China and the West

Aufführung von Measure for measure von William Shakespeare in der Übersetzung von Ying Ruocheng durch die Shanghai xi ju xue yuan (Shanghai Theatre Academy) unter der Regie von Chen Mingzheng.

Aufführung von King Lear von William Shakespeare durch das Hong Kong Repertory Theatre = Xianggang hua ju tuan unter der Regie von Daniel S.P. Yang.

Derrida, Jacques. Spectres de Marx [ID D24715].
Wei Xiaoping : Derrida perhaps most interests Chinese Marxist scholars through his way of separating the spirit of Marx from the 'specter' of Marx. All those things interpreted by Derrida as 'specters' are mainly practiced in China after 1949. Since China's economic reform began in 1978, those 'specters' considered by Derrida, which include the public ownership, as well as allocation according to contribution, have been replaced by multiple ownership or stock ownership, and allocation according to contribution combined with allocation according to profit which come from capital investment.
It is just the paradox of the 'specters' and the spirit of Marx in the actual situation of China that brings some Chinese Marxist scholars to be interested in Derrida’s deconstructive method.
What Derrida's 'post-Marxism' is accepted by some Chinese Marxist scholars is that they share the idea of giving up orthodox Marxism, or we could also call it dogmatist Marxism while still insist on the critical spirit of Marx. These view also shared by 'after Marxism', but 'after Marxism' doesn't challenge the basic concept of Marx, in this sense it is different from 'post-Marxism'.
By the concept of 'return to Marx' it has another meaning which goes further than 'after Marxism', it stress not only to read Marx through the text of Marx himself in Chinese translation, but to read Marx through its original text in his own language, which become possible with the coming of new MEGA2. The old edition of Marx/Engels Collected Works in China was translated mainly from Russian edition and consulting the German and English Edition. After the MEAG2 has come out, now there are very small group of scholars began to read Marx through his language, which to some extent has already brought out a Marx that different from the traditional one.
Apart from the possible political influence on the translation work, there are some words or some concepts which cannot be expressed exactly with different language, it is for this reason, some points or even key points of Marx could be understood better in his own language. We cannot say that this is a Marx study linguistic transition has happened in China, but it shows that Chinese Marxist scholars begin to read Marx with linguistic technique, we know that this close to the point that Derrida try to do with his linguistic deconstruction.
In his book Specters of Marx, Derrida used two concepts to talk about Marxian or Marx, one is 'ghost' and the other is 'specter', may be it is difficult for us to make a clear distinguish between these two concepts, but we can get some ideas from their origination. Derrida get these concepts mainly from two documents, the word of 'ghost' is come from Marx/Engels Communist Manifesto, by which Marx/Engels use this word refer to a spirit followed by some and be scared by other, the word of 'specter' is come from Shakespeare's tragedy of Hamlet. With these two words, on the one hand we could get some idea of the spirit of Marx, on the other hand we can get some idea about what Marx's critic point to. It is in this sense, for Derrida the words 'ghost' or 'specter' that he mentions dose not only has a single meaning, rather it has a multiple meaning, just as he said, "the figure of the 'ghost' is not just one figure among others. It is perhaps the hidden figure of all figures".
Although the words 'ghost' or 'specter' that Derrida mentions is confusing and could be a metaphor for different contents, we could according to his generally meaning of good or bad separate them into two characters, one is in positive meaning and the other one is in negative meaning.
Considering the current situation of China, we could say, when the traditional model of socialism has been replaced by a socialist market economy with a Chinese character, as a result the negative 'specters' such as private ownership and social differences have taken the place of the positive 'specters' such as the public ownership and social equality. The critical spirit of Marx does not only concern to deal with negative 'specters' which are now haunting us, but also so to speak to deal with positive 'specters', we have to think why they cannot stay longer and why Derrida treat them as only 'specters'. It is in this sense both Derrida and Chinese Marxists scholars think that Marx should be an open, self-critical, transformation, re-evaluation and self-reinterpretation spirit, and especially for Chinese Marxists Marx theory could develop with practice.
The deconstructive philosophical method that Derrida used to read Marx has two points of view that could interest Chinese Marxist Scholars: One is his criticism of the view of 'the end of history' expressed by Francis Fukuyama in his book The End of History and the Last Man. The other is Derrida's discussion of a contradiction in the theory of Marx, which, for some reasons, is difficult for some Chinese scholars to discuss by themselves.
Comparing the different interpretations of Marx from Derrida and Soviet Union, we can see that the different interpretations are related to different historical backgrounds and the different historical backgrounds influence observers to accept different aspects of Marx. In virtue of similar historical backgrounds, before 80s last century China was strongly influenced by the interpretation of Soviet Union Marxism.
After the economic reform that began at the end of 1970s, especially after the historical transition which happened in the 1990s, we saw the collapse of the Soviet Union, meanwhile what appeared in current Russian, as well as to some extent of China are close to what Marx criticized in his time, and at this moment Derrida's Marx arrived in China.
The change of historical backgrounds makes Derrida's concept of deconstruction more attractive to some Chinese Marxist scholars, but what Derrida understands that Marx's critical spirit could also be critical towards his own 'specters' would probably annoy dogmatist 'Marxists', but it has usefully led to some common sense about 'rethinking Marxism'.
Unlike the project of a 'return to Marx' which mainly means to go away from the Marxist model as it was routinely interpreted in the Soviet Union in order to read Marx through his own texts, 'rethinking Marxism' mainly means to rethink the general theory of Marx by reading the text of Marx from an independent but critical perspective. Both a 'return to Marx' and a 'rethinking of Marx' has brought out the needs to re-read Marx through his own texts.
It is in this sense, Derrida who is usually regarded as a 'post-Modernist', or as a 'post-Marxist', at the same time expresses the need of 'return Marx' in the sense of 'rethinking Marx', which interests some Chinese Marxist scholars.
For China, after the economic reform which began 1978, especially after the introducing of market, on the one hand, those problems discussed and criticized by Marx has appeared as actual situation, which has provided the basement for the practical language of Marx, and the linguistic circumstances of Marx, which has aroused the idea of 'return to Marx'. On the other hand, those characteristics of post-industrialization have appeared to some extent in certain areas of China, such as the southeastern seaside areas. Both of these kinds of situation, not only question some scholars' understanding and even believing for those basic principle of Marx, but also has challenged those basic principle of Marx. These could explain why 'post-Marxism', especially Derrida's 'post-Marxism' also could be spread among China's Marxist scholars while the whole country is still on the way to modernization.
These could be understood better with the two perspectives of what Derrida names 'ghost' or 'specter'. For the positive one, they could be represent those principle of communism or socialism which now is challenged by the actual situation and for the negative one, they could be represent those situation which now in the process of arriving.
As concerns the first case, the typical character of a historical transition is to introduce a market economy into a traditional socialist system which is a centrally planned economy with public ownership. The introduction of a market economy has, by increasing economic motivation, monetary stimulation and market competition, greatly increased the speed of economic development. The result is clear; China’s economic reform has resulted in a relatively quicker economic speed of development. But at the same time the social difference between rich and poor has increased to an unbelievable extent in such a short time. In many cases the owners of private enterprises have gone from nothing or almost nothing to a situation in which they have become millionaires. Meanwhile market has engaged in various trends of privatization, which in turn further increases social differences, accompanied by new unemployment.
Therefore those characteristics of socialism or so-called communism, such as public ownership, income equality and social community, now may be also accepted by some Chinese as 'specters', because they come and go, just like 'specters', it is not easy for them to stay any longer. Derrida regarded them as “specters”, for him, they are 'specters', because they could never be actualized, as soon as they were actualized, they become different thing, so they are always hang on some where, that is what he understand communism : "communism has always been and will remain spectral; it is always still to come.".
As concerns the second case, those “specters” of capitalism which were criticized by Marx, such as private ownership, income differences, and social conflict, for him, they also behaved as “specters” on the sense, they didn’t really disappear under certain circumstances and have come back again under other circumstances.
For example, what 'post-Marxists' criticizes is not the economic relationship of capitalism, while culture, political and spirit sectors, which to some extent reflects the actual situation of post-industry period, represents the situation that the main social differences are not only derived from the economic sectors, and that the big income differences are not only the result of capital investment, but come from competence, which challenged some basic principles of Marx, and this kind of situation existed in some developed seaside areas of China, It is in this sense that Derrida's deconstructionism, as well as other 'post-Marxism' critics not only interests but also accepted by some Chinese Marxist scholars.

