China and the West

[Wilde, Oscar]. Shalemei. Tian Han yi. [ID D12041].
Zhou Xiaoyi : Salomé is one of the most popular and influential foreign plays in modern Chinese literary history. The play went through seven translations in the first half of this century. Tian Han's translation is the best among the earliest ones. What fascinated Tian Han was the aesthetic art of dying shown in Salomé. For him, Salomé's fervent passion, her will to love, and her doomed death represent a certain spiritual consciousness. She never gives up, never makes compromises, and her will is unbeatable. Her kiss on the severed head of John is the shocking climax of this willfulness. In an essay on Salomé, Tian Han states : "My fellow men who love liberty and equality, you should learn from this single-minded and fearless spirit and pursue what you love bravely !" Salomé becomes a political symbol of rebellion. For Chinese artists, Salomé expressed the aesthetic principle that life should be transformed into an intensive, artistic moment.

Linda Pui-ling Wang : Salomé generated different reactions and debates among the Chinese intelligentsia. That the Chinese translators translated this play properly and faithfully, as they did his plays, showed that they understood it without any problems. They borrowed and re-defined Salomé to serve and support their causes. They appeared to politicize Salomé, albeit its sensuous elements, to suit their political purposes, thereby making it more exceptional than any of Wilde's plays. Tian Han had read the English translated version with illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley. To him and those who appreciated this play, Salomé was highly poetic, romantic and sensual in every aspect, both the text itself and its illustrations. He proclaimed, The characters have the same spirit. Their eyes are fixed upon on thing. Their ears are not distracted from any voices. They seek what they love with their own lives and die for it. You people who love freedom and equality should also learn from their focused and fearless spirit so as to pursue what you love. Each character in the play was seen to show the same spirit but for a different reason : for Iokanaan it was the love for God that sustained him to resist those in authority ; for Salomé, it was Iokanaan she desperately desired. The both at the end died for what they believed, Iokanaan for the sacred love (God) and Salomé for sensual love. Tian Han called the love of Salomé 'sexual love'.
Salomé was challenging a prohibited subject in the feudal Chinese society, especially the privileges of women. It concerned the freedom to love and realize an individual's physical passions and desires.
The highlight was, when Salomé held up the severed head of Iokanaan and kissed his mouth. It must have been stunning and shaking for the Chinese audience to see such an iconoclastic scene. What Tian Han encouraged the readers to appreciate most was the untamed yearning for love and beauty. In his view it was important that the intellectuals and the masses in China should understand what Salomé represented was suitable for China, because the people needed to have the courage and tenacity to express themselves and persist, just like the princess who often expressed her desire to kiss Iokanaan, even at the expense of both of their lives.
For Tian Han, it was a new play and appropriate to help launch China into a new era, which was particularly important to the long oppressed lower class. Salomé's outrageous behavior inspired Tian Han greatly to help the masses to pursue and stand for what was needed.
In Salomé, the theme of love, the dazzling and strongly assertive characters, and the stylistic diction and expression possibly overshadow any overt political meanings. Tian Han's emphasis on Salomé's kiss was misleading. Though love is an important part in life, it is disastrous when it gets possessive and manipulative. That Salomé was selfish and used her beauty to obtain power seemed to go unnoticed by Tian Han or other writers. The 'sexual passion' of Salomé, as written by Tian Han, should not be one's moral guide and the only means to achieve freedom. Those who plow evil and those who sow trouble reap it, goes the saying.