Taiwan Today

Despite some temporary retardation, America's postwar interest in Oriental culture has generally followed an upward trend. U.S. studies of Chinese way of life may be less than of saturation intensity. Even so, gratifying results have been recorded despite the language barrier and inadequate study materials. No foreign nation — with the possible exception of Japan and Korea — has done more than the United States in China studies since 1945. Chinese scholars who stayed in the United States after the Communist usurpation of the mainland have made a substantial contribution. But Americans are deserving of the lion's share of the credit.

Chinese studies in the United States are almost entirely a postwar phenomenon. Before World War II, courses in Chinese language, history, and culture were found only at such schools as Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton, Chicago, and Cornell. Widespread American interest in Asian civilizations was largely a by-product of the war with Japan. That conflict brought the whole United States into collision with a non-Western civilization for the first time in history. The painful lessons of the Pacific war made many Americans aware of the necessity of looking west and toward the East. Many institutions of learning began to offer courses in the history, culture, languages, and philosophy of Asia.

But the flesh is weak and Asian languages are difficult. The postwar interest in Asian studies died down as the 1940s neared an end. Japan was occupied. Korea was divided. There was trouble in Indochina and Malaysia but they were far away. Attention turned back to Europe, where the Marhall Plan was saving a continent, the Truman Doctrine was saving Greece, and the Berlin Airlift was saving not only that city but West Germany and Western Europe. Why study Asia and China? Europe was a sufficient challenge.

Then the Soviets launched their first Sputnik. Was coexistence possible? Was Russia a European or an Asian power — or both? What of other Asians, and especially of Asian Communists? Americans began to understand that this is really one world, and that all parts of it must be understood in order to understand the whole.

Federal Interest

Washington respected the 48 states (Alaska and Hawaii were territories at that time) but realized the necessity of gearing education to requirements of the times. The result was a crash program with focus on science and foreign languages. The National Defense Educational Act enabled the federal government to offer financial assistance. Of the six foreign languages listed as strategically important, Chinese led the list — ahead of Russian, Japanese, Arabic, Hindustani, and Portuguese. For Chinese study, the National Defense Educational Act provided financial assistance to some 20 educational institutions. Scholarships were provided for students of Chinese. Last year the total assisted was between 500 and 600.

Since 1964, college faculty members preparing to specialize in certain Chinese subjects have been eligible for a year's leave with pay in order to prepare themselves. College teachers have been sent to Taiwan for summer study. Scholars have been dispatched to Taiwan under the Fulbright-Hays program.

Accent on Speaking

In the study of Chinese as well as other foreign languages, attention has been concentrated on speaking. This is entirely different from the traditional method in which the student was taught to read and write but could not speak or comprehend the spoken tongue. Today an American student of Chinese may not read or write more than a dozen Chinese characters after a year of study, but he can communicate orally. Generally speaking, the teaching of Chinese at U.S. colleges now follows this pattern: stress on oral communication in the first year, reading of conversational written texts in the second year, reading of vernaculars in the third year, and reading of classical Chinese in the fourth and subsequent years.

Interest in the teaching of Chinese at the secondary level has increased by leaps and bounds. Some authorities have urged instruction at the elementary level. Dr. Hsu Kai-yu, chairman of the San Francisco State College Foreign Language Department, recently said: "The place they should start learning the language is about the sixth grade, before their language patterns become too firmly fixed. It is possible, of course, to learn at the high school level, and also at the college level. But the earlier you start, the better."

Dr. Hsu said Americans have no more difficulty in learning Chinese than French or Spanish. For U.S.-born youngsters of Chinese ancestry, Mandarin is no easier than for non-Chinese, even if they have learned Cantonese at home.

77 High Schools

Hsu, 44, is a native of Chengtu in western China. He has made Chinese popular in U.S. colleges, high schools, and even elementary schools. He is developing teaching materials and texts for a four-year high school Chinese language program and also for elementary school classes.