Michel Butor reist mit seiner Tochter Mathilde zur Ausstelunng von Auguste Rodin nach Beijing.

Aufführung von Der Prozess = The trial = Shen pan von Bertolt Brecht durch das Hong Kong Repertory Theatre in der Adaptation von Tang Shu Wing = Deng Shurong ; unter der Regie von Ko Tin Lung = Gu Tiannong.
審判

[Fielding, Henry]. Tangmu Qiongsi. Zhang Guruo yi. [ID D26604]
Han Jiaming : Zhang's translation of Tom Jones is faithful to the original not only in content but also in the stylistic features, and it has extensive annotation.

Coates, Ken. Foreword. In : Russell, Bertrand. The problem of China [ID D5122]. [Enthält Text von Mao Zedong über Russell].
I
Bertrand Russell decided to reprint this book unaltered in 1966, even though, as he said at the time, hardly anything else had 'remained unchanged during the intervening forty-three years' since it was first published in 1922. The present edition is very slightly different from that of 1966, in that it includes a postscript, originally published in a earlier reissue of the book in 1926. Then, 800 unsold copies from 1922 had their appendix removed and index reset, with the postscript substituted in the space that was created by these changes.
The postscript is notable for Russell's acid summary of British policy :
"The British view is still that China needs a central Government strong enough to suppress internal anarchy, but weak enough to be always obliged to yield to foreign pressure."
In those far off days, Britain was still a major world power, and the centre of a huge empire. This was the context in which Russell could write that
"The concentration of the world's capital in a few nations, which, by means of it, are able to drain all other nations of their wealth, is obviously not a system by which permanent peace can be secured except through the complete subjection of the poorer nations… The real government of the world is in the hands of the big financiers, except on questions which rouse passionate public interest. No doubt the exclusion of Asiatics from America and the Dominions is due to popular pressure, and is against the interests of big finance. But not many questions rouse do much popular feeling, and among them only a few are sufficiently simple to be incapable of misrepresentation in the interests of the capitalist. Even in such a case as Asiatic immigration, it is the capitalist system which causes the anti-social interests of wage-earners and makes them illiberal. The existing system makes each man's individual interest opposed, in some vital point, to the interest of the whole. And what applies to individuals applies also to nations ; under the existing economic system, a nation's interest is seldom the same as that of the world at large, and then only by accident. International peace might conceivably by secured under the present system, but only by a combination of the strong to exploit the weak."
II
These conclusions were born in upon Russell during his extended visit to China, when he lectured at the University of Peking. There he debated with Chen Tu-Tsu, the founder of the Chinese Communist Party. Among his audience was Mao Tse-Tung, then a young student. Here is what Mao wrote about the event ;
"In his lecture at Changsha, Russell… took a position in favour of communism but against the dictatorship of the workers and peasants. He said that one should employ the method of education to change the consciousness of the propertied classes, and that in this way it would not be necessary to limit freedom or to have recourse to war and bloody revolution… My objections to Russell's viewpoint can be stated in a few words : 'This is all very well as a theory, but it is unfeasible in practice'. Education requires (1) money, (2) people, and (3) instruments. In today's world, money is entirely in the hands of the capitalists or slaves of capitalists. In today's world, the schools and the press, the two most important instruments of education, are entirely under capitalist control. In short, education in today's world is capitalist education. If we teach capitalism to children, these children, when they grow up, will in turn teach capitalism to a second generation of children. Education thus remains in the hands of the capitalists. Then the capitalists have 'parliaments' to pass laws protecting the capitalists and handicapping the proletariat ; they have governments to apply these laws and to enforce the advantages and the prohibitions that they contain ; they have 'armies' and 'police' to defend the well-being of the capitalists and to repress the demands of the proletariat ; they have 'banks' to serve as repositories in the circulation of their wealth ; they have 'factories', which are the instruments by which they monopolize the production of goods. Thus, if the communists do not seize political power, they will not be able to find any refuge in this world ; how, under such circumstances, could they take charge of education ? Thus, the capitalists will continue to control education and to praise their capitalism to the skies, so that the number of converts to the proletariat's communist propaganda will diminish from day to day. Consequently, I believe that the method of education is unfeasible… What I have just said constitutes the first argument. The second argument is that, based on the principle of mental habits and on my observation of human history, I am of the opinion that one absolutely cannot expect the capitalists to become converted to communism... If one wishes to use the power of education to transform them, then since one cannot obtain control of the whole or even an important part of the two instruments of education — schools and the press — even if one has a mouth and a tongue and one or two schools and newspapers as means of propaganda… this is really not enough to change the mentality of the adherents of capitalism even slightly ; how then can one hope that the latter will repent and turn toward the good ? So much from a psychological standpoint. From a historical standpoint… one observes that no despot imperialist and militarist throughout history has ever been known to leave the stage of history of his own free will without being overthrown by the people. Napoleon I proclaimed himself emperor and failed ; then there