China and the West

Aufführung von The merchant of Venice von William Shakespeare.
Erste englische Aufführung von Studenten des Foreign Language Department des St. John College Shanghai. This was not in its original form and the purpose of performance was for practicing English language.

[Huxley, Thomas Henry]. Tian yan lun. Yan Fu yi. [ID D10307].
Yan Fu schreibt über William Shakespeare : "Shakespeare was an English poet and dramatist of the 16th-17th centuries. His works are so valuable that most of them have already been translated all over the worlds. As for the characters depicted by Shakespeare, people living today not only resemble them in their speech and laughter, but also in their conflicts, emotions and their inability to get on amicably with one another.
Shakespeare wrote a play recounting the murder of Caesar. When Antony delivers a speech to the citizens while showing the body of Caesar to the public, he uses logic to stir up the citizens cleverly because Brutus warned him that he would not be allowed to redress a grievance for Caesar and blame the murderers. The citizens are greatly agitated by the speech and their resentment against Brutus and his comrades is running high. We should attribute Antony's success to the function of logic !"

Ernest Fenollosa nimmt Literaturstunden bei Hirai Kinza über Li Bo and Wang Wei.

Gründung des französischen Konsulats in Hekou (Yunnan).

[Huxley, Thomas Henry]. Tian yan lun. Yan Fu yi. [ID D10307].
Yan Fu writes in the preface about translation :
1. Translation involves three requirements difficult to fulfill : faithfulness (xin), comprehensibility (da) and elegance (ya). Faithfulness is difficult enough to attain but a translation that is faithful but not comprehensible is no translation at all. Comprehensibility is therefore of prime importance…
2. Terms in Western language texts are defined as they occur, somewhat similar to digressions in Chinese…
3. The Book of changes says : "Fidelity is the basis of writing". Confucius said : "Writing should be comprehensible". He also said, "Where language has no refinement, its effects will not extend far"… My translation has been criticized for its abstruse language and involved style. But I must say this is the result of my determined effort at comprehensibility. The treatise in the book is largely based upon logic, mathematics and sciences as well as astronomy…
4. New theories have been advanced in quick succession, giving rise to a profusion of new terms. No such terms could be found in Chinese. Though some Chinese expressions approximate the original, there are yet discrepancies…
5. The book deals mainly with the schools of thought since ancient Greece. Included are the renowned thinkers of various periods whose thoughts have influences the minds of the people of the West for some two thousand years…
6. The pursuit of truth is akin to the practice of government in that both place a premium on the pooling of ideas…

He writes in the preface about Huxley :
"The purpose of this book of Huxley's is to correct the abuses of Spencer's 'laisser-faire'. Many of its arguments are in accord with what our ancient sages have said. Furthermore, matters such as self-strengthening and the preservation of the race are reiterated in it. Tha is why I spent the long, wary days of the past summer to translate it. If there were people who regarded it as empty talk and useless to practical affairs, they would certainly be beyond my care."
In chapter 13, Yan Fu writes : "Huxley's discussion on the preservation of the society is indeed penetrating. But we should know that his statement that sympathy is the origin of human society has reversed the result to be the cause. Man's motive in forming a society is primarily for his self-interest, which is similar to those of lower animals. Therefore, Huxley's discussion on sociology is not as thorough as that of Spencer. Furthermore, the theory that sympathy is the origin of human society was first advocated by Adam Smith, the economist. It is not a new theory contributed by Huxley."
In chapter 14, Yan Fu writes : "What Huxley intends to point out in this chapter is that in order to preserve the society as well as the individual, self-assertion should not be completely abolished."

