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ABSTRACT
The special nature of Sino-Japanese translation, with a history as long as that of vernacular translations of Greek and Latin, is worth exploring because it can throw new light on Eurocentric and universalist approaches to translation theorizing. The tradition of translating between China and Japan, disrupted and then reinvigorated by the “invasion of Europe” in the nineteenth century, is the subject of ruminations by Takeuchi Yoshimi (1910–77), a prominent twentieth-century Sinologist. Takeuchi triangulates the relationship between Japan, China and the West in a way that forces a deeper reconsideration of the notion of the “translational”. The West (the Other) is a means through which identity can be constructed by Japan (the Self), but given Japan's long history of being shaped by/shaping the China imaginary, China is also Japan's Other. Takeuchi's prime interest is in Japan projecting its own identity onto China (via Lu Xun). In the present article, Takeuchi's two translations of Lu Xun's “The Diary of a Madman” in 1956 and 1976 are compared with those by Inoue (1932), Oda and Tanaka (1953) and Komada (1974) to understand how Takeuchi's advocacy of a realignment with China (and Asia) constitutes an attempt to reconstrue a Japanese identity that would refute the West's monistic view of civilization.
Note on contributor
Leo Tak-hung Chan is head and professor of the Department of Translation, Lingnan University. His most recent book is Readers, Reading and Reception of Translated Fiction in Chinese: Novel Encounters (St Jerome, 2010). He is also president of the Hong Kong Translation Society and, for over 10 years, chief editor of Translation Quarterly.
Notes
1. Despite scholarly interest in Takeuchi's ideas in the post-Second World War context, so far no substantial study has been devoted to his voluminous Lu Xun translations. See the extensive bibliography in Uhl (Citation2003, 452–488).
2. Being “based” in Tokyo, Takeuchi the scholar is generally regarded as belonging to the so-called “Tokyo School” of Sinology, whose theoretical assumptions and methodologies are seen as antithetical to the “Kyoto School”, of which more will be said later.
3. Original title: “Chinese Modernity and Japanese Modernity: Lu Xun as Clue” [Chūgoku no kindai to Nihon no kindai: Rojin wo tegakari to shite]. All references in this article to the collections of Takeuchi's works and translations give first the volume number, then the page number(s).
4. The vagueness, or inconsistency, in his attitude toward the wars is discussed by Maruyama Noboru, for whom the inconsistency “was fairly common among the Japanese intellectuals of that time” (Citation1985, 229).
5. This is actually the title of a later essay entitled “Kindai no chōkoku” (1959), written after the war.
6. Fukuzawa's program of catching up with, and emulating, the West while leaving China behind is discussed at some length in Uchiyama (Citation2012, 73–78).
7. Takeuchi also emphasizes the importance of Lu Xun in his essay “On ‘The Diary of a Madman’” (1948): “In Japanese literature there is no Lu Xun. Since Futabatei Shimei [1864–1909] poets of protest have appeared intermittently, but they have always ended up in compromise and defeat. The path of compromise is seen from Shimazaki Tōson's [1872–1943] Family to Shiga Naoya's [1883–1971] Reconciliation; that of defeat, from Ishikawa Takuboku [1886–1912] to … Shimaki Kensaku [1903–45]. And there is colonial literature, slave literature that ignores reality as it is …. Japanese literature, which imitates the resplendent example of its colonizer, is for Lu Xun literature that is most impoverished” (‘Kyōjin nikki’ ni tsuite; Takeuchi Citation1980–82, 1.228).
8. Acting like the philologist that he was, Takeuchi also noted how a Chinese word, exhibiting the characteristics of a noun, refers primarily to an external object whereas its Japanese counterpart points to an emotional state and functions mainly as a verb. Takeuchi was of the opinion that Chinese verbs express more strongly a determination or a desire for something, in comparison with the greater detachment that inheres in the Japanese verbs. The example given is that of kibō (hope; xiwang in Chinese).
9. Little is known of Inoue Kobai except that he was an anthropologist interested in folkways in China, and that Lu Xun disapproved of his translation because of its many errors.
10. Except for this instance, there is no difference between Takeuchi's 1956 and 1976–78 versions in this respect.
11. In William A. Lyell's (Citation1990) translation the keyword zhengzha in this sentence is left out, showing a lack of sensitivity to its importance on the translator's part.
12. Mi modaesuru [convulse] is used twice in “The Loner” (Guduzhe; 1.335) and agaku [struggle] is used once in “Regret for the Past” (1.360). There is also one instance where zhengzha is not translated, in “Gathering Vetch” (Caiwei; 2.258).
13. Sōsatsu does appear once, however, in Rojin early on (1980–82: 1.9).
14. The homonym 回心 [kaishin] is also used in Rojin to refer to the same concept. It is a Buddhist term which implies “negation of the inner self leading to self-awakening” (Jin Citation2012, 71). From this one can also see how a central Lu Xun tenet became Japanized. For a Japanese scholar's interpretation of the link between despair and kaishin, see Matsumoto (Citation2005, 174–175).
15. There are also differences between the four translations of nan jian zhen de ren [difficult to see the real men], the theme-sentence in the last paragraph. Takeuchi explained, in his essay “Reading Lu Xun” (Rojin wo yomu; 1976) (Takeuchi Citation1980–82, 3.456–473), why he switched from “Real Men are rare” in his early rendition to “I feel ashamed to meet Real Men” in the later version (3.462). The former is, however, used in the three other translations. The latter was proposed by Masuda Wataru, and supported by Maruo Tsuneki, who, quoting from Chinese classical texts, said this is the correct interpretation because it focuses attention on the theme of shame in the story (Maruo [1992] Citation2006). Such a reading is also consonant with Oriental moral philosophy, underscoring once more the “proximity” element in Sino-Japanese translation.
16. Fogel (Citation1995, 68) notes that it was derived from a Sanskrit transliteration of the term Qin (the first dynasty in which China became united under one ruler) in its Dutch pronunciation.
17. In this early phase, Chinese was not even thought of as a “foreign” language. The towering figure who first urged the need for linguistic separation is, of course, the philosopher and translator Ogyū Sorai (1666–1728).
18. Mizoguchi Yūzo has said something similar about the work of French Sinologists in his perceptive study of the Western approach to China (Mizoguchi Citation1989).
19. A brilliant account in English of the first and second phases is provided by Pastreich (Citation2010), although his focus is more on the evolution of the conception of literature (rather than that of translation) in the transitional period. On the early linguistic influence exerted by Chinese on Japanese, see Pollack (Citation1986).
20. For a more detailed account of Mizoguchi Yūzo's critique of Takeuchi, see Chen and Shi (Citation2007).
21. “Repeatedly” as Takeuchi did through revisiting his earlier translations of Lu Xun some decades after they first came out.
22. Lu Xun was initially trained to be a medical doctor, though he changed course and became a writer – and translator.
23. It also does not seem entirely off the mark to suggest that Takeuchi's “reinvention” of China as an object of translation occurred as a result of Japan's encounter with the West, and thus mediated by the latter. Ever since the Meiji period, Japanese translators had adopted an appropriative approach in tackling Western textual and non-textual materials. This signals once again the need for a triangulation approach to discussing translation in Japan. For a perspective on triangulating China-Japan-the West, see Wixted (Citation1989, 17–27).