was Napoleon III. Yuan Shih-K'ai failed ; then, alas, there was Tuan Ch'i-jui… From what I have just said based on both psychological and a historical standpoint, it can be seen that capitalism cannot be overthrown by the force of a few feeble efforts in the domain of education. This is the second argument. There is yet a third argument, most assuredly a very important argument, even more important in reality. If we use peaceful means to attain the goal of communism, when will we finally achieve it ? Let us assume that a century will be required, a century marked by the unceasing groans of the proletariat. What position shall we adopt in the face of this situation ? The proletariat is many times more numerous than the bourgeoisie ; if we assume that the proletariat constitutes two-thirds of humanity, then one billion of the earth's one billion five hundred million inhabitants are proletarians (I fear that the figure is even higher) who during this century will be cruelly exploited by the remaining third of capitalists. How can we bear this ? Furthermore, since the proletariat has already become conscious of the fact that it, too, should possess wealth, and of the fact that its sufferings are unnecessary, the proletarians are discontented, and a demand for communism has arisen and has already become a fact. This fact confronts us, we cannot make it disappear, when we become conscious of it we wish to act. This is why, in my opinion, the Russian revolution, as well as the radical communists in every country, will daily grow more powerful and numerous and more tightly organized. This is the natural result. This is the third argument…
There is a further point pertaining to my doubts about anarchism. My argument pertains not merely to the impossibility of a society without power or organization. I should like to mention only the difficulties in the way of the establishment of such form of society and of its final attainment… For all the reasons just stated, my present viewpoint on absolute liberalism, anarchism, and even democracy is that these things are fine in theory, but not feasible in practice…"
III
Mao's letters never came to Russell's attention. I found them shortly after he died, in a collection which had been published by Stuart Schram. I was thus able to draw attention to them in a memorial collection which honoured the Russell Centenary, two years later.
At that time, Mao was still wielding almost absolute power in the People's Republic of China, which he and his Party had created, unifying the country and subjecting it to powerful central control. No doubt, had he been reminded of these earlier judgements on Russell, he would have thought that they were self-evidently justified. Had he not, in 1949, brought the Communist Party into power ? Had not that victory been a feat of arms, by the Red Army moulded in the shape of his own doctrines ? Had he not then called up, in 1966, a further insurgency to prevent any thought of restoration, and oppose bureaucracy ? And had not the Great Cultural Revolution registered an apparently complete success in its struggle against 'capitalist roaders', and indeed all others who took a different view of Chinese development ?
And yet, within months of Mao's death, his Cultural Revolution was repudiated, and some of its more eminent proponents in the 'Gang of Four' were on trial. The principal capitalist roader, Deng Xiaoping, was soon to become paramount leader, and China was to embark on a feverish programme of foreign investment. Multinational corporations were to become welcome. Hong Kong and Taiwanese developers built massive and luxurious hotels all over the country from which oases great entrepreneurs could journey forth, foraging for profit. For one night's stay in these palaces, they might pay the equivalent of a peasant's annual income. Not only was all the hated apparatus feared by Mao soon to be introduced, but much of it was to be celebrated by baroque embellishment and exaggeration. Western newspapers no longer reported on youthful insurgents waving little red books, but instead described the dreadful scenes at the Shenzen Stock Exchange, when people were crushed underfoot in the rush to subscribe to new issues.
In 1993, Chinese capitalism is developing with enormous verve and dynamism, under the benign encouragement of the Chinese Communist Party, which maintains a political regime of stringent authoritarianism. A Chinese trade union leader in Tientsin assured me that Western apprehensions concerning his members were entirely false : "They think our workers will soon demand much higher wages and better conditions", he said. "But they do not understand that labour will remain cheap in China for very many generations, because we have hundreds of millions of rural people who will accept work in the towns for very modest rewards.” Modest though they may be, such rewards are still much greater than the customary earnings of poor peasants, so that the new policy is not unpopular. Indeed, the Politbureau may draw some relief from this result of controlled capitalism, with which it seems able to co-exist in comfort. For its part, Capital does not seem incommoded by the undoubted cruelties which maintain autocratic rule in China. After all, order rules. The framework of commerce is stable. One's money does not evaporate in inflation or turmoil. Everyone knows his or her place, even if he or she might wish it to be different.
Russian capitalism is an altogether feebler growth, but the Communist Party in its old form has ceased to exist there. Thus the world resumes something closer to the condition that was familiar to Bertrand Russell at the beginning of this convulsive century, against which Mao launched his ragged and heroic legions.
Russell would have drawn small comfort from this, since he was no admirer of the power structure against which both he and Mao Tse-Tung were, each in his own way, in rebellion. Neither brute force, nor sophisticated pleading, have produced the results which optimists awaited.
Yet the conflicts between rich and poor, the polarities between capitalist power centres and peripheral zones of famine, all endure. It is still too soon to put these ghostly voices behind us, if we seek a more human outcome from the world's traumas.

