This document summarizes an introduction to a dossier on Orientalism. It discusses how, 30 years after Edward Said's seminal work Orientalism, perceptions of the Other ("the Orient") from the Western perspective still contain many stereotypes and myths. The introduction notes how globalization has made Eastern cultures more present worldwide, yet stereotypes persist. It briefly reviews Said's thesis that the West has constructed and maintained authority over the Orient through academic study, discourse that positions East vs. West, and styles of domination. The introduction argues the dossier will explore continued relevance of Said's work through articles on topics like history, philosophy, anthropology and literature regarding Eastern Asia.

1. The humanities in the digital age
Iss. 10 I May 2008 DOSSIER
Orientalism
Carles Prado-Fonts (coord.)
Lecturer, Department of Languages and Cultures, UOC
CONTENTS
Orientalism: thirty years on. Introduction .............................................................................. 1
Carles Prado-Fonts
The Western Representation of Modern China: Orientalism, Culturalism
and Historiographical Criticism............................................................................................... 7
David Martínez-Robles
Instrumentalisation of Passions, Social Regulation and Transcendence of Power
in the Hanfeizi 韓非子 ......................................................................................................... 17
Albert Galvany
On Monkeys and Japanese: Mimicry and Anastrophe in Orientalist Representation ............. 26
Blai Guarné
Against besieged literature: fictions, obsessions and globalisations of Chinese literature ....... 37
Carles Prado-Fonts
ReCommeNded CITaTIoN
PRADO-FONTS, C. (coord.) (2008). “Orientalism” [online dossier]. Digithum. Iss. 10. UOC.
[Retrieved on: dd/mm/yy].
<http://www.uoc.edu/digithum/9/dt/eng/orientalism.pdf>
ISSN 1575-2275
Iss. 10 | May 2008 ISSN 1575-2275 Journal of the UOC’s Humanities Department and Languages and Cultures Department

2. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
the humanities in the digital age
http://digithum.uoc.edu
“Orientalism” Dossier
Orientalism: thirty years on*
Introduction
Carles Prado-Fonts
Lecturer, Department of Languages and Cultures, UOC
cprado@uoc.edu
Submission date: November 2007
Accepted in: December 2007
Published in: May 2008
ReCommended CitAtion:
PRADO-FONTS, Carles (2008). “Orientalism: thirty years on. Introduction“. In: “Orientalism“ [online dossier]. Digithum.
Iss. 10. UOC. [Retrieved on: dd/mm/yy].
<http://www.uoc.edu/digithum/10/dt/eng/introduction.pdf>
ISSN 1575-2275
Abstract
This dossier contains a series of articles inspired by Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism. Together, the articles in the dossier
show the importance of Said’s contribution and defend the need to continue working to make it even more important and
valid, both in the academic context and in terms of the social diffusion it deserves. With a common thematic thread –the per-
ception of the Other (“the Orient”) from our perspective (“the West”)– these articles shun the conception of East Asia as an
independent “discipline“ and treat it, on the contrary, as an ob�ect of study that must be tackled with methodological rigour
“
from specific disciplines: history, philosophy, anthropology and literature. This should facilitate, on one hand, the possibility of
putting forward arguments and observations that enrich already existing debates in each discipline by shedding new light on
them and, on the other, the social diffusion of these ideas on East Asia beyond limited circles.
Keywords
Orientalism, Said, East Asian Studies, Area Studies
Resum
Aquest dossier aplega un seguit d’articles inspirats en el concepte d’orientalisme d’Edward Said. En con�unt, els articles del
dossier demostren la importància de l’aportació de Said i defensen la necessitat de continuar treballant per a fer-la encara més
rellevant i vigent, tant dins del context acadèmic com en la difusió social que hi hauria d’estar inevitablement connectada. Amb
un fil temàtic comú –la percepció de l’Altre (“l’Orient”) des de la nostra perspectiva (“l’Occident”)– aquests articles defugen
* The text of this introduction is the result of the MEC I+D (HUM2005-08151) Interculturalidad de Asia oriental en la era de la globalización research pro�ect. The
main ideas presented below were commented on and debated in the seminar East Asia: Orientalisms, Approaches and Disciplines organised by the Inter-Asia
research group at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. I am grateful for the comments of those who attended the seminar.
Iss. 10 | May 2008 iSSn 1575-2275 Journal of the UOC’s Humanities Department and Languages and Cultures Department
Els estudis que impulsen la revista només s’indiquen a la primera pàgina.
Carles Prado-Fonts
Federico Borges Sáiz
Original title: Orientalisme: a trenta anys vista. Introducció

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la concepció de l’Àsia oriental com a «disciplina» independent i la tracten, en canvi, com a ob�ecte d’estudi que cal abordar
amb rigor metodològic des de disciplines concretes: història, pensament, antropologia, literatura. Això hauria de facilitar, d’una
banda, la possibilitat de pro�ectar arguments i observacions que enriqueixin debats �a existents a cada disciplina aportant-hi una
nova llum i, de l’altra, la difusió social d’aquestes idees sobre l’Àsia oriental més enllà de cercles restringits.
Paraules clau
orientalisme, Said, Estudis de l’Àsia Oriental, Estudis d’Àrea
is progressively less singular and more visible –not only on
1 paper or on the screen of the press and the media, but also in
If the reader opens The Asian Mystique: Dragon Ladies, Geisha the daily realities and routines of almost everyone: in schools,
Girls Our Fantasies of the Exotic Orient, they will immediately neighbourhoods, at work or in the supermarket. Paradoxically,
come upon the following anecdote, involving the book’s author, however, this greater presence and familiarity has (still) not
the American �ournalist Sheridan Prasso: banished the ma�ority of myths, stereotypes and beliefs concerning
the other –stranger, distant, exotic, incomprehensible– that, as
In 1990, shortly after I had moved from Chicago to Asia we said, tinges our assumptions and slants our perceptions in
as a news correspondent, I became intrigued by a frequent a predetermined direction.1 Thirty years after the publishing
visitor to my Mid-levels neighbourhood of Hong Kong, a man of a ma�or work in the humanities and social sciences such as
who shouted in a sing-songy voice the same words over and Orientalism, by Edward Said (1978), which precisely exposes
over as he traversed the winding, hilly streets. I lived in an and denounces these representational mechanisms, the paradox
apartment block in front of a concrete wall holding back the deserves, we believe, a brief review.
mountainside, and to me this mass of concrete seemed an
affront to nature. I knew that the Cantonese people of Hong
Kong believe that there are gods everywhere and in everything 2
–in the kitchen, the trees, the water, and the landscape. Could In Orientalism, Said dissects the way in which, from the West, a
this man be chanting to appease the mountain god who certain image of the Orient has been constructed that has marked
might be angered by this man-made desecration? I wanted our way of understanding it, representing it and approaching it.
to indulge the fantasy that I was witnessing the mystical Asia By now, the three dimensions, which, according to Said, channel
out the window of my concrete apartment block. I told my these representations of the Oriental Other are well-known: the
Chinese-speaking roommate about the man, and one day as I academic study that has as its ob�ect of analysis the East or the
heard his cries I went running to get her. She stepped onto our Middle East; a discourse within which East and West are opposite
small balcony, listened to his chant, and turned to me laughing, concepts and where one represents the other and performs as
“I believe he is collecting scrap metal”. I was never able to see such; and the Western style to dominate, restructure and spread its
Asia in the same way again. (Prasso, 2005, pp. xi-xii) authority over the Orient with the �ustification that Western culture
and values, assumed as opposite to Oriental ones, are superior.
This �ournalist’s anecdote is likely to have caused an Said shows how these dimensions, in an interrelated way, have
uncomfortable smile in more than one reader: we have all been constructed and continue to construct the concept of the Orient
victims of some similar situation, to a greater or lesser degree. It through a process that labels, defines and �ustifies this geographical
may seem to us, therefore, that the anecdote exposes the shame area and acts in it. In other words, Said explains to us that our
of our ignorance. In addition –something that may be even more visions of the Orient are nothing more than re-presentations,
important– it betrays us and makes obvious the assumptions we ideological constructions anchored in a specific perspective –in
start from when we try to understand an Other who is distant from our case, Eurocentric– and with an inherent agenda.
us and quite different. As a result of the representational systems As the author himself acknowledges, Said’s Orientalism draws
that inevitably surround us in the West, frequently our perception inspiration from the work of Michel Foucault and is fully in keeping
of cultures and societies such as the Chinese, Japanese or Korean with the effervescence of poststructuralism –a group of intellectual
is tinged, often unconsciously, by an exotic veil. movements born around the decade of the 1970s that questioned
In recent decades, globalisation of capitalism has made it ideas, concepts and approaches that had been assumed as central or
such that the presence of these cultures in Catalonia and Spain “universal“ in theory, knowledge and language. Said’s contribution
1. On stereotypes and other questions related to otherness, difference and meaning, see �uarné (200�).
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http://digithum.uoc.edu Orientalism: thirty years on. Introduction
is fully identified with the poststructuralist will to “decentre the 2000), we can state that, in a very complex historical moment,
universe“ and, in the words of Derrida (1966), question “the Said was capable of raising the correct questions relating to the
structurality of the structure“. This is how various movements or comparison of cultures, although perhaps he did not provide
branches of poststructuralism construct a critical pro�ect meant to proper answers –or, maybe, as suggested by Josep Maria Fradera
undo, contradict or endow with complexity assumptions that had (200�), that he had the merit to lay “the problem of comparison“
not been placed in doubt until that time. Feminism and gender on the table but was unable to provide a solution.
studies, for example, criticised patriarchal and phallocentric Thirty years have gone by since the publication of Orientalism
ideology. Derridian deconstruction, for its part, questioned the and we now find ourselves in a very different historical context.
centrality and transparency of language, text and meaning per From our position, we consider it appropriate to make a couple
se. In the case that concerns us, Said’s contribution made it easier of observations regarding the validity of Said’s contribution for
for postcolonial studies to study in depth the multiple implications our social and academic reality. First, the anecdote from Sheridan
derived from the historical complicity between Eurocentrism and Prasso with which we began this introduction, or the many similar
Western imperialism. personal anecdotes that probably came to mind as we read it,
Indeed, Said’s work was not the first to critically reveal these suggests that the translation of Said’s ideas beyond the academic
types of mechanisms of colonialism. More than two decades earlier, world is, still, inadequate. The representation of the Other
for example, Frantz Fanon had already published the important implicit in diverse contexts and in technologies of generation
Black Skin, White Masks (1952) and, years later, The Wretched of and circulation of knowledge –the press and the media, cinema
the Earth (1961), in which, from his experience as a psychoanalyst, and literature, etc.– does not seem to indicate that the critical
he made an analysis of the psychological effects of colonialism on approaches of Said have spread through the various social
the identity of those being colonised.2 Said, instead of centring his spheres and taken root widely or firmly. It is probably not very
analysis on the oppressed, focused on the oppressors –and this new adventurous to affirm that this situation shows the difficulty in
angle made his contribution paramount. Aside from generating finding bridges or meeting points between the academic world
an important academic debate, there were at least two other and social diffusion of knowledge –especially in minority academic
main consequences to his work. First, Said’s contribution paved fields. Second, in the institutional field related to the study of East
the way for postcolonial criticism in the poststructuralist magma. Asia, the development and the validity of Said’s contributions
Following Said’s Orientalism, other analyses appeared that were have not had the same repercussion in the United States –where
more sophisticated than the Orientalist discourse, including that Orientalism was first published and where study and research
of Homi Bhabha, as well as more direct criticisms of this same on East Asia have undergone an important transformation over
discourse, such as that of �ayatri Spivak –to mention only two of the past twenty years– as in academic contexts of Catalonia
the various representatives of these two tendencies that, together or Spain. Indeed, the thirtieth anniversary of the publication of
with Said, comprise the so-called Holy Trinity of postcolonialism. Said’s work coincides with another modest anniversary –in 2008,
Second, from an institutional perspective, Said’s work and the the official programme in Asian Studies in Catalonia and Spain
debate it engendered helped to develop postcolonial studies as celebrate their first five years of existence–, and it is pertinent,
a legitimate academic framework –with the establishment of also, to reconsider the validity of Said’s work in our more local
courses, academic programmes, centres and lines of research, academic context.
profiles and professional associations and other “technologies of
recognition“ (Shih, 200�).
It goes without saying that Said’s work has also received 3
numerous criticisms from various sources: both from those who, The creation of the degree in East Asian Studies represented a
feeling that they were being directly alluded to as “Orientalists“ remarkable milestone that, apart from finally bringing to fruition
and in disagreement with Said’s approaches, attack him, offended, that which a small group of university professors had demanded
from the neighbouring trench (Lewis, 1983), as from those who, for years, began to put us on the level of the ma�ority of European
immersed in the same poststructuralist paradigm that helped to countries. The academic and institutional legitimisation made
conceive and disseminate Said’s reflection, question several aspects it easier to make a degree available to society that, until that
from the inside (Ahmad, 1992). At any rate, the importance of time, had been surprisingly absent from the catalogue of official
Said’s contribution to the academic community and to knowledge degrees in Spain and that, without a doubt, was needed for a
in humanities and social sciences is, by now, indisputable. Drawing more rigorous and profound understanding of the global world
inspiration from defences of postmodern anthropology (Fabian, that surrounds us –a world in which the role of countries such as
2. English translations of the original French: F. Fanon (1967) Black Skin, White Masks. New York: �rove Press; F. Fanon (1963) The Wretched of the Earth.
New York: �rove Weidenfeld.
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China, Japan or Korea is increasingly visible and important. After are even more important. As a result of this kind of framework
five years of existence, however, it is important to also examine and ob�ectives, Area Studies are in keeping with –more or less
some of the dangers derived from the creation of a specific and explicitly– a policy that reinforces differences between cultures,
“isolated“ educational field for the study of East Asia. more than one that searches for similarities between a distant
Taking a closer look at this point it is interesting to return to culture and one’s own –as denounced by the Swiss sinologist
the first of the dimensions of Orientalism that Said denounced Jean-François Billeter (2006) when he wisely criticises the approach
some three decades ago: inherent to “star“ sinologists like François Jullien who base their
success in the West precisely on the strategic accentuation of
The most readily accepted designation for Orientalism is these differences, without a broad, profound and academically
an academic one, and indeed the label still serves in a number rigorous historicism.
of academic institutions. Anyone who teaches, writes about or Picking up Said’s contribution again, Rey Chow describes the
researches the Orient –and this applies whether this person is criticism of theorist Harry Harootunian, who regrets the missed
an anthropologist, sociologist, historian or philologist– either opportunity whereby Area Studies were unable to produce
in its specific or general aspects, is an Orientalist, and what he an alternative form of knowledge given the opening that the
or she says or does is Orientalism. Compared with Oriental publication of Orientalism provided:
studies or Area studies, it is true that the term Orientalism
is less preferred by specialists nowadays, both because it is As Harootunian goes on to argue, for all its investment in
too vague and general and because it connotes the high- the study of other languages and other cultures, area studies
handed executive attitude of nineteenth-century and early missed the opportunity, so aptly provided by Said’s criticism of
twentieth-century European colonialism. Nevertheless, books Orientalism, to become the site where a genuinely alternative
are written and congresses held with “the Orient” as their form of knowledge production might have been possible.
main focus, with the Orientalist in his new or old guise as their (Chow, 2006, p. �1-�2)
main authority. The point is that even if it does not survive
as it once did, Orientalism lives on academically through its Thus, the delay in the implantation of an official degree in Asian
doctrines and theses about the Orient and the Oriental. (Said, Studies in Catalonia and Spain has resulted in the fact that, when
1978, p.2) in America, the birthplace of Area Studies, the problems inherent
in them have now been reconsidered, in our academic context
Thirty years on, this description is not totally invalid –especially we have simply reproduced this same questionable structure. In
in terms of East Asian Studies in our country. In order to understand contrast to America –where the different university departments
the reasons for this stagnation, it is perhaps worthwhile to go back (Linguistics, History, Comparative Literature, Anthropology,
to the origin of these studies as academic concepts or programmes, Sociology, Archaeology, etc.) have professors specialising in that
which is nothing more than Area Studies. Originating in America discipline as applied to a certain region of East Asia and in which,
during the Cold War, Area Studies were organised into teaching despite in some cases teaching still being carried out from Area
nodes centred on a geographical area that the student was Studies programmes, the approaches are markedly disciplinary–, in
required to tackle from different disciplines: language, history, an academic context such as ours, there are not enough specialists,
literature, society, politics, international relations, etc. The aim from the different university disciplines and departments, with
of these programmes was, originally, to promote the training of experience in East Asia. There is the risk, then, that the teaching
specialists in the countries and regions they were interested in context for East Asian Studies could end up converting a degree
strategically, to “get to know“ the Other –the enemy on the other into an isolated “discipline“, closed within itself and without
side of the Iron Curtain, for example. interaction with the other spheres of knowledge that should
Although today the context is certainly another and, since the shape it.
fall of the Berlin Wall, the geopolitical dynamic is very different, It is important to understand my line of argument: I am not
present-day Area Studies have inherited several characteristics trying to negate the validity and the potential of East Asian Studies.
intrinsic in their origin. Some of these traits are still quite tangible: On the contrary, I strongly believe that they can be of value as the
in America, PhD students who are US citizens and who study setting which, taking East Asia or one of its regions as a common
languages and cultures “of strategic importance to the country“ ob�ect of study, allows for a critical and enriching interdisciplinary
(such as Arabic or Chinese) can receive government funding dialogue in various directions. From my point of view, however,
through FLAS (Foreign Language and Area Studies) grants, a it is essential that this dialogue be carried out between specialists
remnant of the famous Title VI, National Defense Education Act with solid methodological training in some specific discipline.
of 1958. However, beyond these more lucrative implications, there It is also essential that this dialogue have the predisposition of
are numerous consequences that, from a discursive viewpoint, all parties: on one hand, of the disciplines themselves and the
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http://digithum.uoc.edu Orientalism: thirty years on. Introduction
mechanisms that articulate them (schools, departments, publishers, Said’s work so that, in the future, cultures can come together in a
professional associations, etc.), where there is still great reluctance more ethically balanced way and that all of us may be more aware
to accept an ob�ect of study such as East Asia as being serious of the determining factors that predetermine this coming together.
and legitimate and that are beset by markedly, and more or less In other words, and returning to anecdote from Sheridan Prasso
concealed, Orientalist pre�udices. And, on the other hand, of the with which we began this introduction, so that in the future these
many professors who specifically promote Orientalist isolation anecdotes do not cause us such an uncomfortable smile. To revisit
and the ghettoisation of East Asian Studies with various excuses Orientalism, published thirty years ago, also means to reconsider
and for diverse reasons –from the very incapacity to maintain it, today, for thirty years hence.
this intradisciplinary and interdisciplinary dialogue, to the ma�or
benefits (of all kinds) that academic isolation may yield. We must,
therefore, foster an interdisciplinarity that is both well understood References:
and constructive, without falling into the trap that, as stressed by
Néstor �arcía Canclini (200�, pp.122-123) in reference to the case AHMAD, A. (1992). In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures.
of cultural studies, may end up setting this very interdisciplinarity: London: Verso.
it is imperative that research and analysis on East Asia be well- BILLETER, J. F. (2006). Contre François Jullien. Paris: �ditions
anchored in a discipline of specific knowledge that contributes Allia.
.
rigorous methodologies of analysis and that guarantees the CHOW, R. (2006). The Age of the World Target: Self-Referentiality
circulation of results beyond “Orientalist“ circles. in War, Theory, and Comparative Work. Durham / London:
Duke University Press.
DERRIDA, J. (1966). “Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of
4 the Human Sciences”. Writing and Difference. Chicago: The
Thus, the dossier contains a series of articles inspired, in one University of Chicago Press, 1978.
way or another, both by Said’s concept of Orientalism and by FABIAN, J. (April 2000). “To Whom It May Concern”. Anthropology
concerns about the state of East Asian studies in this country. News. No. 9.
Together they show the importance of Said’s contribution, of the FANON, F. (1952). Peau noire, masques blancs. Paris: �ditions
reflection he inspired and, at the same time, defend the need du Seuil..
to continue working to make it even more important and valid, FANON, F. (1961). Les damnés de la terre. Paris: �ditions
both in our academic context and beyond –in the social diffusion Maspero. .
that it should inevitably inspire. With a common thematic thread FRADERA, J. M. (Spring 200�,). “Edward Said i el problema de
that is in keeping with the reflections we have made throughout la comparació”. Illes i Imperis. No. 7, pp. 5-7.
this introduction and that may be synthesised as the perception �ARCÍA CANCLINI, N. (200�). Diferentes, desiguales y
of the Other (“the Orient”) from our perspective (“the West”). desconectados: Mapas de la interculturalidad. Barcelona:
The articles in this dossier shun the conception of East Asia as an �edisa.
independent “discipline“ and treat it, on the contrary, as an ob�ect �UARN�, B. (200�). “Imágenes de la diferencia. Alteridad,
of study that must be tackled with methodological rigour from discurso y representación”. In: E. ARD�VOL; N. MUNTAÑOLA
specific disciplines –history (David Martínez-Robles), philosophy Representación y cultura audiovisual en la sociedad
(Albert �alvany), anthropology (Blai �uarné) and literature contemporánea. Barcelona: Editorial UOC. Pp. �7-127.
(Carles Prado-Fonts)– applied to different geographical areas LEWIS, B. (June 2�, 1982). “The Question of Orientalism”. The
(China, Japan) and to different periods (from the classical world New York Review of Books. Vol. 29, no. 11.
to contemporary times). PRASSO, S. (2005). The Asian Mystique: Dragon Ladies, Geisha
From these markedly disciplinary contributions, the collection Girls Our Fantasies of the Exotic Orient. New York: Public
of articles puts forward arguments and observations that enrich Affairs.
already existing debates in each discipline by shedding new light SAID, E. (1978). Orientalism. New York: Viking.
on them –that which comes from an ob�ect of study that is still not SHIH, S. (200�). “�lobal Literature and the Technologies of
widespread or bestowed great legitimacy in our country, as is the Recognition”. PMLA. Vol. 119, no. 1, pp. 1-29.
case of East Asia. We also hope that this dossier helps to revitalise
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7. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
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http://digithum.uoc.edu Orientalism: thirty years on. Introduction
Carles Prado-Fonts
Lecturer, department of Languages and Cultures, UoC
cprado@uoc.edu
Carles Prado-Fonts has a degree in Translation and Interpretation (Autonomous University of Barcelona, 1998), MA in
Contemporary Chinese Cultural Studies (University of Westminster, London, 2001), MA in Modern Chinese Literature (University
of California, Los Angeles, 200�) and is Doctor cum laude in Translation Theory and Intercultural Studies (Autonomous
University of Barcelona, 2005). His doctoral thesis, Embodying Translation in Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature
(1908-1934 and 1979-1999): A Methodological Use of the Conception of Translation as a Site, explores the role of translators
in the origins of modern Chinese literature. He has been lecturer in the UOC’s Department of Languages and Cultures since
200�, where he teaches the sub�ects of Chinese Literature and East Asian Literatures: 19th and 20th Centuries, and coordinates
the areas of East Asian Literature, Culture and Thought. He has taught Chinese culture and civilisation at the University of
California, Los Angeles, and collaborates with the Autonomous University of Barcelona and Pompeu Fabra University. He
has translated Pan Gu crea l’univers. Contes tradicionals xinesos and Diari d’un boig i altres relats by Lu Xun into Catalan
(finalist in the 2001 Vidal Alcover Translation Prize).
This work is sub�ect to a Creative Commons Attribution-nonCommercial-noderivs 2.5 Spain licence. It may
be copied, distributed and broadcast provided that the author and the e-�ournal that publishes it (Digithum)
are cited. Commercial use and derivative works are not permitted. The full licence can be consulted on http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/es/deed.en.
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“Orientalism” Dossier
The Western Representation
of Modern China: Orientalism, Culturalism
and Historiographical Criticism*
David Martínez-Robles
Lecturer, Department of Languages and Cultures (UOC) and Department of Humanities (Pompeu Fabra)
dmartinezrob@uoc.edu
Submission date: November 2007
Accepted in: December 2007
Published in: May 2008
RecoMMenDeD citAtion:
MARTÍNEZ-ROBLES, David (2008). “The Western Representation of Modern China: Orientalism, Culturalism and
Historiographical Criticism”. In: Carles PRADO-FONTS (coord.). “Orientalism” [online dossier]. Digithum. No. 10. UOC.
[Retrieved on: dd/mm/yy].
http://www.uoc.edu/digithum/10/dt/eng/martinez.pdf
ISSN 1575-2275
Abstract
The West’s perception of China as a historical entity has evolved over the centuries. China has gone from a country of miracles and
marvels in the medieval world and a refined and erudite culture in early modern Europe, to become a nation without history or progress
since the Enlightenment of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The first historians of China were, in fact, representatives of the
great Western empires at the end of the 19th century and their work perceives China from epistemological positions that clearly form
part of the Orientalist and colonial thought that was characteristic of the period. History written throughout the 20th century, despite
the efforts made to overcome the prejudices of the past, was unable to distance itself completely from some of the resources used
in representation or the stereotypes that the Western world had come to accept about China and East Asia since the Enlightenment.
Only in recent decades has a critical historiography appeared to denounce the problems inherent in the discourse produced on China,
and even this has failed to address them fully.
Keywords
historiography, Orientalism, paradigms, representation, China
Resum
La percepció que des d’Occident s’ha tingut de la Xina com a ens històric ha evolucionat al llarg dels segles. La Xina va passar
de ser un país de prodigis i meravelles en el món medieval i una cultura refinada i erudita al començament de la modernitat
*
I would like to thank Manel Ollé Rodríguez for revising a previous version of this article, for the comments by Séan Golden and the general contributions of the
participants at the “East Asia: Orientalisms, Approaches and Disciplines” Seminar organised by the Inter-Asia Research Group of the Autonomous University
of Barcelona, at which a number of the ideas subsequently established over these pages were presented. Obviously, any shortcomings and inaccuracies of the
ideas expressed here can only be attributed to the author.
Iss. 10 | May 2008 iSSn 1575-2275 Journal of the UOC’s Humanities Department and Languages and Cultures Department
David Martínez-Robles Els estudis que impulsen la revista només s’indiquen a la primera pàgina.
Original Borges Sáiz
Federicotitle: La representació occidental de la Xina moderna:
orientalisme, culturalisme i crítica historiogràfica

