We all live and we all die.It is the process between the start of life and end of it that is all that matters.In certain contexts, it is shameful to love your life and fear death, as reflected by the Chinese idiom tan sheng pa si, but to love life and fear death is only too natural as dictated by our animal heritage.In this volume, we have two stories that contrast with each other. In the former, Wang Xiaomu’s “Love Forecaster,” we see how humans love life and can possibly spoil it; in the latter, Yingchuan’s “No Turning Around,” we have a human that fears death as a consequence of inflicting death (as he imagines); in the former, we see how love can sour, and in the latter how human nature can stay dignified with so much love in the deep fear of death.Life is a one-way ticket, in either case; there is no return. As observers of other people’s lives and readers of other people’s stories we may perceive some meaning the way Craig Hulst does in his commentary on “Love Forecaster.”As always, a note of thanks must go to the translators, Zhang Hong and Li Qinmei, involved in this volume, for their painstaking work, and to the contributing editors, Fraser Sutherland and Craig Hulst for making the translations read well, and the School of Translation and Transcultural Studies of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies for continued support given to Chinese Literature and Culture.

We are very pleased to welcome Xuemo, another prize-winning author, into this new volume of Chinese Literature and Culture, which consists of excerpts of The Curse of Western Xia and excerpts of The Love Letters of Sharwardi in excellent English translation as well as two book reviews: Robert Tindol on the novel Desert Rites and Stephen Rake on the novel Desert Hunters.

Unlike many writers who write in formulas that make predictable stories, Xuemo writes in a way that surprises the reader but meanwhile never loses the plot of a spiritual quest.
In The Curse of Western Xia, five excerpts of which are published in the present volume, a robber father wants his son to be a robber while the Buddhist mother wants the son to be a monk, and as a result a series of strange stories take place. The novel also has another plot: a love story develops between a beautiful lady burglar and a Buddhist monk and is consummated in the religious practice of dual cultivation. In the words of Prof. Chen Xiaoming speaking to his students, “Xuemo gives a surreal experience by developing his literary narrative as a religious one which accesses and describes the world of evil as in a dream, a world as pale as the winter sun in the western deserts shining onto mud and soil, visible and weak, illusory and real at the same time.”
Xuemo is best known for his novels but he is equally accomplished at short stories. Chen Sihe, Professor of Chinese, Fudan University, in “What Is the Best Freeze Frame of Beauty?” (Shanghai Literature) notes: “Xuemo is particularly good at creating epic volumes. When I read Desert Rites and Hunters’ Land, I feel as if I were actually transported to the vast, dry deserts…. On the other hand, his short stories are beautiful, animated and filled with sentiment...” He also notes, “While everything is dark and the reader wonders how the human evils and cruelties come into being and how humans have degenerated into beasts, Xuemo gives us a surprising miracle.”

Zhang Wei's new novel A Physician with a Formula involves a young male
physician's misguided, deviant life-nourishing practice of using women as
a tool to achieve long life. Chapter One published in this volume gives the
reader an early glimpse of the masterly work. “Poems from the Courtesan
House and Their Stories (1)” shows the sexually enslaved women in ancient
China as talented souls aspiring for liberation and freedom. Liang Shuming's
“‘Family’ to Chinese People” gives us an understanding of the Chinese family
system. All these come in exquisite translations in Volume 14 of Chinese
Literature and Culture.

Coupled with the translations are commentaries by Prof. Craig Hulst, who
locates Chapter One of A Physician with a Formula in the general context of
Chinese culture, Prof. Patricia Clark, who highlights the relevance of poetry
writing to life and imagism in the courtesan poems, and author Kyle Muntz,
who gives an intellectual discussion of how the subtle emotions of the
courtesans take shape in the poems and the narratives between them.
In addition, the bilingual content is a valuable material for students and
scholars of Chinese studies and translation studies.

This volume includes three translated fiction stories. “In Company With a Depression Sufferer,” by Chen Jiyi, is a story of two migrants trying to make it in the industrial metropolis of Beijing. As the hero, Chen Chao, cares for the younger Ma Qi, he slowly understands the reasons for Ma Qi's mental anguish in a way that, perhaps, goes far deeper than the problems of the moral decadence of the modern economic center. In Yu Hua's “A Long Journey From Home at Eighteen,” the hero, on his way into the world in search of an inn, meets the world's cold reality, but finally finds his inn in a least suspected place. “Buried in Peace,” by Yan Xi Zao, tells the inspiring story of a girl's return home to the countryside during Spring Festival with the sad task of taking her final leave of her dying grandmother, but in the process she gains an understanding of herself, her place in the world, and her connection to tradition.We include two auto-biographical essays by Chinese writers: “Self-analysis,” by Zhuang Jiamin, is a narrative of a Chinese girl with a fascination for reading romance novels as she deals with discipline from parents she also loves. It is also the generation gap being traversed by today's China, yet grounded in tradition. “My Childhood,” by Li Huiyin, tells about a girl raised in the Chinese countryside by her aunt. “The Expressivity of Chinese Instrumental Music,” by a professional piano player and music teacher, Kevin Nan Gan, presents the expressive aspect of Chinese music by carefully leading the reader through a model Chinese instrumental piece. Klaus Vieweg's “The Taint of Determinateness – The East and Buddhism from the perspective of Hegel” is an important study on the importance of Hegel's thought for a union of West and East, Buddhism in particular. The core ideas are crucial, I think, for understanding, at a philosophical level, the potential for a union between China and the West thought.

