MABRY@JCSVAX1.BITNET (Peace) (02/14/91)
_|_ _|_ CONTENT
HAPPY __|_____|__
THE YEAR |--| |--| Homosexual Tradition
OF GOAT! |--| |--| in China................James Seymour
* --|-----|-- Qian Zhongshu & Yang Jiang....Hong Sima
BOOKS & JOURNALS |--| |--| Magazines of Chinese Literature
No. 23 |--| |--| Letter to the Editor
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china news digest.social culture china.china net.china study forum (2-15-1991)
PASSIONS OF THE CUT SLEEVE: THE MALE HOMOSEXUAL TRADITION IN CHINA. By Bret
Hinsch. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990. Pp. xvii+232.
James D. Seymour (East Asian Institute, Columbia University)
Only in recent years did homosexuality in Chinese history come in for
serious study. The first comprehensive book on the subject was Xiaomingxiong's
ZHONGGUO TONGXING'AI SHULU, or A HISTORY OF HOMOSEXUALITY IN CHINA (Hong Kong:
Pink Triangle Press, 1984). Partly because this volume was in Chinese, it did
not achieve the wide audience it deserved, but it did open up a new field. Now
we finally have a work in English on the subject. The book under review is not
so much about homosexuality per se as about what Bret Hinsch calls the
"homosexual tradition" in China. The material with which the author has to
work is largely anecdotal. We learn somewhat incidentally about actual gay
life in Chinese history; much of the focus has to be on what writers thought
about the subject.
China does indeed enjoy an impressive homosexual tradition, until now not
only little known in the West and but also virtually forgotten in China itself.
Gay relationships there, which were generally non-egalitarian, were until
modern times widely accepted and sometimes formalized by marriage. (The
original sources on whom we must rely having been by men writing for men,
lesbianism is largely excluded, though in an appendix Hinsch does pull together
what little information is available on this subject.)
The book is largely organized conventionally according to which imperial
house ruled China at any particular time. Sinologists will find this
comfortable; others have a right to ask whether dynastic periodization does not
distort more than it enlightens. For certain periods (ancient China, and the
Tang Dynasty) references that Hinsch assumes are to homosexuality (which
hereafter means male homosexuality) are ambiguous. The author may be correct
in his inferences, but we cannot really call this science. Furthermore, when
his sources appear to be touching on the subject of homosexuality, but do so
indirectly and implicitly, Hinsch takes this as evidence of a casual,
matter-of-fact attitude toward the subject. The Chinese had a "tendency to
develop a sexual taxonomy derived from social and emotional bonds rather than
attempting to bring forth an innate, essential sexual identity" (p. 25).
However, it is not altogether clear why this reluctance to call a spade a spade
is fundamentally different from the modern touchiness regarding the subject.
Why, one wonders, was it necessary to refer to homosexuality by such euphemisms
as "half eaten peach" (shared by lovers) and "cut sleeve" (after an emperor who
sliced his shirt rather than wake the lover who was lying on it)? Why would
the anus be termed the "cave of sin?" Happily, the chapter on humor reflects
another tradition--one of ribald explicitness. Such jokes, incidentally, are
an important source of clues about lower-class gays.
There were long periods of Chinese history (notably from the second century
B.C. through the sixth century A.D.) when homosexuality was clearly
commonplace, at least tolerated, and sometimes met with strong social approval.
For example, almost all of the emperors of the last two centuries B.C. had
"male favorites," a fact of which the historians disapproved only when such
relationships had untoward political repercussions. Even as late as around
1700 one writer observed that it was "in bad taste not to keep elegant
menservants on one's household staff, and undesirable not to have singing boys
around when inviting guests for dinner" (p. 146). Whether a relationship was
heterosexual or gay was not considered morally significant.
The extensive literature pertaining to homosexuality does not seem to
reveal serious homophobia until the Song Dynasty (founded in 960). Both then,
and more recently, the author's occasional references to the subject of
homophobia might lead one to attribute it largely to foreign influences.
During the Song there was the popular rediscovery of a sixth-century Indian
Buddhist text which condemned homosexuality. Later there were the draconian
law codes imposed on China by the Mongols and Manchus, which made
homosexuality, and certain other forms of extramarital sex, serious criminal
offenses. Nonetheless, homosexuality continued in "high profile" (p. 97)
throughout this period of alternating Chinese and alien rule (1264-1911).
Although during the past century China "fell victim to a growing sexual
conservativism and the Westernization of morality," the question of why
anti-gay sentiment found such fertile ground remains unanswered. How does one
account for the intensity of homophobia in China today? Why do even the people
of Hong Kong now object so strongly to homosexuality, British attitudes to the
contrary notwithstanding? Hinsch unconvincingly suggests that all this has to
do with Chinese family values (p. 171), in contrast to the religion- or
ethics-based homophobia in the West. If this is so, why was homosexuality
tolerated precisely when traditional Chinese family values were intact? Why
does homophobia now seem to be peaking at a time when family values are
modernizing? Certainly all this requires further study.
