Far West (Taixi)

The Far West is a Chinese and Japanese term for Europe, 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.