身兼作家、记者与学者多重身份的西方观察者白英,在他有关中国的诸多著述中,尤为值得关注的是《永恒的中国》与《觉醒的中国》两卷本日记。这两本写于1941-1946年的日记与同时期外国来华人士的日记相比,时间跨度更长,视野更开阔,其主体性自我也更为强烈。白英的自我表现为他的中国情结、悲悯情怀与诗人气质,这决定了其中国叙事充满了个人的情感温度。白英日记最富感召力的是他关于中国文化的想象与表达,其间他建构了自己心中的异国形象:一个历经战争与苦难却始终充满希望与力量的中国,一个文化与审美意义上的“永恒的中国”。白英摈弃了某些西方学者的欧洲中心主义观,客观审视东西方文化的优劣,他的立场与胸襟为当今全球化语境下的中西文化交流与对话提供了重要启示。 Bai Ying, a western observer who is a writer, reporter and scholar of multiple identities, is particularly noteworthy in his numerous writings on China as a diary of two volumes: “Eternal China” and “Awakening China.” Compared with diaries written by foreign foreigners in China in the same period, these two diaries written in 1941-1946 have a longer time horizon and a broader perspective, and their subjective self is stronger. Baiying’s self-expression is his Chinese complex, compassion and poetic temperament, which determines that his Chinese narrative is full of personal emotional temperature. The most inspiring feature of Baiying Diary is his imagination and expression of Chinese culture. During this period, he constructed his own exotic image: a Chinese that has always been full of hope and power through war and suffering, a cultural and aesthetic sense, “Eternal China”. Bai Ying rejected some Western scholars’ views of Eurocentricity and objectively examined the pros and cons of the East and West cultures. His position and his ministry provided important inspiration for the exchange and dialogue of Chinese and Western cultures in today’s globalized context.