Snyder, Gary. Sixteen T'ang poems : [translations]. [ID D29196].
Note dat. 14.1.93
In the early fifties I managed to get myself accepted into the Department of Oriental Languages at UC Berkeley as a graduate student. I took seminars in the reading of T'ang and Sung poems with Professor Ch'en Shih-hsiang, a remarkable scholar, calligrapher, poet, and critic who had a profound appreciation for good poetry and of any provenance. Ch'en Hsien-sheng introduced me to the Han-shan poems, and I published those translations back in the sixties. The poems translated here also got their start in those seminars, but I never considered them quite finished. From Berkeley I went to Japan and for the subsequent decade was working almost exclusively with Ch'an texts. Another twenty years went into developing a farmstead in the Sierra Nevada and working for the ecological movement. In the last few years I have had a chance to return to my readings in Chinese poetry and bring a few of the poems I started back then to completion. The little collection is dedicated to the memory of Ch'en Shih-hsiang.

Two poems by Meng Hao-jan
Meng, Hao-jan [Meng Haoran]. Spring dawn. Transl. by Gary Snyder. In : The Peabody review ; winter (1989-1990).
Spring sleep, not yet awake to dawn,
I am full of birdsongs.
Throughout the night the sounds of wind and rain
Who knows what flowers fell.

