Far West (Taixi)

Far West
A satellite image of Europe, historically referred to as the Far West in East Asia
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese泰西
Simplified Chinese泰西
Literal meaningFar West
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyintàixī
Japanese name
Kanji泰西
Kanaたいせい
Transcriptions
Romanizationtaisei

The Far West is a Chinese and Japanese term for Europe,[1] or more broadly, for the entire Western world as a cultural region comparable to East Asian cultural sphere. Originally a name for parts of Inner Asia and India, the term Far West as a Chinese exonym for the West was coined by the Italian Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci. Ricci invented the phrase as an Asian parallel to the Eurocentric notion of the Far East, which positioned Europe as a region on the fringes of a Sinocentric world. The term Far West was also used in Japan and appears in many Japanese publications.

  1. ^ Mungello 2009, p. 8.