Although readers should find this a delightful and informative book, the
reviewer is regretfully obliged to note the author's failure to adequately
acknowledge his intellectual debt to Xiaomingxiong. The latter, though cited
in a half dozen cryptic endnotes, is not mentioned in the acknowledgments
section, where instead one finds Hinsch's surprising statement: "I often found
myself lacking the usual clues on where to find even basic sources." In fact,
the bibliography, data, and broad sweep of ideas are largely in the
Xiaomingxiong volume. That book, because of its wealth of detail, remains the
definitive work on the subject, and one looks forward to a promised expanded
edition. (copyright (c) 1991)
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More about Yang Jiang and Qian Zhongshu
Hong Sima
Yang Jiang (Yang Jikang) was born in Wuxi, Jiangsu, in 1911. Her father,
Yang Yinhang, was one of the earlist revolutionaries against the corrupt Qing
Dynasty in Jiangsu and the founder of Guomin Bao (Citizen's Daily), Dalu Zazhi
(Continental Magazine), as well as Lizhi Society. Her aunt, Yang Yinyu, was
the president of Beijing Normal University of Women during the 1920s and was
murdered by Japanese troops in Suzhou during WWII. Both were well-known in the
history of modern China. In the early 1930s, Yang graduated from Soochow
University and then did her graduate study at Qinghua University in Beijing,
where she met and married the scholar-writer Qian Zhongshu. In 1935, they went
to study at Oxford University, where Qian earned his B. Litt. degree, and
subsequently spent a year in Paris, where Yang furthered her major interest in
Romance Literature and Languages. They returned to China after the outbreak of
the Sino-Japanese War.
Although she contributed essays and short stories to a number of
established journals in the 1930s and 1940s, Yang is by nature a modest and
retiring person. It was not until 1942, after she and her husband settled down
in the French concession of Shanghai, that she was urged to try her hand at
writing plays. Her first comedy, Chenxin Ruyi (As You Desire), was an instant
success, and was followed by another triumph, Nongzhen Chengjia (The Cheat).
Both plays won critical acclaim. Her third play, Youxi Renjian (Play with the
World), was a farce but could also be considered serious drama. This might
have influenced the direction of her final attempt, Feng Xu (Windswept
Blossoms), which developed in tragic terms the vision of her earlier comedies.
The plays were translated into English by Edward Gunn and published in part in
Renditions (1980) and later included in TWENTIETH CENTURY CHINESE DRAMA: An
Anthology (ed. by E. Gunn, Indiana Univ. Press, 1983).
In 1949, neither Yang nor Qian accepted the generous offers to live and
teach overseas. They saw their personal fate irrevocably linked with China.
The couple went back to Qinghua and taught Western Literature there. They
joined the Institute of Literature of Academia Sinica in 1953. In 1964, Yang
was transferred to the Institute of Foreign Literature. During the
Anti-rightist Movement (1957) and the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), Yang and
Qian continued to do their research and translation in silence. They were sent
down to a "Cadre School" in Henan for two years in the early 1970s. With the
fall of the Gang of Four, they were rehabilitated as their institutes were
reorganized under the newly-founded Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Yang's
translation of Le Sage's (1668-1747) GIL BLAS from French was published in
1976. Her recent publications include: XIAO LAIZI (La Vida de Lazarillo de
Tormes) (1978) and DON QUIXOTE (by Cervantes) (1979), both translated from
Spanish; SIX CHAPTERS OF LIFE IN A CADRE SCHOOL (1981); SRING SOIL (1982); TWO
COMEDIES (1983); REFLECTIONS (1984); and WILL HAVE TEA (1987).
Qian Zhongshu was born in 1910 in Wuxi. He went to Tsinghua University in
1929, where he published his first literature reviews. After graduating from
Tsinghua in 1933, he taught at Guanghua University in Shanghai. Then in 1935
he won a Boxer Indemnity Scholarship to study at Oxford for two years. During
World War II, Qian taught at Tsinghua (Southwest Associated University) in
Kunming, Yunnan, then National Lantian Normal College in Baoqing, Hunan, and
Aurora Women's College in Shanghai, briefly for each time. Later, he worked as
the editor of Philobiblon for Academia Sinica and taught at National Jinan
University in Shanghai until moving back to Qinghua in 1949. Qian's earlier
works include: WRITTEN ON THE MARGIN OF LIFE (1941); HUMANS, BEASTS, AND
GHOSTS (1946); FORTRESS BESIEGED (WEI CHENG) (1947); ON THE ART OF POETRY (Tan
Yi Lu, 1948); and ANNOTATED ANTHOLOGY OF SONG POETRY (1958). Among his recent
publications, mention should be made of the following: A REISSUE OF FOUR
ESSAYS ON LITERATURE (1979), the revisions of FORTRESS BESIEGE (1980) and ON
THE ART OF POETRY (1981), and the four-volume monumental "opus"--THE PIPE-AWL
CHAPTERS (1979-1980). Tan Yi Lu devotes to the study of classical Chinese
poetry and "Poetry Talks" from the Tang to Qing dynasties (618-1911). It will
link up with THE PIPE-AWL CHAPTERS, which discusses Chinese classical
literature from Yi Jing (The Book of Changes, about 1040 B.C.) and Shi Jing
(The Book of Songs, about 530 B.C.) to the complete pre-Tang prose. Together
these two works will constitute a grand tour of Chinese literature over a
period of more than three thousand years, a feat unprecedented in the annals of
Chinese scholarship.