Sekundärliteratur
Chen Tzu-yun : Yan Fu decides to use in his translation classical Chinese (gu wen). According to Yan himself, his choice is made on the basis that 'where language has no refinement, the effect will not extend far' and that the classical Chinese has richer vocabulary than that of the vernacular. There are more terms applicable to the new Western ideas.
Yan divides the text into seventeen chapters with the result that each chapter is about of the same length. He makes the structure of his translated work similar to that of the tzu genre with which the Chinese literati are familiar. The divergence from the original work is necessitated not only by his desire to make his readers at home, but also by the fact in Yan's time the practice of paragraphing was not popularly adopted.
Yan Fu does not translate Huxley's notes on the lecture and makes no acknowledgement of their existence. He is inconsisten in some of his transliterations. There are interpolations, questionable substitutions and sometimes inadverted mistranslations. As a whole, Tian yan lun is a successful translation. Its shortcomings are of little consequence. Politically, the work is significant in that it has filled the need of the time. Literarily, it is the first major translation of Western works.
Benjamin Schwartz : The reason why Yan Fu chooses classical Chinese : 1. Classical Chinese is an appropriate medium to interest the literati of his time. 2. A dignified style can prove that Westerners are not inferior to Chinese in matter of literature and political science. 3. Yan's flair for elegance may reflect his own aesthetic bent and his pride in his own virtuosity. 4. The whole bai hua (vernacular) movement still lay in the future.

Baldwin, James. The king and his hawk [ID D32452].
Gen-ghis Khan was a great king and war-rior.
He led his army into China and Persia, and he con-quered many lands. In every country, men told about his daring deeds; and they said that since Alexander the Great there had been no king like him.
One morning when he was home from the wars, he rode out into the woods to have a day's sport. Many of his friends were with him. They rode out gayly, carrying their bows and arrows. Behind them came the servants with the hounds.
It was a merry hunting party. The woods rang with their shouts and laughter. They expected to carry much game home in the evening.
On the king's wrist sat his favorite hawk; for in those days hawks were trained to hunt. At a word from their masters they would fly high up into the air, and look around for prey. If they chanced to see a deer or a rabbit, they would swoop down upon it swift as any arrow.
All day long Gen-ghis Khan and his huntsmen rode through the woods. But they did not find as much game as they expected.
Toward evening they started for home. The king had often ridden through the woods, and he knew all the paths. So while the rest of the party took the nearest way, he went by a longer road through a valley between two mountains.
The day had been warm, and the king was very thirsty. His pet hawk had left his wrist and flown away. It would be sure to find its way home.
The king rode slowly along. He had once seen a spring of clear water near this path-way. If he could only find it now! But the hot days of summer had dried up all the moun-tain brooks.
At last, to his joy, he saw some water tric-kling down over the edge of a rock. He knew that there was a spring farther up. In the wet season, a swift stream of water always poured down here; but now it came only one drop at a time.
The king leaped from his horse. He took a little silver cup from his hunting bag. He held it so as to catch the slowly falling drops.
It took a long time to fill the cup; and the king was so thirsty that he could hardly wait. At last it was nearly full. He put the cup to his lips, and was about to drink.
All at once there was a whir-ring sound in the air, and the cup was knocked from his hands. The water was all spilled upon the ground.
The king looked up to see who had done this thing. It was his pet hawk.
The hawk flew back and forth a few times, and then alighted among the rocks by the spring.
The king picked up the cup, and again held it to catch the tric-kling drops.
This time he did not wait so long. When the cup was half full, he lifted it toward his mouth. But before it had touched his lips, the hawk swooped down again, and knocked it from his hands.
And now the king began to grow angry. He tried again; and for the third time the hawk kept him from drinking.
The king was now very angry indeed.
"How do you dare to act so?" he cried. "If I had you in my hands, I would wring your neck!"
Then he filled the cup again. But before he tried to drink, he drew his sword.
"Now, Sir Hawk," he said, "this is the last time."
He had hardly spoken, before the hawk swooped down and knocked the cup from his hand. But the king was looking for this. With a quick sweep of the sword he struck the bird as it passed.
The next moment the poor hawk lay bleeding and dying at its master's feet.
"That is what you get for your pains," said Genghis Khan.
But when he looked for his cup, he found that it had fallen between two rocks, where he could not reach it.
"At any rate, I will have a drink from that spring," he said to himself.
With that he began to climb the steep bank to the place from which the water trickled. It was hard work, and the higher he climbed, the thirst-i-er he became.
At last he reached the place. There indeed was a pool of water; but what was that lying in the pool, and almost filling it? It was a huge, dead snake of the most poisonous kind.
The king stopped. He forgot his thirst. He thought only of the poor dead bird lying on the ground below him.
"The hawk saved my life!" he cried; "and how did I repay him? He was my best friend, and I have killed him."
He clambered down the bank. He took the bird up gently, and laid it in his hunting bag. Then he mounted his horse and rode swiftly home. He said to himself,—
"I have learned a sad lesson to-day; and that is, never to do anything in anger."

