Thoughts after translating Takeuchi Yoshimi’s Ro Jin 鲁迅 (Lu Xun)

ABSTRACT

Despite the ups and downs in their relationship, China and Japan have been engaged in a process of cultural exchange for nearly two millennia. A recent outcome of this interaction has been the discourse surrounding the founder of modern Chinese literature, Lu Xun 鲁迅 (1881-1936), his foremost exponent in 20^th century Japan, the writer and thinker Takeuchi Yoshimi 竹内好 (1910-1977) and the effect of their interaction ever since on intellectuals in both countries. This is an interaction which had substantial influence on the intellectual climate in post-war Japan and still plays a role in intellectual discourse in contemporary China, particularly in the debates surrounding modernity and nationalism. I have worked with Joshua Fogel in making the first translation into English of Takeuchi’s classic monograph Ro Jin (1944) into English from the Japanese. In the process, we have attained new insights into historical and contemporary intellectual developments in both countries, as well as a deepening understanding of “Takeuchi’s Lu Xun”. I have also examined two rival translations into Chinese by Li Xifeng 李心峰 (1986) and Li Dongmu 李冬木 (2005) from the angle of fidelity to the original and readability.

KEYWORDS:

• Takeuchi Yoshimi
• Lu Xun and Japan
• Japanese-English Japanese-Chinese comparative literary translation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The first edition of Ro Jin came out in 1944 from Nippon Koronsha 日本公論社. The second was in 1952 in the Sōgen Bunko 創元文庫 series. The 1952 edition used the new orthographic conventions, corrected a number of typos, and added some footnotes, but did not rewrite portions of the text. By 1980 the Miraisha 未來社 edition (Tokyo, 1961) had gone through 17 printings. Ro Jin came out again at the beginning of volume 1 of the Takeuchi Yoshimi Zenshū 竹内好全集 (Complete Works of Takeuchi Yoshimi) (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō 筑摩書房, 1980), pp. 3–175.

2. Xue Yi 薛毅 and Sun Xiaozhong 孫曉忠, ed. Lu Xun yu Zhunei Hao 魯迅與竹內好 (Lu Xun and Takeuchi Yoshimi) (Shanghai: Shanghai Shudian Chubanshe, 2008). This is an edited volume based on a conference held in 2005 at Shanghai University by scholars from China and Japan. Of the 25 papers included in this volume, only three are by Japanese scholars.

3. Organized by Dr Liu Chunyong at Chuanmei Daxue in Beijing, this online forum became known as the Lu Xun Yuanzhuo Pai 魯迅圓桌派 (Lu Xun Roundtable) Jindai de Chaoke Dushuhui 《近代的超克》讀書會 (“Overcoming Modernity” Reading and Discussion).

4. Li Changzhi, a young philosophy student, published Lu Xun Pipan 魯迅批判 (Lu Xun, a Critique) (Shanghai: Beixin Shuju, 1936), which Lu Xun himself read over and in which he corrected some factual errors. The book later got the author into trouble after Liberation, mainly due to its title in Chinese, which if taken literally, could be interpreted as “Lu Xun Repudiated.”

5. As recounted by the narrator in the 1922 Nahan zixu 呐喊自序 (The author’s own preface to Outcry, the first collection of his short stories).

6. Takeuchi tells us that Lin Yutang 林語堂 (1895–1976) first used the term zhefuqi 蟄伏期 (period of gestation/hibernation) to describe this part of Lu Xun’s life, when he lived in near seclusion. Takeuchi elaborates that this was “the period in which Lu Xun’s kokkaku 骨格 (lit. skeletal formation/backbone/character) took shape” and considers it the turning point at which he took on a new perspective (kaishin 回心, lit. “a ‘turn’ of mind”/“a change of ‘heart’”). See Ro Jin (Tokyo: Miraisha 1961), p. 55; Takeuchi Yoshimi zenshū 竹内好全集 (The Complete works of Takeuchi Yoshimi), 17 vols (Tokyo: Chikuma shobō, 1980), 1:46 (hereafter cited as Zenshū).

