chinese. From these two works， which were published fifteen years apart， we are able to get a glimpse of the literary turn within American Sinological research represented by Edward H. Schafer. By asking “what kind of material world did people in the Tang Dynasty live in?” and exploring “what constructed the spiritual world of the Tang people，” Edward H. Schafer’s two studies on ancient Chinese islands address a unique spatiotemporal lacuna in material-cultural exchange history while offering new methodological pathways for Sinology. That being said， Schafer’s romanticized vision， though enhancing aesthetic and narrative appeal， risks factual inaccuracies. Some analyses remain superficial due to insufficient engagement with Chinese cultural mechanisms， warranting further excavation and caution.