Crane, Stephen. Opium's varied dreams [ID D33581].
Opium smoking in this country is believed to be more particularly a pastime of the Chinese, but in truth the greater number of the smokers are white men and white women. Chinatown furnishes the pipe, lamp and yen-hock, but let a man once possess a "layout” and a common American drug store furnishes him with the opium, and afterward China is discernible only in the traditions that cling to the habit.
There are 25,000 opium-smokers in the city of New York alone. At one time there were two great colonies, one in the Tenderloin, one of coursc in Chinatown. This was before the hammer of reform struck them. Now the two colonies are splintered into something less than 25,000 fragments. The smokers are disorganized, but they still exist.
The Tenderloin district of New York fell an early victim to opium. That part of the population which is known as the sporting class adopted the habit quickly. Cheap actors, race track touts, gamblers and the different kinds of confidence men took to it generally. Opium raised its yellow banner over the Tenderloin, attaining the dignity of a common vice.
Splendid "joints" were not uncommon then in New York. There was one on Forty-second street which would have been palatial if it were not for the bad taste of the decorations. An occasional man from fifth avenue or Madison avenue would there have his private "layout" an elegant equipment of silver, ivory, gold.The bunks which lined all sides of the two rooms were nightly crowded and some of the people owned names which are not altogether unknown to the pubhc. This place was raided because of sensational stories in the newspapers and the little wicket no longer opens to allow the anx- ious nend to enter.
Upon the appearance of reform, opium retired to private flats. Here it now reigns and it will undoubtedly be an extremely long century before the police can root it from these little strongholds. Once, Billie Rostetter got drunk on whisky and emptied three scuttles of coal down the dumb-waiter shaft. This made a noise and Billie naturally was arrested. But opium is silent. These smokers do not rave. They lay and dream, or talk in low tones. The opium vice does not betray itself by heaving coal down dumb-waiter shafts.
People who declare themselves able to pick out opium-smokers on the street are usually deluded. An opium-smoker may look like a deacon or a deacon may look like an opium-smoker. One case is as probable as the other. The "fiends" can easily conceal their vice They get up from the "layout", adjust their cravats, straighten their coat-tails and march off like ordinary people, and the best kind of an ex pert would not be willing to bet that they were or were not addicted to the habit.
It would be very hard to say just exactly what constitutes a "habit". With the fiends it is an elastic word. Ask a smoker if he has a habit and he will deny it. Ask him if some one who smokes the same amount has a habit and he will gracefully admit it. Perhaps the ordinary smoker consumes 25 cents worth of opium each day. There are others who smoke $ 1 worth. This is rather extraordinary and in this case at least it is safe to say that it is a "habit". The $ 1 smokers usu ally indulge in "high hats", which is the term for a large pill. The ordinary smoker is satisfied with "pin-heads". "Pin-heads" are about fte size of a French pea.
"Habit-smokers" have a contempt for the "sensation-smoker".This latter is a person who has been won by the false glamour which surrounds the vice and who goes about really pretending that he has a ravenous hunger for the pipe. There are more "sensation-smokers" than one would imagine.
It is said to take one year of devotion to the pipe before one can contract a habit. As far as the writer's observation goes, he should say that it does not take any such long time. Sometimes an individual who has only smoked a few months will speak of nothing but pipe and when they "talk pipe" persistently it is a pretty sure sign that the drug has fastened its grip upon them so that at any rate they are not able to easily stop its use.
