REWRITING CHINESE
TRANSLATION HISTORY
Eva Hung
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Abstract
This paper begins with a brief discussion of the issues of history and rewriting. It then addresses the problem areas of existing Chinese translation historiography, and presents new ways of analyzing and ordering the Chinese translation experience. These include:
1) a study of historical Chinese translation activities as a dual tradition;
2) a differentiation between government translation work and cultural translation activities;
3) a presentation of China's cultural translation experience as two translation movements each spanning several centuries.
The paper concludes by exploring the relevance of this new scheme to contemporary translation activities in China, including the development of the discipline of Chinese translation studies.

1. About History

Before we deal with the rewriting of history, we should perhaps ask a 'postmodern' question: since 'the linguistic turn' some people have seen it fit to deny the possibility of finding out about historical truth and instead have maintained that history is but fiction invented by historians. Why should we be dabbling in history at such a time?
Since historical epistemology is not my normal sphere of operation, I can only seek support from the arguments and evidence given by experienced historians. While not denying the positive contribution a postmodern awareness may have in the writing and understanding of history, Richard J. Evans has shown that the claims of postmodernists are often exaggerated, forced and untenable. An extreme relativism negates not just the possibility of history, but of all branches of human knowledge. (Evans 1997) Nor is relativism a postmodern invention. A debate about the relativistic view of history has been active since the mid-20th century, as witnessed in the following comment by R. G. Collingwood, often interpreted as skepticism about historical truth:

St. Augustine looked at history from the point of view of the early Christian; Tillamont, from that of a seventeenth-century Frenchman; Gibbon, from that of an eighteenth-century Englishman …. There is no point in asking which was the right point of view. Each was the only one possible for the man who adopted it. (Collingwood 1946: xii)

A generation later Collingwood's comment elicited an equally well-known response from E. H. Carr:

It does not follow that, because a mountain appears to take on different shapes from different angles of vision, it has objectively either no shape at all or an infinity of shapes. (Carr 1964: 26-27)

These quotations show that the doubts we now voice about 'truth' and 'objectivity' have long been part of the historian's concern. In dealing with sources and documents, historians have been 'reading against the grain' for decades, if not longer. (Evans 1997: 81) Herodotus can be called the first practitioner of 'critical history'. Thus a historical project dealing with Chinese translation activities based on this approach should still be viable and valuable.

This presentation draws material from some three thousand years of recorded translation activities in China. A mere attempt to deal with such a time scale is probably enough to sound the alarm bell about 'master-narratives'. That would, however, be a false alarm, for two reasons. First, my thinking on Chinese translation history is in fact a reaction against an existing dominant discourse (i.e. 'reading against the grain'); its product would therefore be more suitably viewed as a counter-narrative. Second, the ideas proposed below would only amount to a re-ordering or reinterpretation. Through a re-examination of historical facts, I hope to persuade scholars both within and outside the field of Chinese translation studies that translation historiography deserves much more intellectual engagement than it has received so far.

2. About Rewriting

Having rationalized my current research predilection, we now turn our attention to the issue of rewriting. Any call for rewriting history presupposes several things. First, that there exists works dealing with the subject concerned, which constitute a dominant discourse within the culture. Second, that the proponent of rewriting finds the existing works deficient in one or more ways, in terms perhaps of scholarship, perhaps of approach. Third, that the proponent has a schema for a new historiography which is based either on new material, or on new ways of analyzing existing material, or both. Fourth, that the proponent believes this new approach will illuminate the subject under study both within its own discipline and in relation to the culture in which it is situated. In this section we will deal with the first two, namely existing Chinese works of translation historiography and their problem areas.

Though the writing of translation history in China is a relatively new phenomenon, the last fifteen years have seen the publication of some dozen works which can be classified as attempts at historiography. (See Appendix for a list of the works.) Instead of analyzing the nature and purpose of each of these books,¹ I propose to summarize the characteristics which most or all of them share.