7. Ro Jin (1961), p. 129.

8. Masuda (1970) had been Lu Xun’s student and early on published a short biography in a journal that Lu Xun had read over first. He is better known for his collection of essays Ro Jin no inshō 魯迅の印象 (Impressions of Lu Xun) (Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 1970), 326 pp., an expanded version of the original 1948 edition. Oda Takeo’s work was titled Ro Jin den 魯迅傳 (Biography of Lu Xun) (Tokyo: Chikuma shobō, 1941) and had several Chinese translations.

9. This term could also be translated as a turn of mind, a transformation, recovery, or redemption. Li Dongmu 李冬木 translates kaishin with the Christian term “conversion,” with which I would not agree, as conversion refers to moving over to a different religion or ideology. See Sun Ge, ed., Jindai de chaoke 近代的超克 (Overcoming modernity) (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 2007), p. 45, n. 1.

10. Ro Jin (1961), p. 71; Zenshū 1:61.

11. The title of the book, which in Chinese carries the connotation of “Lu Xun refuted,” brought the author to grief after 1949, especially during the Cultural Revolution. But Lu Xun himself read over the manuscript for Li in 1935, correcting some of the dates of his writings and factual errors; so, in a sense, it was published with Lu Xun’s imprimatur. After 1978 Li was offered the chance to publish a revised version by a major publishing house, but he responded that he would prefer to let the book stand as it is.

12. Ro Jin (1961), p. 46; Zenshū 1:39.

13. Ro Jin (1961), p. 47; Zenshū 1:40.

14. Maruyama Noboru, “Lu Xun in Japan,” in Leo Ou-fan Lee, ed. Lu Xun and His Legacy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), p. 230.

15. Ro Jin (1961), p. 160.

16. Ro Jin (1961), pp. 164–5.

17. Ro Jin (1961), p. 83.

18. Ro Jin (1961), p. 112. That translation was lost in the fire that consumed the Commercial Press building after the Japanese bombing in 1932.

19. Ro Jin (1961), p. 178, endnote 9.

20. See Morohashi Tetsuji 諸橋轍次, Dai Kan-Wa jiten 大漢和辭典 (Great Sino-Japanese dictionary) (Tokyo: Taishūkan shoten, 1984), 3:54.

21. See Ro Jin, chapter 2 “Shisō no keisei” 思想の形成 (The formation of his thought), part 1, in Ro Jin (1961) pp. 55–65; Zenshū 1:46

22. On August 16, 1954 a student newspaper at Tokyo University (Tokyo Daigaku gakusei shinbun東京大學學生新聞) published an interview with Takeuchi titled Tenkō wo meguru mondai 転向をめぐる問題 (Concerning the question of conversion [tenkō]), in which Takeuchi (1954) links the term kaishin to St Paul’s conversion to Christianity: “Kaishin (conversion) ‘Paul changed to believe in the Christian religion.’” Here the English term “conversion” appears in katakana in parentheses. A question of the possibility of confusion of terms arises here, however, as tenkō, the subject of the interview, is normally translated as “conversion.” Tenkō 転向 (lit. “a change of direction”) is an historical term indicating the renunciation of Marxism by Japanese intellectuals, who were “persuaded” to go over to the imperial government’s side during the War.

23. Ro Jin (1961), p. 97

24. Li Xinfeng李心峰 trans., Lu Xun 魯迅 (Ro Jin) (Hangzhou: Zhejiang Wenyi Chubanshe, 1986), p. 83.

25. The entire book is included in Sun Ge 孫歌, ed. Jindai de chaoke 近代的超克 (Overcoming modernity) (Beijing: Sanlian, 2005/2007), p. 80.

26. Here Takeuchi uses the borrowed word kosumo コスモ (cosmos), meaning “universe.”

27. Li Xinfeng, trans. Lu Xun (1986), p. 105.

28. Jindai de chaoke (2007), p. 101.

Additional information

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Jon Eugene von Kowallis

Jon Eugene von Kowallis is Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, where he teaches Chinese literature, film and critical theory (orientalism). He received his PhD in Chinese literature from the University of California, Berkeley. Monographs include: The Lyrical Lu Xun: a Study of his Classical-style Poetry and The Subtle Revolution: Poets of the ‘Old Schools’ during Late Qing and Early Republican China. He is currently completing an ARC Discovery project on the formation of Lu Xun’s early thought during his Lerhjahre in Japan, and an annotated bibliography of scholarly works on Lu Xun in English, Chinese and Japanese. He also publishes on Chinese-language film.