Seventy-seven secondary schools in the United States are teaching Mandarin to some 1,300 students. About 2,500 students are studying Chinese at the college and university level. Of the 60 U.S. colleges and universities offering degree programs in Chinese, 13 are in California. The 133 students studying Chinese at San Francisco State College constitute the largest enrollment.

From 1959, the year Dr. Hsu went to San Francisco State, through 1964 the federal government spent US$819,798 there to help develop Chinese language instruction materials. Nearly two million dollars went into scholarships for students preparing to teach Chinese. Another US$300,000 was spent on the summer institutes for elementary and secondary school teachers of Chinese established by Dr. Hsu in 1961. Since that year the U.S. Office of Education has given an average of US$50.000 annually to Dr. Hsu's program for developing materials required in the teaching of Mandarin at the secondary school level. Some 600 students in the United States arc using materials developed at SFSC. Hsu is a founder of the Chinese Language Teachers Association of America.

SFSC also has been active in supporting the California State College International Studies Program. Students have been sent to Taiwan and other foreign lands to study language and other subjects.

An outstanding language-teaching institute in Taiwan is the Stanford University Language Center in Taipei, established in 1962 under an inter-university program. Students are not permitted to speak English in class and are encouraged to converse with Chinese people of the community. They learn Chinese within a relatively brief time.

Teacher Controversy

The American enthusiasm for learning and teaching Chinese has given rise to controversy regarding qualified teachers. This pits the linguists, with a doctor's degree in the science of language but who are not necessarily perfect in the language, against those who have taught Chinese for years and who usually are of Chinese extraction. Most U.S. schools prefer the linguists.

About 20 years ago, when the study of Chinese first became popular in the United States, teaching was virtually monopolized by natives of China. Now their students are taking over and Chinese-born instructors are becoming fewer and fewer. There have been suggestions that with the U.S. government putting so much money and manpower into Chinese language instruction, the Chinese themselves also should do more to advance studies of Chinese language and culture.

Learning a foreign language is not an end in itself. The language is a tool for studying the history and culture of the people who use it. The Republic of China has been sending thousands upon thousands of students abroad. But the traffic is no longer one way. Many foreigners are coming to Taiwan for study. Free China hopes to do more to step up this two-way traffic. Measures may include dispatch of more qualified cultural emissaries abroad and the creation of a more favorable Chinese studies climate at home. The awarding of doctorates in sinology by Taiwan universities also has been suggested.

Asian Study Status

Status consciousness has found its way into Asian studies and the teaching of Chinese at American universities. This might be a conversation at an intercollegiate gathering:

A. "What Far Eastern studies do you have at your school?"

B. "We offer modern Far East, Chinese history, Japanese history, and a few other such courses."

A. "Any course in Chinese language?"

B. (Apologetically) "No, we haven't got that far. What about your school?"

A. "We have just added Chinese language and Chinese literature."

The term "Chinese literature" as used at U.S. colleges often means Chinese literature in English translation. This is better than nothing but leaves much to be desired. Translated works are likely to be entirely different from the original in style and feeling. The discrepancy is especially great in the case of Chinese classical poetry, which has a fixed number of syllables for each line and specific rhyming patterns.

Courses offered by U.S. schools include history of Chinese literature, Chinese poetry, fiction, drama, selected readings from the classics, philosophy, and those dealing with specific authors, styles, and periods. Not all schools can offer highly sophisticated subjects. Adequate faculty is often lacking. Comparative literature and literary criticism, for instance, are not within the capability of most institutions.

Chinese Literature

Chinese literature courses usually are conducted on a lecture basis. Reports based on translated works may not contain penetrating views or original thought. In the absence of a knowledge of Chinese language, students cannot go far beyond the superficial level. The difficulty is intensified by the lack of materials.

