Abstract: According to many of the French writers, there's an adhesion to abstract conceptions in the Chinese culture. We can observe in their aesthetic tastes, social activities, and spiritual lives a devotion to abstract values and a neglect of real effects and of concrete benefits. What we propose to examine here are the expressions of this “Chinese adhesion”, as well as how strange they are in the eyes of Westerners, and why they approved reasonable for Chinese people.

Key words: China in the Eyes of French Writers, Heterogeneous cultures, Image of China, national character, notion abstract