Qian and Yang complement each other perfectly. While Yang's major critical
interest in literature has been fiction, she has, either deliberatedly or
subconsciously, eschewed writing short stories and novels, the field in which
Qian gained his reputation as a creative writer, and has written drama instead.
Whereas her critical essays have dealt with DON QUIXOTE, VANITY FAIR, THE DREAM
OF THE RED CHAMBER, Henry Fielding and Li Yu, Qian's critical writings have
concentrated on literature in general and poetry in particular. This tacitly
understood division of labor discloses a genuine literary partnership. After
the Cultural Revolution, not only did they continue to write and publish in
their seventies, but most of their works became best sellers and some of their
pre-1949 writings were reprinted due to public demand.
It is much to be regretted that little appeared under Qian's name between
1949 and 1978. For all his security during those endless political movements,
it seemed that he had no opportunity to get much work done. Under the "New"
China, Qian totally gave up his novel writing and was ignored by official
textbooks of modern literature in China for thirty years. He, however, was not
alone. At least we have seen another similar case regarding Shen Congwen. As
a well-known and very productive novelist, Shen was forced into silence and was
transferred to conduct research on ancient Chinese bronze mirrors and customs
and adornments. Although both proved to be chief-masters of the academic
research, modern Chinese Literature may have sustained great losses. Actually,
Qian and Shen could still be lucky, considering what have been "contributed" to
Chinese Literature since the "Liberation" in 1949 by people such as Lao She,
Mao Dun, Ba Jin, and Cao Yu. After FORTRESS BESIEGE was reissued in 1980 and
became the rage immediately, someone asked Qian if he would try to write
another novel. "... One should regret being unable to write due to the
circumstances, however, he would have to repent of writing something
meaningless," Qian responded. "In the former situation, one still can try to
forgive himself. But it may be too much pain as if he has to face the TRUTH
and get no excuse in the latter case... For me? I would rather regret than
repent." The careful readers now may recall the author's Preface for FORTRESS
BESIEGE, in which Qian wrote: "There IS the thing so-called Platonic Ideal in
literary and artistic creation processes... The Ideal is not only an
attraction but also a satire. Before one starts, it provides a beautiful
illusion. But afterwards it turns out a merciless and sharp contrast." That
is, actually, just as on all the other fronts of life. The life story of Yang
Jiang and Qian Zhongshu is but a miniature of the experience and destiny of
intellectuals as a whole in modern China, which is so heart-renting and soul-
stirring that it "unintentionally embraces an irony and sadness toward life
deeper than any language, than any tears or laughter."
There are quite a few books and even several dissertations or theses on
Qian's life and career. For more details, readers may start with UNWELCOME
MUSE by Edward Gunn (Columbia Univ. Press, 1980) and QIAN ZHONGSHU by Theodore
Huters (Twayne Publishers, 1982). (SIMA@ARIZRVAX.BITNET)
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Magazines of Chinese Literature in English (1)
RENDITIONS
RENDITIONS, edited and published by the Research Center for Translation of
the Chinese University of Hong Kong since 1973, offers its readers translations
of the Chinese literature old and new, interspersed with informative
discussions on a wide range of topics related to Chinese culture. It has been
referred to in the TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT as "a window on to Chinese
literature". Past special issues have been devoted to topics and authors such
as Lao She, Lu Xun, Bing Xin, history and historiography, classic prose, Hong
Kong and Taiwan literature. Subscription ($15 per year for two issues) should
be mailed to Renditions, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T.,
Hong Kong. (Malcolm Iris)
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To the Editor
Zemin:
I have just read the review of MEMOIRS OF LI HUNG CHANG. I am glad it was
written by Xingyi and not Zhang Zemin. The problem is that the book is a fake!
Manix, a scoundrel from Hawaii who spent a lot of time in jail and who "edited"
Li's memoirs, made it up. Of course he knew something about Li Hongzhang; but
these are not Li's memoirs. (A bit embarrassing for my family--John W. Foster,
who wrote the introduction, was my great grandfather!) At any rate, you might
want to supply some sort of correction in the next issue of reviews.
The review of the Liang Qichao books was great! Jim (2/4/91)
Issue Editor: Zemin Zhang csf-books@postgres.berkeley.edu
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