Chinese guardian lions However, Chinese reference to the guardian lions are seldom prefixed with 佛 or 福, and more importantly never referred to as "dogs". Reference to guardian lions as dogs in Western cultures may be due to the Japanese reference to them as "Korean dogs" (狛犬・高麗犬) due to their transmission from China through Korea into Japan. It may also be due to the misidentification of the guardian lion figures as representing certain Chinese dog breeds such as the Chow Chow (鬆獅犬, Pinyin: sōngshī quǎn, lit. "puffy-lion dog") or Pekingese (獅子狗; Pinyin: Shīzi Gǒu, lit. "lion dog"). The lions are traditionally carved from
A Manifesto for a Re-appraisal of Sinology and Reconstruction of Chinese Culture declares a new, proper manner in which to pursue the study of Sinology and explains Chinese culture from an experience viewpoint instead of an academic one. In Serina Chan's summary, the Manifesto advocates “post-colonial cultural nationalist discourse for cultural parity between China and the West in the midst of continuing Euro-American cultural dominance…(and) the document served to move the authors' Han Chinese cultural nationalist discourse into an imagined global arena for an ideological contest between Chinese and Western Cultures.” The essay indicates three main approaches and subsequent failures in the Western study of Sinology. The scholars attributed these shortcomings to