Many English language readers are familiar with The Platform Sutra, the book that records the words and deeds of Huineng, but the words of Shenhui, Huineng’s leading disciple and spokesperson are not much known in the English world. The talks and conversations of Shenhui often referred to as Shen Hui Yu Lu, or A Record of the Words of Shenhui have never been completely translated into English before the publication of The Wisdom of Huineng, Chinese Buddhist Philosopher (2015, IUniverse).
This volume consists of two documents recording the words of Shenhui: “Platform Talk of the Monk of Nanyang on the Direct Understanding of the Original Nature in the Chan Doctrine of Salvation via Sudden Enlightenment” and “A Definition of Right and Wrong by the Southern School of Bodhidharma,” Wang Wei’s epitaph for Huineng speaking of Shenhui’s importance in the dissemination of Huineng’s teachings In addition, there is a translation of “Xian Zong Ji”－Shenhui’s sermon on “the origin.” All these texts have been previously published in The Wisdom of Huineng, Chinese Buddhist Philosopher－The Platform Sutra and Other Translations (IUniverse, 2015). Since these texts are not much known as a collection, it is necessary to republish them as separate volume of Chinese Literature and Culture.

As a special Chinese territory with a colonial past, Hong Kong has a character both the same as and different from that of the Chinese continent. In this collection, we shall be able to have a glimpse of Hong Kong new writing and the life and culture of Hong Kong people. 
A small volume as it is, compiling it is no easy task. I am very thankful to four Hong Kong authors—Wu Yin-ching, Chan Hay Ching, Eric Lui Wing Kai, and Liu Waitong—for allowing their works to be translated and published, and four excellent translators—Huang Yu, Tammy Ho Lai-Ming, Audrey Heijns, and Li Bo, who live in Hong Kong or have Hong Kong experience to enable them to understand the culture and language of Hong Kong people—for their dedication to translational excellence. 
 
The Tale of Fabric Street 
translated by Huang Yu (Heidi) 
 
The alleys have disappeared, the private histories are now blurred, but the scrolls of emotion are waiting to be measured by the ruler of memory. 
 
My grandfather died at 94. Before his departure he had been silent for three months, fasting, living on a plastic feeding tube, and leaving no word behind. News came at dawn that he was gone. He left our lives in the lightest way possible, like a piece of scribbled scratch paper fleeing from the worm-eaten 
window frame, quietly disappearing under the stern gaze of broad daylight, with red paint falling off in bits and pieces. 
...

This volume features Xiao Su's story "Liu Chunshui the Moral Model."
In the conditioning of civilized human behavior, society looks for good examples but good examples are hard to find because to err is human--we are all flawed in one way or another, hence the difficulty facing Luo Rihuan the retiring head of Rapeseed Slope Village in the township of Old Vale in his ten attempts, nine of which have failed, to get someone in his village selected the Moral Model of the Year in the township.
A moral model thus selected is expected to be perfect, a living saint among the common people, flawless in every way, meeting all expectations of social engineers.
However, in his truthful way of storytelling, Xiao Su resolves to disappoint us. He lets the three main characters--the village head, a family member of the moral model, and the moral model himself--speak in turn, each as truthfully as they can. The village head truthfully reveals his motive and hardship in getting someone accepted as moral model of the township, the family member truthfully tells us why the moral model has his due recognition, and the moral model truthfully tells us why he does not deserve the honor. Then, the reader can faintly gather from the story that all the truths point to one lie.

