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In Search of Pure Sound: Sanqu Songs, Genre Aesthetics, and Translations Tactics
No full textThis article consists of an introduction by Patricia Sieber and six short essays on translation approaches together with actual translations of sanqu songs by Mario De Grandis, Ke Wang, Hui Yao, Jingying Gao and Ian McNally, Xu Yichun, and Jenn Marie Nunes. The intro- duction provides a short history of the translation of sanqu songs into English, followed by a reflection on which distinctive features of the genre beg for attention in the translation process. In particular, it argues that the different sonic features of sanqu merit close consideration, the loss of the notational contours of the original tunes notwithstanding. Rather than bemoaning the absence of the underlying music, it suggests that, in keeping with Walter Benjamin’s vision of the “task of the translator,” translation into another language can be an opportunity to reinvent that musicality in different ways. The six short essays that follow consider sanqu songs from the corpus of diasporic writers from the Yuan dynasty, with a view toward enriching the repertoire of translation strategies for sanqu in terms of musicality and other salient features of the genre. The six essays discuss, respectively, pronouns, rhyme, punctuation, language registers, allusion, and citational practice. In contextualizing such strategies theoretically and illustrating them with examples, the short essays seek to contribute more broadly to the theory and practice of the literary translation of Chinese poetic forms
Ethnicity in Print Media: Alternative Framings of the Short Story ‘The Gray Robe
No full textPrior research on ethnic minority literature (shaoshu minzu wenxue) has primarily focused on “ground-level” analysis, namely close reading of literary texts by authors registered as members of one of the PRC-officially recognized ethnic minorities. In this paper, instead, I consider the “external” framings assigned by publishers to a literary text. “The Gray Robe”—a short story by Hui Muslim author Shi Shuqing—serves as case study. Publishers have framed this story as “ethnic literature” but also as regional, Chinese, and Chinese Muslim literature. These competing framings, I claim, are not simple promotional devices. Rather, they are indexical of the latent discourses that posit a civilized literary center versus an unrefined literary periphery. Investigating how publishers package literary works for readers’ consumption enables an understanding of the tacit power dynamics within the modern literary field of China
Ethnic Minority Literature in the PRC
No full text“Ethnic minority literature” (shaoshu minzu wenxue) is the umbrella-term used to refer to the literary production—both in oral and written forms—of the People’s Republic of China’s officially recognized ethnic minorities. This seemingly straightforward definition is, however, problematic when applied to specific literary works and to specific authors. The notion of ethnic diversity has, in fact, shifted throughout China’s history. For long, the concept of Chinese ethnicity had been based on the proximity to Confucian cultural norms, to then become institutionalized during the Republican period with the notion of the Five People of China (wuzu gonghe), and subsequently substituted by the PRC’s taxonomical system that came to recognize one majority group (the Han) and fifty-five ethnic minorities. Given competing notions of ethnicity, the classification of a literary text and of its author are often contested for pre-PRC Chinese literary works. Another dispute hinges on the author’s ethnic identity and on the content of a literary work. Some authors are in fact of mixed ethnic background and/or do not write about themes immediately related to “their” ethnic minority. While most ethnic minority authors write solely in Chinese, some authors— though rarely —write also or only using other languages. More common are cases of other authors who intersperse their Chinese with terms from ethnic topolects creating a linguistic and culturally hybrid literary works. A key feature of ethnic minority literature, especially since the early 1980s, consists in the emergence of institutional networks constituted of research centres,
professional associations for scholars and authors, and literary prizes
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No full textThe notion of "ethnic minority literature" is well established in Chinese literary studies. According to the standard definition, ethnic minority literature must be authored by a member of an ethnic minority and must reflect that specific minority’s modes of life. This definition hinges on the analysis of the author’s ethnicity and on the themes of his/her writing, thus ignoring the role of the reader in the process of literary interpretation. To fill this gap, the present study asks what makes a text "ethnic" from the perspective of the reader model, the hypothetical person who is the target audience of a literary text. Taking five texts by contemporary Chinese authors as case studies, this article suggests that the content of a literary text—not the author’s ethnicity—determines whether a text is perceived as "ethnic." For this reason, the article introduces the notion of "literature about ethnic minorities" as a tool of literary analysis that allows foregrounding modes of literary expression such as language use and literary themes rather than ethnic administrative categories
The Dialectics of Hope and Despair Twisting the Biblical Message in Lu Xun’s “Medicine”