When a man arises from his first trial of the pipe, the nausea that clutches him is something that can give cards and spades and big casino to seasickness. If he had swallowed a live chimney-sweep he could not feel more like dying. The room and everything in it whirls like the inside of an electric light plant. There appears a thirst, a great thirst, and this thirst is so sinister and so misleading that if the novice drank spirits to satisfy it he would presently be much worse. The one thing that will make him feel again that life may be a joy is a cup of strong black coffee.
If there is a sentiment in the pipe for him he returns to it after this first unpleasant trial. Gradually, the power of the drug sinks into his heart. It absorbs his thought. He begins to lie with more and more grace to cover the shortcomings and little failures of his life. And then finally he may become a full-fledged "pipe fiend", a man with a "yen-yen".
A "yen-yen", be it known, is the hunger, the craving. It comes to a "fiend" when he separates himself from his pipe and takes him by the heart strings. If indeed he will not buck through a brick wall to get to the pipe, he at least will become the most disagreeable, sour-tempered person on earth until he finds a way to satisfy his craving.
When the victim arrives at the point where his soul calls for the drug, he usually learns to cook. The operation of rolling the pill and cooking it over the little lamp is a delicate task and it takes time to learn it. When a man can cook for himself and buys his own "layout", he is gone, probably. He has placed upon his shoulders an elephant which he may carry to the edge of forever. The Chinese have a preparation which they call a cure, but the first difficulty is to get the hop fiend to take the preparation, and the second difficulty is to cure anything with this cure.
A "hop-fiend" will defend opium with eloquence and energy. He very seldom drinks spirits and so he gains an opportunity to make the most ferocious parallels between the effects of rum and the ef fects of opium. Ask him to free his mind and he will probably say- "Opium does not deprive you of your senses. It does not make a madman of you. But drink does! See? Who ever heard of a man com mitting murder when full of hop? Get him full of whisky and he might kill his father. I don't see why people kick so about opium smoking. If they knew anything about it they wouldn’t talk that way. Let anybody drink rum who cares to, but as for me I would rather be what I am."
As before mentioned, there were at one time gorgeous opium dens in New York, but at the present time there is probably not one with any pretense to splendid decoration. The Chinamen will smoke in a cellar, bare, squalid, occupied by an odor that will float wooden chips. The police took the adornments from the vice and left noth¬ing but the pipe itself. Yet the pipe is sufficient for its slant-eyed lover.
When prepared for smoking purposes, opium is a heavy liquid much like molasses. Ordinarily it is sold in hollow li-shi nuts or in little round tins resembling the old percussion cap-boxes. The pipe is a curious affair, particularly notable for the way in which it does not resemble the drawings of it that appear in print. The stem is of thick bamboo, the mouthpiece usually of ivory. The bowl crops out suddenly about four inches from the end of the stem. It is a heavy affair of clay or stone. The cavity is a mere hole, of the diameter of a lead pencil, drilled through the centre. The "yen-hock" is a sort of sharpened darning-needle. With it the cook takes the opium from the box. He twirls it dexterously with his thumb and forefinger until enough of the gummy substance adheres to the sharp point. Then he holds it over the tiny flame of the lamp which burns only peanut oil or sweet oil. The pill now exactly resembles boiling molasses. The clever fingers of the cook twirl it above the flame. Lying on his side comfortably, he takes the pipe in his left hand and transfers the cooked pill from the yen-hock to the bowl of the pipe where he again molds it with the yen-hock until it is a little button-like thing with a hole in the centre fitting squarely over the hole in the bowl. Dropping the yen-hock, the cook now uses two hands for the pipe. He extends the mouthpiece toward the one whose turn it is to smoke and as this latter leans forward in readiness, the cook draws the bowl toward the flame until the heat sets the pill to boiling. Whereupon, the smoker takes a long, deep draw at the pipe, the pill splutters and fries and a moment later the smoker sinks back tranquilly. An odor, heavy, aromatic, agreeable and yet disagreeable, hangs in the air and makes its way with peculiar powers of penetration. The group about the layout talk in low voices and watch the cook deftly molding another pill. The little flame casts a strong yellow light on their faces as they cuddle about the layout. As the pipe passes and passes around the circle, the voices drop to a mere indolent cooing, and the eyes that so lazily watch the cook at his work glisten and glisten from the influence of the drug until they resemble flashing bits of silver.