Meng, Hao-jan [Meng Haoran]. Mooring on Chien-te river. Transl. by Gary Snyder. In : The Peabody review ; winter (1989-1990).
The boat rocks at anchor by the misty island
Sunset, my loneliness comes again.
In these vast wilds the sky arches down to the trees.
In the clear river water, the moon draws near.

Five poems by Wang Wei
Wang, Wei. Deer camp. Transl. by Gary Snyder. In : Journal for the protection of all beings ; no 4 (Fall 1978).
Empty mountains :
no one to be seen.
Yet – hear –
human sounds and echoes.
Returning sunlight
enters the dark woods ;
Again shining
on green moss, above.
Sekundärliteratur : Eliot Weinberger : Surely one of the best translations, partially because of Snyder's lifelong forest experience. Like Rexroth, he can see the scene. Every word of Wang has been translated, and nothing added, yet the translation exists as an American poem.
Changing the passive is heard to the imperative hear is particularly beautiful, and not incorrect: it creates an exact moment, which is now. Giving us both meanings, sounds and echoes, for the last word of line 2 is, like most sensible ideas, revolutionary. Translators always assume that only one reading of a foreign word or phrase may be presented, despite the fact that perfect correspondence is rare.
The poem ends strangely. Snyder takes the last word, which everyone else has read as on, and translates it with its alternative meaning, above, isolating it from the phrase with a comma. What's going on? Moss presumably is only above if one is a rock or bug. Or are we meant to look up, after seeing the moss, back toward the sun: the vertical metaphor of enlightenment?
In answer to my query, Snyder wrote: "The reason for .. moss, above'... is that the sun is entering (in its sunset sloping, hence 'again'—a final shaft) the woods, and illuminating some moss up in the trees. (NOT ON ROCKS.) This is how my teacher Ch'en Shih-hsiang saw it, and my wife (Japanese) too, the first time she looked at the poem."
The point is that translation is more than a leap from dictionary to dictionary; it is a reimagining of the poem. As such, every reading of every poem, regardless of language, is an act of translation: translation into the reader's intellectual and emotional life. As no individual reader remains the same, each reading becomes a different—not merely another—reading. The same poem cannot be read twice.
Snyder's explanation is only one moment, the latest, when the poem suddenly transforms before our eyes. Wang's 20 characters remain the same, but the poem continues in a state of restless change.

Wang, Wei. Bamboo Lane House. Transl. by Gary Snyder.
Sitting alone, hid in bamboo
Plucking the lute and gravely whistling.
People wouldn't know that deep woods
Can be this bright in the moon.
Wang, Wei. Saying farewell. Transl. by Gary Snyder.
Me in the mountains and now you've left.
Sunset, I close the peelpole door.
Next spring when grass is green,
Will you return once more ?

Wang, Wei. Thinking of us. Transl. by Gary Snyder.
Read beans grow in the south
In spring they put out shoots.
Gather a lapful for me –
And doing it, think of us.

Wang, Wei. Poem. Transl. by Gary Snyder.
You who come from my village
Ought to know its affairs
The day you passed the silk window
Had the chill plum bloomed ?
Three poems for women in the Service of the Palace

Tu, Mu [Du, Mu]. Autumn evening. Transl. by Gary Snyder.
A silver candle in the autumn gloom
by a lone painted screen
Her small light gauze fan
shivers the fireflies
On the stairs of heaven, night's color
cool as water :
She sits watching the Herd-boy,
the weaving-girl, stars.

Yuan, Chen [Yuan Zhen]. The Summer Palace. Transl. by Gary Snyder.
Silence settles on the old Summer Palace
Palace flowers still quiet red.
White-haired concubines
Idly sit and gossip of the days of Hsüan Tsung.

Po, Chü-i [Bo Juyi]. Palace song. Transl. by Gary Snyder.
Tears soak her thin shawl
dreams won't come.
In the dark night, from the front palace,
girls rehearsing songs.
Still fresh and young,
already put down,
She leans across the brazier
to wait the coming dawn.

Tu, Fu [Du Fu]. Spring view. Transl. by Gary Snyder.
The nation is ruined, but mountains and rivers remain.
This spring the city is deep in weeds and brush.
Touched by the times even flowers weep tears,
Fearing leaving the birds tangled hearts.
Watch-tower fires have been burning for three months
To get a note from home would cost ten thousand gold.
Scratching my white hair thinner
Seething hopes all in a trembling hairpin.
(Events of the An Lushan rebellion)

Liu, Ch'ang-ch'ing [Liu, Changqing]. Parting from Ling Ch'e. Transl. by Gary Snyder.
Green, green
bamboo-grove temple
Dark, dark,
the bell-sounding evening.
His rainhat catches
the slanting sunlight,
Alone returning
From the distant blue peaks.

Wang Chih-huan [Wang Zhihuan]. Climbing Crane Tower. Transl. by Gary Snyder.
The Whie sun has gone over the mountains
The yellow river is flowing to the sea.
If you wish to see a thousand li
Climb one story higher in the tower.