English translations of Chinese literary works include the following:

The Four Books and Five Classics of Confucianism. Best known translations are those by James Legge of England. The Four Books are the Great Learning, Confucian Analects, Doctrine of the Mean, and Mencius. The Five Classics are the Book of History, Odes (or Book of Poetry), Book of Rites, and Spring and Autumn Annals. The Book of Poetry is perhaps the only work of literary value. The others are concerned with history, philosophy, and pedagogy. The Book of Poetry is required reading for most students of Chinese literature in the United States. The translations available include those by Arthur Waley of England, Rene Granet of France, Bernhard Karlgren of Sweden, and Ezra Pound.

Another notable work in English translation is Li Sao or Fallen Into Sorrow (or merely Sorrow), the longest of the poems of Chu Yuan (343?-290? B.C.), the first known poet of China. Largely autobiographical, this poem was written during Chu's exile. When the scholar-statesman drowned himself in the Milo river of present day Hunan province, the people rushed to save him. The annual dragon boat races held on the fifth day of the fifth moon according to the lunar calendar still commemorate the attempted rescue. The poems attributed to Chu Yuan are not easy to understand. They are, however, favorites of students of literature because of their distinct style of the Chu tsu, or poems of the state of Chu, and their touch of southern fragrance.

Ancient Chinese prosody up to the second century before Christ followed two patterns. The northern or Yellow river pattern of four-character lines took shape from 1000 to 700 B.C. and is reflected in most of the poems in the Book of Poetry. The southern or Yangtze delta pattern of long and irregular lines broken by an auxiliary syllable functioning as a caesura in the middle flowered in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. Typical of this style is the poetry of the Chu school represented by Chu Yuan and also used by most poets of the Han dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 220) in the polite literary form of fu. The fu are flowery pieces, sophisticated and intricate but lacking in spontaneity, creativeness, and depth. Not many fu pieces have been translated into English.

The epoch-making work of history is Shih Chi or Records of the Historian by Ssu-ma Chien (145-86? B.C.), the greatest literary figure of the Han dynasty. This masterpiece was 18 years in the writing. Ssu-ma Chien not only shaped a pattern for the historical literature of the centuries to follow, but also established the tradition of an intimate relationship between literature and history. Shih Chi covers the major events and personalities in a period of some 3,000 years. It was completed in 91 B.C. and is a complex but well-organized work of 130 chapters and half a million characters. Only fragments of Shih Chi have been translated by Prof. Berton Watson of Columbia University.

At the beginning of the second century before Christ, a new verse form with five-syllable lines emerged. It became known as Han shih, that is, Han poetry. A representative writer is Tao Chien, also known as Tao Yuan-ming (365-427 A.D.). Many poems of this period have been translated into English.

Tu Fu (712-770) and Li Po (701?-762?) were twin stars of the Tang dynasty (618-907) — the golden era of Chinese poetry. Peace and prosperity spurred Tang civilization. Lu shih (regulation poetry) was born as a new verse form. Many translations of Tang poetry have been made.

The ku wen (ancient prose) movement of Tang and Sung (960-1280) times was a highlight of ancient China's literary history. The writings of the so-called eight masters of Tang and Sung prose are a must for students of the Chinese classics. Especially outstanding are the works of Han Yu (768-824), the leader of the movement, and Liu Tsung-yuan (773-819). The ku wen movement revived the ancient prose style in protest against the florid and trivial artificialities of balanced prose — called pien wen — which had held sway through six dynasties of political disunity as well as the first 150 years of the Tang dynasty. To Americans, however, ku wen has little appeal. Scarcely any translations are available.

In general, Chinese verse has attracted more translation attention than Chinese prose. Aside from Tang poems, the most frequently translated works are those of Sung poets who perfected the tzu - poetry to be sung to accompaniment as contrasted with shih, which are poems to be read, recited or chanted.

Drama and Fiction

Tang romances and Sung prose stories including fairy tales and monster thrillers — have also aroused Western interest. English translations abound. Notable collections include Chinese Prose Literature of the Tang Period by L.E.D. Edwards and Traditional Chinese Tales by Wang Chi-chen of Columbia University.

