日批在线视频_内射毛片内射国产夫妻_亚洲三级小视频_在线观看亚洲大片短视频_女性向h片资源在线观看_亚洲最大网

Global EditionASIA 中文雙語Fran?ais
Opinion
Home / Opinion / Op-Ed Contributors

Literature will help West know China better

By Berlin Fang | China Daily | Updated: 2018-01-04 08:04
Share
Share - WeChat

Wang Luoyong, the first Chinese mainland actor on Broadway, captured the hearts of many Chinese by reading a letter by political strategist and essayist Zhuge Liang (181-234) to the emperor of Shuhan during the Three Kingdoms (220-280) period in the new season of Growling Tiger and Roaring Dragon.

The letter has been recited by generations of students, and we would never have experienced that the text, written in classical Chinese, could be so beautifully rendered and recited in another language. As the rendering of the letter shows, China has a dazzling literary heritage that could enrich the repository of world literature.

However, China's literary influence in the world is disappointing. As a guest lecturer in world literature classes, I often asked how many people have read or heard of Journey to the West, a Chinese classic written by Wu Chengen during the Ming Dynasty (1369-1644). Usually nobody raised hands.

In the online bookstore Amazon, the translation of Journey to the West by Anthony Yu from Chicago University - a more popular translation - has fewer than 100 reader reviews. Other Chinese books fail in their journeys to the west as well. Pearl Buck's translation of All Men Are Brothers has 10 reviews. Gladys Yang's translation of Dream of the Red Chamber has 12 reviews. And Romance of the Three Kingdoms, translated by C.H. Brewitt-Taylor and Robert E. Hegel, has 31 reviews. Worse, few poems from the Tang Dynasty (618-907) have made it beyond the single digit in reader reviews.

In fact, Lao Gan Ma, a Chinese chili sauce, is doing better than any of them.

Chinese readers, in comparison, are far more informed about Western classics. I remember the translation of James Joyce's Ulysses by Xiao Qian and Wen Jieruo had been a huge cultural event in China in the 1990s. Similarly, the translations of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time and Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote attracted widespread public attention.

Two years ago, I translated The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, a very difficult book even for American readers, and I was glad to find that this book, too, found many readers in China.

We have a "trade deficit" in literary import and export. And this deficit is disturbing because classical literature often shapes the soul of a nation. Why is this even a problem?

Basically, reading international literature is an effective way of increasing understanding of other peoples in the world. Literary texts give texture and depth to our otherwise biased and over-generalized understanding attained through distilled commentaries and potentially biased analyses. An in-depth understanding is not something for lip service. It requires thoughtful effort.

The obligation to solve this problem is mutual. Chinese scholars should do a better job of introducing Chinese literature to the rest of the world. Western academics, on their part, will benefit from an improved understanding of Chinese literature.

I have noticed that many people know about the Art of War by Sun Tzu due to its inclusion in Western anthologies of world literature and the ease of reading generic strategies without having to understand the nuances of the culture where it is embedded. It was once popular among businessmen as they looked for strategies to succeed in business wars. However, this book is not even included in the Chinese literary cannon, in contrast with the prose of the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC), poetry of Tang and Song (960-1279) dynasties, plays of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), and novels of Ming and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties.

I would encourage Western universities to try something different. If you understand the Monkey King from Journey to the West, or Zhuge Liang from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, you have a better chance of understanding a Chinese. And the more we understand each other, the less we blindly hate or fear each other.

The author is a US-based instructional designer, literary translator and columnist writing on cross-cultural issues.

Most Viewed in 24 Hours
Top
BACK TO THE TOP
English
Copyright 1994 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online 0108263

Registration Number: 130349
FOLLOW US
主站蜘蛛池模板: 黄色av播放 | 久久剧场 | 欧美三级精品 | 九九视频免费观看 | 一区二区日韩视频 | 日本欧美在线视频 | 午夜精品久久久久久久久 | 欧美日韩色综合 | 日韩一区二区免费在线观看 | 四虎国产视频 | 欧美成人精品一级 | 成人国产在线观看 | 国产成人麻豆精品午夜在线 | 精品自拍视频 | 午夜男人天堂 | 欧美国产第一页 | 视频一区二区视频 | 成人免费小视频 | 黄网站在线播放 | 亚洲高清免费 | 久久精品区| 国产第3页| 国产亚洲精品久久久久久无几年桃 | www.成人在线视频 | 九九热在线视频观看 | 午夜精品视频 | 日韩成人一区 | 国产精品国产一区二区三区四区 | 欧美伊人久久 | 成人免费片 | 国产91视频在线观看 | 欧美一级免费大片 | 亚洲精品中文字幕在线观看 | 日韩精品一二三四 | 国产欧美小视频 | 毛片天堂 | 成人免费看片在线观看 | 97中文字幕在线观看 | 亚洲专区av| 日韩精品一二三四区 | 成人精品一区二区三区四区 |