初到美国交流的时候，四川外国语学院教授张涛总觉得美国人对中国缺乏“基本的了解”。
Zhang Tao, a professor at Sichuan International Studies University, thought Americans lacked a basic understanding of China, when he first went to the United States as a visiting scholar.

当时，张涛正在查阅早期的美国媒体资料，希望研究“美国民族意识的形成”。可没想到，在这个“纯美国”的学术领域里，他竟然发现了中国文化的痕迹。
At the time, Zhang was looking through early U.S. media archives to study the formation of American national consciousness. Much to his surprise, he found Chinese cultural traces in this "purely American" academic field.

2005年，在美国宾夕法尼亚大学的图书馆，张涛偶然翻到了一份1743年的《纽约周报》——当时的美国还没有独立。这份内容简单的报纸只有4个小版，可占据整个头版篇幅的，居然是一篇名为《孔子的道德》的文章。里面对中国崇尚儒学、言必称孔子的行为作了不少介绍。
Zhang ran across an issue of the New York Weekly Journal published in 1743, when the country had not become independent, at the library of the University of Pennsylvania in 2005. The four-page newspaper devoted its entire front page to an article about the morals of Confucius and the Chinese people's advocacy of Confucianism.

在那之后，张涛花了7年时间，在15家美国报纸上收集了近万篇涉及孔子的报道，从中分析美国媒体塑造孔子形象的变迁。最近，他把这些研究写入了一本名为《孔子在美国》的书里。
Afterward, Zhang spent seven years collecting nearly 10,000 Confucius-related articles from 15 U.S. newspapers and studying the image changes of Confucius in these newspapers. Based on his studies, Zhang wrote a book named "Confucius in the United States of America."

相关阅读Related reading

Confucius and U.S. People

 

不同的人给他赋予不同的含义，然后各取所需
Different people give Confuciusdifferent meanings

Confucius and U.S. presidents

近代以来几乎每一任美国总统都会受到“来自孔子的批评”
Almost all modern U.S. presidents have received 'criticism from Confucius'

Confucius and U.S. media

孔子的国度
China is a 'Confucian country'

我们第一次有机会看到美国人眼中的自己
Confucius and Chinese people in eyes of Americans

Confucius, a bridge between China and USA

孔子与华盛顿一起“捍卫着世界和平”
Confucius and Washington defend world peace together

中国人需要用孔子的名字来传递好感
Chinese need to use Confucius to express goodwill