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http://digithum.uoc.edu Western Representation of Modern China: Orientalism…
europea, a convertir-se en una nació sense història ni progrés amb el pensament il·lustrat del final del segle xviii i començament
del xix. Els primers historiadors de la Xina són, de fet, representants dels grans imperis occidentals del final del segle xix, i la seva
obra percep la Xina des de posicionaments epistemològics que s’inscriuen molt clarament en el pensament colonial i orientalista
característic d’aquell període. La història escrita durant tot el segle xx, malgrat que s’ha esforçat a superar els prejudicis del passat,
no s’ha deslliurat completament d’alguns dels recursos representacionals i els estereotips que el món occidental ha assumit sobre
la Xina i l’Àsia oriental des de la Il·lustració. Només en les últimes dècades ha aparegut una historiografia crítica que ha denunciat
les problemàtiques inherents del discurs elaborat sobre la Xina, tot i que no ha aconseguit resoldre-les completament.
Paraules clau
historiografia, orientalisme, paradigma, representació, Xina
which he described as having a conscious desire to distance
In 1922, in a work entitled The Problem of China, after having themselves from early 20th-century stereotypes about China
lived in Beijing for about a year and having visited other Chinese and East Asia in general. Russell is particularly critical of some
cities, philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell wrote: of the more fundamental principles of Western modernity, such
as the idea of progress, which is viewed from the prism of the
China, like every other civilised country, has a tradition disastrous events that had gripped Europe in the preceding years.
which stands in the way of progress. The Chinese have In 1916, this critical attitude towards the West had led him to
excelled in stability rather than in progress; therefore Young be imprisoned for six months; the result of his anti-war stance.
China, […] perceives that the advent of industrial civilisation Despite this effort, however, Russell was a man of his time and,
has made progress essential to continued national existence. as such, persists in some of the stereotypes, which, for almost
(Russell, 1922, p. 26) two centuries, have defined and driven the historical discussion
about the Chinese world, as we see in the citation at the start. In
As with other leading intellectuals of the 1920s (J. Dewey, fact, some of the ideas referred to by Russell (tradition, a lack of
H. Driesch, R. Tagore), Russell was invited to Peking University progress, the stability of the Chinese world) became –by taking
to give a series of courses about what in China was perceived them on, justifying them or reinterpreting them– the intellectual
as “Western knowledge”, at a time when this institution had scaffold with which the majority of Western analysts and historians
already become one of the leading exponents of the New Culture from the late 18th century to the 20th century have tackled the
Movement which crystallised around the time of the 1919 Chinese world.
Versailles Conference, when at the end of the First World War, One of the most significant and authoritative examples is that
German concessions on the Chinese coast were handed over to of John K. Fairbank (1907-1991), probably the most eminent
the Japanese in one of the most visible gestures of disrespect historian on China of the 20th century, who in 1989 reissued a
observed in Western imperialism for decades in China and one revised version of his work, China. Tradition and Transformation,
of the most transparent displays of the weakness of the Chinese originally published eleven years previously (in collaboration with
republican government. It was in this context, during the academic E. Reischauer). When it refers to the significance of the First Opium
year 1921-1922, that Russell lectured on philosophy, logic and War (1839-42), which represented the defeat of China by the
sociology at the renovated university and came into contact with British Navy and the start of the semi-colonial European dominance
many of the new Chinese intellectuals of the age: Liang Qichao, of important areas of Chinese sovereignty, Fairbank says:
Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao, etc. (Ogden, 1982, pp. 533-539). Even
Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, who would decades later become In demanding diplomatic equality and commercial
the most important leaders of the People’s Republic of China, opportunity, Britain represented all the Western states, which
attended some of his lectures. (Clark, 1976, p. 639). would sooner or later have demanded the same things if Britain
In The Problem of China, Russell offers a very critical look at had not. It was an accident of history that the dynamic British
the actions of the Western powers in China and tries to distance commercial interests in the China trade was centered not only
himself from the ethnocentric perspective which at the time on tea but also on opium. If the main Chinese demand had
characterised the majority of publications about Asian countries continued to be for Indian raw cotton, or at any rate if there
reaching the European public. At the same time, he showed his had been no market for opium in late-Ch’ing China, as there
sympathies and admiration for the Chinese culture and people, had been none earlier, then there would have been no “opium
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David Martínez-Robles

10. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
the humanities in the digital age
http://digithum.uoc.edu Western Representation of Modern China: Orientalism…
war”. Yet probably some kind of Sino-foreign war would Catholic missions acted as the utmost exponent of the relations
have come, given the irresistible vigor of Western expansion between the Chinese Empire and Europe. The missionaries,
and immovable inertia of Chinese institutions. (Fairbank, especially those of the Society of Jesus, became high-level
Reischauer, 1989, p. 277)1 cross-cultural agents, to the point where some of them attained
a position of privilege and entered the court of the emperor as
Even though this text was written half a century later, astronomers, engineers or painters.3 Thus, they offered China
Fairbank goes much further than Russell in the assumption of the friendlier face of the European world, that of the arts and
some principles (such as the immobility and inertia of the Chinese sciences, which they used as an advertisement to spread Christian
world compared with the vigour of the West, the impossibility of doctrine among Chinese intellectuals, at the same time conveying
avoiding conflict, the communion of Western interests, China’s to the West a benevolent and friendly view of the Chinese world,
inability to respond), which, as we will see over the coming pages, interested in justifying their mission and their method. The Jesuits
are the result of an intellectual tradition that has its roots in the believed that the most effective way of entering the Chinese world
Enlightenment thought and expansionism of the great European meant first converting its governors to the Christian cause; the
empires. A tradition which, though with different nuances and people then converting should only be a question of time. To do
perspectives, is based on the same sources as Orientalist thought, this, they had to adapt to an elaborate and complex culture like
as described by Edward Said in Orientalism (1978), and, indeed, that of the Chinese. Consequently, they abandoned their religious
is one of the most obvious examples of such in academic study. habits to adopt the ceremonial robes of the Chinese officials,
they learned cultured language, they studied Chinese history and
they analysed and translated the Confucian classics. We should
The formation of a historical not be surprised, then, that the treatises that they wrote about
discourse on China the Chinese world were extremely well documented and that,
moreover, they often portrayed the reality of East Asia in sincerely
Ever since the mediaeval period, China has been an empire of laudatory terms. Confucianism, for example, reached Europe as a
mythical characteristics in the European imagination: the utmost moral philosophy that predated the values of Christianity, an idea
representation of the so-called Far East. Marco Polo had defined that was very well received among some 17th-century intellectuals
a number of traits that would remain unaltered for centuries in who began to preach the need for a natural religion outside the
the European portrayal of the Chinese world: the luxury and domain of the Church and who saw in Chinese thought a source
refinement, the culture of exoticism, the mysterious nature of of inspiration. (Zhang, 1988, p. 118).
the women, the unheard-of ingenuity and invention, etc. make This perception gave birth to the Sinophile thought of the
China an unknown, distant and mysterious world, yet one that 17th and early 18th centuries, which boasted representatives of
is admired and attractive, as suggested by one of the titles of the intellectual stature of Leibniz, Wolff, Rousseau and Voltaire,
the work by the Venetian, The Book of Wonders.2 The lack of who, in their works, praised very diverse aspects of the Chinese
direct contact between the two ends of the Eurasian continent, world, such as the language, the political system and education. In
as a consequence of the fall of the Mongol Empire, which had their works, China became a country governed by a philosopher
managed to unify this vast area, contributed to the reification of king with the assistance of literati who are selected by taking
these ideas, which were applied to everything that extended from into consideration nothing more than their intellectual and moral
the east of the Mediterranean, beyond the known world. standing. The respect for laws, the tolerance in ideas and the
The 16th century represented a point of inflection in this trend. political excellence are virtues that eclipse the shortcomings –which,
The Portuguese route that had led Vasco da Gama to the coast of nevertheless, did not go unnoticed by some of these thinkers.
India skirting the African continent and which continued as far as However, circumstances changed radically in the second half of the
the ports of Japan and China brought Europe and East Asia into 18th century, in both Europe and China, and the Western portrayal
contact once again. And it was by this route, which was completed of the Chinese world underwent a radical volte-face.
by the one that the Spaniards opened up through America and the On the one hand, the method of the Jesuits of fitting in with
Philippines, that not just goods but cultural products and ideas, Chinese culture was strongly criticised by the other orders, giving
including religious ones, circulated. For almost two centuries, the rise to the so-called Rites Controversy: the Society of Jesus ended
1. My italics.
2. Polo’s work has been published under a number of titles. The most usual, Il Milione (1298), probably refers to the author’s tendency to state that everything
in China has a grandeur and occurs with an extraordinary abundance –there is “a million” of everything– a topic that many of his successors would pick up
”
and which lasts until today.
3. For the role of the Jesuit missionaries as intercultural mediators, see Golden (2000).
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David Martínez-Robles

11. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
the humanities in the digital age
http://digithum.uoc.edu Western Representation of Modern China: Orientalism…
up being dissolved by the Papacy, and the less tolerant Catholic processes, with neither evolution nor progress, inert, passive
orders expelled by the Chinese emperor. Meanwhile, in Europe and unable to assume Western modernity by itself. And it is the
the ideas of rationalism gave way to the crystallisation of the West that can make the Chinese emerge from this lethargy. The
enlightened thought of modernity, with its faith in progress. Western world, therefore, becomes a factor –a necessary and
Leibniz and Voltaire were concerned with showing the universality sufficient factor– in the transformation of East Asian countries,
of reason and China was an ideal example of their proposals. Yet, which becomes the intellectual justification for the colonial actions
from this point on, enlightened Europeans submitted China to of the great Euro-American powers in the Pacific and Asia. All the
their ideas on historical progress: the stability that had previously texts which, from the second half of the 19th century, attempt to
been interpreted as an example of the virtues of its political system analyse the modern history of China share this epistemological
would become regarded from the mid-18th century onwards as paradigm, which turned China into an apprentice of the civilising
a sign of its lack of evolution and modernity.4 lessons of Western countries.6 China –and East Asia in general– is
One of the most classic formulations of this Sinophobic thought always described as the passive and feminine part in the relationship
is seen in J. G. Herder, who in his Ideas for the Philosophy of the it has with the civilised and masculine West (Guarné, 2005).
History of Humanity (1787) said: “The [Chinese] empire is an And it is from this perspective that, in the colonial context of
embalmed mummy painted with hieroglyphics and wrapped in the nineteenth century, the Chinese are described as inferior and
silk; its internal life is like that of animals in hibernation” (XIV, barbarous, narrow-minded and xenophobic. This is how one of
p. 13).5 For Herder, Chinese culture is one that has not evolved the few texts of the time published in Spain about China describes
for centuries, the vestiges of a distant past, a country without them, introducing the Fu Manchu stereotype that first literature
a present, like Egyptian hieroglyphics, which belong to a dead and then cinema would feed off for decades:
culture. And it was this stereotyped vision that, reproduced and
amended, resonated throughout the work of most European El carácter [of the Chinese] en la apariencia es muy afable,
of ]
intellectuals at the end of the 18th century and throughout the 19th humano y modesto; en realidad son vengativos y crueles. Son
century, from Adam Smith to Marx. However, the one who best muy ceremoniosos y corteses, y sobre todo observadores exactos
defined it was Hegel in his Lectures on the Philosophy of World de sus leyes, sobre lo cual se vela con mucha severidad; su
History (1840), in which he dedicated an entire section to China. genio y talento son vivos, espirituosos, animados y penetrantes,
Hegel feels that China represents the starting point of the y poseen más que ninguna otra nación el arte de disimular
history of humanity, in a formulation that we can consider one sus sentimientos y deseo de venganza, guardando tan bien
of the intellectual bases of the Orientalist representation of Asia: todas las apariencias de humildad que se los cree insensibles
“The History of the World travels from East to West; for Europe a todo género de ultrajes; pero si se les presenta la ocasión
is absolutely the end of History, Asia is the beginning” (Hegel, de destruir a su enemigo, se aprovechan de ella con ahínco
2004, p. 13). And he adds: y precipitación hasta lo sumo. (Álvarez, 1857, pp. 93-94)7
Early do we see China advancing to the condition in which Despite everything, critical voices could be heard regarding the
it is found at this day; for […] every change is excluded, and colonial actions in East Asia, which attempted to overcome this
the fixedness of a character which recurs perpetually takes the strongly Eurocentric, even racist, view and during the last decades
place of what we should call the truly historical. China and of the 19th century and first decades of the 20th an effort was
India lie, as it were, still outside the World’s History, as the made to transform China into an object of academic study. Oxford
mere presupposition of elements whose combination must be University, to offer a distinguished example, was the first to offer
waited for to constitute vital progress. (Hegel, 2004, p. 29) Chinese classes in 1876.8 The first lecturer was James Legge, a
Protestant missionary who led an ambitious translation project of
Hegel clearly defines the mechanisms of representation of the great Chinese classics and is the embodiment of the erudite
the Chinese world and East Asia, which remained in force for Western figure who approaches Chinese culture with honesty
many decades: China is an empire that remains outside historical and passion.9 These first Sinologists, despite the fact that they do
4. For the change in European thought from Sinophilia to Sinophobia, see Zhang (1988, pp. 116-123).
5. For an analysis of Herder’s representation of the Chinese world, see Goebel (1995).
6 For an analysis of the history of Euro-American aggressions in China in the 19th century, under the banner of educating and civilising, see Hevia (2004).
7. See translation at the end of the article, cit 1. (Editor’s note).
8. In fact, the first Chair in Chinese Studies in London was significantly earlier and dates from 1837, and held by Samuel Kidd. In Cambridge, in 1888, former
diplomat and interpreter Tomas Wade became the first to teach Chinese. In France, courses in Chinese had begun much earlier, in 1815 at the Collège de
France run by Jean-Pierre-Abel Rémusat. For the origins of Sinology in the West, see Honey (2001).
9. Legge’s translations, over 7 volumes, were published in 1861 under the title The Chinese Classics: with a translation, critical and exegetical notes, pro-
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David Martínez-Robles

12. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
the humanities in the digital age
http://digithum.uoc.edu Western Representation of Modern China: Orientalism…
not actively participate in the colonial intellectualism defined by
Said, do unconsciously assume the epistemological categories that The sociocultural approach
drive the colonial discussion of the age in which they lived. It is
significant, for example, that the renowned translation by Legge After the Second World War, a new generation of completely
of the Chinese classics should be financed by Joseph Jardine, a professional historians began to emerge, who had studied at the
member of one of the most important British merchant clans modern universities of the United States and Europe, with a much
working in China in the 19th century, whose fortune was linked more solid and attentive training in the discipline, and this led
directly to the lucrative opium trade.10 to the modern development of the history of China and East
These experts in the Chinese world, of which Legge is only Asia. However –despite the systematic study of Chinese archives,
an example, take on a dual function of representation: on the the application of scientific text analysis and less Eurocentric
one hand, they become the authorised ambassadors in the West comparative research methodologies– emphasis continued on
of Chinese civilisation, spokespersons and often defenders of the the role of Western aggressions in China. The whole of Chinese
cultural principals that they take from the Chinese world, even history was interpreted on the basis of the significance of these
though, on the other hand, they do so always clinging to their own agressions by studying the impact of modernisation imposed by
almost pedagogical stance as standards of Western enlightened Euro-American countries –viewed as a necessary phenomenon for
ideals. This is how a figure still around today was born: that of the activation of Chinese history– in traditional East Asian societies,
the expert in the Chinese world, which constitutes a discipline despite certain aspects of Western imperialism being explicitly
different form –apart from– the other academic disciplines, which criticised. In fact, concepts such as change and transformation,
generally left the Chinese and the non-Western world beyond true emblems of enlightened modernity, took on an extraordinary
their sphere of research. cultural value for the historians of the time, forming the basis for
The study of Chinese history in the early decades of the their entire research and the interpretation of Chinese history. This
20th century was in the hands of these Sinologists, missionaries, had a perverse effect, as numerous aspects of the history of Chinese
diplomats and functionaries who knew the Chinese world society that have nothing to do with the colonial aggressions
in person, in the hands of more or less well intentioned of Western nations disappear from historical contemplation
representatives of the imperial powers in Asia. It is a history and, therefore, are implicitly denied. Required reading for this
that is clearly centred on the actions of the Western countries in historiographical context is the text quoted above by John K.
the Chinese world, which are interpreted, albeit often critically, Fairbank, the leading Chinese historian from the mid-1940s to the
as the unleashing that allowed the Chinese to enter modernity, late 1980s, a long period during which modern Chinese history
admitting the technological and scientific superiority of the West, took on meaning on the basis of the question of its response to
which emerges as a civilising model and pedagogue. The same Western aggressions.
historical processes are sought in Chinese history that affected This perspective throws up a number of quite obvious problems.
the Western countries: for this reason, these historians reflect On the one hand, it takes on an active role for the West compared
on the non-development in China of a European-style industrial with a solely reactive China. In other words, despite the fact that
revolution or on the reasons for the lack of capitalist-oriented it was no longer a question of the passive reality as discussed by
forms of economic organisation. The West, then, is the norm the enlightened figures of the 19th century, China continued to be
and yardstick of historical progress, and in this comparative denied the possibility of acting for itself, without stimulation from
perspective, Chinese history shows a series of shortcomings and the West. In addition, as we saw in the text cited above, the West
anomalies in its development.11 In spite of everything, however, was seen as a reified entity, a block with very few differences, that
this paradigm that we could call imperialist makes China a shares unique aims and the same colonial enterprise and whose
historical object in its own right and, therefore, overcomes the spatial and temporal complexity is often overlooked. Likewise,
Sinophobic thought that we can still find in some writers at the China was, in the work of the historians of the time, a construct,
start of the 20th century. a simplifying abstraction that sidelines the exceptional diversity
of the Chinese world, which puts the validity of a large part of
the generalisations made about it in doubt. This explains the fact
4. Sobre el pas del pensament europeu de la sinofilia a la sinofòbia, vegeu Zhang (1988,its publication, Legge’s translation still enjoys a renowned reputation
legomena and copious indexes. Despite one and a half centuries having passed since pàgs. 116-123).
5. Per itsuna anàlisi de la representació de Herder del món xinès, vegeu the extensive biography by Girardot (2002).
for a accuracy among specialists. For information about Legge, see Goebel (1995).
6.
10. Per a una anàlisi de la història de les agressions colonials of the Jardine-Mathesonde segle xix en la seva dimensió pedagògica i civilitzatòria, vegeu Hevia (2004).
William Jardine, patriarch of the clan and co-founder euroamericanes a la Xina firm, which is still trading today as one of the most high-profile companies
7. Veg. la traducció al finaldriving forcecit. 1 (N.the Sino-British war of 1839-42.
in Hong Kong, was the de l’article, behind de l’ed.).
11. A more extensive analysis of the role that the West has played as a benchmark for modern Chinese history and of how this has been perceived as a problem
can be found in Cohen (1984, 3 et seg.).
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David Martínez-Robles

13. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
the humanities in the digital age
http://digithum.uoc.edu Western Representation of Modern China: Orientalism…
that in the historical discourse maintained during these decades, a relevance that had not been made explicit until then: facts are
a significant number of the historical processes that affect modern not objective, unquestionable and transcendent, but something
Chinese history go unnoticed and are not studied by historians, problematic and subject to the interpretation of whoever analyses
simply because they have nothing to do with the presence of them. As a result of this evolution, after 1980 historiography
foreign countries on the Chinese coast. Some events are even followed very different paths that were much less clearly defined
interpreted as a reaction to Western actions that were in fact an and secure.
evolution of internal forces and processes with their origins in a The history of China has currently moved –a great deal– away
period long before the arrival of foreign powers in China. from the (meta)narratives of just a few decades ago, if only at
With this approach, the cultural, intellectual and even a theoretical level. Historians are obliged to act with the caution
psychological aspects of the Chinese world are of such specific required by the historical and regional diversity of the Chinese
importance that, all too often, they sideline the political or world. Methodologically, many problems are posed in extrapolating
economic factors (which are the foundations of historical research what the research shows about one Chinese region for the others.
with regards to Western countries). It is assumed that traditional And this regionalisation of history, which is no longer based
Chinese culture –which at this time was almost synonymous on the traditional administrative divisions, also has a temporal
with Confucianism– was not simply the brake that impeded the dimension: what is stated of a specific period of history cannot
modernisation of China from the inside, but in fact the reason be stated per se of other moments in history, as had unfailingly
for the supposed attitude of closure, denial, rejection, or, at least, been done by a great many historians until a few decades ago.14
resistance to the influence and modernisation arriving from the This represents a much broader recognition of the dynamism of
West. Political or economic questions, therefore, are relegated the intellectual, social, political and economic life of China in all
to the background. This sociocultural approach, as it is often periods. An example will allow us to grasp this: when historians
called, does not cease to be an academic and sublimated form had posed the reasons that explained the outbreak of the opium
of the Orientalisation of the Asian cultures discussed by Said: wars, the Chinese intellectual and functionary class had always
China is different per se, an ontologically different entity, by non- been seen as a homogeneous group of representatives of the most
Western definition, and therefore the categories with which the orthodox Confucian or neo-Confucian thought, supposedly hostile
Chinese world should be analysed and understood are specific to any change to the Chinese political and administrative system.
and inherent to it, radically different from those applied to other Research in recent years, however, has shown that among the
historical realities. This explains for these historians that contact Chinese intellectuals of the period there were highly contrasting
with the West has inevitably been antagonistic and not due to factions and parties which show that what we call Confucianism
political differences; it is rather a cultural shock between European is a political, philosophical and intellectual project that cannot be
universalism and that which in this representation of the Chinese shoehorned into the categories that Western analysts –on the
world is understood as Sino-centrism. Armed confrontation was basis of the characterisation made by the Jesuit missionaries who
inevitable, as we see above in the citation by Fairbank, which first presented it to the European world in the 16th and 17th
in turn acts as justification for the actions of imperialism in the centuries– have tried to apply to it.15
Western Pacific. Nonetheless, some of the most basic formulae of the
The 1970s represented a challenge to these ideas with the sociocultural approach have survived this criticism, both within
appearance of a new generation of historians, especially in America, and beyond the work of historians. One of the most visible and
who brought into doubt some of the assumptions of the dominant well-known examples is the so-called Asian Values Debate, which
historiography regarding China. The first critical voices focused attempts to recognise and, indeed, demand the validity of cultural
on denouncing the “apologetics of imperialism”,12 in the context values common to the countries of the Asian continent that can
of the protests against the war in Vietnam and the appearance be compared with “Western values”. These Asian values have
of a critical conscience that was not only concerned with the often been identified as supposedly Confucian values despite the
historical facts, but also with how these are read, interpreted evident contradiction represented by attributing to a continent of
and articulated.13 The historian as a questioning figure takes on the human and geographical extent of Asia, or to a significant part
12. Most notable among the first criticisms of the imperialist approach were the contributions of Nathan (1972), Esherick (1973) and Lassek (1983), who pub-
lished a number of articles in the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, which was founded precisely as a reaction to the major North American research
institutions that focused on East Asian countries.
13. It should be remembered that leading figures of 20th-century intelligentsia who had a huge influence over their peers, such as Michel Foucault, Haydn
White, Jacques Derrida, Edward S. Said, Jean-Françoise Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard, etc., published some of their most fundamental and referenced works in
the 1970s.
14. For the regional analysis of Chinese historical reality, see Skinner (1977 and 1985).
15. For the different factions of Chinese intellectuals at the Imperial Court in the context of the First Opium War, see Polachek (1992).
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14. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
the humanities in the digital age
http://digithum.uoc.edu Western Representation of Modern China: Orientalism…
of it, a unity based on cultural values that originate, in fact, from resolve. Cohen explicitly rejects external visions of Chinese history,
a specific region and very specific period of the past. We will not and in fact establishes a somewhat inaccurate distinction of what
enter here into evaluating the bases of this debate, which despite external and internal focuses are. This is an approach, which, as
the political manipulation to which it is subjected, would allow us with the Asian Values Debate, still has Orientalist echoes: China has
to reflect on a number of fundamental issues regarding how we remained isolated in universal history, clearly following different
understand alterity and project our epistemological categories on historical development guidelines, which need to be known from
to other realities without having first evaluated their suitability. In the inside, starting with the Chinese language and culture. In other
any event, it is important to understand how far, in the majority words, despite explicitly rejecting the sociocultural approach, he
of formulations that have been made, it is based on culturalist reaches a series of similar conclusions, which, in short, do not help
reasonings that contradict the historical and social reality of the break away from the historical alienation of China.17
countries to which it refers.16 Another trend in the historiography that has been developed
in recent years points in the opposite direction to the one outlined
by Cohen and consists of integrating Chinese history into world
Criticism and post-paradigmatisation history, not so as to enhance the latter, but as an essential part
thereof. It is a question of understanding Chinese history from a
However, criticism of imperialist apologetics and the sociocultural broad perspective. China, particularly over the last five centuries,
approach, or recognition of the diversity of China, geographically has not only participated in, but has also contributed to the
and historically, is one thing and it is quite another to overcome the development of some of humanity’s great historical processes. The
problematicity of the historical discussion about the Chinese world. work of historian and sociologist Andre Gunder Frank, ReOrient:
Therefore, far beyond the revisionist tendency of the 1970s and Global Economy in the Asian Age (1998), is probably the best
1980s, the last two decades have seen a whole range of proposals, known in this inclusive understanding of history. For Frank, our
some more successful than others, which have attempted to representation of the Asian world has to overcome the Eurocentrism
replace the old paradigms that had marked the development of that has characterised it for centuries to accept the important role
the historiography for almost two centuries with new formulae that the continent of Asia has played in world history: in his own
more suitable to getting to grips with the history of China. words, history has to “reorient”.18 Despite the fact that Frank’s
One of the first was drawn up by US historian Paul A. Cohen. work is unable to overcome some of the most basic premises with
He proposed changing the focus of the history of China, which which enlightened thought had approached the Chinese world
until then had been centred on the activity of foreign countries (progress, development),19 it has had an important influence on
in China, for what he called a China-centred history of China. other authors who from both Chinese history and a more global
This was a history that took China, not the West, as its starting approach have attempted to carry out this integrating project.20
point, and –on an epistemological level– has to be deployed These are works which, generally speaking from an economic
using Chinese criteria, not those imported from the West (Cohen, history perspective, try to show the “Oriental” roots of Western
1984). Cohen’s proposal is a coherent response to the situation of civilisation, or at least show the influence that the Asian world
historical Chinese studies, which coincided with the extraordinary has had, so as to challenge the ethnocentric approaches that have
rise of local studies in the 1970s and 1980s, and which recognises always dominated our perception of history.
the dynamism and diversity of the Chinese world. Proposing a However, this comparative perspective is not free from
series of criteria derived from the Chinese world means, among methodological risks. In spite of the fact that some of these writers
many other things, assessing the validity and legitimacy of some are aware of it, others fall into the trap of attempting to establish
of the categories applied to the analysis of Chinese history, which, correlations in an insufficiently critical manner. That is, there is the
in fact, have their origins in certain historical processes exclusive danger of looking, a priori, in Chinese history for processes and
to Western countries, such as modernity or contemporaneity. problems that are alien to it, or of which it is at least pertinent to
However, using these “China-centred history” approaches also question their legitimacy as a basis for comparison. In other words,
lead to certain doubts about the methodology which are hard to the danger of falling into the same ethnocentrism –now more
16. The value of the Asian Values Debate lies more in its criticism of the supposed universality of the enlightened values than in the definition or justification of
values applicable to the Asian continent.
17. For a critical analysis of Cohen’s approach, see Dirlik (1996b, pp. 262-268).
18. Beltrán (2006, esp. �27-35) analyses the contributions of Frank’s work and contextualises it within the production of knowledge about East Asia in the
academic world, in both the West and Asia.
19. For a critique of the Eurocentrism implicit in the critique of Eurocentrism by Frank, see Dirlik (2000, 73 et seg.)
20. Highlights include the work of a number of specialists in Chinese history, such as Pomeranz (2000), Wong (1997) or Waley-Cohen (1999), or that of his-
torians with a more global perspective, such as Bayly (2004) or Hobson (2004).
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David Martínez-Robles

15. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
the humanities in the digital age
http://digithum.uoc.edu Western Representation of Modern China: Orientalism…
furtive– to be found in the historians of the first half of the 20th be considered, and therefore does not exist, is not historical,
century. Nevertheless, the recovery of China and Asia in general as we have seen with part of the Chinese reality for centuries.
for the construction of a truly universal history represents a step Nonetheless, the strength of a paradigm is not limited to a culture
forward in the creation of a non-exclusive and integrating history. or borders. It sets what is true and scientific, has a universal
This rejection of the forms of Eurocentric thought, in which the nature, such that everything with pretensions of science must
work of experts in subaltern studies such as Dipesh Chakrabarty meet its specifications if it does not want to be excluded. The
and Ranajit Guha have had a notable influence, has led to another history of China is no exception. The historical paradigms that
of the shifts seen in recent decades. That is, some historians have dominated the Western intellectual tradition have ended
paying greater attention to the methodological contributions of up being imposed on China as though it were another form of
other disciplines, such as sociology, anthropology, literary studies, imperialism. Despite the fact that in this article we have limited
political science, etc. Without a doubt, the development of the ourselves exclusively to the Western representation of Chinese
ideas of postcolonialism, postmodernity and cultural studies history, it should be taken into account that, to give a clear enough
has been a key factor in this trend, which has not always been example, Chinese Marxist thought has ended up assuming some
sufficiently balanced.21 Indeed, some of the most challenging of the more basic principles of the imperialist approach of which it
historiographical proposals have seen the light in this setting, is the sworn enemy: according to Marxist historiography, only the
which reflects on the articulation of such concepts as power and Chinese Communist Party managed to end the backwardness and
domination, imagination, culture and representation. One of the lack of modernisation of China, a backwardness and a need for
leading names in this field is that of Turkish historian Arif Dirlik, modernisation that are the same starting point of the imperialist
concerned with questions of an epistemological nature that are approach that we have analysed. When all is said and done,
not usually part of the agenda of the majority of historians. A Marxism is deeply rooted in the teleological thought of European
large part of Dirlik’s reflections revolve around the concepts of enlightened modernity.
progress and modernity: according to this historian, despite the Indeed, it is Arif Dirlik, aware of the strength of the
critical evolution in recent decades of part of the historiography, a historiographical paradigms, among other proposals, who rejects
radical challenge to the teleological representation of the history any attempt to establish new paradigms that set out and demarcate
inherited from the European Enlightenment has not been seen. our approach to Chinese history (and non-Euro-American history
For Dirlik, “it is necessary to repudiate this historical teleology in in general), as this would mean repeating the same mistakes and
all its manifestations” and to identify “alternative modernities”, vices of historians throughout the 20th century. In fact, since the
not to fall into a return to the reifying impetus of the sociocultural development of the critical historiography that began at the end
approach (as Cohen did), an approach that must finally be of the 1970s, no great new paradigm has appeared to replace
overcome, but to recover “historical trajectories that have been the previous ones.
suppressed by the hegemony of capitalist modernity” (Dirlik, However, the fact that after the appearance of a critical
1997, p. 127). In fact, according to Dirlik, the disturbing influence historiography no new paradigm has imposed itself does not
of Eurocentrism cannot ever be completely overcome unless the mean that the old paradigms have been completely overcome.
very idea of “development” is challenged at root. It is not a We have already seen that some of the attempts to reposition
question of rejecting modernity per se, an attitude that would Chinese history in world history have not been able to avoid
lead us to a certain self-Orientalisation, but, while recognising the ethnocentric approaches despite their aim of constructing
it, creating alternative modernities that overcome the narratives a markedly non-Eurocentric discourse. Likewise, many of the
of the Enlightenment that still dominate historians daily activities theoretical reflections mentioned in the preceding pages have
(Dirlik, 1996, pp. 277-278). gone unnoticed by a significant number of historians, which helps
us understand why so many books still being published today
on the history of China continue to be rooted in the premises of
Conclusions the old, theoretically, superseded paradigms; or why that which
students learn in our universities unfortunately often maintains a
A paradigm is not a simple theoretical proposal, instead it has marked Orientalist tone.
an epistemological dimension that affords it all of its regulatory In fact, China historians have an educational responsibility
capacity. It is a sieve that sets the possibilities for knowledge: with a social aspect that reaches far beyond their research tasks.
whatever does not meet the rules set by the paradigm cannot In a society such as ours, in which Asian studies have just begun
21. For a critical reading of the influence of cultural studies on the historiography of modern and contemporary China in 1980s and 1990s, see Huang
(1998).
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David Martínez-Robles

16. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
the humanities in the digital age
http://digithum.uoc.edu Western Representation of Modern China: Orientalism…
and where the interest of public opinion in East Asian countries Apologetics of imperialism”. Bulletin of Concerned Asian
is very recent, this pedagogical task takes on greater relevance. Scholars. Vol. 4, no. 4.
Orientalist cliches and stereotypes are present in almost every FAIRBANK, J. K.; REISCHAUER, E. O. (1989). China. Tradition
activity connected to Chinese culture, from cinema festivals to and Transformation. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
academic conferences, or popular celebrations and exhibitions by FRANK, A. G. (1998). ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian
prestigious museums. The imperialist and Orientalising perspective, Age. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
although very often explicitly rejected, is repeatedly seen implicitly GIRARDOT, N. J. (2002). The Victorian Translation of China:
in the majority of these activities. This is why education is required: James Legge’s Oriental Pilgrimage. Los Angeles: University
not only does the historian, or the specialist in East Asian art, of California Press.
literature or economics, have to try and convey knowledge, but GOEBEL, R. J. (1995, Jan.). “China as an Embalmed Mummy:
they also have to denounce explicitly the discursive anomalies that Herder’s Orientalist Poetics”. South Atlantic Review. Vol. 60,
have traditionally determined our way of representing the reality no. 1.
of East Asian countries. GOLDEN, S. (2000). “From the Society of Jesus to the East India
Company: A Case Study in the Social History of Translation”.
Cit 1. IN: M. G. ROSE (ed.). Beyond the Western Tradition.
The character [of the Chinese] appears to be very good- Translation. Perspectives XI. Binghamton: Centre for Research
natured, humane and modest; in reality they are vengeful and in Translation, State University of New York at Binghamton.
cruel: they are very ceremonious and courteous, and above GUARNÉ, B. (2005) “Imágenes ominosas. Escarnios e injurias en
all follow their laws to the letter, which they do with great la representación de la ‘mujer japonesa’”. La mujer japonesa:
severity: their genius and talent, lively, spiritual, animated and Realidad y mito. VIII Congreso de la Asociación de Estudios
penetrating, and more than any other nation, they possess the Japoneses de España (AEJE). Zaragoza: Universidad de
art of disguising their feelings and desire for revenge, hiding Zaragoza.
all appearances of humility so well that one believes them to HEGEL, G. W. (2004). Philosophy of History. New York: Barnes
be insensitive to all types of outrage; but if you offer them the and Noble.
opportunity to destroy their enemy, they eagerly and hastily HOBSON, J. M. (2004). The Eastern Origins of Western
take advantage of it to the full. Civilisation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
HONEY, D. B. (2001). Incense in the Altar: Pioneering Sinologists
and the Development of Classical Chinese Philology. New
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BELTRÁN ANTOLÍN, J. (2006). “Re-orient(ar) la historia. Notas 1.
para una crítica euro/sino-céntrica”. Revista HMiC. No. IV. LEGGE, J. (1861) The Chinese Classics: with a translation, critical
UAB. http://seneca.uab.es/hmic/2006/HMIC2006.pdf and exegetical notes, prolegomena and copious indexes.
CLARK, R. (1997). China Transformed: Historical Change and the London: Trübner Co. 7 vol.
Limits of European Experience. New York: Ithaca. NATHAN, A. (1972). “Imperialism’s Effect on China”. Bulletin of
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Historical Writing on the Recent Chinese Past. New York: and China’s Social Reconstruction in the 1920s”. Modern
Columbia University Press. Asian Studies. Vol. 16, no. 4.
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Contemporary Historiography of Modern China”. Modern of East Asian Studies.
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17. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
the humanities in the digital age
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Century China”. In: SKINNER (ed.). The City in Late Imperial WALEY-COHEN, P. (1999). The Sextants of Beijing: Global
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David Martínez-Robles
Lecturer, Department of Languages and cultures (Uoc)
and Department of Humanities (Pompeu Fabra)
dmartinezrob@uoc.edu
Graduate in Philosophy (University of Barcelona) and PhD in History (Pompeu Fabra University). He is a lecturer in the UOC’s
Languages and Cultures Department and Pompeu Fabra’s Humanities Department. His research centres on modern and
contemporary history of China and its representation in the Western world. He has published articles and works on a range of
aspects of Chinese history and culture; the most recent being La lengua china: historia, signo y contexto. Una aproximación
sociocultural [‘The Chinese Language: History, Sign and Context. A Sociocultural Approach‘]; (Editorial UOC 2007).
This work is subject to a Creative Commons Attribution-noncommercial-noDerivs 2.5 Spain licence. It may
be copied, distributed and broadcast provided that the author and the e-journal that publishes it (Digithum)
are cited. Commercial use and derivative works are not permitted. The full licence can be consulted on
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/es/deed.en.
Iss. 10 | May 2008 iSSn 1575-2275
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David Martínez-Robles

18. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
the humanities in the digital age
http://digithum.uoc.edu
“Orientalism” Dossier
Instrumentalisation of Passions,
Social Regulation and Transcendence
of Power in the Hanfeizi 韓非子
Albert Galvany
Postdoctoral researcher at the École Pratiques des Hautes Études (Religious Studies Department)
albert.galvany@upf.edu
Submission date: November 2007
Accepted in: December 2007
Published in: May 2008
Recommended citAtion:
GALVANY, Albert (2008). “Instrumentalisation of Passions, Social Regulation and Transcendence of Power
in the Hanfeizi 韓非子”. In: Carles PRADO-FONTS (coord.). “Orientalism” [online dossier]. Digithum. Iss. 10. UOC
[Retrieved on: dd/mm/yy].
http://www.uoc.edu/digithum/10/dt/eng/galvany.pdf
ISSN 1575-2275
Abstract
The basic aim of this article is to present, albeit it schematically, some of the fundamental elements upon which the political
and philosophical proposal of the Hanfeizi, one of the most important texts of pre-Imperial China, is based. This ancient text is
especially evocative for philosophy in that it constitutes a real exception in classical political theory. Whereas the principal socio-
political proposals, which were to a greater or lesser extent utopian, put forward by both Western and Chinese philosophers,
consider that the greatest obstacle to achieving these projects lies in the passionate nature of humans, the work traditionally
attributed to Han Fei defends the idea that an ordered social body is only possible thanks precisely to that passionate side. Using
this core argument as a basis, the article will not only try to clarify the specific way in which this unique ideological system is
legitimised and organised, but also endeavours to show the common ideological links between the authoritarian conception of
the Hanfeizi and some of the more essential aspects of economic liberalism as presented in the work of Adam Smith.
Keywords
Ancient China, Han Fei, domination, legalism, liberalism, Adam Smith
Resum
Aquest article té el propòsit fonamental de presentar, encara que sigui de manera esquemàtica, alguns dels elements fonamentals
sobre els quals se sosté la proposta política i filosòfica del Hanfeizi, un dels texts més importants de la Xina preimperial. Aquest
text antic resulta especialment evocador per al pensament en la mesura que representa una veritable excepció en la teoria
política clàssica. Mentre que les principals propostes sociopolítiques, més o menys utòpiques, articulades tant per pensadors
occidentals com xinesos, consideren que el major obstacle per a la consecució d’aquests projectes rau en la naturalesa passional
de l’ésser humà, l’obra atribuïda tradicionalment a Han Fei defensa que només és possible obtenir un cos social ordenat gràcies
precisament a aquesta dimensió passional. A partir d’aquest eix argumental, el nostre article no solament tractarà d’aclarir
Iss. 10 | May 2008 iSSn 1575-2275 Journal of the UOC’s Humanities Department and Languages and Cultures Department
Albert Galvany 17 Els estudis que impulsen la revista només s’indiquen a la primera pàgina.
Original Borges Sáiz
Federicotitle: Instrumentalización de las pasiones, regulación social y trascendencia
del poder en el Hanfeizi 韓非子

19. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
the humanities in the digital age
http://digithum.uoc.edu Instrumentalisation of Passions, Social Regulation and…
la manera concreta en la qual es legitima i organitza aquest singular sistema ideològic, sinó que també s’esforçarà a posar
de manifest els vincles ideològics comuns entre la concepció autoritària del Hanfeizi i alguns dels aspectes més essencials del
liberalisme econòmic tal com es presenten en l’obra d’Adam Smith.
Paraules clau
Xina antiga, Han Fei, dominació, legisme, liberalisme, Adam Smith
tradition1, the eye cannot look at itself and needs to be reflected
In recent times, in the realm of French-speaking Sinology, the in the pupil of another eye (an “other” eye) to do so, neither can
study of classical Chinese thought has momentarily ceased to the Western philosopher appropriate their own condition without
be a merely historical, almost archaeological and, consequently, reflecting on the “other” thought, in this case personified by
anodyne and sterile issue in the eyes of people outside this ancient China.2 In short, according to the programme defined
particular field of knowledge to become the focus and object by Jullien, the encounter with classical Chinese thought would
of considerable intellectual controversy, which has even broken not merely achieve the satisfaction of an intellectual curiosity,
through the narrow margins usually imposed by the discipline. resembling a sort of vain and exotic tourism; his overriding interest
The trigger of such a dispute is to be found in the publication would lie more in the fact that, when penetrating a radically
of a succinct but estimable essay penned by Sinologist Jean- different conceptual universe, the possibility of outlining a new
François Billeter against the theses of one of his most popular and perspective would open up before us, of conquering a privileged
controversial colleagues, François Jullien (Billeter, 2006). In turn, position (or distance) from where it would finally be possible to
the latter was not slow in coming back with a reply in which he be aware with greater clarity of the framework, of the axioms
sought to neutralise Billeter’s arguments while restating the validity and of the limitations that have configured the development of
of his own ideas (Jullien, 2007). By no means is it my aim here to European philosophy and, consequently, armed with that new
take sides in this debate by offering a detailed review of the two vision, also be in a position to overcome them.
stances. In all, and insofar as my article seeks to establish a sort of However, such a project arouses certain suspicions. One should
comparative schema or, at least, a perspective of rapprochement ask, for example, up to what point that look towards the other
between temporally and spatially disparate strands of thought, person responds to a genuine opening up or whether, on the
I feel it is appropriate to tackle, albeit superficially, one of the contrary, it is no more than a utilitarian and egocentric projection.
issues around which a large part of this discussion revolves: the In this same sense, and from an epistemological point of view,
problem of “alterity”. the achievement of that distancing as a result of the dialectic with
It is fair to say that the methodological and philosophical a radical alterity that comes from self-observation also proves
project of François Jullien has been well and successfully received, to be suspicious. Is that look free of categories and prejudices
as is reflected in the important number of translations of his work, when aimed at “the other”? Is that distance that is invoked
both in Western and Asian countries. Perhaps part of this success as a goal, and from which would finally emanate awareness,
is due to the fact that the fundamental architecture of his proposal critical self-awareness, of our itinerary as civilisation, not in fact
is relatively simple, and, consequently, extremely attractive. In his an indispensable, and therefore prior, condition for that exterior
opinion, contact with the categories of classical Chinese thought, look to be properly legitimate? In short, the greatest difficulties
which historically speaking were forged independently from the of Jullien’s project are to be found in its results. Despite the fact
Indo-European categories and which, therefore, are presented as that, at least ideally, his proposal, through the contact with that
“the other” radical of Western philosophy, offers a distance from radical alterity symbolised by classical Chinese thought, aims to
where it would be possible to see ourselves as subjects of that offer an alternative to metaphysics, to Western ontology, in reality,
European tradition of which we are the product, whether we like the consequences are otherwise: that use of alterity produces,
it or not. If, as appears in a dialogue attributed to the platonic in my opinion, an even greater stagnation in the categories of
1. “Socrates: �Did you ever observe that the face of the person looking into the eye of another is reflected as in a mirror, which is called the pupil, there is a
sort of image of the person looking?’ Alcibiades: �That is quite true.’ Socrates: �Then the eye, looking at another eye, and at that in the eye which is most
perfect, and which is the instrument of vision, will there see itself?’” (Plato, Alcibiades, 132c-133b).
2. François Jullien himself has explained the content of his proposal on numerous occasions: Penser d’un dehors (la Chine): Entretiens d’Extrême-Occident,
Éditions du Seuil, Paris, 2000, and Dépayser la pensée: Dialogues hétérotopiques avec François Jullien sur son usage philosophique de la Chine, Les
Empêcheurs de penser en rond, Paris, 2003.
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Albert Galvany

20. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
the humanities in the digital age
http://digithum.uoc.edu Instrumentalisation of Passions, Social Regulation and…
being and of identity. It generates two perfectly defined worlds with the work of British philosopher and economist Adam Smith
(frequently as a result of an extreme simplification): on the one (1723-1790). The starting point of our enterprise corresponds to
hand, Europe, and on the other, China, without it being evident the confirmation that the relentless search for a perfect political
that this schism has been overcome. organisation appears, both in the West and in the East, to have
The truth is that, as Jonathan Z. Smith says, “alterity” should come up against the same obstacle time and time again: the
not be understood in any way as a descriptive category, as an irrational side to humans. Starting with Plato’s proposal and passing
artefact of the perception of what is different and what is common, through that of Hobbes, Montesquieu or even Confucius, almost
but rather as a political and linguistic project, a question of rhetoric all theoretical initiatives which aim to solve the conflict of human
and of judgement; for that reason, it would only be possible political and social organisation agree on highlighting passions,
to create genuine progress in knowledge when “the other” the true animal side of humankind, as the primary stumbling block
ceases to be an ontological category, when its unshakeable and for the achievement of their projects. In contrast to all these,
absolute metaphysical nature is dissolved. Despite its apparent authoritarian philosopher Han Fei believes that that irrational side
taxonomic exclusivity, “alterity” is in fact a fundamentally trans- is not only not harmful, but that it constitutes the true foundation
national issue, a matter of the “in-between” (J. Z. Smith, 1985, of the social order, the only possibility of building long-lasting
p. 46). The lessons taken from Smith’s theoretical contributions social order. It is, then, an exceptional proposal in the history of
mean, in principle, a drastic inversion of the postulates and the political thought.
methodological arguments insistently defended by François Jullien However, and this is the really interesting point, the political
in his work. From that perspective, “the other” would reach its and social model designed by Han Fei that has a clear totalitarian
most problematic, and consequently fertile, degree from the vocation presents, as we will have the opportunity to see later, not
intellectual point of view not when it is perceived as something a few elements in common with the intellectual bases of economic
radically different, as a forceful and irrevocable “alterity”, but, liberalism as presented by one of its principal ideologists: Adam
quite to the contrary, when it is seen as something implausibly Smith. Throughout this article, I will try, therefore, to present
close, proximate, similar. This similarity, which emphatically the elementary schema of Han Fei’s proposal to compare it
dissolves the longed-for and, to some extent, always tranquillising subsequently with certain aspects of Adam Smith’s work, in the
“alterity” (since, ultimately, inside the schema received, it is also hope that this exercise of contrast and comparison generates in
the unequal, heterogeneous nature of the other that allows us to the reader a number of basic questions about our time.
constitute, forge, by contrast, a differentiated, perfectly clear and
distinct ontic identity), implies, in my opinion, a more fruitful, less
paralysing, starting point when tackling the approach, the location
and the critique of our own civilisation, than the formula chosen
Lessons from history:
by writers such as Jullien. Less paralysing because, as opposed the imperative of adaptation
to what happens with the commitment to radical “difference”,
the encounter with that “similar alterity” does not lead to the In order to understand the ideological proposal of Han Fei, it
(re)affirming of two ontologically unique and consolidated entities is essential to first view his conception of historical processes.3
but that, in recognising a certain affinity in that “other” that was Since its very origins, philosophical reflection in ancient China
thought to be completely alien, the foundations on which lies the has been inseparable from a certain disposition in relation to
recognition of identity, one’s own and of others, are finally split, the past. Looking at what occurred in High Antiquity is a basic
giving way to an incisive and tenacious state of interrogation criterion of authority for consolidating the unique identity of
characteristic of philosophical inquiry. each ideological proposal and, at the same time, the principal
Consequently, the following article that I am presenting argument for legitimising the political aspiration designed for a
can be seen as a specific example of that alternative proposal, new present, which is, almost always, projected on to a supposedly
which, instead of pursuing the game of radical alterity, deals with immediate horizon. The work of Han Fei is not unconnected to
the concern for similarity in what is different. In specific terms, that general trend, in contrast to what has been said by some
it is presented as a rapprochement to the work of a Chinese experts.4 Consequently, in one of the two chapters devoted to the
philosopher called Han Fei (280-233 BC), who, despite being commentary on the, entitled “Illustrating Laozi” (Yu Lao 喻老),
twice as removed from our culture in time and space, in geography we find the following anecdote, the aim of which is to comment
and history, does however contain a surprising common nexus on Section LXIV of Laozi:
3. For a more complete analysis of the conception of history and time in legalist thought, see A. Galvany (2004, pp. 349-386).
4. In that sense, see, for example, D. Bodde (1938, p. 211).
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Albert Galvany

21. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
the humanities in the digital age
http://digithum.uoc.edu Instrumentalisation of Passions, Social Regulation and…
Wang Chu was travelling carrying a bundle of books when such a way as to dispel all types of disagreement, of heterogeneity,
he met Xu Fong on the road to the land of Zhou. [Xu] Fong between the course of time and the political actions that are
said: “Business consists of action. And action comes from intended to be imposed on it. It is the current conditions that
opportunity. Anyone who knows of it is uninitiated in the ways must determine the form and methods of government, and not
of business. Books consist of discourses. And discourses come the other way round. Han Fei stresses the dynamic and irreversible
from knowledge. Anyone who knows does not accumulate nature of time and, with this, proclaims the need for continuous
their knowledge in books. So why are you walking along adaptation to its demands. In accordance with that conception
carrying all these books?” After which, Wang Chu set fire to of time and of history, the conservative attitude (encapsulated in
his books and began dancing round the pyre. Knowledge does Confucian ideology), which refuses to accept the transformation of
not rear its head much in discourses; wisdom is not kept in the development process, the permanent updating of the present,
books. Our time condemns that attitude, but Wang Chu was is simply ridiculous. In this sense, he appears to be truer to the
able to return [to the way (dao)]. It is a question of learning respect for history, praised and exulted by Confucian tradition,
to unlearn. Which is why [Laozi] says: “Learn to unlearn and than the very representatives of that philosophy.
return to the origin which the masses condemn”. (Qiyou, In Han Fei’s opinion, it is the study of the past, with its
2000, chap. XXI, p. 449) permanent changes and innovations, unexpected twists and turns
and its frequent discontinuities, which reveals its dynamic nature
This passage from the Hanfeizi proclaims the conviction that and which shows, therefore, up to what point that nostalgic (and
the action that we intend to carry out on what is real, whatever static) look at an idealised Antiquity is absurd and even historically
that may be, cannot be based on the study of books, inasmuch as false. The adaptation of the political institutions and practices to
the knowledge that comes from them already belongs to a time the different circumstantial frameworks of each moment is all
that is passed and, therefore, inevitably expired. The moral of the that guarantees the progress, the survival of society, the arrival
anecdote narrated by Han Fei is exemplary: the path, the attitude, of efficient governors. Just as with that changing reality to which
the practice (xing 行) of Wang Chu is hindered by the burden of we must permanently adapt, political practice is also viewed in a
inherited, erudite knowledge, and this is what Xu Fong reveals. dynamic way; the governors, the Administration, must be aware
Insofar as it is not possible to apply permanent prescriptions, when observing the changes that occur in the social and economic
fixed forever in a text, for a time which never stops changing, reality of the country to adapt their responses accordingly. It is no
the learning and study of books, from the past, becomes useless surprise that in the second excerpt quoted below, Han Fei uses the
and even harmful. In the world of business (shi 事), the ritual metaphor of technical innovations. Apart from being a particularly
appropriateness of gesture, or its moral quality of agreement with illustrative allegory of the anti-traditionalist principles that
the precepts conveyed by the wise men of Antiquity, is not as dominate its system, this metaphor reveals one of the fundamental
important as its sole efficacy within the plan of action (wei 為). elements defended in his work, namely: the instrumental nature
And, in the opinion of Han Fei, the guarantee of that efficacy of political practice. Contrary to what occurs with the two other
in the action depends on its appropriateness, its adaptation, its intellectual strands of the age, Confucianism and Taoism, Han Fei
suitability at the propitious moment (shi 時). The phrase that openly sustains the instrumental condition of the government of
we have translated as “anyone who knows of it is uninitiated men. As we will see later on, in the final analysis, this attitude is
in the ways of business” hides a play on words, a suggestive derived from a radically amoral conception of politics. In any event,
semantic wink: on the one hand, supported by the term chang the direct consequence of this utilitarian conception of political
常 understood as “tradition” or “custom”, Han Fei certifies the practice is the need to adapt the methods of government, the
absence of fixed rules, of hereditary prescriptions in that which means or instruments for achieving social order and peace, to the
knows that an action’s success depends on its adaptation to the reality on which it is intended to act, without any argument other
times; but that very passage also uses the other meaning of the than that of its effectiveness carrying any weight. In this sense,
term chang (“permanent”, “constant”) to illustrate the willingness Han Fei advocates a model of government that is able to be willing
of that man dedicated to the action, to evoke change as the and open to the modification of its values and structures. As we
only persistent aspect, the continuous transformation of things have already seen, Han Fei’s criticism of the traditional stances of
and that, therefore, the man of action must prove himself to be Confucianism originates from the study and objective scrutiny of
radically dynamic, completely without static disposition. In Han historical deployment.
Fei’s opinion, it is essential to accept the transformation of history,
of change, of succession, and adapt to the new conditions to In times of High Antiquity, the population was scant and
avoid the propagation of disaster and put an end to the reigning animals were plentiful; people were unable to dominate the
disorder. Like his predecessor Shang Yang, Han Fei considers it wild beasts, birds of prey and serpents until the day when a
essential to reform the political and administrative institutions in wise man had the idea of binding ropes together to construct
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Albert Galvany

22. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
the humanities in the digital age
http://digithum.uoc.edu Instrumentalisation of Passions, Social Regulation and…
nests and put the people out of harm’s way. Fired with the internal dynamism of the historical deployment. Consequently,
enthusiasm, the people made him king and gave him the he repeats the analogy of technical innovations, on this occasion
title of “Sovereign of the Nests”. In that far-off time, people referring to war, with the aim of illustrating the futility of anyone
lived off fruit, roots and shellfish; the rottenness of raw food who seeks to model their political action in mirroring the past:
damaged their insides, with many of them dying from the
disease; there then appeared a wise man who made a fire The staff, the shield and the great ceremonial axe cannot
with wood and got rid of the fetidness in the food thanks defeat anyone who has a long lance and a short halberd;
to cooking. The people, overcome with joy, made him king genuflections and reverences serve for nothing before troops
and gave him the title “Sovereign of the Wood”. The empire who march a hundred miles a day; noble ceremonial archers
was flooded in Mid-Antiquity; Kun and Yu traced the course can do nothing against the power and precision of modern
of the rivers. In Recent Antiquity, the tyrants Jie and Zhou crossbows; the pole used to fend off attackers scaling the
razed the empire to the ground with fire and blood until they walls is sterile against the new methods of assault. The men of
were punished by the monarchs Tang and Wu. If, during the remote Antiquity contended in virtue; those of late Antiquity
Xia dynasty, someone had proclaimed the intervention of the competed in sagacity; those of the present fight with strength.
nests or burning wood, they would have been mocked by (Qiyou, 2000, chap. XLVII, p. 1030)
Kun and Yu; if, during the Yin and Zhou dynasties, someone
had traced the courses of the great rivers, they would have Han Fei’s argument is impeccable. It resorts to the analogy
been ridiculed by the monarchs Zhou and Wu. Everyone who of military weapons and tools to illustrate the abyss that exists
now praises the methods of Antiquity and the procedures of between the past and the present in a terrain that is especially
Yao, Shun, Tang, Wu and Yu deserves to be mocked by the sensitive to the need to adapt constantly to the new situations. If
wise men of today. True wise men do not devote themselves the weapons of yore, designed with care for their rituals, fulfilled
to the servile cultivation of Antiquity; they do not use any their function for war uses and behaviours, they can no longer do
immutable rule as a model. They consider the issues of the anything against the efficiency of the new technologies. Although
moment and adopt the corresponding provisions. (Qiyou, the passage comments on the incomparable military superiority of
2000, chap. XLIX, p. 1085) the weapons of the present compared with those of the past, with
it Han Fei aims to highlight the ineluctable process of time and
The passage that we have just quoted picks up a large part the need to adapt to it. Insisting on a model of action belonging
of the elements that the tradition linked to Confucian thought to an outdated time and using ancient instruments to tackle an
had used to sanction a model of government dedicated to the age based on efficiency and on the power of technology reveals a
reiteration of attitudes or methods from the past. In that sense, reckless mentality that surely leads to death in a terrain as scarcely
Han Fei’s argument is controversial and provocative. It uses the indulgent as war. However, the gap between the war technology
evolutional schema associated with Confucian theories to show, of the past and the current strategic and military conditions for the
from these same positions, the implicit contradictions in its present not only serves to show the necessary adaptation of the
conservative attitude. Although the passages relating to the past political and administrative tools to a new social reality, but at the
have often been interpreted stating the iconoclastic conception of same time also sanctions its coercive nature. The passage from the
history in Han Fei’s system, my opinion is more to the contrary: Han Hanfeizi ends with a number of sentences loaded with intention.
Fei does not aim to break with the weight of history but, on the When he sustains that the “men of remote Antiquity contended
contrary, to remain radically faithful to its teachings. Consequently, in virtue; those of late Antiquity held competitions in intelligence
from this perspective, the Hanfeizi in fact does nothing more than and perspicacity; those of the present only understand strength”,
take to the extreme the respect and fidelity to history shown by Han Fei explicitly associates a conception of the historical process
philosophers attached to Confucianism, only the lesson taken from in which human society slowly loses its harmony, its virtuous and
the study and analysis of it is diametrically opposed to the one peaceful coexistence and the use of techniques and methods
sustained by its ideological adversaries. For Han Fei, seeking to of coercive government. However, in the conception of time
impose order on society through antiquated and expired means proclaimed by Han Fei, that social mutation that favours and
proves to be as vain and dangerous as historically incorrect. In legitimises the use of political violence is not due to a radical
an age of great disputes and permanent convulsions, persisting transformation of human nature in itself; it is not the case that
in the use of inappropriate, out-of-date methods leads inevitably in the past men were kind-hearted and that subsequently their
to the most absolute disorder and, therefore, to the ruin of the very essence was transformed into the opposite. Then, to what
country. is owed this difference between the attitude or social behaviour
Han Fei justifies constant innovation as an efficient method of the men of the past and those of the present? Han Fei offers
for establishing the social order in the scrutiny of history itself, in an answer in the following passage:
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Albert Galvany

23. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
the humanities in the digital age
http://digithum.uoc.edu Instrumentalisation of Passions, Social Regulation and…
In Antiquity, men did not work on the land, and the fruits to be judged morally, as in reality it is just a “natural” fact, one
of vegetation were sufficient on which to feed; women did more condition to which the governor must adapt. In Han Fei’s
not weave and the hides of beasts were enough with which to opinion, if people can be governed, this is because they belong
clothe oneself. Without toiling hard, sufficient abundance was to the kingdom of living beings and to the fact that, as such,
obtained. The population was scant, whereas material goods they are inexorably subject to biological laws. Far from seeking
surfeited. Consequently, people did not know what conflicts to reform man as a being dominated by natural inclinations, the
were. Without the promise of great prebends and without art of politics –the science of the government of men– conceived
the threat of serious punishments, men governed themselves. by the more authoritarian currents of Chinese thought, legalism
Yet in the present day, a family with five children is not at all and military strategy, simply aims to adapt fully to that state in
exceptional; when each one of them has five children in turn, a the broad sense of the term: to accept, as such, the pulsional
grandparent could find themselves surrounded by twenty-five nature and adapt to it:
grandchildren. With a population growth of this calibre, men
have multiplied whereas goods have become scant. Now it In general terms, to govern the world, it is entirely necessary
is necessary to work hard to achieve subsistence, thus, eager to adapt to human nature. Punishments and rewards may be
for gain, men argue over bread crumbs. And no matter how used thanks to the fact that human nature is composed of
much reward is doubled and penalties are toughened, there preferences and aversions. Consequently, once punishments and
is no way of bringing an end to the disorder. (Qiyou, 2000, rewards can be used, prohibitions are respected and orders are
chap. XLIX, pp. 1087-1088) carried out, such that order reigns. (Qiyou, chap. XLVIII, p. 1045)
The lucidity shown in the analysis of history by Han Fei in The government of men depends on the political and
this passage is astonishing. It is not strange that some experts administrative methods being able to adapt correctly and necessarily
consider that his work anticipates by more than twenty centuries (bi yin 必因) to their passionate nature, to the irrefutable fact
the transcendental demographic theories on the development that their behavioural mechanism responds to the tendency or
and evolution of human societies formulated by T. R. Malthus propensity towards pleasure or profit and the rejection of suffering
(1766-1834) (Chun, Xiaobo, 1983, pp. 93-94). For Han Fei, the or harm. It is the inclinations and aversions of human natures
reason why these archaic societies reached a perfect peaceful that enable, in the final instance, the efficiency of the disciplinary
coexistence, free of antagonisms and disputes, is exclusively due technology, the punishments and the rewards, the true foundation
to the evident balance between a scant population and abundant of the law/model (fa 法) and, by extension, of life in society. The
material resources. In his opinion, the extraordinary opulence very foundation of society lies, for these writers, in the passionate
that characterised the life of these remote ancestors meant that nature of the human being, in the dimension that it shares with
they could completely fulfil their desires, fully realise their most the other living beings, and not in what differentiates it: criminal
basic inclinations, without conflicts occurring; the abundance of law is nothing more than the crystallisation and extension of
resources dilutes the competition for survival and prevents disputes natural reason. Consequently, once the essential mechanism of
from breaking out in the society, in a way that people can even behaviour of humankind has been discovered, government and
allow themselves the luxury of governing themselves (min zi zhi control become evident: it suffices with availing completely of life
民自治) without the need to resort to any higher external authority through the power of punishing with extreme severity the actions
of a repressive nature. However, as of the moment when that that do not fit in with the will of the sovereign or the strategist
rare favourable imbalance begins to invert, the situation changes and of rewarding generously those who do so in order to obtain in
drastically: the uncontrolled increase in population, the exponential consequence a docile man-machine willing to obey “naturally”:
growth of the demography, transforms the material conditions of
life and means that the populations now have to compete even That by which the far-sighted sovereign controls and
to satisfy their most elementary appetites and needs. handles their subjects is solely [the logic of] the two handles.
The two handles are based on punishments and rewards. What
do punishments and rewards mean? Punishments consist of
Human nature: from annihilating and executing; rewards of the granting of honours
the spontaneous to the automatic and remunerations. (Qiyou, 2000, chap. VII, p. 120)
Far from attempting to correct or reform this pulsional nature, Han In short, the social system of these authoritarian thinkers
Fei limits himself to adapting to it; for him, the idea that the basic lies in the impartial and automatic distribution of rewards and
behavioural mechanism of humankind consists of the permanent punishments depending on the efforts and the results obtained by
quest for pleasure and the rejection of what is harmful is not liable each individual. It concerns, in effect, the subject interiorising this
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Albert Galvany

24. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
the humanities in the digital age
http://digithum.uoc.edu Instrumentalisation of Passions, Social Regulation and…
behavioural schema, adapted to their most basic nature, until they interest. We address ourselves, not to the humanity but to their
make it their own and welcome it into themselves without even self-love, and never talk to them of their own necessities but
being aware of it. The ideal of this system lies in that finally, and as of their own advantages. (A. Smith, 1986, pp. 118-119)
an effect of its brutality and its efficiency, the specific application
of the punishments or of the penalties proves to be completely By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign
useless insofar as the subject has fully interiorised the desired industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that
behavioural schema: the fund of passions and spontaneous urges industry in such a manner as its produce may be of greatest
(ziran 自然) becomes, thanks to the implacable application of this value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in
rigid behavioural schema, an automatic, predictable and perfectly many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an
domesticated behaviour. Faced with the challenge of governing end which was no part of his intention. […] By pursuing his
and administering a huge number of subjects, the conception own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more
of power designed by Han Fei found in that apparently simple effectually than when he really intends to promote it. (A.
system of punishments and rewards the key to achieving all of Smith, 1986, p. 32)
their ambitions: subject to and by their own natural inclinations,
these masses tend to become mere predictable objects that can be The dazzling prose of Han Fei reproduces these very ideas
manipulated, devoid of any capacity for resistance or opposition. put forward by Adam Smith, indeed with prodigiously similar
Perfectly adapted to the pulsional nature of the human being, the arguments and analogies when explaining his conception of social
disciplinary apparatus of punishments and rewards is no more, in relationships:
fact, than the extension of the tendencies seen in natural flows
and cycles. If a doctor lances boils and absorbs their blood without
being related at all to the patients, it is because the egotistical
benefit drives him to act like this. Similarly, the yearning for
fortune and wealth is what makes a wheelwright build his
The dream of the self-regulated carriages in the hope that the kingdom is prosperous; while
society: egoism and the invisible hand the coffin maker does so trusting that there will be many
deaths. And this is not because one of them is charitable and
The true foundations of the social order designed by Han Fei, the other malevolent, but simply because if there are no rich
therefore, consist of establishing a device minutely calculated in individuals, the former will soon have no customers, just as if
the irrational, pulsional side to humans, in their insatiable thirst for there are no deaths, neither will the latter be able to sell his
gain, in the pure logic of egotistical desire. “Altruism encourages coffins. The coffin maker does not detest his fellow men by
resentment, while self-interest certifies social harmony”, Han Fei nature, but he is interested in them dying. (Qiyou, 2000, chap.
states without scruples (Qiyou, 2000, chap. XXXII). The logic XVII, pp. 322-323; chap. XIX, pp. 366-367)
that dominates the relationship between sovereign and subjects,
between governors and governed, in short, the equation that The natural government of legalist thought is similar to the
impregnates the entire social body and keeps it in perfect conditions natural laws of the liberal economy; the despotism of celestial
of balance, prosperity and coherence is none other than that of regulation is related to the tyranny of market self-regulation by
self interest (li 利), of the calculation of advantage and gain (ji means of the invisible hand. Both systems are grounded in a
計). On this point, the authoritarian theories of Han Fei coincide supposedly efficient, natural and spontaneous mechanism, fully
astonishingly with the elemental theses of economic liberalism, as independent from its actors, be they subjects or consumers.
explained by one of its leading authors, Adam Smith:5 Founded on the law of desire, on the range of the most basic
human instincts, Han Fei’s disciplinary apparatus and the market
Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes logic of Adam Smith project an abstract mechanism of total
to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this regulation, the efficiency of which depends on its ability to
which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is remove itself from the desire of the people to whom it is applied:
in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater domination of the latter requires that the source of this mechanism
part of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is not be transcendent, that the system be depersonalised, perfectly
from benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker inaccessible. The latter appears not to have been fulfilled in Han
that we expect our dinner, but from the regard to their own Fei’s proposal; when all is said and done, this last instance from
5. The first and best attempt at comparison between these philosophers corresponds to J. Levi (1992). “Gouvernement naturel, économie de marché et
despotisme démocratique”. Le Genre Humain. No 26. pp. 141-161.
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Albert Galvany

25. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
the humanities in the digital age
http://digithum.uoc.edu Instrumentalisation of Passions, Social Regulation and…
where the law emanates is the monarch, an individual. Han Fei’s configuration in perpetual motion that prevents any attempt to
theory has a whole range of practices and methods to resolve this stop them, to fix them, and thus allows for future adaptation.
sticking point, which seek the dissolution of the monarchy as an Han Fei’s ideal sovereign is placed on the same level and
individual full of passions and dominated by them. shares the same attributes assigned to the way with regard to
The ideal governor conceived by Han Fei, in the very image pure negativity or vacuum (wu 無), which, nonetheless, generates
of Heaven or the ancestral spirits, must be devoid of all traces and dominates the rest of beings. By clinging to this absence of
of passion. Without desires, immobile, inactive and empty, it is forms or configuration (wu xing 無形), the adversary cannot either
founded on the ordering principle of nature, the way, or dao 道. apprehend it or even give it a name: by being placed beyond any
Before exercising domination over others, the sovereign must determination, imperceptible, unnameable, indefinable, it then
have self-domination. Through meticulous corporal and mental melts into the subtlety and the efficiency of invisible spirits. Like
discipline, described and contained in texts associated with Laozi, them, the governor successfully embraces the principle of the
the master of men must gradually throw off all their intentional and absence of forms and becomes unfathomable; so they are left
irrational elements to embrace pure vacuity, transcend completely outside the scope of the rival and of their subjects. As in the
the instinctive laws that dominate the rest of their subjects. military sphere, where it is necessary to shed any constant form
to exercise domination over the adversary, the sphere of politics
The way impregnates all issues, every destiny conforms to also demands a total absence of determination or configuration to
it, it charts life and death. It classifies the names and different achieve the imposing of their will. This radical absence that is the
events, bringing together what is identical by nature. It is essential structure of their whole being becomes fundamental: by
therefore true to say that the way does not identify with the melting into the pure negativity, they place themselves at the root
ten thousand beings, its efficiency does not identify with the of the original unfathomable vacuum that, for Chinese thought,
yin and the yang; the same way that balance does not identify dominates all things. No matter how paradoxical it may be for our
with the light and the heavy, nor does the line identify with tradition, in China, the non-being, that which lacks permanent
the projected or the sunken, the diapason does not identify configurations or forms, is prior to and controls that which is
with the dry or the wet, nor does the master of men identify already formed, which has a precise constitution. On the basis of
with his subjects and ministers. These six cases show the this unique metaphysical schema, the governor is confused with
importance of the way. There are no two ways, so it is called the subtle efficiency of the spirits, with the movement and the
“One”. Therefore, the intelligent ruler esteems singleness, principles of nature, and so certifies the essential templates of an
the characteristic feature of the way. (Qiyou, 2000, chap. absolute power.
VIII. P. 152)
This excerpt reproduced from the Hanfeizi insists time and time Reference
again on stating the disparity, the radical heterogeneity between
the way and phenomenal beings (wu 物); the metaphysical BILLETER, J. F. (2006). Contre François Jullien. Paris: Éditions Allia.
and abstract vocabulary, taken from Taoist literature, stresses BODDE, D. (1938). China’s First Unifier: A Study of the Ch’in
1938).
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the transcendence of the cosmological-political principle from Dynasty in the Life of Li Ssu (280?-208 B.C.). Leiden: E. J. Brill.
which human beings emerge and on which they depend. Inside CHUN, Z. 張純; XIAOBO, W. 王曉波 (1983). Han Fei sixiang
this schema, the figure of the sovereign is identified with that de lishi yanjiu 韓非思想的歷史研究. Taibei: Lian Jing chuban
transcendent principle. Totally dehumanised, they become the only gongsi.
exception that breaks the rule and the tyranny of passions: from GALVANY, A. (2004). “La genealogía del poder coercitivo en la
their dominant, transcendent position, the sovereign, in harmony China antigua: historia, instituciones políticas y legitimación”.
with the inhuman laws and principles that govern the universe, Estudios de Asia y África. Vol. 39, no. 2.
now proves to be inaccessible. As in strategic thought, Han Fei’s JULLIEN, F. (2007). Chemin faisant: Connaître la Chine, relancer
sovereign achieves perfection when they are able not to show la philosophie (Réplique à ***). Paris: Éditions du Seuil.
any flank, any constant external or internal disposition (xing 形) QIYOU, C. 陳奇猷 (2000). Hanfeizi xin jiao zhu 韓非子新校注.
to which the adversary can adapt. All of the political-strategic Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe.
vocabulary shared by Chinese authoritarianism revolves around SMITH, A. (1986). The Wealth of Nations. New York: Penguin
this same principle: like water, symbolically associated with the Classics.
underlying order of the universe, the perfect army and sovereign SMITH, J. Z. (1985). “What a Difference a Difference Makes”.
melt into the fundamental dynamism of that supreme principle; In: J. NEUSNER, E. S. FRERICHS (eds.). To See Ourselves as
they must present a continuous polymorphic plasticity, a permanent Others See Us: Christians, Jews, “Others” in Late Antiquity.
absence of rigid and determined forms and configurations, a Chico (California): Scholar Press.
Iss. 10 | May 2008 iSSn 1575-2275
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Albert Galvany

26. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
the humanities in the digital age
http://digithum.uoc.edu Instrumentalisation of Passions, Social Regulation and…
Albert Galvany
Postdoctoral researcher at the École Pratiques des Hautes Études (Religious Studies department)
albert.galvany@upf.edu
Graduate in Philosophy, with a diploma in Chinese Studies and a PhD in Comparative Literature. He has studied at the East Asian
Languages and Civilisations Faculty at the University of Paris, VII, where he specialised in classical Chinese and the intellectual
history of ancient China. He is the author of editions of classical Chinese texts such as Sun Tzu’s El arte de la Guerra [“The
Art of War’], or Wang Bi’s Comentarios al Yijing [“Yijing Commentaries’]. He is also the author of scientific contributions to
international journals on the history of classical Chinese thought and translations, of which the following stand out: Shigehisa
Kuriyama’s The Expressiveness of the Body, Jean Levi’s Confucio, or François Jullien’s La Grande Image n’a pas de forme.
This work is subject to a Creative Commons Attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 2.5 Spain licence. It may
be copied, distributed and broadcast provided that the author and the e-journal that publishes it (Digithum)
are cited. Commercial use and derivative works are not permitted. The full licence can be consulted on http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/es/deed.en.
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Albert Galvany

27. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
the humanities in the digital age
http://digithum.uoc.edu
“Orientalism” Dossier
On Monkeys and Japanese: Mimicry and
Anastrophe in Orientalist Representation*
Blai Guarné
Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Department of Humanities, Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona)
and Department of Social Anthropology, University of Barcelona
blai.guarne@upf.edu
Submission date: November 2007
acceptance date: December 2007
Published in: May 2008
Recommended citation:
GUARNÉ, Blai (2008). “On Monkeys and Japanese: Mimicry and Anastrophe in Orientalist Representation”. In: Carles
PRADO-FONTS (coord.). “Orientalism” [online dossier]. Digithum. No. 10. UOC. [Retrieved on: dd/mm/yy].
http://www.uoc.edu/digithum/10/dt/eng/guarne.pdf
ISSN 1575-2275
Abstract
A number of lines of investigation are presented from a current project into the implications of Orientalism in the stereotypical
representation of Japan through the analysis of the discourses of the paradox and inverse civilisation, and the consideration of
the animalisation strategies of the Other in the travel literature of Pierre Loti and the fiction of Pierre Boulle.
Keywords
animalisation, cultural paradox, inverse civilisation, colonial mimesis, Orientalism, Planet of the Apes, Japan
Resum
Es presenten algunes línies de treball d’un projecte en curs sobre les implicacions de l’orientalisme en la representació estereo-
típica del Japó per mitjà de l’anàlisi dels discursos de la paradoxa i de la civilització inversa, i la consideració de les estratègies
d’animalització de l’Altre en la literatura de viatges de Pierre Loti i l’obra de ficció de Pierre Boulle.
Paraules clau
animalització, paradoxa cultural, civilització inversa, mimesi colonial, orientalisme, El planeta dels simis, Japó
*
Certain points in this article have been discussed in B. Guarné (2008), «Imágenes ominosas. Escarnios e injurias en la representación de la “mujer japonesa”»,
in: E. BARLÉS; D. ALMAZÁN (coords.), La mujer japonesa: realidad y mito, Zaragoza: Asociación de Estudios Japoneses en España (AEJE) / Universidad de
Zaragoza.
Iss. 10 | May 2008 iSSn 1575-2275 Journal of the UOC’s Humanities Department and Languages and Cultures Department
26 Els estudis que impulsen la revista només s’indiquen a la primera pàgina.
Blai Guarné
Federico Borges Sáiz
Original Title: De monos y japoneses: mimetismo y anástrofe en la representación orientalista

28. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
the humanities in the digital age
http://digithum.uoc.edu On Monkeys and Japanese: Mimicry and Anastrophe…
(W. D. Jordan, 1968), the image of the monkey constituted a
If you want to know who we are, fertile metaphor for both justifying the colonial enterprise and
We are gentlemen of Japan: denying its consequences.1 Two fundamental elements supported
On many a vase and jar- this nuclear position: on the one hand, evolutionary primitivism as
On many a screen and fan, a symmetric and inverse characteristic to the civilising superiority
We figure in lively paint: of the coloniser; and on the other, its pedagogical potential
Our attitude’s queer and quaint- in reforming and transforming the colonised. Imitation of the
You’re wrong if you think it ain’t, oh! monkey was therefore an archetype of the natural immaturity
of the Other and at the same time a first-class instrument for its
The Mikado, W. S. Gilbert correction, the medium whereby civilisation was possible even
among the clumsiest and slowest of its beneficiaries.
Since the mid-19th century, imitation has been a key concept
There is nothing surprising in the fact that in the debate on cultural evolution, articulated at the confluence
the same people who arrange chrysanthemums of the natural and social sciences. A century before, Linné’s racial
cast swords. classification had established the bases of evolutionary study with
the pioneering link between monkeys and humans.2 Lamarck’s
The Interpretation of Cultures, C. Geertz evolution model being supplanted by Darwin’s conception of
natural selection would allow for the identification of imitation
as a learning and adaptation strategy common to all animals.
Orientalism and colonial mimesis Following in the wake of evolution theses, works by Romanes from
comparative psychology, the ethnic psychology of Letourneau
Despite being well known, the extraordinary potential of or the psychology of peoples and the masses of Le Bon would
penetration of Orientalist discourse, capable of transforming the contribute to the establishment of homologies between primatism,
Other into what it attributes to it, still comes as a surprise. The primitivism, mental underdevelopment and infancy (N. Dias,
operation of power and knowledge of Orientalism defines and 2005). At the end of the century, Les lois de l’imitation (1890),
shapes the conditions of possibility of a colonised Other, whose by Gabriel Tarde,3 would evaluate behaviour whose potential of
existence is reduced to the obsessive reproduction of a repertoire conveyance would constitute a cause célèbre in the intellectual
of stereotypical images, which are both ambivalent and long- debate with Émile Durkheim4 (1897). Only the genius of Marcel
lasting (Bhabha, 1983); a set of fetish imprints through which Mauss (1936), after the end of the first quarter of the 20th century,
the colonised becomes the indisputable evidence of the inferiority would achieve a complex integration of sociology, psychology and
attributed to them. biology into the cultural reflection on imitative practices.5
This inferiority has its representational punctum in the simian Yet the representational resorts of imitation had been deeply
mystification of the colonised. With profound historical implications established in the imagination of colonial domination. The image
1. “It was a strange and eventually tragic happenstance of nature that the Negro’s homeland was the habitat of the animal which in appearance most resembles
man. The animal called ‘orang-outang’ by contemporaries (actually the chimpanzee) was native to those parts of western Africa where the early slave
trade was heavily concentrated. Though Englishmen were acquainted (for the most part vicariously) with monkeys and baboons, they were unfamiliar with
tailless apes who walked about like men. Accordingly, it happened that Englishmen were introduced to the anthropoid apes and to Negroes at the same
time and in the same place. The startlingly human appearance and movements of the ‘ape’ –a generic term though often used as a synonym for the ‘orang
outang’- aroused some curious speculations” (W.D. Jordan, 1968, pp. 28-29).
2. A scientific context that it was felt had found in the idea of race a solid base for human classification. Linné, Systema Naturae (1735); Bufón, Histoire
naturelle (1749); Blumenbach, De Generis Humani Varietate Nativa Liber (1775); Cuvier, Le règne animal distribué d’après son organisation (1816).
3. Tarde defines imitation as “celui d’une action à distance d’un esprit sur un autre, et d’une action qui consiste dans une reproduction quasi photographique d’un
cliché cérébral par la plaque sensible d’un autre cerveau […] Le psychologique s’explique par le social, précisément parce que le social naît du psychologique
[…] J’entends par imitation toute empreinte de photographie inter-spirituelle, pour ainsi dire qu’elle soit voulue ou non, passive ou active” (G. Tarde, 1993,
p. viii).
4. “Il y a imitation quand un acte a pour antécédent immédiat la représentation d’un acte semblable, antérieurement accompli par autrui, sans que, entre cette
représentation et l’exécution, s’intercale aucune opération intellectuelle, explicite ou implicite, portant sur les caractères intrinsèques de l’acte reproduit.”
(E. Durkheim, 1930, p. 115).
5. It was in his study into body techniques where Mauss set out this idea: “Et je conclus que l’on ne pouvait avoir une vue claire de tous ces faits, de la course,
de la nage, etc., si on ne faisait pas intervenir une triple considération au lieu d’une unique considération, qu’elle soit mécanique et physique, comme une
théorie anatomique et physiologique de la marche, ou qu’elle soit au contraire psychologique ou sociologique. C’est le triple point de vue, celui de ‘l’homme
total’, qui est nécessaire”. In the imitative act, Mauss recognises a triple dimension : social, psychological and biological. “Mais le tout, l’ensemble est
conditionné par les trois éléments indissolublement mêlés” (M. Mauss, 1993, p. 369).
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of the Negro, of the coolie, of the oriental, was called to carry out discourse that found in “pantomime simiesque” (A. Memmi, 1966,
a process of reform in which the mimesis of the coloniser would p. 124) a fruitful means for reducing anxiety at the successful
be seen as the last of its consequences, when in reality it would metropolitisation of the colonised.
constitute the first and most persistent of its threats.
In the colonial system, the universal dignity of the coloniser A l’effort obstiné du colonisé de surmonter le mépris (que
was only seen in relation to the natural inferiority of the Other méritent son arriération, sa faiblesse, son altérité, il finit par
in the civilising process. It was a relationship founded on the l’admettre), à sa soumission admirative, son souci appliqué
maintenance of the bonne distance (E. Saada, 2005), the manifest de se confondre avec le colonisateur, de s’habiller comme lui,
distinction between the reformer and the reformed, the officer de parler, de se conduire comme lui, jusque dans ses tics et sa
and the subordinate, the original and the copy, as a means of manière de faire la cour, le colonisateur oppose un deuxième
making the latter an “authorized version of Otherness” (H. K. mépris: la dérision. Il déclare, il l’explique au colonisé, que ces
Bhabha, 1984). An impossible effort for “similarity”, to “become efforts sont vains, qu’il n’y gagne qu’un trait supplémentaire:
another” (A. Memmi, 1971, p. 186-189), turned the colonised le ridicule. Car jamais il n’arrivera à s’identifier à lui, pas même
into a subordinate copy of the coloniser, rushing them into the à reproduire correctement son rôle. Au mieux, s’il ne veut
imbalance of a “non-existence” (F. Fanon, 1993, p. 139) trapped pas trop blesser le colonisé, le colonisateur utilisera toute sa
in the constant renunciation of their own identity.6 métaphysique caractèrologique. Les génies des peuples sont
Paradoxically, the colonial discursivity contained the germ of incompatibles; chaque geste est sous-tendu par l’âme entière,
its own subversion. Beyond its more proclamatory values, the etc… Plus brutalement, il dira que le colonisé n’est qu’un
reform of the colonised was only efficient on the surface, enclosed singe. Et plus le singe est subtil, plus il imite bien, plus le
in a level of mechanicism that, avoiding their mutation into an colonisateur s’irrite. Avec cette attention et ce flair aiguisé que
equal, kept them in a state of “pure colonised” (A. Memmi, 1971, développe la malveillance, il dépistera la nuance révélatrice,
p. 146).7 Yet the imitative practice implied an uncontrollable dans le vêtement ou le langage, la «faute de goût», qu’il finit
competence in use, diluting the difference between imitator and toujours par découvrir. Un homme à cheval sur deux cultures
imitated. The trop bien imitation (E. Saada, 2005) of the coloniser est rarement bien assis, en effet, et le colonisé ne trouve pas
by the colonised would then be revealed as a more worrying and toujours le ton juste. (A. Memmi, 1966, p. 160-161)
disturbing effect than its own failure. If, on the one hand, it tested
the eclosion of a system that denied the colonised the originality The accusation of imposture, of grotesque imitation or
that they took on as their own, on the Other, it undermined subversive simulation, thus degraded the colonised to the level
producing a perturbing scenario: the dismantling of their of mere copy, which made preservation of the domain possible,
privileges. Thus, imitation became in turn “un vecteur essentiel of the coloniser’s privilege in the colonial drama. (A. Memmi,
de l’assimilation des indigènes et une menace pour la reproduction 1971, p. 211). The case of Japan is particularly revealing. Not
des identités européennes outre-mer” (E. Saada, 2005, p. 29). having been formally colonised, Japan would integrate itself with
Beyond the untiring mimesis of the coloniser, the colonised, the strength of an equal into the European-Atlantic order, which
recognisable Other insofar as a “subject of a difference that is drove its opening-up during the second half of the 19th century.
almost the same, but not quite” (H. K. Bhabha, 1995, p. 86), thus In this process, the colonial imagination would have to articulate
integrated a menacing presence in the mimetic tension with the specific forms of domination that adjusted Japan to the idea of
Westerner.8 A disturbingly close resemblance to similarity made “Oriental” shaped in the “absolute and systematic difference
him a subject of ambivalence between mimesis and mimicry, the between the West, which is rational, developed, humane, superior,
reply and the replication, the copy and the parody. Ultimately, and the Orient, which is aberrant, undeveloped, inferior” (E. Said,
the imitation of the metropolitan meant a strange victory that 1980, p. 300).
presaged an inexorable defeat.9 In this context, the image of the Essentialising Japan in terms of a particular, unusual and
monkey would contribute to re-establishing the confidence of a paradoxical characterisation constituted a productive strategy
6. We can see in this exercise the violence that makes up the mimetic desire, in the sense put forward by R. Girard (1978).
7. As “être de carence” (A. Memmi, 1966, p. 148), “hors de l’histoire et hors de la cité” (A. Memmi, 1966, p. 129). “La véritable raison, la raison première
de la plupart de ses carences est celle-ci : le colonialiste n’a jamais décidé de transformer la colonie à l’image de la métropole , et le colonisé à son image. Il
ne peut admettre une telle adéquation, qui détruirait le principe de ses privilèges” (A. Memmi, 1966, p. 106).
8. An uneasy partial presence (H. K. Bhabha, 1995, p. 88) that plunged the superiority of the coloniser into the bottomless mimetic vertigo referred to by M.
Taussig (1993, p. 237).
9. In a similar sense, B. Fuchs (2003) analysed how imitation eroded imperial power from the start of European colonialism: “By exposing the constructedness
of homogeneity, challenging and ironizing narratives of difference, and effectively enabling subjects to cross boundaries, mimesis introduces or reserves
cultural variance under the guise of similarity” (B. Fuchs, 2003, p. 166).
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to introduce its entity into the political order articulated by religious institutions and a profound sense of honour. Elements of
Orientalism “as a Western style for dominating, restructuring, civilisation exclusively assumed by Christian Europe. The cultural
and having authority over the Orient” (E. Said, 1980, p. 3). An complexity of the discovery and, fundamentally, the ability of
order based on the non-Western/Western, pre-modern/modern, its chroniclers to tell of it, presented the image of Japan as a
particular/universal dichotomy (N. Sakai, 1988),10 which configures paradox, or indeed, an oxymoron, going as far as establishing in
the “non-Western” from the lack of something which defines its characterisation the particular forms of this discourse.
it negatively compared with Western completeness (B. Turner, Traditionally used in the description of non-European peoples,13
1994).11 the resource of the counter position would therefore acquire specific
Japan would therefore integrate an Orient that would be characteristics in the idiosyncratic representation of Japan. Both the
Orientalised “not only because it was discovered to be ‘Oriental’ contrarieties highlighted by Alessandro Valignano14 (1583, 1592)
in all those ways considered common place by an average and the contradictions recorded by Luís Fróis15 (1585) emphasised
nineteenth-century European, but also because it could be –that is, the idea of Japan as the opposite to Europe, but not necessarily
submitted to being– made Oriental” (E. Said, 1980, p. 5-6). In this “savage” or “barbaric”. Beyond these notions, Japan was only
political project, discussions on paradox and inverse civilisation (B. decipherable in its antagonism with Europe. The structure of the
Guarné, 2007b) constituted seminal representational strategies12 counter position would therefore contribute to shaping “the
in the characterisation of Japan. Japanese” into a mirror image, the opposite of “the European”.
From that point on, Western imagination of the exotic would
represent Japan as a cultural anastrophe, between the fascination
From Japanese paradox for the peculiar and the unease at the equivalent.
to Japanese oxymoron It is significant that this discourse should be reproduced
throughout time. Ultimately, the establishment of a template
The essential language of paradox was historically a unique means of formal correspondences between Europe and Japan implied
in the Western representation of Japan, covering the different the recognition of a relationship of equivalence, something that
levels that occurred between contradiction and antagonism. The sensitively bordered on the weighing up of the central position of
first chronicles of the Jesuit missionaries already bear witness to the West in the world. Following the forced opening-up of Japan
the difficulty in accommodating their experience to the premises of in the 19th century, the homologies were difficult to combine with
the Savage/Civilised dichotomy that constituted the classification the geography of imperial domination in the spirit of “the West
of the world in the 16th century. and the rest” (S. Hall, 1992). In this context, the impossibility
The society discovered offered many of the elements attributed of capturing a reality that stubbornly eluded the imagination of
to the savagery of the infidel: geographical remoteness, strange colonial domination would lead to absolute estrangement. The
customs, “aberrant” and, evidently, ignorant of the “true faith”, celebrated topsy-turvydom entry of the work Things Japanese
but their presence was paradoxical in a culture sensitive to the arts (1890), by Basil Hall Chamberlain, demonstrated the intellectual
and learning, divided into hierarchical forms of government, with consecration of this extravagant characterisation.16 As it cannot be
10. “After all, what we normally call universalism is a particularism thinking itself as universalism, it is doubtful whether universalism could ever exist otherwise”
(N. Sakai, 1997, p. 157).
11. B. Guarné (2007a).
12. Particular forms of representation set out in systems of truth, in the Foucaultian sense, involved in the stereotypical construction of the Other.
13. As J. Bestard et al. (1987) explain, from the 15th century on, European seafarers and members of religious orders had used the anti-ethical formula of the
us/them in their descriptions. The structure of the counter position allowed decoding in close terms of the peoples discovered by means of a dual distortion,
which while condemning the differences as deviations tried to discover similarities, without ceasing to view these societies as “savage”.
14. “Tienen también otros ritos y costumbres tan diferentes de todas las otras naciones, que parece que estudiaron de propósito cómo no se conforman con
ninguna gente. No se puede imaginar lo que acerca de esto pasa, porque realmente se puede decir que Japón es un mundo al revés de cómo corre en
Europa” (A. Valignano, 1954, p. 33).
15. “La gente de Europa se deleita con el pescado asado y cocido; los japoneses huelgan mucho más de comérselo crudo […] Nuestros cerezos dan muchas
y hermosas cerezas, los de Japón dan muy pequeñas y amargas cerezas, y muy hermosas flores que los japoneses estiman […]Las [mujeres] de Europa
trabajan con todos los medios y artificios para blanquearse los dientes; las japonesas trabajan con hierro y vinagre para hacer la boca y los dientes negros
[…] Nosotros enterramos nuestros difuntos; los japoneses en su mayor parte los queman” (L. Fróis, 2003, pp. 121-130).
16. “The whole method of treating horses is the opposite of ours […] They carry babies, not in their arms, but on theirs backs […] Japanese keys turn in instead
of out, and Japanese carpenters saw and plane towards, instead of away from, themselves […] When building a house, the Japanese construct the roof first
[…] Japanese women needle their thread instead of threading their needle, and that instead of running the needle through the cloth, they hold it still and
run the cloth upon it. Another lady, long resident in Tôkyô, says that the impulse of her Japanese maids is always to sew on cuffs, frills, and other similar
things, topsy-turvy and inside out. If that is not the ne plus ultra of contrariety, what is? […] Strangest of all, after bath the Japanese dry themselves with
a damp towel!” (B. H. Chamberlain, 1905, pp. 481-482).
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adjusted to the classification order, Japan would be represented lement petites, un air bibelot d’étagère, un air ouistiti, un air
as a paradox as both the sublime and the grotesque seemed je ne sais quoi… (P. Loti,1990, pp. 61)
possible.
[...] la petite, la minuscule madame Touki-San; haute
comme une demi-botte, celle-ci; treize ans au plus, et déjà
Between metaphor and reality femme, importante, pétulante, commère. Dans mon enfance,
on me menait quelquefois au théâtre des Animaux savants; il y
The work of French writer Pierre Loti17 constitutes a paradigmatic
expression of the literary conformation of this imaginary.18 Loti,
l’enchanteur du japonisme, is responsible for some of the longest
lasting passages in the stereotypical characterisation of Japan.
In his works we find, among others, the image of the Japanese
woman as a dragonfly and a butterfly, origin of endless subsequent
adaptations.19 The Japan described by Loti is the scenario of a
continuous déjà vu,20 a country “of enchantment and magic”, of
tea houses, lanterns, parasols and paper kites, smoking pipes and
iced liqueurs of essences of flowers, the “surprising home of all the
extravagancies” immersed in the intense “murmur of the cicadas”.
In his works Madame Chrysanthème (1887) and Japoneries
d’automne (1889),21 the images of “the West” and “the East”
shape the sensualist description of a landscape dominated by the
narcissistic view of the European. A view expressed in concrete
narrative forms that would inscribe Japan in the imaginary
categories of Orientalism.22 As metaphoric resources, the obsessive
articulation of the diminutive23 and the sustained practice of
animalisation will confine “the Japanese” to the “Oriental”
pole of the West/East equation. This equation is represented in
specific episodes as the «morganatic marriage» between Loti and
Chrysanthème, an expression of the Modern/Traditional inequality
in the Male/Female formula.
Mesdames les poupées […] Presque mignonnes, je vous
l’accorde, vous l’êtes, -à force de drôlerie, de mains délicates, Photograph of Pierre Loti in the garden of his mansion in Rochefort,
de pieds en miniature; mais laides, en somme, et puis ridicu- France
17. Pseudonym of Louis Marie Julien Viaud (1850-1923).
18. “Toujours du bizarre à outrance, du saugrenu macabre ; partout des choses à surprise qui semblent être les conceptions incompréhensibles de cervelles
tournées à l’envers des nôtres...” (P. Loti, 1920, p. 87). “Comme nous sommes loin de ce peuple japonais, comme nous sommes de race dissemblable!...”
(P. Loti, 1920, p. 229).
19. The image of the dragonfly foreshadowed the butterfly of the different versions of this work in the musical adaptation of André Messager (1893), as well
as in the story of Madame Butterfly, by John Luther Long (1898), and in the theatre version of David Belasco (1900), precedent of Puccini’s famous opera
(1904). “…Elle dormait à plat ventre sur les nattes, sa haute coiffure et ses épingles d’écaille faisant une saillie sur l’ensemble de son corps couché. La petite
traîne de sa tunique prolongeait en queue sa personne délicate. Ses bras étaient étendus en croix, ses manches déployées comme des ailes –et sa longue
guitare gisait à son côté. Elle avait un air de fée morte. Ou bien encore elle ressemblait à quelque grande libellule bleue qui se serait abattue là et qu’on y
aurait clouée [...] Quel dommage que cette petite Chrysanthème ne puisse pas toujours dormir : elle est très décorative, présentée de cette manière, -et
puis, au moins, elle ne m’ennuie pas” (P. Loti, 1990, pp. 108-109). “Leurs corps frêles, posés avec une grâce exotique, sont noyés dans des étoffes rigides
et des ceintures bouffantes dont les bouts retombent comme des ailes fatiguées. Elles me font penser je ne sais pourquoi, à de grands insectes rares ; sur
leurs vêtements, des dessins extraordinaires ont quelque chose de la bigarrure sombre des papillons nocturnes” (P. Loti, 1920, p. 228-229).
20. Loti feels “en plein dans ce petit monde imaginé, artificiel, que je connaissais déjà par les peintures des laques et des porcelaines. C’est si bien cela! [...] Je
l’avais deviné, ce Japon-là, bien long temps avant d’y venir” (P. Loti, 1920, p. 30).
21. Also part of this study is the consideration of La Troisième Jeunesse de Madame Prune (1905).
22. I develop this question in more detail in B. Guarné (2008), «Imágenes ominosas. Escarnios e injurias en la representación de la “mujer japonesa”», in: E.
Barlés; D. Almazán (coords.), La mujer japonesa: realidad y mito, Zaragoza: Asociación de Estudios Japoneses en España (AEJE) / Universidad de Zaragoza.
23. What Loti considers an image of “Japon physique et moral” (P. Loti, 1920, p. 220).
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avait là une certaine madame de Pompadour, un grand premier (1908), would censure the Japanese insistence on incorporating
rôle, qui était une guenon empanachée et que je vois encore. Western dress.24 European fashion constituted a sign of civilisation;