Full text linkLu Xun’s oeuvre includes numerous explicit references to the Christian message, the books of the Bible, Jesus and other biblical characters, which all prove the author’s intellectual familiarity with Christianity. Previous studies have also pointed out that in the short story “Medicine”, Lu Xun surreptitiously embedded characters and allusions – as well as adopted a narrative structure – inspired by the Gospel accounts of the Passion. Such Christian references have been interpreted as a literary strategy to reflect on the Chinese national character. What has gone unnoticed is that, despite several parallels, “Medicine” also deviates from accounts of the Passion in three significant ways: the martyr is not the protagonist; the conclusion is deliberately ambiguous; and the story is stripped of, and yet longing for, the salvific message pervading the Gospels. In this article, I argue that the twisted, allegorical references to the Passion express one of Lu Xun’s paramount preoccupations, namely whether it is worth to sacrifice oneself in the attempt to awaken the masses. In this way, the transfigured figure of Jesus becomes the narrative locus on which Lu Xun expresses his interior vacillation between hope and despair
From Barbarians to Citizens: Shifting Representations of the Salar Myth of Origin in Media
No full textThe Salars, as many groups of Muslim Chinese, have long been framed as foreign others on the margins of Chinese society. Since the early Tang dynasty many of these groups, in fact, reached China traveling from the Middle East and Central Asia along the network of routes referred as the Silk Roads. Not surprisingly, the theme of travel figures prominently in the vast corpus of Muslim Chinese’s oral and written folk narratives. The myth «Camel Spring» (luotuo quan) narrates the thirteenth century migration of the Salar ancestors from the Samarkand area to Alitiuli, in present-day Qinghai Province. Oral accounts of this myth have circulated for centuries among the Salars and their neighboring communities. Earlier extant written records of the myth – most likely related by Tibetans or Han Chinese narrators – portray the Salars as barbarians, a representation echoed in official Qing documents. After Mao’s demise and even more prominently since the early 1980s, public institutions and local-Qinghai entrepreneurs have purged negative portrays of the Salars and favored more sympathetic representations of the «Camel Spring» in written, visual, and more recently digital media to pursue State and market-oriented agendas. These representations of the «Camel Spring» are indeed geared at both validating the State-assigned designation of the Salars as a distinct ethnic minority (shaoshu minzu) and at generating profit for the local tourist industry. To these ends, representations of the «Camel Spring» have tended to emphasize both the Salars’ foreign origin and their long permanence in China. Thus, I suggest, the case of the Salars counters pre-modern representations of ethnic minorities as barbarians. No longer framed as Muslim others, the Salars are represented as a Chinese group that can bridge China to Central Asia. This discourse has become prominent especially after the launch of the Belt Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013. At the same time, the insistence on selected ethnic features – most apparent from the almost ubiquitous inclusion of stereotypical elements reminiscent of the Salar ancestors’ travel on the Silk Road – folklorizes the Salars positioning them as foreign others
Old Stories, New Needs: The Multiple Appropriations of the Chinese-speaking Muslims’ Origin Narratives
Full text linkThe arrival of Islam in China is recounted in numerous narratives, both oral and written. “The Story of Wan Gars” (宛尕斯的故事). Three of these narratives trace it back to Muslim worthies that reached China during the early Tang dynasty. These narrative are recounted in He Qiaoyuan’s Book of Min (閩書), in The Origin of the Huihui (回回原來), and in latter two as a timeless “collective memory of Chinese Muslims” or as the “Chinese Muslims’ self-consciousness”. Such interpretations register the wide circulation of these origin narratives in China, yet omit where and when these narratives have circulated, thus obscuring the social dimensions of memory. Taking into account the agents involved in the transmission, selection, and crystallization of particular versions of the Chinese Muslims’ imagined past, I select three sites of memory—physical or textual—where individuals, groups, and institutions engage in the acts of remembering the arrival of Islam in China. These sites are the tombs of legendary Muslim ancestors, a pre-modern origin myth transmitted through manuscripts and wood block prints ranging from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century, and a myth in post-Mao collectanea Some scholars have referred to the of folk literature. Situating these case studies in their respective historical context, I argue that the same origin narratives have been transmitted by distinct yet overlapping communities for remarkably different reasons
Reaffirming Loyalty and Legitimacy: Representations of Hui Multi-Layered Identity in Bai Lian’s “Mountain Pass”
Full text linkIn the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) left many writers severed from their cultural roots. Starting in the 1980s, literary authors sought to address this disconnection by turning their attention to rural communities. This tendency is exemplified by the emergence of two significant trends: root-seeking literature and new fiction from Tibet. Root-seeking authors focused on local customs, marginalized cultures, and minority groups to reinvigorate Chinese literature and fill the perceived cultural void. Around the same time, new fiction from Tibet featured diverse responses to post-Mao changes, with some idealizing Tibet as a repository of “authentic” traditions, while others criticized its perceived backwardness. Both trends have been interpreted in scholarship as responses, often critical, to state policies. The short story “Mountain Pass” (1985) by Hui writer Bai Lian intersects with these movements temporally and thematically. However, unlike them, Bai Lian’s portrayal of rural communities emphasizes the Hui’s historical role in resisting the Qing empire, pivotal to the emergence of the PRC, while also highlighting the group’s Arab and Persian origins. This three-layered identification with the local, national, and transnational enriches our understanding of the 1980s literary landscape, challenging the notion that this era was solely characterized by resistance to the central state
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