China and the West

Hilary Conroy erhält den B.S. der Northwestern University, Evanston Ill.

Donald F. Lach promoviert an der University of Chicago.

Donald F. Lach ist Professor am Elmira College, New York.

Huang Ray ist Second Lieutenant Platoon Leader.

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne ist Übersetzer des British Ministry of Information in Chongqing.

Alwyne George Neville Ogden ist stellvertretender Generalkonsul des britischen Konsulats in Tianjin.

W. Allyn Rickett ist Mechaniker am U.S. Department of Engineering, Annette Island Air Base, Alaska.

Tsien Tsuen-hsuin schickt 30'000 wertvolle chinesische Bücher zur Lagerung und Kopierung an die Library of Congress.

Louis Brauquier arbeitet für die Compagnie des Messageries maritimes in Shanghai.

Walther Heissig promoviert an der Universität Wien.

Walther Heissig hält sich (militärisch) in der Inneren Mongolei und der Mandschurei auf.

Fosco Maraini ist Lettore di italiano der Universität Kyoto.

Film : Xue gu qi you = 雪姑七友 [Show white and her seven friends] unter der Regie von Ren Huhua nach Grimm, Jacob ; Grimm, Wilhelm. Schneewittchen und die sieben Zwerge.

Film : Fu huo = 复活 [The resurrection] unter der Regie von Mei Qian nach Tolstoy, Leo. Voskresenie. (Purleigh, Maldon : V. Tchertkoff, 1899).

Chen Shixiang studiert Literaturtheorie an der Harvard University und der Columbia University.

Aufführung einer Adaptation von Nora von Henrik Ibsen durch die Pei du ju she (Chongqing Drama Society) in Chengdu unter der Regie von Lai Qing mit Ouyang Hongying als Nora und Zhang Yang als Helmer.
The play became not only a weapon in national defense but also a means of struggle between the nationalists and communists in China.

Li, Qinghua. Yao wang : san mu ju. (Chongqing : Tian di chu ban she, 1944). 遥望 : 三幕劇
Adaptation of Beyond the horizon by Eugene O'Neill in Chongqing.
The adaptation was set in a Chinese village, retained much of the original plot and characterization. Two young cousins, one a romantic poet and the other a practical farmer, fall in love with the same girl in the neighborhood. The triangle leads to the mismatch of the poet and the girl and mismanagement of the farm, on the one hand, and the self-imposed exile of the elder cousin, the practical farmer, on the other. The play ends in similar disillusionment in life for all three characters involved. The major alteration mad in the Chinese version lies in what it is that lures mankind beyond the horizon

Xiao Qian notes in his autobiography, that he met E.M. Forster for the first time on 9 May 1941 at the Tagore Memorial Meeting organized by the English PEN Club. He was invited to give a talk and was sitting alongside Forster. Kingsley Martin introduced him to Forster. He was also introduced to H.G. Wells, Stephen Spender and John Lehmann.
Letter from E.M. Forster to Jack Sprott ; 20 Sept. 1941.
"I made two contacts in the PEN [PEN Club's 17th International Congress] – sense Xiao Qian of whom I shall see more."

Friendship and correspondence between E.M. Forster and Xiao Qian.
Lien Wen-shan : According to Xiao, some 80 letters, postcards and telegrams were dispatched from Forster to himself. In response, he wrote long replies back to Forster. A large number of Forster's letters do not survive and almost all of Xiao's letters were destroyed in 1945 and 1946. Forster's letters were destroyed at the beginning of the Cultural revolution in 1966. Only two letters from Xiao to Forster survived.
Their friendship ended abruptly and was scarred by a misunderstanding that was never cleared up. The intervention of the Second World War and the political upheavals in post-war China proved to be too great a disruptive force and made the renewal of their friendship impossible.

Ezra Pound and fascism.
1997
Mary Paterson Cheadle : Pound was very direct in his regard of fascism's Confucian precedents. In all of his efforts to bolster Italy's purpose in the war – not only the broadcasts over Rome Radio but the many articles and pamphlets he wrote, the manifestos issued by him and a group of writers local to the Rapallo area, and the posters he designed and printed – Pound includes quotations from the Confucian classics and refers to Confucianism as an ally of fascism. He praised Fascism's efforts to restore economic and social order in Italy. For Pound, both Fascism and Confucianism perceived the state- an ethical economic, social and political totality – as the important contex in which to place the individual, the family, and the community.
2008
Qian Zhaoming : Ezra Pound's radio broadcasts from Rome and his letters are characterized by Italian fascism and anti-Semitism. He tried to convince Yang Fengqi that China's worst enemy was not Japan but 'international usury'. 1940 he asked Yang about the moral foundation of the nationalist Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek : "I hear that Chiang Kai-shek was converted to Christianity, which seems WRONG for a Chinese". Yang influenced Pound toward a slightly better understanding of the conflict between China and Japan.
He helped Pound locate various Chinese books and identified numerous Chinese characters. In 1940-1941 his assistance became vital when Pound took up translating Da xue and Zhong yong into Italian. Yang approved not only Pound's Italian but also his inserted commentary.
Pound's fascism grew so offensive, that Yang began backing out from their correspondence. It was their mutual interest in the Confucian Four Books that saved it. As a Confucian, Yang saw Pound's enthusiasm for Italian fascism and his zeal for Confucianism as two separate preoccupations. Having learned of Pound's reading of the Four Books, Yang encouraged him to 'occupy [himself] with this subject, apparently with the intention of attracting him away from fascism.