Cette Touki-San me la rappelle. (P. Loti, 1990, p. 95) its adoption by the Japanese, a form of lèse-majesté (I. Littlewood,
1996, p. 25), a hybrid masquerade (H. T. Finck, 1896)25 which
D’ailleurs je reconnais le charme des petits enfants japonais; plunged Japan into le grotesque et la bouffonnerie pitoyable”
il y en a d’adorables. –Mais, ce charme qu’ils ont, comment (P. Loti, 1920, p. 299). Compared with Western modernity, Japan
passe-t-il si vite pour devenir la grimace vieillotte, la laideur was only tolerable in its Orientalist representation,26 “Japanised”
souriante, l’air singe?... (P. Loti, 1990, p. 155) as an exotic tableau vivant populated by samurais and geishas
in kimonos.
Petites mousmés très mignonnes, vieilles dames très sin-
gesques, entrant avec leur boîte à fumer, leur parasol couvert The Japanese female costume undoubtedly has its
de peinturlures, leurs petits cris, leurs révérences ; caquetant, disadvantages in practical life (it hampers the gait), but it
se complimentant, sautillant, ayant toutes les peines du monde is infinitely more picturesque and becoming than a Parisian
à tenir leur sérieux. (P. Loti, 1990, p. 174) costume on a Parisian woman; and when the Parisian costume
is transferred to a Japanese woman, the effect is usually
Un peu trop dorés, trop chamarrés, ces innombrables mes- deplorable –an utter absence of fit, style, ease, and naturalness
sieurs japonais, ministres, amiraux, officiers ou fonctionnaires (H. T. Finck, 1896, p. 251).
quelconques en tenue de gala. Vaguement ils me rappellent
certain général Boum qui eut son heure de célébrité jadis. Here you saw how Western civilisation had eaten into
Et puis, l’habit à queue, déjà si laid pour nous, comme ils le them. Every tenth man was attired in Europe clothes from
portent singulièrement! Ils n’ont pas des dos construits pour hat to boots. It is a queer race. It can parody every type of
ces sortes de choses, sans doute; impossible de dire en quoi humanity to be met in a large English town. Fat and prosperous
cela réside, mais je leur trouve à tous, et toujours, je ne sais merchant with mutton-chop whiskers; mild-eyed, long-haired
quelle très proche ressemblance de singe. (P. Loti, 1890, p. professor of science, his clothes baggy about him; schoolboy
88-89) in Eton jacket, broadcloth trousers; young clerk, member of
the Clapham Athletic Club, in tennis flannels; artisans in sorely
Despite the eccentricity of these passages, it is not a marginal worn tweeds; top-hatted lawyer with clean-shaven upper lip
characterisation that, renouncing a stance of discursive centrality, and black leather bag; sailor out of work; and counter-jumper;
comprises an isolated portrayal. The simian representation of all these and many, many more you shall find in the streets of
the non-European constituted a common place in the system Tokyo in half an hour’s walk. But when you come to speak to
of colonial visibility. A year before the publication of Madame the imitation, behold it can only talk Japanese. You touch it,
Chrysanthème, Henry Adams (1886) was surprised not to have and it is not what you thought. (R. Kipling, 1988, p. 169).
found signs of monkeyism among the Japanese. This was a
frequent myth that, with regard to imitation, had to be refuted by This view would take on a unique entity in specific episodes of
Sidney L. Gulick (1903), even at the start of the century. The image history such as the Russo-Japanese war or during the conflict on
of the monkey constituted a powerful metaphor of the colonised the Pacific. American war propaganda articulated the most baneful
Japan, which also found in the cultural habit of dress an efficient images of the strangeness of the enemy, portraying the Japanese
element to emphasise the distance with the West. In this sense, in as animals, primarily “yellow monkeys” hiding in the jungles of
their travel journals and among several authors, D. Sladen (1892, Burma27 or raping white women in a characterisation that put
1903, 1904), G. Waldo Browne (1901) and Sir Henry Norman them in the category of the subhuman (J. W. Dower, 1986)28. The
24. D. Sladen (1892), The Japs at Home, Queer Things about Japan (1903), More Queer Things about Japan (1904), written together with N. Lorimer; G.
Waldo Browne (1901), Japan: the Place and the People; Sir Henry Norman (1908), The Real Japan.
25. The Orientalist view of Finck allows him to recognise surprising similarities: “In Kyôto even more than in Tôkyô, I was struck by the fact that, when Japanese
girls are very pretty they greatly resemble Spanish beauties in their sparkling black eyes, dark tresses, olive complexion, petite stature, and exquisite grace, at
least from the waist up. The resemblance would be greatly heightened if they would copy Spanish ways of arranging the hair and give up their stereotyped
style of combing it back from the forehead –the most trying and least becoming of all modes of coiffure” (H. T. Finck, 1896, p. 262).
26. In his correspondence with B. H. Chamberlain, Lafcadio Hearn wrote: “The country is certainly going to lose all its charm, -all its Japanesiness; it is going to
become all industrially vulgar and industrially common-place. And I feel tired of it. In short, the pendulum has swung the wrong way recently” (E. Bisland
(ed.), The Japanese Letters of Lafcadio Hearn, Boston / New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1910, p. 132.).
27. In films such as Objective, Burma!, by Raoul Walsh (1945), or Bataan, by Tay Garnett (1943), and Back to Bataan, by Edward Dmytryk (1945).
28. “The variety of such metaphors was so great that they sometimes seemed causal and almost original. On the contrary, they were well routinized as idioms
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pedagogy of hate that had permeated North American popular
culture for centuries in the shameful image of the black monkey
was thus adapted to the portrayal of the Japanese in the formulas
of the yellow monkey and the Japes (Japs apes), reproducing
the White/Black racist structure in the White/Yellow opposition
(R. Slotkin, 1992).
The implications of the visual dehumanisation of the Japanese
would be profound and its consequences devastating for millions
of people. In a historically popular imaginary fascinated with the
extravagant description of Japan, the systematic and deliberate
repetition of these images would contribute to exceed the limits of
the myth shaping reality itself. As has been shown, despite the fact
that in reality no one believed that the Japanese were monkeys,
“once the metaphor is accepted, it becomes that much easier to erase
the line between image and reality” (I. Littlewood, 1996, p. 17).
It would not be until the imminent end of the war that the need
to prepare the American administration after victory would re-
humanise Japan in its antithetical relationship with the West. Again,
the discourses of the paradox and of the inverse civilisation would
permit an interpretation of a disconcerting culture, of aesthetes
and warriors, as refined in the cultivation of chrysanthemums as
brutal in the forging of katanas.29 In this project, the relativist twist
introduced by R. Benedict in The Chrysanthemum and the Sword
(1946) would have the virtue of shaking the cultural certainties of
the West,30 completing a circular and autopoietic discourse that
would end up being implied in the self-characterisation of the
Japanese themselves.31 Japanese advertising of the film, Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970),
the first sequel in the film series
Cultural anastrophe humans. A few years before Barthes wrote his naïf ethnography
and inverse civilisation on Japan, L’Empire des signes (1970), Boulle published La Planète
des singes33 (1963), the story of a non-human, primate civilisation
Half a century after the first edition of Madame Chrysanthème where apes had appropriated human technology.
appeared, another French writer, Pierre Boulle,32 was to publish a The stunning episode of the archaeological discovery of a
no less fantastic travel journal. Boulle would describe an “inverse human doll that could speak, pronounce “a simple word, a two-
civilisation” where chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans enslaved syllable word: ‘papa’” (P. Boulle, 1968, p. 182), the exclusive
of everyday discourse, and immensely consequential in their ultimate functions. At the simplest level, they dehumanized the Japanese and enlarged the
chasm between ‘us’ and ‘them’ to the point where it was perceived to be virtually unbridgeable” (J.W. Dower, 1986, pp. 81-82).
29. In this sense, R. Benedict (1946) wrote: “All these contradictions, however, are the map and woof of books on Japan They are true. Both the sword and
the chrysanthemum are a part of the picture. The Japanese are, to the highest degree, both aggressive and unaggressive, both militaristic and aesthetic,
both insolent and polite, rigid and adaptable, submissive and resentful of being pushed around, loyal and treacherous, brave and timid, conservative and
hospitable to new ways. They are terribly concerned about what other people will think of their behavior, and they are also overcome by guilt when other
people know nothing of their misstep. Their soldiers are disciplined to the hilt but are also insubordinate” (R. Benedict, 1946, pp. 2-3).
30. As has been pointed out, in the Benedict monograph “a mesura que els japonesos van deixant de ser éssers estranys i erràtics, són els nord-americans els qui
comencen a semblar-ho” (T. Aoki, 2006, p. 83), to the extreme that “What started out as a familiar sort of attempt to unriddle oriental mysteries ends up,
only too successfully, as a deconstruction, avant la lettre, of occidental clarities. At the close, it is, as it was in Patterns of Culture, us that we wonder about.
On what, pray tell, do our certainties rest? Not much, apparently, save that they’re ours” (C. Geertz, 1988, p. 121-122). See also the studies compiled in:
“Chrysanthemum and the Sword”. Dialectical Anthropology, vol. 24, No. 2, pp. 141-233 June 1999.
31. On this subject, see: B. Guarné (coord.), “Identitat i representació cultural: perspectives des del Japó”, Revista d’Etnologia de Catalunya, no. 29, December
2006. http://www.raco.cat/index.php/RevistaEtnologia/issue/view/4633/showToc
32. Pierre Boulle (1912-1994).
33. P. Boulle, (1963) The Planet of the Apes. New York: Vanguard.
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34. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
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cultural skill of the monkeys, would reveal a terrible truth: the and Indochina through the moral experience of the captivity
appropriation of human technology by their natural Other, apes, of a group of British soldiers condemned to forced labour in a
going so far as to surpass them and make the old dominator the Japanese POW camp.39 What would eventually become his most
dominated; the coloniser becomes the colonised. famous work, situated the reader in a position of unease when
Donna Haraway (1989) pointed out the historical development confronted with their own brutality in the escape from the Other
of Western primatology as “colonial knowledge” that defined –faced with the abyss of discovering that the absolute difference
“the human” according to “the simian”, in a project similar to the with this Other is simply one of the multiple expressions of a
Orientalist construction of the “West” in relation to the “East”. shared reality.
For Haraway, the study of primates, as “simian orientalism”
(D. Haraway, 1989. pp. 10-11), constituted scientific knowledge L’ABIME infranchissable que certains regards voient creu-
in that the dramatisation of the differences between “the animal” sé entre l’âme occidentale et l’âme orientale n’est peut-être
and “the human” was shaped in the broadest scenario of the qu’un effet de mirage. Peut-être n’est-il que la représentation
oppositions of power: Nature/Culture, Woman/Man, Savage/ conventionnelle d’un lieu commun sans base solide, un jour
Civilised, East/West.34 perfidement travesti en aperçu piquant, dont on ne peut même
The society described by Boulle confronts us with a totalitarian pas invoquer la qualité de vérité première pour justifier l’exis-
system, where a profound sense of honour and a deep respect tance? (P. Boulle, 1958, p. 9)
for hierarchy and traditional values run parallel to the unease
about identity that arises from the encounter with human If we consider La Planète des singes in the light of the
civilisation.35 Contrary to the film adaptation directed by Franklin biography of its author –French colonist in Southeast Asia
J. Schaffner36 (1967), Boulle describes an ultra-futuristic civilisation and combatant against the Japanese– the dystopia that he
where simians dress like humans, drive motor vehicles and live proposes is revealed as the backdrop on which are projected
in skyscrapers.37 Boulle’s works enjoyed publishing success in a both the terrors of the colonial experience40 and the anxiety
world, which, still persuaded by the positive nature of Western/ for a colonised who overcomes the coloniser with their own
Eastern classification, expectantly observed the Japanese miracle. weapons.41 In this sense, Ulysse Mérou, the protagonist of the
The recovery of a country historically shaken by “modernity” story, bitterly agrees:
that now relocate the desire to achieve political equality with the
West, projecting itself into a technological future as an economic A bien réfléchir, pourtant, je ne sais si je dois m’enorgueillir
equal or superior. de cette découverte ou bien en être profondément humilié.
Almost a decade before the La Planète des singes was Mon amour-propre constate avec satisfaction que les singes
published, Boulle had come to the public attention with a novel n’ont rien invente, qu’ils ont été de simples imitateurs. Mon
that reflected his experience as an Allied prisoner during the war humiliation tient au fait qu’une civilisation humaine ait pu
against Japan. Entitled Le Pont de la rivière Kwaï38 (1952), Boulle être si aisément assimilée par des singes. (P. Boulle, 1990,
would capture his memories as a combatant in China, Burma p. 154)
34. “The Orient has been a troubling resource for the production of the Occident, the ‘East’s’ other and periphery that became materially its dominant. The
West is positioned outside the Orient, and this exteriority is part of the Occident’s practice of representation […] Simian orientalism means that western
primatology has been about the construction of the self from the raw material of the other, the appropriation of nature in the production of culture, the
ripening of the human from the soil of the animal, the clarity of white from the obscurity of color, the issue of man from the body of woman, the elaboration
of gender from the resource of sex, the emergence of mind by the activation of body” D. Haraway (1989, pp. 10-11).
35. Common places that find a surprising expression in the visual reference to Japanese culture, eg in the recreation of the image of the San Zaru, the three
monkeys of Nikko (Mizaru, Kikazaru, Iwazaru), during the trial scene. Also added to this is the fact that to mould the simian prosthesis, make-up artist John
Chambers used an Asian face.
36. Born and educated in Tokyo –son of American missionaries– and a combatant in the War of the Pacific, Schaffner’s biographical link to Japan is an interesting
element when we look at his work. It is this feature that he has in common with Boulle, in whose work the Oriental theme will be a constant from his early
novels, such as Le Sacrilège malais (1951).
37. In this adaptation for the cinema, the first in an extensive film and television series, budgetary reasons were a determining factor in the decision to set the
simian civilisation in a caveman society.
38. The Bridge over the River Kwai. P. Boulle (1952). New York: Vanguard, 1954.
39. As the author himself says in Aux sources de la rivière Kwaï. P. Boulle (1966), My own River Kwai, New York: Vanguard Press, 1967.
40. European colonialism, the historical experience of slavery and the slave trade, segregation and racial conflict, are themes present both in Boulle’s work and
in the film adaptation by Schaffner. For more information on these subjects, see the study by E. Greene (1996) on the impact of the film saga of The Planet
of the Apes on North American popular culture.
41. The most outstanding of the “children of the West”, Japan, organised the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, just nineteen years after the military defeat, six years
later the Osaka World Expo (1970), a symbolic milestone in the new Japan as an economic and technological power, and in 1975, the Ocean Expo in
Okinawa.
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The words of Mérou resonate in those of Memmi when he
writes: Reference
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deliberations about who the Japanese are as humans vis-à-vis animals and as a people vis-à-vis other peoples. The meanings and tropic functions assigned
to the monkey therefore enable us to tap essential dimensions of the Japanese conception of self. The monkey provides us with a strategic window into
the Japanese world view and ethos” (E. Ohnuki-Tierney, 1990, p. 91).
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Race, Politics, and Popular Culture. Middletown: Wesleyan colonisateur et d’une préface de Jean-Paul Sartre. Utrecht
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perspectives des del Japó”. Revista d’Etnologia de Catalunya. Transformations in Japanese History and Ritual. Princeton:
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/ Universidad de Zaragoza. Universalism and Particularism”. In: Translation and Subjectivity:
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Fleming H. Revell Company. problema de l’universalisme i el particularisme”. B. GUARNÉ
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Nature in the World of Modern Science. New York / London: SLOTKIN, R. (1992). Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier
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the humanities in the digital age
http://digithum.uoc.edu On Monkeys and Japanese: Mimicry and Anastrophe…
TAUSSIG, M. (1993). Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History VALIGNANO, A. Sumario de las cosas de Japón (1583). Adiciones
of the Senses. New York / London: Routledge. del sumario de Japón (1592). In: J. L. ÁLVAREZ-TALADRIZ
TURNER, B. S. (1994). Orientalism, Postmodernism Globalism. (ed.). Tokyo: Sophia University, 1954.
London / New York: Routledge.
Blai Guarné
assistant Professor of anthropology, department of Humanities, Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona,
and department of Social anthropology, University of Barcelona
blai.guarne@upf.edu
Blai Guarné has a PhD in Cultural Anthropology, specialising in the anthropology of Japan. His research interests cover the
theory of representation, cultural and post-colonial studies and analysis of visual culture.
He has carried out fieldwork in Latin America, Europe and Asia with funding from national and international institutions.
He has led research and taught at the University of Barcelona, National University of Misiones, Argentina, Eötvös Loránd
University of Budapest, Hungary, and The University of Tokyo, Japan, where he was a Visiting Scholar with a grant from the
Japanese Government. He currently holds the post of Assistant Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Humanities
of the Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, and in the Department of Social Anthropology of the University of Barcelona,
and he is a member of the Inter-Asia Research Group at Autonomous University of Barcelona. His most recent publications
include the edition of the monograph on Japanese cultural identity: “Identitat i representació cultural: perspectives des del
Japó”, Revista d’Etnologia de Catalunya, No. 29, online version: http://www.raco.cat/index.php/RevistaEtnologia/issue/
view/4633/showToc
This work is subject to a Creative Commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 2.5 Spain licence. It may
be copied, distributed and broadcast provided that the author and the e-journal that publishes it (Digithum)
are cited. Commercial use and derivative works are not permitted. The full licence can be consulted on
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/es/deed.en.
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38. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
The humanities in the digital age
http://digithum.uoc.edu
“Orientalism” Dossier
Against a besieged literature: fictions, obsessions
and globalisations of Chinese literature*
Carles Prado-Fonts
Lecturer, Department of Languages and Cultures, UOC
cprado@uoc.edu
Submission date: November 2007
Accepted in: December 2007
Published in: May 2008
ReCommended CiTATion:
PRADO-FONTS, Carles (2008). “Against a besieged literature: fictions, obsessions and globalisations of Chinese literature”.
In: “Orientalism’ [online dossier]. Digithum. Iss. 10. UOC. [Retrieved on: dd/mm/yy].
http://www.uoc.edu/digithum/10/dt/eng/prado.pdf
ISSN 1575-2275
Abstract
Chinese literature in the 20th century has seen how the combination between, on one hand, the canon established by Socialist realism
in China and, on the other, the approaches of Area Studies in the West imposed a limited vision and a partial and slanted assessment
of its complexity. The article argues that it is essential to recover the literariness of the literary text, appealing to the sophistication and
critical capacity of readers, as a basic strategy for liberating Chinese literature from the interpretive siege that constrains it. The article
analyses the interrelation of various aspects –such as the confusion between reality and fiction, the obsessions for interpretations of
a national allegorical nature or other mechanisms of globalisation and self-Orientalism– that, in an interrelated way, determine the
production and circulation of modern and contemporary Chinese literature in the global literary system. The novel Fortress Besieged
by the writer Qian Zhongshu is a paradigmatic example of this situation.
Keywords
Chinese literature, globalisation, Orientalism, self-Orientalism, Qian Zhongshu
Resum
La literatura xinesa del segle xx ha vist com la combinació entre, d’una banda, el cànon marcat pel realisme socialista a la Xina i, de
l’altra, les aproximacions pròpies dels Estudis d’Àrea a Occident imposava una mirada limitada i una valoració parcial i esbiaixada
de la seva complexitat. L’article defensa que és imprescindible recuperar la literarietat del text literari, apel·lant a la sofisticació i a la
capacitat crítica dels lectors, com una estratègia fonamental per a alliberar la literatura xinesa del setge interpretatiu que la constreny.
L’article analitza la interrelació de diversos aspectes –com ara la confusió entre realitat i ficció, les obsessions per les interpretacions
en clau al·legòrica nacional o altres mecanismes de globalització i auto-orientalisme– que, de manera interrelacionada, determinen la
* This article is the result of the research project MEC I+D (HUM2005-08151) Interculturalidad de Asia Oriental en la era de la globalización. I am grateful for
the kind and, as always, stimulating comments of David Martínez and Joan-Elies Adell. Errors and omissions are attributable solely to the author.
Iss. 10 | May 2008 iSSn 1575-2275 Journal of the UOC’s Humanities Department and Languages and Cultures Department
37 Els estudis que impulsen la revista només s’indiquen a la primera pàgina.
Carles Prado-Fonts
Original Borges Sáiz
Federico title: Contra la literatura assetjada: ficcions, obsessions
i globalitzacions de la literatura xinesa

39. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
The humanities in the digital age
http://digithum.uoc.edu Against a besieged literature: fictions, obsessions…
producció i la circulació de la literatura xinesa moderna i contemporània dins del sistema literari global. La novel·la La fortalesa assetjada
de l’escriptor Qian Zhongshu és un exemple paradigmàtic d’aquesta situació.
Paraules clau
literatura xinesa, globalització, orientalisme, auto-orientalisme, Qian Zhongshu
inherent therein and sufficiently studied ever since the beginning
It is common for some literary genres, such as the historical novel, of poststructuralism.1
to purposely roam an ethereal figurative frontier, a line that fades Any teacher of non-Western literatures repeatedly meets
away in the hands of readers who agree –consciously– to enter readers perfectly capable of producing sophisticated interpretations
into an interplay of correspondences blurred, to a greater or lesser of works that are close to them but that, when it is a question
extent, between reality and fiction. Up to a certain point, therefore, of confronting texts that are culturally distant, they turn into
it does not seem necessary to remind ourselves of that which naive readers who forget the complexity of the literary act and
seems obvious when we read works such as The Name of the blend reality with fiction, literature with history. Unfortunately,
Rose or Perfume: the distinction between history and literature. however, this is not an attitude limited to the student or amateur
However, when we confront geographically distant works of reader; rather, it is shared in the academic sphere and in the field
literature, the obviousness is no longer so, and the reminder of criticism. Modern and contemporary Chinese literature2 is a
becomes, perhaps, pertinent and necessary. It is also common
paradigmatic example. Victim of unsophisticated interpretations
that, in this new context, we forget –unconsciously– about the
and of the sole perspective provided by Area Studies,3 Chinese
fictionality of the literary work and we read any text coming
literature has been seen from the West as a cultural mirror, historical
from, for example China, Japan or Korea, whether it be realist or
document or sociological fieldwork that provides us with clear,
modernist, traditional or avant-garde, romantic or science fiction,
unquestionable truths about an objectivable China. Consequently,
almost as an essay that reflects in a frank, transparent and non-
Chinese literature has had difficulties in being treated on an equal
problematic way the “society”, “history” or “culture” of a given
footing –as literature in its breadth and complexity– in the global
country.
literary system.
To a certain extent, then, we can observe that the acuteness
In the Chinese case, two differentiated, but mutually sustaining,
that makes us aware of the interplay between reality and fiction
fronts have contributed to the siege of the literariness of the
concealed behind a literary work is usually proportional to the
literary work. On the one hand, the restrictive Western view that
distance that separates us from the culture of the work in question.
we have just commented on, related to Area Studies and with a
When, as readers, we decide to begin a novel by a foreign author
long historical trajectory that –as has already been denounced by
with the intention of learning about a reality that is remote and
unknown to us, we are guided by a noble, but at the same time Edward Said (1978)– starts with colonial Orientalism, intensifies
dangerous, curiosity. The impatience to draw closer to the Other during the second half of the 20th century, as a result of the
often causes to dare to thoughtlessly extrapolate from a piece of particular dynamics of the Cold War, and can be seen to continue
literary fiction a whole series of facts and conditions (historical, in the parameters of today’s global capitalism. On the other hand,
social, political, cultural) about a context that is unknown to us. the Chinese conception of literature itself: if literature in China has
Thus, we forget an essential condition of the novel: whatever been seen, from the beginning, as a moral or educational tool,
its appearance may be, it is no more than a literary artefact. literary instrumentalism reached its greatest expression during the
Although it is true that each novel is set in a specific historical middle of the last century. At Yan’an Forum in 1942, Mao Zedong
context and, therefore, maintains an inevitable tie with the society ( ) declared that art and literature had to remain at the service
and culture within which it was created, it is also true that, as a of the masses and that, therefore, writers had to write for workers,
novel, it presents us with a representation –more or less accurate, peasants and soldiers –nothing could be further from the “art for
more or less slanted, more or less plausible– with all the problems art’s sake” with its Kantian roots that has dominated most modern
1. See the introduction to this dossier which summarily sets out the main contributions of poststructuralism in the field of the humanities and social sciences
since the 1970s.
2. In this article, I have used the characteristic periods for Chinese literary history, whereby “modern” ( xiandai) relates to the literature produced from
the 1920s onwoards (the specific year varies depending on the historian in question) and “contemporary” ( dangdai) refers to literature dating from
1976 onwards, the year of the death of Mao Zedong. These periods differ greatly from those used in European literary contexts, for example.
3. See the introduction to this dossier.
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40. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
The humanities in the digital age
http://digithum.uoc.edu Against a besieged literature: fictions, obsessions…
artistic conceptions in the West. The subsequent imposition of this the May Fourth Movement of 1919), they date this beginning
socialist realism not only marked Chinese literary development in the last decades of the 19th century. This exercise does not
during practically the entire second half of the century, but also involve a simple chronological precision, rather it is transcendent
brought about a revision of previous literature. It is precisely this because it recovers works and authors from a period of great
recanonisation that has governed the exportation of Chinese cultural and literary effervescence that the previous historiography
works to the West in recent decades. In short, then, we can see –dominated by the socialist theses that situated the genesis of
how the convergence of these two fronts (Area Studies in the modernity in the authors of May Fourth– had thought little of
West and socialist realism in China) generated a discourse that and condemned to obscurity. In turn, Lee (1999) and Shih (2001)
shaped and, to a degree, continues to shape a particular way of have opted to question the form and content of Chinese literary
approaching, understanding and assessing Chinese literature. modernity. Following the path opened up by Chinese academics
This article starts from the premise that this conception, in like Yan Jiayan ( ), they have brought to light and given literary
effect during more than half a century, offers only a partial and significance to modernist texts and authors from cosmopolitan
incomplete vision of modern and contemporary Chinese literature: Shanghai of the twenties and thirties, symbolised by the journal Les
not all that has been written in China during the last hundred years contemporains ( xiandai) that –also owing to the dominance of
falls within the context of (socialist) realism, nor does everything socialist theses– have not enjoyed critical consideration until now.
that has been labelled as such fit with this assessment.4 The Braester, on the other hand, introduces a new method, questioning
Chinese literary panorama is much more complex than that which that which had always been considered Chinese literary modernity
Area Studies and historiography have outlined, as demonstrated “from the inside”: by means of critical re-readings of modern
by authors, works and literary movements throughout the 20th works, he deconstructs the meanings that they were traditionally
century. Regarding this, the article presents the following thesis: it given and shows the complex relation between history, testimony
and representation, which have dominated Chinese literary
is essential to recover the literariness of the literary text, appealing
modernity. Beyond the specific value of Braester’s contribution
to the sophistication and critical capacity of the reader, as a basic
to the discipline, his work is of interest because it demands a
strategy for liberating Chinese literature from the siege that
critical, sophisticated and open-minded interpretation, which
constrains it. We will proceed to briefly examine three of the
avoids pre-existing paradigms and that, fundamentally, lays the
aspects that constitute this siege and that limit the perception of
problematic relationship between fiction and reality on the table.
the complexity and plurality of 20th century Chinese literature.
Without going into the profound analyses of Braester, the
famous preface to the first edition of the collection Call to Arms
( ) by the writer who is traditionally considered to be the father
Fictions and realities of modern Chinese literature, Lu Xun ( ; 1881-1936), provides
us with two simple and illustrative examples of the confusion
In Witness Against History, Yomi Braester (2003) has shown between history and literature.
that the approach to Chinese literature by Area Studies does Firstly, let’s look at the so-called “slide incident”. This is a
not take into account the literariness of literary works, nor the celebrated episode because it describes the key moment in which
contradictions and complexities inherent in them. Literature is Lu Xun decided to give up his medical studies in Japan to devote
fiction and must be read as such. Braester’s contribution to the himself fully to literature:
field of modern Chinese literature comes at a moment in which,
as of a relatively short time ago, scholars such as Leo Lee, Ted I do not know what advanced methods are now used to
Huters, David Wang or Shu-mei Shih have been attempting to teach microbiology, but at that time lantern slides were used
place in doubt, by means of different strategies, the premises that to show the microbes; and if the lecture ended early, the
have governed the comprehension, assessment and circulation of instructor might show slides of national scenery or news to
modern Chinese literature both in China and the West. Huters fill up the time. This was during the Russo-Japanese War, so
(2005) and Wang (1997) have chosen to do so by questioning there were many war films, and I had to join in the clapping
the date of the beginning of Chinese literary modernity. Instead of and cheering in the lecture hall along with the other students.
adopting the dates that have been considered canonical (around It was a long time since I had seen any compatriots, but one
4. Indeed, a simple way of highlighting this diversity is to take into account that not all the literature in the Chinese language comes from the People’s Republic
of China, but also from Taiwan, large parts of South-East Asia, such as Malaysia or Singapore, and a wide number of places around the world with speakers
of the Chinese language, who, together, account for thousands of writers and hundreds of millions of readers living beyond the political borders of mainland
China. Shih (2004 and 2007) coined the term Sinophone literature precisely to highlight and stress this literature with different characteristics and problems
than those of the literature coming from the People’s Republic.
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41. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
The humanities in the digital age
http://digithum.uoc.edu Against a besieged literature: fictions, obsessions…
day I saw a film showing some Chinese, one of whom was they are still known as stories, and are even being compiled
bound, while many others stood around him. They were all in the book. Although such good fortune makes me uneasy,
strong fellows but appeared completely apathetic. According I am nevertheless pleased to think they have readers in the
to the commentary, the one with his hands bound was a spy world of men, for the time being at least. (Lu, 1923, p. 56)
working for the Russians, who was to have his head cut off by
the Japanese military as a warning to others, while the Chinese Traditionally, critics have interpreted this fragment –and
behind him had come to enjoy the spectacle. the decision it describes– as an example of the writer’s social
commitment, an attitude that set the guidelines that modern
Before the term was over I had left for Tokyo, because after Chinese literature would follow. However, there is no need to look
this film I felt that medical science was not so crucial after all. too closely at the author’s life to see the apparent contradiction
The people of a weak and backward country, however strong between modesty, benevolence and docility transmitted by these
and healthy they may be, can only serve to be made examples paragraphs and the iconoclastic, temperamental and difficult
of, or to witness such futile spectacles; and it doesn’t really character of Lu Xun. Studies such as that by Michel Hockx (2003),
matter how many of them die of illness. The most important for example, help us to understand that this type of modest
thing, therefore, was to change their spirit, and since at that representation was usual at that time. It is, simply, a series of
time I felt that literature was the best means to this end, I literary and social conventions and protocols –in the style of
determined to promote a literary movement. (Lu, 1923, p. 3) the captatio benevolentiae– inherent in the act of writing and
publishing during the early decades of the 20th century in China.
As I have said, the incident has been traditionally interpreted as Again, we find an example in which an interpretation excessively
the triggering of Lu Xun’s literary career and, consequently, as the focused on searching for historical evidence that does not take
foundation of modern Chinese literature. Thus, it has generated into account the nature and conventions of the (literary) text is
a great deal of analysis that has read the collected works of Lu dangerous, as it can lead to clues that end up being false.
Xun solely in terms of this biographical anecdote and, indirectly,
applied it to the analysis of the whole of modern Chinese literature.
Thus, it could be said that the effect that Lu Xun sought over the
reader is fully successful. However, it must be taken into account
Obsessions and Orwellisations
that the incident has not been verified and that the famous slide
has never been found. Obviously, this does not undermine the The desire to offer social, cultural and, in particular, political
anecdote or mean that it may not be true, especially taking into information has marked a large part of the translations of Chinese
account that it is a prologue written autobiographically. However, literature into Western languages that have been published in
it must make us reflect on the way we handle a (literary) text and recent decades. Critics such as Henry Zhao have lamented this
the legitimacy of extrapolating information from such. situation:
Secondly, we need to look at how the prologue ends. Lu Xun
explains that, owing to the failure of various literary and cultural There have been a number of compilations of contemporary
projects that he had embarked on after making his decision to Chinese writings. Regrettably, most scholars of contemporary
pursue a literary career, he became reluctant to write. Retired from Chinese literature still regard the work of Chinese writers as
public life, he kept an absolute silence. Thanks to the insistence interesting chiefly for their sociological or political content. The
of friends, he confesses, he decided to take up literary activity very titles of these books (Mao’s Harvest, Stubborn Weeds,
once again: Seeds of Fire, amongst others) reveal the underlying intention
of the selections. (Zhao, 1993, p.17)5
True, in spite of my own conviction, I could not blot
out hope, for hope lies in the future. I could not use my Zhao criticises that works by Chinese literary authors are read
own evidence to refute his assertion that it might exist. So I chiefly from this sociological-political perspective (the interest of
agreed to write, and the result was my first story, A Madman’s which, it must be said, he does not deny at any time), without
Diary. From that time onwards, I could not stop writing, and taking into account their artistic qualities. When these novels or
would write some sort of short story from time to time at the stories are scrutinised from a political perspective (understood here
request of friends, until I had more than a dozen of them. in a very limited sense as the tension between writer and party/
(…) It is clear, then, that my short stories fall far short government and not in a broad sense as the relation between
of being works of art; hence I count myself fortunate that any artistic manifestation and the historical context in which it is
5. Goldblatt (1995) has produced another collection more recently, with a striking title: Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused.
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42. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
The humanities in the digital age
http://digithum.uoc.edu Against a besieged literature: fictions, obsessions…
unavoidably interwoven), we put aside the rhetorical and poetic ironic anecdotes, which the author inserts in the middle of the
devices that characterise them and that, fundamentally, make most anti-poetic moments that the character has to go through.
them literary. In the most difficult moments, these ways of escape grant a small
From a theoretical point of view, reflections on the concept dose of individual freedom and, in this way, literature exercises
of national allegory –especially those of key figures such as C. T. a liberating role. In 1984, on the other hand, there are neither
Hsia or Fredric Jameson– have catalysed this politicising vision. windows nor ways of escape and, therefore, the result is a kind of
In his famous A History of Modern Chinese Fiction, Hsia (1961) a treatise on thought disguised as a novel. For Kundera, then, to
criticised the alleged “obsession with China” suffered by Chinese Orwellise literature by reducing it to a merely political role, and
writers that limited their creativity. From a quite different paradigm, to the negative aspects of politics, means turning it into victim of
Jameson (1986) defended a similar and controversial thesis: the a totalisation that, in cases such as 1984, is precisely that which
literatures of the Third World are necessarily allegorical given the the Orwellised work means to criticise.6
socioeconomic context in which they are immersed. In relation In the field of Chinese literature, the Orwellisation of literary
to these types of theorisations based on allegory, Shu-mei Shih works (which perhaps, based on what we will go into detail
observed that: on in the next section, should be called Wildswanisation)7 has
dominated literary production and, above all, has monopolised
Allegory is only one kind of meaning-producing form, and interpretation. This interpretative template has even been applied
it is also but one of the hermeneutical codes we can bring to to works and authors that explicitly shun political totalisation and
the reading of texts. Clever readers can […] interpret any text the resulting reductionism. The most paradigmatic case is probably
as an allegory, as long as they labor to do so. (Shih, 2004, that of Gao Xingjian ( ; 1940-). Following his being awarded
p. 21) the Nobel Prize in the year 2000, the main points of reference with
which critics and the media guided the Western reader to approach
It is plausible, therefore, to think the “obsession with China” Gao’s works revolved around his being a dissident who had been
and the obstinacy to make political interpretations based on the forced to flee from China for political reasons.8 Essential elements
nation may end up being more of a pathology of critics and for the interpretation of his work –his early works as an essayist
readers who, consciously or unconsciously, come to a text with a and translator, the recovery of Western modernism, his facet as
predetermined hermeneutic intention, than of Chinese literature avant-garde playwright or, even, his artistic painter side– were
itself. Notwithstanding, it is significant that, despite the fragility of relegated to the background. Gao himself has repeatedly flatly
the thesis of Hsia and Jameson, the impact of their approaches has rejected literature as practical, political and moral utilitarianism,
been considerable both in the academic field and in the popular but this does not mean that he is not willing to publicly commit
imagery. himself in “non-literary” ambits. In the piece “I am an Advocate
Alongside this problem of interpreting the literary object, it is of Cold Literature” ( , Wo zhuzhang yizhong leng de
also worthwhile to remark on a reflection made by Milan Kundera wenxue), he comments:
on what he calls the Orwellisation of literature. For Kundera,
literature cannot be turned into a solely political surface, in the Literature basically has nothing to do with politics but
style of the novel 1984 by Orwell: “The pernicious influence of is purely a matter of the individual. It is the gratification
Orwell’s novel resides in its implacable reduction of a reality to its of the intellect together with an observation, a review of
political dimension alone, and in its reduction of that dimension to experiences, reminiscences and feelings or the portrayal of
what is exemplarily negative about it” (Kundera, 1996, p. 225). a state of mind.
Literature must maintain strictly literary values, such as those that Due entirely to political need, it unfortunately grew
appear in the works of Kafka. The stories by the Czech author, fervent, and subjected to attacks or flattery, it was helplessly
he tells us, include “windows” that allow escape from the grey transformed into an instrument, a weapon or a target, until
and sordid reality that surrounds the characters. In The Trial, for it finally lost what was inherent in literature. (Gao, 2003,
example, there is “poetry” thanks to a series of grotesque and p.11)
6. In close relation to that detailed here, Kundera also talks about Kafkology as an interpretative pattern that reduces the sense of a novel to the (supposed)
biographical links between author and protagonist, which creates an idealised image of the author and a very limited interpretation of their work. “Kafkology
produces and sustains its own image of Kafka, to the point where the author whom readers know by the name Kafka is no longer Kafka but the Kafkologized
Kafka” (Kundera, 1996, p. 42).
7. The term comes from the popular novel by Chang (1991), which was a great success in the West and which has been influential in strengthening the
traumatic narratives commented on by Shih subsequently.
8. For analysis of the Nobel Prize in general and its awarding to Gao Xingjian in particular, see Lovell (2006). The awarding of the 2006 Nobel to the Turkish
writer Orhan Pamuk reinforces this argument.
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43. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
The humanities in the digital age
http://digithum.uoc.edu Against a besieged literature: fictions, obsessions…
For this reason he proposes the term “cold literature”:
Shih reminds us that recognition is never neutral: there is the
This sort of literature that has recovered its innate character one who recognises and the one who is recognised, and this
can be called cold literature to differentiate it from literature process is governed by a discursive imbalance. Applying this
that promotes a teaching, attacks contemporary politics, reflection to the literary field helps us to think of the negotiations
is involved with changing society or gives vent to one’s and imbalances inherent in the world of translation: what is
feelings and ambitions. This cold literature will of course not translated and in which direction. Shih goes into depth on this
be newsworthy and will not arouse public attention. (Gao, idea, analysing two of the “technologies” (academic discourse and
2003, p.12) the literary market), which favour the recognition and circulation
within the global literary system of a particular model of novel
The paradox of the case of Gao Xingjian is indicative of the related to China:
strength of the discourses that dominate the way of interpreting
Chinese literature. Despite his attempts to distance himself from Some of the sensational trauma narratives about China’s
the obsession with China and the Orwellisation of literary works, Cultural Revolution written in English by first-generation
Gao is adopting a stance that polarises the literary act and that immigrants living in the United States, Britain, and France, for
inevitably reinforces, by opposing it, the interpretation of his works instance, may be categorized as deliberate national allegorical
from a political, historical and biographical viewpoint.9 narratives with an eye to the market, and so may the works
of the much-criticized fifth-generation cinema from China,
in which allegory was supposed to be the chief mode of
Globalisation and self-Orientalism representation. When the signified is predetermined, allegories
are easier to write or create and to understand and consume. A
Far from being an isolated literature or one that was closed within predetermined signified is produced by consensus between the
itself, 20th-century Chinese literature has been characterised by audience in the West and the Third World writer or director. It
an important opening up to Western literatures.10 At present, is a contractual relation of mutual benefit and favor that works
contemporary Chinese literature plays a full part in the dynamics first to confirm the stereotyped knowledge of the audience
that regulate the global literary system, although it occupies a and second to bring financial rewards to the makers of those
marginalised position.11 To believe, then, that Chinese works cultural products. (Shih, 2004, p. 21)
that have been translated were generated in independently and
that they provide us with a “representative” and “authentic” The collection that Shih refers to, which includes works such
taste of a literature and of a culture removed from contemporary as the popular Wild Swans (Chang, 1991) could be broadened to
canons underestimates the capacity of the global literary market include other works with a certain degree of commercial success,
to influence the production of marginalised literatures. but not specifically centred on the Cultural Revolution, such as The
With regard this, it is useful to turn to the notion of technology and Good Women of China, Beijing Doll, Shanghai Baby, Madame
its relation to intercultural recognition as put forth by Shu-mei Shih: Mao or The Bonesetter’s Daughter. Although many of these novels
are not even written in Chinese, they are given the qualifier of
I would like to resituate the notion of technology […] in Chinese literature in the media, bookstores and in the catalogues
the transnational terrain of cross-cultural politics of power and of university libraries. A feminised national allegory is hidden –yet
in the national terrain of interethnic and intercultural politics quite explicit on book covers that tend to combine exoticism and
of power, so that it denotes the constellation of discourses, femininity– behind the promise of bringing the reader closer to
institutional practices, academic productions, popular media the reality of an unknown China. All of this forms part of an
and other forms of representation that create and sanction Orientalist discourse that the Western reader –even before reading
concepts. “Technologies of recognition”, then, refers to the the novel, when they have only seen the cover– easily identifies
mechanisms in the discursive (un)conscious –with bearings on and “recognises” and that, consequently, increase the sales of
social and cultural (mis)understandings– that produce “the the book. This contract of mutual benefit that Shih comments on,
West” as the agent of recognition and “the rest” as the object then, complicates the dynamic of intercultural recognition. We are
of recognition, in representation. (Shih, 2004, p. 17) not dealing with a simple binomial conflict recogniser/recognised,
9. In the second chapter of Shih (2007) other paradoxes of this type are analysed, linked, for example, to the work of the artist Hung Liu ( ; 1948-).
10. Between 1902 and 1907, for example, the number of translations published was slightly higher than the number of original works produced (Tarumoto,
1998, p. 39).
11. For discussion of marginalisation and Chinese literature, see Prado-Fonts (2006).
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44. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
The humanities in the digital age
http://digithum.uoc.edu Against a besieged literature: fictions, obsessions…
agent/object. Thus, if the dominant literatures are those that have this, among other things, facilitates exportation (and profits) in
the agency to recognise or ignore, the marginal literatures do not the form of translations, films or television series.
wait for this recognition passively, but are capable of moulding Secondly, in the case of the majority of Western literatures,
themselves to facilitate it.12 recognition of the market is balanced by –or, at least, usually
At heart, the negotiation between Chinese literature and coexists uncomfortably with– other “technologies of recognition”,
global literature is nothing more than a reflection of the tensions such as literary criticism or the academic world. In the case of
between the global and the local in the contemporary world. Chinese literature, however, the recognition of Wildswanised
However, far from creating a new paradigm that would substitute works is not limited to the market but has been much more
Orientalism as a dominant discourse, the situation of Chinese transversal and, therefore, there has not (yet) been a critical
literature shows us that, as highlighted by Arif Dirlik, Orientalism or academic counterweight, on the contrary: criticism and the
has not disappeared, but simply been reconfigured in relation to academic world have also focused on these works and have
Said’s original conception: reinforced the monopoly. This takes us back to the two previous
points of this article and shows the circularity and strength of the
[…] far from being a phenomenon of the past, Orientalism, siege to which modern Chinese literature is subjected.
and the culturalist epistemology that nourished it, are very
much alive in the present –in a reconfigured relationship
between politics, culture, and history– but not necessarily The siege of Fortress Besieged
where Said located them. (Dirlik,1996, p. 99)
The confusion between reality and fiction, the obsessions with
In other words then, it is not about the “objectifying” discourse China and the interpretations of a national allegorical nature
characteristic of the colonial period, but a relational phenomenon or the mechanisms of globalisation or self-Orientalism that we
more typical of contemporary neo-colonialism. have analysed throughout this article limit the West’s perception
Indeed, the above considerations could be refuted by arguing of Chinese literature and determine its circulation in the global
that perhaps we are overestimating the importance of the market literary system. It should come as no surprise, then, that works
in relation to literature; or diluted by pointing out the fact that by authors as important as Shen Congwen ( ; 1902-1988)
these types of Wildswanised works accounting for an important or Qian Zhongshu ( ; 1910-1998), marginalised by both
part of the volume of translations of “Chinese” literature may only socialist canons and a global literary market that has no interest in
have a relative importance: after all, this commercial predominance works that do not invest in trauma and the most explicit historical
of popular literature is common around the world, and this representation, have been overlooked, victims of this literary siege.
does not exclude the considerations that may be made about Fortress Besieged ( weicheng), by Qian Zhongshu,
“serious” literature. Regarding this, it is important to make two published in instalments in 1946 and in book form in 1947, is
clarifications that, in the case of Chinese literature, qualify these probably one of the clearest examples (Qian 1946).13 In China,
possible objections. the work went practically unnoticed during decades. To the fact
Firstly, setting aside the fact that the distinction between that it was published at a time in which the country was in the
popular and elitist has been rather diffuse and problematic in 20th- middle of civil war, we must add that, with the communist victory
century Chinese literature, in the current socioeconomic situation, and the introduction of the literary directives of socialist realism,
the impact of commercialisation has marked the functioning of the novel was no longer to be found in bookshops and libraries
the Chinese literary system in a decisive way. One of the most and was not available until 1980 in a revised edition.14 For his
obvious demonstrations of this is the progressive abandoning of part, the author, Qian Zhongshu, abandoned novel writing and
the short story in favour of the novel as the dominant and, to a made something of a name for himself as an essayist and classical
degree, prestigious literary form. Reputed writers of today, such literature scholar, a discipline in which he took refuge like many
as Mo Yan ( ; 1955-), Yu Hua ( 华; 1960-) or Su Tong (
; other writers threatened by Maoism –although he was unable
; 1963-), have chosen to devote more attention to novels since to avoid having problems during the Cultural Revolution. In the
12. As Shih points out above, this phenomenon has been clearly seen in the case of fifth-generation filmmakers such as Zhang Yimou ( ; 1951-) or Chen
Kaige ( 华; 1952-), a movement symbolically starting in 1984 with the film Yellow Earth (
; huang tu di), where Chen was the director and Zhang
director of photography.
13. English translation: Z. Qian (1979). Fortress Besieged. J. Kelly and N. K. Mao (trans.). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
14. The celebrated and (supposedly) canonical History of Modern Chinese Literature (华 华 zhongguo xiandai wenxue shi) written in the late 1970s by
a large group of specialists coordinated by Tang Tao ( ) is an example of the way in which the novel was overlooked. Fortress Besieged did not appear
in the first edition (1979), and was only mentioned briefly in subsequent editions.
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45. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
The humanities in the digital age
http://digithum.uoc.edu Against a besieged literature: fictions, obsessions…
West, the novel took decades to be recognised. Even though the a prophecy, it portrays right from the first pages, the national
US critic of Taiwanese origin, C.T. Hsia –in the midst of the Cold and international alienation to which fate would subject it. Fang
War and while stressing aesthetic patterns opposed to the Marxist Hongjian, a figure halfway between China and the West, incapable
literature of mainland China– emphasised its merits for the first of finding his own place and of communicating with either of
time in the early 1960s in the foundational A History of Chinese the two sides, personifies the very novel he gave life to and
Fiction, the level of recognition was by no means widespread.15 even personifies a certain body of Chinese literary production:
In the academic field, the work of Qian Zhongshu has remained works besieged by the reductive perspective from which Chinese
overshadowed by authors such as Lu Xun or Lao She, precisely literature is traditionally interpreted, appraised and disseminated
because, given its nature, it is not apt for the mirror-reading carried in China and in the West.
out by Area Studies. In the commercial field, the novel has been
translated into the principal Western languages, but with little
publicity and sales chiefly related to university teaching. References
The work, which recounts the vicissitudes of the main character,
Fang Hongjian, from the time of his return to China in the middle BRAESTER, Y. (2003). Witness Against History. Stanford: Stanford
of the War of Resistance against Japan after having spent four University Press.
years in Europe studying, does not describe in an explicit way the CHANG, J. (1991). Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China.
military conflict in which the action is set. This differentiates Qian London: Simon and Schuster.
from the majority of writers who were contemporaries of his and DIRLIK, A. (1996). “Chinese History and the Question of
who opted to give in to the political demands of the time and, Orientalism”. History and Theory. No. 35, vol. 4, pp. 96-118.
as a prelude to the overriding socialist realism of the sixties and EGAN, R. (ed., trans.). (1998). Limited Views: Essays on Ideas and
seventies, loaded their works with political and patriotic content. Letters. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center.
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16. These aspects can not be looked at in further depth here due to a lack of space. Readers can garner a basic idea of this question by looking back at the
arguments put forward by Huters (1982) and Egan (1998). For analysis of the existential scope of the work, see Xie (1990).
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46. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
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Carles Prado-Fonts
Lecturer, department of Languages and Cultures, UoC
cprado@uoc.edu
Carles Prado-Fonts has a degree in Translation and Interpretation (Autonomous University of Barcelona, 1998), MA in
Contemporary Chinese Cultural Studies (University of Westminster, London, 2001), MA in Modern Chinese Literature (University
of California, Los Angeles, 2004) and is Doctor cum laude in Translation Theory and Intercultural Studies (Autonomous
University of Barcelona, 2005). His doctoral thesis, Embodying Translation in Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature
(1908-1934 and 1979-1999): A Methodological Use of the Conception of Translation as a Site, explores the role of translators
in the origins of modern Chinese literature. He has been lecturer in the UOC’s Department of Languages and Cultures since
2004, where he teaches the subjects of Chinese Literature and East Asian Literatures: 19th and 20th Centuries, and coordinates
the areas of East Asian Literature, Culture and Thought. He has taught Chinese culture and civilisation at the University of
California, Los Angeles, and collaborates with the Autonomous University of Barcelona and Pompeu Fabra University. He
has translated Pan Gu crea l’univers. Contes tradicionals xinesos and Diari d’un boig i altres relats by Lu Xun into Catalan
(finalist in the 2001 Vidal Alcover Translation Prize).
This work is subject to a Creative Commons Attribution-nonCommercial-noderivs 2.5 Spain licence. It may
be copied, distributed and broadcast provided that the author and the e-journal that publishes it (Digithum)
are cited. Commercial use and derivative works are not permitted. The full licence can be consulted on http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/es/deed.en.
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Carles Prado-Fonts