2.1 A literary bias

Until now translation discourse in China has shown a strong bias towards the literary. There are obvious reasons for this. The entrance of translation activities into China's mainstream intellectual culture was through the fiction translation movement which reached its zenith in the first decade of the 20th century. Since this movement was rooted in a patriotic campaign for urgent national regeneration, literary translation gained a position at the ideological centre.² At the same time, the Chinese cultural tradition has always placed great importance on literature, thus lending support to the dominance of literary texts, including translated ones. Starting from mid 20th century, the PRC's use of literature as a propaganda tool has tended to reinforce its position at or close to the ideological centre-stage.³ Lastly, Chinese translation studies took its fledgling steps in the 1980s, at a time when comparatists with a literature background played a prominent role in international translation discourse. This probably impressed upon Chinese scholars the 'correctness' of concentrating on literary translation. Hence the centrality of literary translation is supported on several fronts: 20th century Chinese experience, dominance of literature in the Chinese cultural tradition, government ideology and policies, as well as the apparent dominance of literary translation internationally.

The question is, is this bias detrimental to the development of Chinese translation studies? My answer is 'yes'. It has obscured the fact that literary translation is by no means the most significant element of China's long translation history. It has given the false impression that the discourse on literary translation is applicable to all other forms of translation activities. Most importantly from the point of view of historiography, it has prevented researchers from establishing a connection between translation activities which are now perceived as diverse and unrelated.

2.2 A heavy reliance on indirect sources

Many of the existing histories show a heavy reliance on second and third hand sources, and a tendency to quote the famous. This is particularly true when the narrative or discussion is on pre-20th century activities. It is not difficult to understand the factors contributing to this phenomenon. The sheer amount of specialist knowledge needed to understand historical translation activities is overwhelming. In addition to 20th century developments, one needs at least to be conversant with the basic translation-related aspects of Chinese Buddhism, missionary activities and all the dynastic histories. Many translation scholars trained in foreign languages do not have the necessary command of the classical language nor the knowledge of classical texts to engage directly with primary sources. Reliance on existing work by scholars in other disciplines such as history, Chinese literature and Buddhism is thus to some degree unavoidable.

However, such reliance has a price. In these narratives, the information on which the researcher relies has been selected and processed with translation as a secondary or peripheral, rather than a central, concern. Unless the researcher is extremely vigilant and has a keen understanding of historical contexts, translation issues will lose their true proportion, or will remain buried under other themes. Those unaware of such pitfalls may well be in danger of producing what Collingwood called 'scissors-and-paste' history. (Collingwood 1946: xii)

2.3 Perspective and interpretation

Few of the attempts at historiography have looked beyond demarcation lines such as dynastic divide (including the PRC's division of 20th century history into 'early-modern', meaning pre-1919, 'modern', meaning pre-1949, and 'contemporary', meaning post-1949), personal achievement or text-type. Following such demarcation, the narratives are presented in chronological or categorized order. However, historians who propagated the critical method such as Leopold von Ranke had pointed out that history differs from chronicle in that the former shows how discrete facts are interconnected. (Ranke 1973: 43-44, 59) The historian is not just a compiler of information, but tries to discover patterns and significance in that information. In this context, many of the existing Chinese histories of translation can perhaps be more fittingly described as chronicles or even source books than histories. A related question is the desirability of having an open attitude towards historical sources, a willingness to let evidence and facts tell their stories rather than to impose on them the story we think they should tell. All the works listed in the Appendix show obvious ideological constraints; the great majority of them closely follow the dominant ideology in interpreting historical activities.⁴ The following quotation from an article on languages and translation in Xinjiang (the Western Region in Chinese historical sources) demonstrates how such constraints would prevent the researcher from truly focusing on translation issues:

Language is a conveyor of messages, and translation is a bridge that effects the transfer between languages. In this first year of the new millennium, we the various ethnic groups of Xinjiang, nurtured by the strategic 'go westward' policy of the central government and resting snugly in the embrace of the motherland, will certainly match forward to a brighter and better tomorrow. (Tusipuhan 2000: 44)

What concerns us here is not the style of the writing but how it reveals, largely unwittingly, the factors that circumscribe translation studies in China. The hyperbole normally found only in propaganda writing actually indicates the extreme political sensitivity of the subject under discussion.⁵ The purpose of this paper is not to find fault with existing works. We know that historians as well as the work they produce are all indelibly coloured by their academic, social and political background. As far as actual scholarship is concerned, all academics operate with a variety of handicaps. The essential thing is therefore to develop an awareness, both on the part of the historian and of the readers, that such biases and handicaps exist.⁶ One of the best ways to do so is to propose alternative ways of looking at history.