There is a similarity in coloring and composition in a group of men about a midnight camp-fire in a forest and a group of smokers about the layout tray with its tiny light. Everything, of course, is on a smaller scale with the smoking. The flame is only an inch and a half perhaps in height and the smokers huddle closely in order that every person may smoke undisturbed. But there is something in the abandon of the poses, the wealth of light on the faces and the strong mystery of shadow at the backs of the people that bring the two scenes into some kind of artistic brotherhood. And just as the lazy eyes about a camp-fire fasten themselves dreamfully upon the blaze of logs so do the lazy eyes about an opium layout fasten themselves upon the little yellow flame.
There is but one pipe, one lamp and one cook to each smoking layout. Pictures of nine or ten persons sitting in arm-chairs and smoking various kinds of curiously carved tobacco pipes probably serve well enough, but when they are named "nterior of an Opium Den" and that sort of thing, it is absurd. Opium could not be smoked like tobacco. A pill is good for one long draw. After that the cook molds another. A smoker would just as soon choose a gallows as an arm-chair for smoking purposes. He likes to curl down on a mattress placed on the floor in the quietest corner of a Tenderloin flat and smoke there with no light but the tiny yellow spear from the layout lamp.
It is a curious fact that it is rather the custom to purchase for a layout tray one of those innocent black tin affairs which are supposed to be placed before baby as he takes his high chair for dinner.
If a beginner expects to have dreams of an earth dotted with white porcelain towers and a sky of green silk, he will, from all accounts, be much mistaken. "The Opium Smoker's Dream" seems to be mostly a mistake. The influence of "dope" is evidently a fine languor, a complete mental rest. The problems of life no longer appear Existence is peace. The virtues of a man's friends, for instance, loom beautifully against his own sudden perfection. The universe is readjusted. Wrong departs, injustice vanishes; there is nothing but a quiet, a soothing harmony of all things—until the next morning And who should invade this momentary land of rest, this dream country, if not the people of the Tenderloin, they who are at once supersensitive and hopeless, the people who thmk more upon death and the mysteries of life, the chances of the hereafter, than any other class, educated or uneducated. Opium holds out to them its lie, and they embrace it eagerly, expecting to find a definition of peace, but they awake to find the formidable labors of life grown more formidable. And if the pipe should happen to ruin their lives they ding the more closely to it bccau.se then it stands between them and thought.

Theodor Sörensen geht als Missionar nach Chengdu und studiert Chinesisch.

Heinrich Cordes ist Dolmetscher an der Botschaft in Guangzhou.

Robert Coltman ist Professor of Anatomy des Tung Wen College in Beijing.

Lionel Charles Hopkins ist handelnder Generalkonsul des britischen Konsulats in Hankou (Hubei).

Clement Francis Romilly Allen ist Konsul des britischen Konsulats in Fuzhou.

Walter James Clennell ist handelnder Vize-Konsul in Guangzhou (Guangdong).

Henry Cockburn ist Chinese secretary der britischen Gesandtschaft in Beijing.

Gründung und Bestehen des britischen Konsulats in Suzhou.

Claude Macdonald ist Gesandter der britischen Botschaft in Bejing und in Weihaiwei.

George Demetrius Pitzipios ist handelnder Vize-Konsul des britischen Konsulats in Shanghai.

Ambrose John Sundius ist handelnder Konsul des britischen Konsulats in Hangzhou.

Peter Hildebrand kommt in China an.

George Crofts kommt in China an.