Liu, Tsung-yüan [Liu Zongyuan]. River snow. Transl. by Gary Snyder.
These thousand peaks cut off the flight of birds
On all the trails, human tracks are gone.
A single boat—coat—hat—an old man!
Alone fishing chill river snow.

Wang, Ch'ang-ling [Wang Changling]. Parting with Hsin Chien at Hibiscus tavern. Transl. by Gary Snyder
Cold rain on the river
we enter Wu by night
At dawn I leave
for Ch'u-shan, alone.
If friends in Lo-yang
ask after me, I've
"A heart like ice
in a jade vase."

Two poems written at Maple Bridge near Su-chou
Chang, Chi [Zhang Ji ]. Maple bridge night mooring. Transl. by Gary Snyder. In : Cloudline : no 1 (1985/86).
Moon set, a crow caws,
frost fills the sky
River, maple, fishing-fires
cross my troubled sleep.
Beyond the walls of Su-chou
from Cold Mountain temple
The midnight bell sounds
reach my boat.

Snyder, Gary. At Maple Bridge (1984)
Men are mixing gravel and cement
At Maple bridge,
Down an alley by a tea-stall
From Cold Mountain temple ;
Where Chang Chi heard the bell.
The stone step moorage
Empty, lapping water,
And the bell sound has travelled
Far across the sea.

Ferrantello, Donna. 'The symphony' in 'Moby-Dick' : the Chinese eye in Melville's Storm : the influence of the China trade, oriental thought and universalism on Melville's romanticism.
This dissertation is an exploration of the influence of the China trade, Oriental thought and Universalism on Melville's Romanticism, focusing on his novel Moby-Dick. The thesis that Melville writes in a genre of literary religion similar to Transcendentalists is argued on the basis of his use of a meditation process to realize an intuitional epistemology and achieve a harmony of polarities. I characterize his epistemology as related to a hidden Oriental 'geist'.
Chapter One explores the influence of the China trade, travel and texts during Melville's age. The China trade was a vehicle for economic exchange in early 19th century America. It was also a powerful source for transmitting knowledge about Oriental culture and thought. The general knowledge of Chinese culture and thought available to the reading of Melville and his contemporaries is discussed with specific attention to Melvilles interests and reading habits.
Chapter Two surveys the philosophical literature generated by Transcendentalists, British and German Romantics about the relation between mind and nature. I trace their involvement with polarities to influence from Oriental thought. This interest in a synthesis of polarities also included the unity of science and philosophy. Thus, it is argues that the work of Nature-philosophy writers Herder and Humboldt influenced the quasi-scientific interests of Melville expressed in Moby-Dick.
Chapter Three gives a brief analysis of symbol theories found in Emerson, Coleridge and Schelling. I demonstrate how Melville uses external symbols to convey states of consciousness. His use of a meditation process as a spiritual method for recognizing intuitive truth is evident in Melville's language about consciousness. The Oriental 'geist' is revealed in his use of the Universal Yellow Lotus symbol and in contrasting imagery of East and West, the Pacific and Atlantic waters, masculinity and femininity, activity and calm, and Ahab and Ishmael. "The Symphony" chapter provides the epistemological, ontological and cosmological center for the novel's meaning: the Chinese Tao of being. Finally, this enlightenment is related to a 'coming home' experience.
Chapter Five situates Melville's Universalist notions on brotherhood, unity of races and religions and the notion of a universal religion in relation to Unitarian Christianity and Transcendentalism, particularly the thought of Samuel Johnson. Both Melville and Johnson depict the sea as a symbol for universality. An embracing maternal spirit as the source of unity for all being and polarities is the nexus of Melville's symphony.

Beckett, Samuel. Dream of fair to middling women [ID D30768].
"Supposing we told now a little story about China in order to orchestrate what we mean. Yes? Ling-Liun [the Emperor's music master] then, let us say, went to the confines of the West, to the Bamboo Valley, and having cut there a stem between two knots and blown into same was charmed to constate that it gave forth the sound of his own voice when he spoke, as he mostly did, without passion. From this the phoenix male had the kindness to sing six notes and the phoenix female six other notes and Ling-Liun the minister cut yet eleven stems to correspond with all that he has heard. Then he remitted the twelve liu-liu to his master, the six liu male phoenix and the six liu female phoenix : the Yellow Bell, let us say, the Great Liu, the Great Steepleiron, the Stifled Bell, the Ancient Purification, the Young Liu, the Beneficent Fecundity, the Bell of the Woods, the Equable Rule, the Southern Liu, the Imperfect, the Echo Bell. Now the point is that it is most devoutly to be hoped that some at least of our characters can be cast for posrts in a liu-liu. For example, John might be the Yellow Bell and the Smeraldina-Rima the Young Liu and the Syra-Cusa the Stifted Bell and the Mandarin the Ancient Purification and Belacqua himself the Beneficient Fecundity or the Imperfect, and so on. Then it would only be a question of juggling like Confucius on cubes of jade and playing a tune. If all our characters were like that – liu-liu minded – we could write a little book that would be purely melodic, think how nice that would be, linear, a lovely Pythagorean chain-chant solo of cause and effect, a one-figured teleophony that would be a pleasure to hear…"
"Now onec more and for the last time we are obliged to hark back to the liu business, a dreadful business, feeling hearily sorry that we ever fell into the temptation of putting up that owld Tale of a Tub concerning Christopher Ling-Liun and his bamboo Yankee doodle."