3. New Perspectives

Here I propose to address the issues I have just raised by highlighting several threads which provide connections between various historical translation activities. These threads have emerged as the result of a large-scale but far from comprehensive study of dynastic historical records, translated texts, scholarship on Chinese Buddhism, missionary activities as well as 20th century translation work. A reorganization of the Chinese translation experience along these lines will show that literary translation is far from being its focus. (See diagram 1) More importantly, we will see new connections between what have so far been perceived as diverse historical activities. Hopefully this will add to our understanding of the characteristics of translation as a cultural activity, and of China as a host culture.

3.1 China's dual translation tradition

When the word 'translator' is mentioned, we all have certain assumptions about their basic ability and their modes of operation. We may divide them into subcategories according to the text-types they work on (e.g. literary translator, commercial translator), their mode and medium of communication (e.g. interpreter as opposed to translator), or the translation situations they serve (e.g. community interpreter, court interpreter, conference interpreter). In terms of Chinese history, I would suggest two broad categories based on the translators' self-positioning in relation to the community and the culture in which they lived: one was the career translator, the other the cultural translator.

Simply defined, career translators fulfilled the existing translation needs of their employers according to the employers' specifications and the established structures regulating such work. Their role was to expedite the work of the establishment and thereby strengthen it. Cultural translators, on the other hand, attempted to fulfill what they perceived to be a need for cultural transfer in a community, with the purpose of furthering their own goals. In that process they often challenged the established structures within which they functioned.

What makes China a particularly interesting case is that the people engaged in translation activities were of two distinct types. The difference between them is not only defined by their cultural positioning, but extends to areas which challenge many of our basic assumptions about language abilities and the translation process. In fact the differences are so great that we can say China has a dual tradition. The following list of characteristics all illustrate this duality:

i. Linguistic know-how. Career translators were bilingual; the majority of those engaged in Chinese cultural translation movements were monolingual.⁷
ii. Mode of operation. Career translators worked individually; cultural translators-even the bilingual ones-engaged in collaborative or team work. This mode of operation and the participation of monolingual translators meant that the translation always had an oral component.
iii. Intended audience. Career translators catered to small groups involved in a specific situation or event; cultural translators always looked beyond their immediate audience.
iv. Requirements of their work. Career translators followed established methods, formats and approaches; cultural translators were mostly free to explore and innovate, in fact often obligated to do so in order to find a way of communicating with the ever changing cultural climate of the host country.
v. Visibility. The work of career translators was linked to the system they served rather than to them as individuals; they were thus invisible and anonymous. Cultural translators had to boost their individual image and authority in order to achieve the desired impact on a large present and future audience, so both they themselves and their colleagues and followers tried hard to enhance their public image.

The difference in visibility and cultural positioning is the major reason why cultural translators have attracted most of the attention of translation scholars. However, the tradition of the career translator deserves the same systematic study, if only for one reason: the path they followed is the same as that which lies ahead of most present day graduates in translation and interpreting. This meant that if our students want to find a professional filiation, it is in this direction that most of them should look.

On thing I need to state clearly here is that there is no direct correlation between the quality of translation and the nature and purpose of the work done. In fact numerous examples from the culturally-oriented translation movements show that there is never any true quality control for cultural translation work. On the other hand, career translation work had always set minimum standards and ensured a degree of regularity. The difference lies in the very nature and organization of these two types of activities. The general belief both among Chinese translation scholars and the average person-in-the-culture that cultural translation work is always of better quality is just a natural result of the literary bias mentioned in section 2. It is an unquestioned assumption rather than a fact.

3.2 Ethnic background, language policy and translation work

The earliest records on translation activities in China date from the Zhou dynasty, and since then records from every dynasty show some translation activities. The nature and amount of work done, however, varied greatly, depending on the racial background of the ruling houses.

China's majority population is of the Han race. Yet in Chinese history there have been long periods when the ruling houses were non-Han (denoted by * in Diagram 1). Historical records show that during these periods both the nature and the volume of translation work differed dramatically from those under ethnic-Han dynasties. The reason is simple: while the ethnic-Han dynasties needed translators for matters related to diplomacy, the non-Han dynasties all had bi- or multilingual language policies in order to facilitate the daily routines of government at all levels.⁸ As a result, not only was the number of translators employed far greater, but the career prospects of the translators were also greater both within and beyond the translation ranks. While throughout dynastic China translators were only clerical officers, under the non-Han dynasties they were often given preferential examinations to join the administrative ranks.⁹ It therefore comes as no surprise that only in the non-Han dynasties do we find mention of translators eventually attaining high office.