Translations of vernacular Chinese drama and fiction are unbalanced. As early as in 1817, J.F. Davis, an Englishman, translated some tsa chu (miscellaneous plays) of the Yuan dynasty (1260-1368). In 1829 Davis translated Han Kung Chiu or Autumn in the Han Palace, a play by Ma Chih-yuan (1265-1325) based on the well-known story of how a lady from the Han court of Emperor Yuan (48-32 B.C.) was sent by mistake to the border encampment of the Hsiung-nu barbarians. A long English-language translation interregnum followed. A number of German and French versions of Yuan dramas came out in succeeding years, but no further English translations of the Yuan plays made their appearance until 1936, when Hsiung Shih-i of China translated Hsi Hsiang Chi (the Western Chamber), a play that Wang Te-hsin (1250?-?) based on the prose romance The Record of "Ying- ying by Yuan Chen (779-831). Henry H. Hart also has made an English translation of this medieval drama.

Novels in Translation

The Sung dynasty saw the development of full-fledged Chinese fiction. Many novels of this period and of later dynasties have been translated into English. Among them are:

— The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (translated by C.H. Brewitt-Taylor in 1925 ).

— Shui Hu Chuan or the Story of the Water Margin (retitled All Men Are Brothers in Pearl Buck's 1937 translation).

— Adventure of Monkey (translated by Arthur Waley and also by Timothy Richard).

— Chin Ping Mei or The Golden Lotus (translated by Clement Egerton in 1939; the esoteric portions are translated into Latin).

— Hung Lou Meng or the Dream of the Red Chamber (translated into English cy Florence and Isabel McHugh from the German version by Franz Kuhn; also translated into English by Wang Chi-chen).

— Travels of Lao Tsan (translated by Harold Shadick of Cornell).

Other Translations

The impact of Western literature and the new literary movement after the founding of the Republic of China in 1912 changed the outlook of Chinese literature completely. Many representative writers of this period have been introduced to Western readers through translation. Contemporary poems also have been translated. However, few modern dramas have been translated into English.

Chinese scholars in the United States have been busy during the postwar years. Their writings and translations include the following:

— The 665-page Chinese Literature: A Historical Introduction by Chen Shou-yi of Pomona College. In the words of Dr. Lin Yutang, this volume will "for a long time remain the authoritative work on the history of Chinese literature".

— Translation by Washington State University's Vincent Y.C. Shih of Wen Hsin Tiao Lung or The Carved Dragon of the Literary Mind, a systematic treatise of 50 chapters on literary criticism by Liu Hsieh of the early sixth century. This work has helped Westerners to understand the theory and practice of China's traditional literary criticism.

— Also helpful in criticism is the translation of Lu Chi's Essay on Literature by S.H. Chen of the University of California. Lu Chi was a Confucian classicist of the second century A.D.

— A theoretical study of Chinese poetry by Liu Jo-yu of the University of Chicago is probably the first work of its kind in English. Liu also has written on China's vernacular fiction and on Yuan drama.

— A History of Modem Chinese Fiction 1917-1957 by C.T. Hsia of Columbia, probably the first attempt at a systematic analysis of 20th-eentury Chinese novels.

— A collection of 20th-century Chinese poems by Hsu Kai-yu of San Francisco State College.

— In August of 1962, the China Quarterly invited scholars of both Western and Chinese literature to Ditchley Park in England for a week's conference on Chinese Communist literature, the first such seminar ever held in the West. Thirteen papers presented then and later were published by New York's Frederick A. Praeger as a book - Chinese Communist Literature — which indicates how Communism has debased traditional literary forms and conventions on the Chinese mainland.

Chinese contributors are:

* S.H. Chen, professor of Chinese language and literature at the University of California.

* T.A. Hsia, formerly a member of the University of Washington Far Eastern and Russian Institute and now an associate research linguist at the University of California's Center for Chinese Studies.