Celebrated Chinese writer Zhang Wei, whose novel You Are on the Plateau won China’s prestigious Mao Dun Prize for Literature in 2011, is also a powerful short story writer. His imaginative power, ability to skillfully craft a story, and picturesque use of language are rarely found in other writers. Zhang Wei is well known in China as a master of fiction.
        In this volume, we have Chu Dongwei’s carefully translated story “A Bitter Debate in a Dream” to go with the Chinese original by Zhang Wei and a written seminar consisting of three commentaries and one scholarly essay. In the three commentaries, Canadian author Fraser Sutherland’s “A Lesson of Sorts: a Commentary on ‘A Bitter Debate in a Dream,’” O. Henry Prize winner Caitlin Horrocks’ “A Meaningful Dream Scene: on Zhang Wei’s ‘A Bitter Debate in a Dream,’” and writing professor Craig Hulst’s “Practical and Philosophical Issues: Humans and Their Dogs: a Commentary on Zhang Wei’s ‘A Bitter Debate in a Dream,” and Dr. Brian Cope’s essay “Through Bitterness Something Ecological Grows: Zhang Wei’s Ecological Allegory,” you will find interesting angles from which the writers and scholars approach the story.

This volume features a collection of writings by Lu Xun Prize for Literature winner Zhang Yawen, China's female Gorky. In this volume, we have a short sketch “First Love at a Deathbed,” a pathetic story of Yawen’s Third Elder Sister regretting not having fought for her own life on her deathbed. “Dog Girl” is Ying Kong’s English adaptation of excerpts of Yawen’s early fight against fate in getting her limited education. “The Hawthorn Tree at the Beginning of My Life,” translated by the smiling but serious translator Tina Sim, documents the hard life of the family life in a valley with its suppressed aspirations and feelings. “In Respect and Awe” is Vincent Dong’s translation of Yawen’s preface to her prize-winning biographical novel Playing Games with the Devil, for the writing of which she made many interview trips to Europe on her own. In “Zhang Yawen’s Calling: Rising Against All Odds,” Ying Kong gives an in-depth introduction to the Lu Xun Prize winning autobiography The Call of Life (translated as Cry for Life in an existing English translation) with a poetic summary of the author’s life in the first person singular.

Editorial: The Subtle Science of Literary Translation
Fiction
Three Beggars
It's Good to Lie Down
Love
Interview
An Interview with Yang Ting: A Story Needs to Be Original
Poetry
The Death and Life of Doctor Bethune
Three Poems
Poems by Four Ancient Child Prodigies
Non-Fiction
Fifteen-Minute Company
Culture in Perspective
Catalysts: A Response to Xiao Su’s “Three Beggars”
The Coffin in Lin Peiyuan’s “It’s Good to Lie Down,” a Commentary
Contributors, translators, and contributing editors
Editorial Board
Subscription Information Update

In “A Xi’s Blind Dates,” Chinese writer Yan Xi Zao vividly depicts the everyday life in Southern China, and the spiritual quality of optimism of the hero, A Xi, in harmony with the varying social and cosmic forms taken by fate.
The stories and essays of this volume present a Chinese culture from past to present bubbling with vitality and value for today’s emerging cultural paradigm. 
“A Xi’s Blind Dates” is one of two stories in this volume by Yan Xi Zao, a woman writer from mainland China currently living near Chicago. The hero, A Xi, is an unmarried man in his fifties, whose mother is pressuring him to find a suitable wife to comfort him in his elderly years. The blind dates arranged by a matchmaker dominate the gossip of the country wives at the village well and provide a spark of life in the dreary environment of the spring damp, typical of China’s southern coast. A Xi’s demeanor and optimism in view of his fate reflect the core of the Chinese character in coming to terms with pivots of meaning beyond social discourse.
“The Cobbler,” the second story by Yan Xi Zao, presents the life of a working couple running an independent and very small business. In a situation very typical in any of China’s metropolises, Old Zhang the cobbler and his wife are trying to make money in the city to provide a future for their children that they’ve left back home with their own parents. The somber opening scene presents the framework of the story, the cycles of nature, return of life to dust. A tragic scene within this story bears out a fundamentally Chinese world-view, the unity of the spiritual and material facets of existence, the holiness and sacredness of the moment.
This online edition does not contain Eileen Chang's "The Blockade" due to copyright restrictions.

Xue Yiwei is a maverick in contemporary Chinese literature. He stays alone and aloof, far away from restive crowds back in his homeland. For him, to write is to make a pilgrimage to his masters: Joyce, Borges, Calvino, Proust. He writes with deep devotion and intense concentration. His fiction often meditates on life, history, violence, exile. This selection of stories can open a window into the fiction world he has constructed. As an admirer of his, I salute his courage, stamina, and his love of solitude. This volume features five stories—God’s Chosen Photographer, “The True Story of a Family,” “Winning the First Battle,” “A Turning Point in History, and “The Veteran” with commentarires from Xiao Liu, Fraser Sutherland, Craig Hulst, Caroline A. Brown, Stephen Nashef, and Amy Hawkins.