Another phenomenon exclusive to the non-Han dynasties was the translation of culturally significant texts-from Chinese into the rulers' languages-for purposes of governance. It is no exaggeration to say that all ethnic Han dynasties had a strong sense of cultural superiority. Translating foreign texts was thus not one of the government's central concerns.¹⁰ On the other hand, dynasties with foreign origins as a rule felt the need to strengthen their social and administrative fabric in the early stages of their development through a transfer of Han culture. The ethnic Han people might have been subjugated, yet the usefulness of Han culture was acknowledged through the introduction of essential texts via translation. Prominent among these texts were the Confucian classics (which formed a corpus for civil examinations in the non-Han ruler's own language) and a work of history entitled The Mirror of Good Governance. Despite the highly cultural nature of these texts, I would not equate their translators with the 'cultural translators' discussed in 3.1. The reason lies in their cultural positioning, intended audience and intended goal. They were ranking administrative officials whose purpose was to expedite the work of the regime they served. Their audience was limited and clearly defined, as was their reward-recognition and promotion by the emperor.

If we accept these arguments, then we need to acknowledge that text-type may not be the best indication for categorizing and analyzing translation work. We may want to study 'government translation activities' as a category consisting of administrative and diplomatic documents as well as texts of high culture. It would also be useful to define 'government translators' not only as career translators, but to include those who engage in one-off translations of culturally significant texts. This would change substantially our perception of government translation work.

Historical China had the experience on the one hand of a cultural and political hegemon (as in the native Han and Tang dynasties), and on the other hand of extensive periods when rulers of foreign origin initiated, by necessity, language policies which differed completely from what the Han Chinese perceived as the norm. Those of us in translation studies have all witnessed how multicultural and bi- or multilingual policies affect the translation profession as well as the study and perception of translation in the contemporary world. The colonial experience has also shown us how language facility is often associated with loyalty to the regime. Data from government translation activities in historical China will either serve to confirm or challenge the conclusions we have drawn. Either way, it will be to our benefit.

3.3 Translation Movements in China

In terms of cultural translation in China, existing histories customarily divide such activities into four to five peak periods (or 'waves') based either on the text type that constituted their main corpus, or on the background of their participants. These peaks are: Buddhist sutra translation (mid 2nd to early 11th century), Jesuit translation (late 16th-early 18th century), translation of Western learning (late 19th to early 20th century), fiction translation (turn of the 20th century), and translation of the social sciences (1980s).

We should perhaps take a longer view of history and redefine cultural translation activities according to their nature, i.e. the ultimate goal which participants in that movement hoped to achieve. Seen from this perspective, I would suggest that there have so far only been two translation movements in China. Both movements represent periods of active engagement with what the Chinese perceive of as a single foreign culture.

The first was the Buddhist sutra translation movement which was concerned with knowledge of a spiritual nature, and which the participants hoped would lead to the universal enlightenment of the host culture. Since there was great homogeneity in terms of text type (Buddhist sutras originating from the Indian subcontinent) as well as of participants (Buddhist monks and some lay believers), its distinctiveness as a single movement has been endorsed by all historians of Chinese translation.

The second translation movement in China started in the late 16th century and is still on going. It is much more complex both in terms of text-types and of participants' background, and as a result has so far been seen as several short-lived entities rather than the varied thrusts of a single movement. Unlike Buddhist translation, the concern of this 'second wave' is primarily with material culture, and the origin of that culture is 'the West'.¹¹ It had its early foundation in the work of the Jesuits, who produced translations both of material culture (in their capacity as Chinese government employees in the directorate of astronomy) and of the Christian culture (in their capacity as missionaries). The main thrust of this movement came, however, in the mid-19th century when repeated defeats at the hands of Western powers shocked China into the realization that her supremacy was long over. The need for national self-preservation led to interest in Western learning as a means to defending China against the West. Understandably, the focus now was on military might and national strength. While the intellectual vanguard showed an interest in Western political and social institutions, the underlying purpose was still that of national reinvigoration. In was also in this context that translation of Western fiction became a focus of reformist discourse at the turn of the 20th century. Despite the variety of text types which at one point or another dominated this translation movement, its core concern has always been primarily national strength.