* Li Chi, a Boxer scholar at Oxford University in 1936 who later taught English in China. She is now a visiting lecturer in Chinese at the University of Michigan.

* Yong-sang Ng of Columbia, a veteran translator and editor.

* C.W. Shih, a visiting assistant professor of Chinese at Stanford.

* Vincent Y.C. Shih, professor of Chinese literature and philosophy at the University of Washington.

* Richard F.S. Yang, who taught Chinese at the University of Washington while studying for his Ph.D. and is now teaching at the University of Southern California.

This past summer, Chinese-born Wang Feng-yu was engaged in compiling a simplified Chinese dictionary for American high school students. His research under a U.S. Office of Education grant was carried out at Seton Hall University. In 1963, while helping the Radio Corporation of America to develop a Chinese-language typesetting machine now used by the U.S. Army, Prof. Wang chose the 7,000 most frequently used characters out of some 50,000. He believes that with a knowledge of from 3,000 to 4,000 words, a foreigner should have little difficulty reading contemporary Chinese.

Distinguished American scholars of Chinese literature include:

— James R. Hightower of Harvard, whose Topics in Chinese Literature is widely used by U.S. students of Chinese literature. Hightower came to Taiwan recently to work on Tao Yuan-ming's poems at the Academia Sinica.

— Hans Frankle of Yale, who also came to Taiwan for six months. He is expected to publish soon.

— Fritz Mote of Princeton, known for his translations of Chinese poems.

— English-born Cyril Birch of the University of California, who has two volumes of Chinese mythology in translation.

— James Crump of Michigan, who has translated Yuan drama.

— Don Willis of Colorado State University, who is, translating Sung dynasty poetry.

American publishers also are responding. The Twayne Publishers last year decided to put out a Chinese authors' series to be edited by Dr. Howard S. Levy.

Cultural Interflow

Recent instances of cultural interflow between the Republic of China and the United States are encouraging. They have forged new bonds of friendship and indicated that Chinese studies will continue to gain momentum. These are some examples:

— Twenty-one thousand precious books, sent to the United States for safekeeping during World War II, were returned to China early in 1966. A "rare books library" is planned in suburban Taipei to house more than a quarter of a million volumes. This will help make Taiwan a world center of Chinese studies.

— Sponsored by 136 Chinese intellectuals, a non-profit civic organization, the Ching Shan Chung Hua Lien Yi Hui or Chinese Friendship Association of San Francisco, was established to promote Sino-American cultural exchange.

— Under the East-West Center Program for American undergraduates specializing in Chinese and Japanese language, nine seniors of the University of Hawaii arrived in Taiwan June 13 for a 10-week summer session on the language, history, and culture of China.

— A four-day conference was held in Taipei in June on Sino-American cooperation in the humanities and social sciences. A 10-point agreement calls for professorial chairs and student scholarships, establishment of a joint research institute, convening of international academic meetings, assistance to sinologists and aid to young Chinese scholars, renovation of facilities at Chinese universities and colleges, and extension of study periods for American students learning Chinese language and culture in Taiwan.

— A seminar on Chinese art, culture, and society opened in Taipei June 27 and ended August 19. Twenty U.S. university professors participated.

— A four-point program to increase cultural understanding between the United States and the countries of the Far East, proposed at a San Francisco symposium September 2, includes preparation of an encyclopedia of Asian literature in English translation together with photographs of Asian art. The program also includes assistance to Asian professors and scholars and establishment of a council of Americans to promote cultural understanding and knowledge of Asia.

Chinese studies can be expected to yield increasingly rich dividends in and for the United States during the years just ahead. A solid foundation has already been laid.

Editor's Note: The writer is indebted to Dr. Yang Fu-shen of the University of Southern California for his articles "Chinese Language Course in American Universities" and "Studies of Chinese Literature in America" which appeared in the February and August (1966) issues of the Chinese-language New World monthly of Taipei.