Sekundärliteratur
Lin Lidan : Chinese music as a narrative model : the aesthetics of Liu Liu and metafiction in Samuel Beckett's Dream of fair to middling women. In : English studies ; vol. 91, no 3 (2010).
Lin Lidan : Beckett's experiment with metafiction began with his first novel and was inspired by his knowledge of Chinese music, which he obtained from La musique chinoise by Louis Laloy [ID D19345]. Beckett read Laloy's legend about how Chinese music was first invented. The outcome of Beckett's appropriation of Chinese music is a metafictional novel that is usually seen as belonging to postmodern fiction.
From a gradual evolution of Chinese music Beckett perceived another parallel between Chinese music and English fiction : just as Chinese music grew out of the rigid formula to embrace the freedom of invention, so English fiction must breat free from the narrative convention of the nineteenth century to welcome the freedom of experiment. Dream embodies Proustian and Joycean resonances. One Proustian resonance is Proust's critique of habit that governs every aspect of human life and his perception of reality as being mystic. The Joycean echo is discernible in Beckett's imitation of the Joycean technique of note-snatching or pastiche, in which both authors use materials taken from other authors without indicating sources.
Beckett has written an unpublishable novel, but had to publish it because of his dire need and determination to be a fiction writer, and the new result is the publication of More pricks than kicks (1934), a collection of short stories adapted from Dream.
Aided by Laloy and Chinese music, Beckett's postmodern negotiation with realist fiction begins early in the novel, when the narrator just finishes the account of Belacqua's farewell to his lover, the Smeraldina-Rima, a German-speaking student of music.
The development of Chinese music from being guided by theory to reinforcing the freedom of sentiment, Beckett saw the possibility to use Chinese music as a narrative model for Dream ; just as Chinese music evolved from the formula of 'liu liu' to gaining the freedom of invention, the novel must expand the narrative convention of the nineteenth century in order to dramatize the characters and events as naturally as possible, rather than what the author orchestrates.
Beckett imagines himself acting as a Taoist 'pure man' in writing Dream, the pure man in this case being a purist writer. His allusion to the Taoist 'pure man' appears in The civilization of China by H.A. Giles, which Beckett read while preparing himself to write Dream.

Kenneth Dean ist Mitglied des Editorial Board von Min-su ch'u-i und von Min-su ch'u-i ts'ung-shu.