One of the most recent periods of intense activities within this movement was the translation of works of the social sciences in 1980s. How this is closely related to the whole 'Western learning' translation project is illustrated by what one of the translation initiators said. He described their activities as a continuation of the enlightenment project of the May Fourth period (1919) which was disrupted by PRC policies. (Chen & Jin 1999: ) This clear sense of continuity is perhaps one of the most persuasive arguments for treating cultural translation activities of the last few hundred years as one single movement. Moreover, many of the translation initiators of the 1980s social sciences translations, who played a much more significant role than the translators themselves, had no working ability in the source language. This reminds us of the differences highlighted in 3.1, and thus establishes another link to the work on 'Western learning' done in the 16th and 19th centuries.

Since this second translation movement is still on going, it is difficult to predict the direction in which it will turn. However, the intense period of activities in the last 120 years has pointed towards one phenomenon: the intellectual vanguard has always strived to go beyond material culture, while the governments have always been reluctant to do so. This in itself is a classic indication of the major conflict between the government translation tradition and the purposes of cultural translators. It also shows the scale we need to cover if we want to truly understand the impact of translation movements on any culture.

Concluding Remarks

If the presentation in section 3 gives the impressions that the 'threads' linking traditional translation activities were three straight lines, it is only a false impression resulting from a linear presentation of ideas which are in fact interlaced. While I believe that an analysis of historical data through these new perspectives will show a panoramic picture of China's translation tradition, I am in no position to predict what that picture would look like. However, two things are certain. The patterns revealed will not be neat and symmetrical; there will always be more loose ends and grey areas than our simple categorizations can accommodate. More importantly, perhaps, there will also be blank spaces. Extant historical records never tell the full story, and the lack of information on translation activities related to commerce is one example. China has a long history in international trade-in early history often disguised as tributes to the Chinese court-but almost no record of the related translation activities.¹² This is perhaps the best reminder that no history project can present a truly comprehensive picture.

We can, however, hope to illuminate translation work-both historical and contemporary-in a new light. The proposed historical scheme may also be useful as a tool for self-analysis among contemporary Chinese translation practitioners and scholars. For example, those who translate cultural texts may want to examine their translation choices and strategies in the context of their relationship with the government. The following comments of Yang Xianyi, China's best known translator of classical texts into English,¹³ on his own work is extremely illuminating in this respect:

Unfortunately, the two of us [Yang and his wife Gladys, nee Taylor] were only hired hands who had no control over what should be translated. Those who made the decision on what to translate were frequently young editors who had little knowledge of Chinese literature, and the chosen pieces had to be acceptable to the political climate and the preferences of the time. (Yang: 190)

In classifying himself as a government/career translator, albeit of texts of high culture, Yang shows unusual insight and awareness of the conditions that circumscribe government translation work.

Both Yang's insight and my own description of the nature of government translation work lead us inevitably to re-examine the nature of Chinese translation studies as it is practised today. Since university education is strictly controlled in the PRC's one-party rule, the conditions governing the training of translators as well as the study of the subject within the education system resemble those which circumscribe government translation activities. At the same time, a tight control of publication venues reins in possible challenges which may be posed by cultural translation work. What is the impact of such institutional and political structures on the mentality of translation scholars, the self-positioning of the field and the direction of its development? This is a question worth pondering.