Editorial The Importance of Understanding by Chu Dongwei Fiction Libra by Zong Lihua, translated by Hu Zhengmao Father in Town by Chen Cang, translated by Song Tao Nonfiction Willful and Determined by Zhang Yawen, translated by Ying Kong Amid Wind, Flowers, Snow, and Moonlight by Mai Zhibin, translated by Kang Zhihong Culture in Perspective Zong Lihua’s “Libra” by Robert Tindol A Revolution, a Review of “Father in Town” by Craig Hulst Chinese Literature and Culture, a journal published three times a year, is devoted to translations of Chinese texts (works from the past or by contemporary authors), essays of cultural criticism, and original writings — fiction or non-fiction — dealing with the China experience or life in the Chinese communities around the world. The journal embraces the idea of cultural translation as advocated by our editors. Subscription and Purchasing Chinese Literature and Culture has been accepted into EBSCOhost research databases for worldwide Current issue and back issues are available as hardcopy books and ebooks in Amazon.com and other major online retailing channels.

In this volume, Canadian author Patrick Kavanagh contributes an important piece: “Smutty Moll for a Mattress Jig: Cross-Cultural Collaboration in Beijing,” a recollection of his encounter with the late Xiao Qian, who consulted him about the translation of the many colloquialisms while translating nearly-impossible Ulysses into Chinese. We also have Su Tong’s masterpiece “West Window” translated by Prof. Feng Zhilin. Fraser Sutherland captures the spirit and subtlety of the story in his commentary with beautifully written lines like “A girl watches through a window. A boy watches the girl.” Liu Chun’s “Beijing Guys” is the story of a virgin girl being womanized by one of Beijing’s “last bunch of friends in need and friends indeed,” who are maintaining an old tradition in an increasingly unrecognizable city and become decadent, adulterous, and selfish. “The Postman” is the work of Lin Peiyuan, a promising young author. It is “a story that lets readers into village life in rural China.” (Craig Hulst). “A Poet’s Elm” by Xu Yi is the story of a former poet whose eye disease has ruined her career and is creating psychological problems. In the poetry section, we have something quaint: the beautiful lyrics of a petty official in the Qing Dynasty: “From Intoxication to Sobriety: the Ditties of Zhao Qingxi,” something that has never been translated into English before.

This is the online newsstand version of Volume Two of Chinese Literature and Culture, a journal founded by translation scholar and translator Chu Dongwei,  published three times a year. This volume features: Six stories: "An Empty Home" by Xiu Bai, "Hunting Season" by Ying Chuan, "Journey of Conscience" by Yao Emei, "The Story of Hu Wenqing" by Wei Wei, "Defending the Teacher" by Xiao Su, and "Knowing Nobody, a Housemaid in Beijing" by Liu Qingbang, and Mu Tao's Lu Xun Prize winning essay: "Culture Has Blood and Flesh." From the runaway bride Peach in "An Empty Home" to the mute housemaid Jiahui in “Journey of Conscience” to the successful but disillusioned businessman Hu Wenqing, this volume reflects the diverse problems of contemporary Chinese work-a-day life and a search for meaning in a changing world. From most of these stories you hear the critical voice of today’s Chinese writers and a call to the reader, beyond cultural borders, to a critical engagement with life’s final questions.

The debut issue features:
Airs of the States, a poetry classic translated by Zhao Yanchun
A Dinner for Three, a novella by Sun Pin
A Study of Love, a story by Li Yinhe
Giant Elephants, a story by Fu Yuehui
Ten Steps to Kill a Person, a story by Ma Wei
The Boulevard, a story by Jiang Yitan
Garlic Breath, a story by Zhao Ka
Green Moss, a story by An Yong
The Youth Movement of a Young China, a speech by Li Dazhao
Li Dazhao's Vision of a Young China by Timothy Huson

November 18, 2019 Vol 16

June 15, 2019 Vol 15

December 31, 2018

Volume 13 - November 2018

Volume 12 - April 2018

Volume 11 - December 2017

Volume 10 - October 2017

Volume 09, May 2017

Vol 8 - December, 2016

Vol 7 -  November 2016

Vol 6 - April 2016

Vol 5 - December 2015

Vol 4 - November 2015

Vol 3 - May 2015

Vol 2 - December 2014

Vol 1 - August 2014

This is the newsstand edition of Chinese Literature and Culture, a journal founded by translation scholar and translator Chu Dongwei, published three times a year, devoted to translations of Chinese texts (works from the past or by contemporary authors), essays of cultural criticism, and original writings — fiction or non-fiction — dealing with the China experience or life in the Chinese communities around the world. The journal embraces the idea of cultural translation as advocated by our editors.
Library of Congress ISSN: 2332-4287 (print)/2334-1122 (online)
The magazine is jointly published and distributed worldwide by the New Leaves Arts and Letters Lab of Zilin Limited Guangzhou and IntLingo Inc., NY.

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Chinese Literature and Culture - November 18, 2019 Vol 16

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