In the postcolonial study of Asia and the non-Western world, the act of comparison has usually meant using Euro-American standards to judge non-Euro-American cultures. In the academic realm of literary studies, this has translated into questions such as: does China have the epic? Does India or Japan have the novel? Does Korea have science fiction? These enquiries echo earlier European views that cultures in Asia and Africa have no history, philosophy, religion or literature to speak of. We are now at some distance from such ethnocentric views but the longterm effects of their comparative assertions remain influential. – 在亚洲和非西方世界的后殖民研究中,比较行为通常意味着使用欧美标准来评判非欧美文化。在文学研究的学术领域,这一问题转化为:中国有史诗吗?印度或日本有这部小说吗?韩国有科幻小说吗?这些调查反映了早期欧洲人的观点,即亚洲和非洲的文化没有历史、哲学、宗教或文学可言。我们现在与这种以种族为中心的观点相去甚远,但他们比较论断的长期影响仍然存在。