Selected Bibliography¹⁴
Carr, E. H. 1964. What is History? Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964.
Brunnert, I. S. and Hagelstrom, V.V. 1911. revised N. Th. Kolessoff; tr. A. Beltchenko and E.E. Moran, Present Day Political Organization of China. Shanghai: n.p.
Cao Shibang. 1990. Zhongguo fojiao yijingshi lunji. Taipei: Dongchu.
Chen, F. C. and Jin, Guantao. 1997. From Youthful Manuscripts to River Elegy. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press.
Collingwood, R. G. 1946. The Idea of History. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Denton, Kirk A. 1996. Modern Chinese Literary Thought : Writings on Literature, 1893-1945. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
Ershisi shi (The 24 dynastic histories). Edition 1965-1974. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. 246 vols.
Evans, Richard J. 1997. In Defence of History. London: Granta Books.
Feng Guifen. 1861. Edition used 1971. 'Cai Xixue yi', Jiaobinlu kangyi. Taipei: Wenhai chubanshe.
Huang Benji. Edition 1965. Lidai zhiguan biao. Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju.
Hucker, Charles. 1985. A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Hung, Eva. 1999a. '1980 niandai Zhongguo dalu fanyi rechao chutan'. Working Papers in Chinese Studies No. 2. Singapore: Centre for Research in Chinese Studies, National University of Singapore.
Hung, Eva. 1999b. 'The Role of the Foreign Translator in the Chinese Tradition'. Target 11:2, pp. 223-243.
Hung, Eva. 2000. 'A Monocultural Approach to Translating Classical Chinese Poetry'. Translating Literary Texts: Theory and Practice. Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong.
Hung, Eva. 2002 (forthcoming). 'Government Translators in Dynastic China'. De Gruyter International Encyclopaedia of Translation Studies. Berlin: De Gruyter.
Mu, Lei. 2000. 'Zhongshi yishi yanjiu; tuidong yixue fanzhan'. Chinese Translators Journal 2000:1, pp. 44-48.
Pollard, David E. (ed) 1998. Translation & Creation: Readings of Western Literature in Early Modern China 1840-1916. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Qian, Duoxin & Almberg, E. S-P. 2001. 'Interview with Yang Xianyi'. Translation Review. No.62: - .
Ranke, Leopold von. 1973. The Theory and Practice of History. Ed. Geor G. Iggers & Konrad von Moltke. New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Co. Inc. Taisho Shinshu Daizokyo (Taisho edition of the Tripitaka). 1929-34. Tokyo. Edition 1957 authorized mimeographed reprint. Taipei: Zhonghua fojia wenhauguan dazangjing weiyuanhui. 110 vols.
Tang Yongtong. Edition 1996. Han Wei liangJin Nanbeichao fojiao shi. Taipei: Luotuo chubanshe.
Tang Yongtong. 1982. Siu Tang fojiao shigao. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju.
Tushipuhan, Delida. 2000. 'Zhongguo Xiyu de yuyan wenhua yu fanyi de guanxi'. Chinese Translators Journal 2000: 4, pp. 39-44.
Xiong Yuezhi. 1994. Xixue dongjian yu wan Qing shehui. Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe.
Yang, Xianyi. 2001. Luochuan zaijiu yi dangnian. Beijing: Shiyue wenyi chubanshe.
Zurcher, Erick. 1972. The Buddhist Conquest of China. Leiden: E. J. Brill.

Appendix
1984
Ma, Zuyi. Zhongguo fan yi jian shi, "Wusi yundong" yiqian bufen [A Brief History of Translation in China-Up to the May Fourth Period]. Revised edition. 1998. Beijing: Zhongguo duiwai fanyi chuban gongsi. 1984
1989 Chen, Yugang. ed. Zhongguo fanyi wenxue shigao [A Preliminary History of Chinese Literary Translation]. Beijing: Zhongguo duiwai fanyi chuban gongsi. 1991
Zang, Zhonglun. Zhongguo fanyi shihua [A Short History of Translation in China]. Jinan: Shandong jiaoyu chubanshe. 1992
Chen, Fukang. Zhongguo yixue lilun shigao [A Preliminary History of Chinese Translation Theory]. Shanghai: Shanghai waiyu jiayu chubanshe. 1993
Li, Nanqiu. Zhongguo kexue wexian fanyi shigao [A Preliminary History of the Translation of Scientific Texts in China]. Hefei: Zhongguo kexue jishu daxue chubanshe. 1994
Maitiniyazi, Rezheke. ed. Xiyu fanyi shi [History of Translation in the Western Region]. Urumqi: Xinjiang daxue chubanshe. 1996
Sun, Zhili. ed. 1949-1966: woguo Ying Mei wenxue fanyi gailun [Introduction to the Translation of Anglo-American Literature in China]. Beijing: Yi lin chubanshe. 1997
Ma, Zuyi and Ren, Rongzhen. eds. Hanji waiyi shi [The Translation of Chinese Books into Foreign Languages: a History]. Wuhan: Hubei jiaoyu chubanshe. Wang, Kefei. ed. Fanyi wenhuashi lun [Cultural History of Translation]. Shanghai: Shanghai waiyu jiaoyu chubanshe. 1998
Guo, Yanli. Zhongguo jindai fanyi wenxue gailun [An Introduction to Literary Translation in Early Modern China]. Wuhan: Hubei jiaoyu chubanshe. 2000
Ma, Zuyi. Zhongguo fanyi shi, vol.1 [History of Translation in China, vol. 1]. Hankou: Hubei jiaoyu chubanshe. 1960
Zhongguo fanyi wenxue jianshi [A Brief History of Literary Translation in China]. Compiled by the class of 57, French Stream, Department of Western Languages, Peking University. Beijing: Department of Western Languages, Peking University.¹⁵