Lessing, Doris. Cycles of revolution [ID D31954].
Three of us, Michael Holroyd, Margaret Drabble and myself, went to China for the British Council, as guests of the main writers' organisation, for over two weeks. Each of us was independently told that we would find sullen, unsmiling populations who would surround us and stare, and who were afraid to speak to foreigners. They would also spit everywhere all the time.
An American journalist who has worked in Beijing for five years said all this was true, up to three years ago: people were so afraid of drawing attention that even the bicycle bells were muted.
We went to Beijing, Shanghai, Shian [Xi'an] and Canton (now Guangdong) [Guangzhou], all full of tourists from Europe, but even more from Japan, South Korea and other adjacent countries. We found smiling, laughing, robust and friendly people who did not spit, did not stare and were concerned with foreigners only to be helpful, to make money out of us, or to learn to make money.
The students in the universities were well informed about British and American literature and at least as sophisticated as their American counterparts.
This is a country on the make, determined to do well, full of energy, confidence, competence. We did not see one drunk person. Every city greets you with slogans like 'China welcomes you with a billion smiles'.
As for being afraid, everyone talks freely about everything, particularly the Cultural Revolution. The euphoria of the times is such that people will say confidently there is no poverty in China (perhaps hoping there soon won't be), yet if you walk down a minor street in Shanghai or Beijing there are the bare rooms where whole families are putting themselves to bed under a naked electric light bulb, reminding me of the 'brick lines' in Africa. The gap between rich and poor must surely widen.
My most informative encounter was with a group of magazine editors and writers, in their thirties and forties. We met publicly at a Friendship Restaurant. When I commented that to the outside world China gives the impression of continuous 100% swings in policy, with the implication that this was a swing to liberalism, and why weren't they afraid their now so open criticisms might be held against them, they said, 'What liberalism? '
Clearly they had expected more from China's glasnost. They told me of a friend's novel about conditions in the Chinese army, which are every bit as bad as those in the old Soviet army.
Yet controversial books are published: Jung Chang's Wild Swans, already published abroad in translation, is expected soon. With a certain scepticism, however. A democratic writer, the idol of youth, has upset the literary establishment with her irreverent, rude, crude stories and poems, but they are forced to accept her because of her popularity. She has not been prohibited nor censored. In short, the situation is fluid. Novels and stories about the Cultural Revolution are plentifully printed.
We met hardly anyone who had not suffered; even the highest were affected — for instance, the former Minister of Culture, Wang Meng. At that private encounter at the Friendship Restaurant every person around the table told what had happened to them.
When asked what he felt about being defamed and tortured in prison, one replied that the victims were, at other times, themselves the victimisers.
The Cultural Revolution is thought of by us as a war against people, but the young iconoclasts also destroyed orchards, gardens, even mulberry trees and silkworks, let alone temples and shrines. In a traditional courtyard in Beijing the little stone lions that often guard homes had all had their heads knocked off. When with these lively, sensible, practical, humorous people, it is not easy to hold in one's mind the knowledge that these same people, just like oneself and one's friends, were so recently part of that lunacy; or that the entire population was willing, at a word from Chairman Mao, to stand — for hours, or days — beating pots and gongs to prevent birds from landing anywhere so that they fell out of the sky dead or so weak they could be clubbed to death — in myriads, in billions. Birds had been categorised as pests. So few birds are left in China; any wild bird you do see is in a cruel cage.
Two phenomena, both much discussed, seem portents of danger to the country. One is the 100 million people forced off the land by mechanisation, all on the move. But 'what is 100 million?' seems to be the feeling. They will be absorbed. These displaced ones do casual labour, pilfer, are petty traders or become bandits on an old and familiar model. They can always go back to their villages — so it is said — where they will be looked after.
But for how long will these people be regarded as the responsibility of their villages when they contribute nothing? At a farm near Guangdong [Guangzhou] (the city is like a vast building site, and the traffic horrendous, so the 10-mile journey took two-and-a-half hours each way) they told us that 10 years ago every member of the couple of hundred villagers had worked on the farm, but now 15 people did all the work. The others were working as labourers in the building industry. This is a revolution of traditional China so profound it must make previous revolutions seem like minor upheavals. In this village we were proudly shown the loudspeaker that not long ago howled out Party directives or banged out loud martial music nearly all the time. Now it was silent.
The other thing everyone talks about is what they call 'The Little Emperor problem'. The law that there must only one child per family is more or less enforced in the cities, sometimes with cruel pressure. Everywhere you see wonderful babies and little children, each one being adored by attendant grownups. Each is a little emperor (or empress, but, it seems, fewer of them) who gets the best of everything, from love to education. But in the provinces it is not so easy to enforce the law, and there are many farmers, number unspecified, who have three or four children.
These are badly educated or not educated at all, and will always be poor, unless China decides to educate and feed them, but that would mean a reversal of a policy regarded as essential — the curtailment of population.
Once again, as before in China's history, ignorant and poor peasants will look in at the privileged towns, full of their rich and educated contemporaries.
We did not go into the poor parts of China. Our guide said confidently that there were no poor areas, no poor farms. She did not know there was controversy over Tibet, which was a place where she and friends talked of taking a holiday. She was well educated, and demonstrated one of the reversals of policy when she recited the list of Chinese dynasties from their beginning, long before Christ, or even Confucius.
Until recently, history taught in schools began with Communism: the imperial past was ignored.
It seemed to me during this trip, and remains with me now, that the most astonishing thing is that five years ago, less, it meant prison or torture or even death for conversations of the kind we were having, so easily, at all levels. But that loudspeaker on the roof of the communal hall on the farm had not been removed, only switched off.
China makes me think of a great lumbering farm cart that has had the most modern of engines fitted to it and is rattling along at 50 miles an hour instead of five. Rushing ahead it certainly is; but the strains and stresses may, almost certainly will, again and again slow or check the cart, even change its direction in unexpected ways.
As China grows strong it will influence the whole world. Let us hope its way of reducing everything to simple and simple-minded formulae does not catch on. The successes of Political Correctness show that we should not be too confident.

Soren Egerod arbeitet am Atayal dictionary an der Academia Sinica in Taiwan.

Aufführung von Ta ren de qian = Other people's money = 他人的錢 von Jerry Sterner, unter der Regie von Daniel S.P. Yang, Hong Kong Repertoy Theatre, 1993.

Guido Samarani macht eine Studienreise in die Volksrepublik, scambi culturali Italia-Cina.

Hugh Davies ist Senior British Trade Commissioner in Hong Kong.

Hugh Davies ist Senior Representative der Sino-British Liaison Group in Hong Kong.

Helmut Kohl besucht Beijing und trifft chinesische Persönlichkeiten wie Jiang Zeming und Li Peng.

Paul Jean-Ortiz ist Sekretär der französischen Botschaft in Beijing.

Richard W. Mueller ist Generalkonsul des amerikanischen Generalkonsulats Hong Kong und Macao.