Note to Diagramme 1: This diagramme is for indication purposes only. The proportion of activities shown under 'government translation activities' is based on records of such activities in the twenty-five dynastic histories (up to 1911). The proportion shown in 'cultural translation movements' is based on the known quantity of work done and the impact of such work on the host culture.

¹Mu 2000 gives a brief description of the works listed here except Ma 1999. Mu's evaluation, in line with current Chinese practice, is totally complimentary.
²For a study of the fiction translation movement and its background, see Pollard 1999.
³The first official move to circumscribe the orientation and application of literature was made by Mao Zedong in Yan'an in 1942. His ‘Yan'an Talks on Arts & Literature’ set the principle for the Chinese Communist Party's use of literature.
⁴This is not necessarily the result of fear of censorship or political repercussions. Many may truly believe putting academic pursuits in the service of the governing regime shows genuine patriotism.
⁵Xinjiang, an area inhabited by a variety of ethnic groups most of whom have been Muslim since the 7th or 8th century, has an active separatist movement. It is obvious how issues of language and cultural differences can be central to such a movement as well as to government policies.
⁶The greatest obstacle here for China is that her didactism is both part of her education tradition and of her contemporary politics and ideology. Under such circumstances it is difficult to nurture the necessary awareness and to find the opportunity to express it.
⁷For more information about monolingual translators and collaborative translation see Hung 1999b.
⁸For details about their translation activities and the training and recruitment of translators, see Hung 2002.
⁹The government translation ranks under both ethnic Han and non-Han dynasties were lowly. The only exception was the last few decades of the Qing dynasty (roughly 1870s to 1911), when necessary diplomatic dealings with the Western powers catapulted translators of foreign languages into much higher and better paid positions. They achieved equivalence with middle ranking administrative officials.
¹⁰Buddhist historical records state that many sutra translations were sponsored by the government. In fact this was on the whole part of the mechanism to keep Buddhism under control. While up to the Sui dynasty there were some true devotees of Buddhism among the monarchs, most saw the sponsorship of Buddhist activities as part of government tactics. Starting with the Tang dynasty (619) Buddhism could count few true devotees among the rulers.
¹¹That ‘the West’ is perceived as a single cultural entity is comparable to the Western conception of ‘the Orient’ or ‘Asian’.
¹²In the few extant 19th century references to commercial translators, their ability and integrity are much maligned. See, for example, Feng 1861.
¹³Chinese literature is unique for having the largest number of source culture initiated translations, mostly rendered into English. (See Hung 2000 for a discussion.) The PRC established a government-run bureau which oversaw these activities, and the Yangs were employed there from the 1950s until their retirement.
The fact that their translations reached an audience in the English-speaking world outside of China means that their reception in these countries are governed not by the intention of the translation initiator (i.e. the PRC government), but by the norms and needs of the host cultures. Special interest groups within these countries-notably academics in Sinology-would probably be discomfited by my reference to Yang as a government translator. This just shows that translations (and consequently, translators) have different functions and are perceived differently in different communities. Since 1990 Yang has indeed been regarded by the average Chinese intellectual as an outspoken critic of the PRC government, but all his views of dissent are expressed in his creative writings in Chinese, after he had retired from translation work.
¹⁴Please also refer to all titles listed under the Appendix.
¹⁵This work falls outside the period of covered in this appendix. It is listed because it represented the earliest effort at translation historiography in the PRC, and true to the spirit of the times, was done as a collective project.