Transculturalism and Modernism in Leung Ping-kwan´s writing

Author: Ingegerd Andrén
Master Thesis 30 credits
Stockholm University
Abstract
More than 45 million ethnic Chinese are settled outside China and about 20 % among them live
in America. The aim of this study is to investigate how a Hong Kong writer in the diaspora has
been influenced in his writing in a transcultural and modernist direction and in what way
translation can be a part of transculturalism. In this study, the author Leung Ping-kwan
(1949-2013) has been selected as an example of this. The study is based on prose and lyrical
texts by him. Studies of Chinese in the diaspora have long been neglected, but in recent years,
Chinese American academics have begun research into Chinese diaspora literature from a
transcultural perspective. This study aims to contribute to transcultural literary studies. In the
study of Leung Ping-kwan´s texts, a comparative literary analysis is used which is based on
theories of identity and transculturalism. I argue that Leung Ping-kwan's writing is
characterized by transcultural and modernist features.



Acknowledgements
This thesis would not have been possible without all the help I received from my supervisor,
Monika Gänssbauer. She has supported me enthusiastically from start to finish, providing
literature connected to my subject, several close readings with valuable feedbacks.
I would also like to thank Ewa Machotka for all master seminars that gave me more guidelines
in academic writing. At last I need to thank my friend Tan Ran who helped me with some
difficult Chinese expressions.
Table of contents.
1 INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………...…..1
2.3 Research questions………………………………………………………………………4
2.4 Research method…………………………………………………………………………5
2.6 Transculturalism……………………………………………………………………...….6
2.7 Modernism…………………………………………………………………………….…8
2.8 Translation ………………………………………………………………………………9
2.9 Limitations……………………………………………………………………………...10
3 BACKGROUND…………………………………………………………………………..11
3.2 China´s policies on Chinese overseas………………………………………………..…14
3.3 From sojourning to settlement to transnationalism………………….…………………..14
3.4 New family and gender roles …………………………………………………………..15
3.5 Chinese immigrants become American citizens…………………………………..……15
3.6 Diasporic Chinese media……………………………………………………………….16
3.7 Chinese diaspora literature………………………………………………………..……16
4 LEUNG PING-KWAN……………………………………………………………………18
5 SUBJECTS OF INVESTIGATION IN LEUNG PING-KWAN´S WRITING…….…20
5.1 Literary style……………..……………………………………………………………..21
5.2 Everyday things…………………………………………………………………...……27
5.4 Human, social, and political relations………….…………….…………………………37
5.5 Translation…………………………………………………………………...…………41
7 OUTLOOK…………………………………………………………………………….…..47
8 REFERENCES………………………………………………………………...………….48
1. Introduction
The migration from China to North America can be divided into three stages based on the
migrants' settlement in the new country: Sojourning, Settlement and Transnationalism.
Sojourning (1848-1943) points to Chinese people who went to America to make money
and then returned home. Due to the Chinese Exclusion Acts in the 1880s, which caused
humiliation and terror against the Chinese, many migrants returned to China. Since
Chinese people could not become North American citizens until the 1940s, it was
impossible to create permanent housing. After 1943, China had a stronger role in the
world and Chinese Exclusion Acts were removed which allowed Chinese to reunite with
their families. After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Chinese
people could settle as American citizens. More liberal immigration opportunities led to
a massive immigration from China. Many Chinese migrants were highly educated and
aimed for a better standard of living and personal freedom. In recent years, Chinese
migration has become more mobile and has been subsumed under the term immigrant
transnationalism. The term transnationalism refers to cross-border relations. The
transnational migrants live across national borders in two or more countries where they
live and move to gain maximum opportunities.1
The cross-border relations led to transcultural identities where different groups of people
interact with each other and create new cultures. Transculturalism is characterized by
diversity and mobility which can also be found in the literary movement of 20th
century s modernism. Through the experience of mobility many modern diaspora authors
are crossing literary borders. One of them is Leung Ping-kwan pen-name Ye Si
(1949-2013) whose global perspective permeates his literary works. The aim of this
study is to investigate the transcultural and modernist features in his works.2
1Tan, Chee-Beng Routledge Handbook of the Chinese Diaspora, New York 2018, 122-136 2 Gilsenan Nordin, Irene/Edfeldt, Chatarina/Lung-Lung Hu/Jonsson, Herbert, Andre (eds.), Transcultural
Identity Constructions in a Changing World, Frankfurt am Main 2016, 11-13
2
Previously studies of the diaspora have been a neglected field, but in recent years, Chinese
American academics have begun research into Chinese literature from a transcultural
perspective. This study aims to contribute to transcultural studies.
Leung Ping-kwan had been extensively literary active. I have chosen to examine his
most famous works mentioned by academics who have written about his literature. The
books I have chosen include both prose and poetry such as “Travelling with a Bitter
Melon, Selected Poems (1973-1998)”, “Islands and Continents, Short Stories”, “City at
the End of Time”(2007),” Fly Heads and Bird Claws”(2013), “Wilde Gedanken bei
bewölktem Himmel. Notizen aus Hong Kong” (2016), “Dragons: Shorter fiction of
Leung Ping-kwan”(2020), “Lotus Leaves: Selected Poems” (2020), “Von Jade und
Holz. Gedichte” (2009), “Paper Cuts” (2015) and Youli de shi (A Poetry of
Moving Signs) (1995).
The thesis is divided into the following parts: It presents a historical as well as a
theoretical background followed by an introduction of the author Leung Ping-kwan.
Thereafter the examination and results are presented, and finally there is a discussion and
a conclusion with suggestions for further research.
2. Theoretical framework
2.1 General literature
In order to create a historical background for my literary study, I have read academic
books, articles, and literature dealing with various aspects of the Chinese diaspora such
as their history, China´s policies on Chinese overseas, Chinese ‘coolie’ emigration,
sojourning, settlement, and transnationalism. The “Routledge Handbook of the Chinese
Diaspora” (ed. Tan, Chee-Beng) has given me a broad perspective on these questions.
I have studied academic articles and books on identity, transculturalism, modernism, and
analyses of Leung Ping-kwan's writing in order to build a theoretical basis for my study
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of Leung Ping-kwan's writings. Some important books dealing with these issues are
“Exploring Cultural Identities in Jean Rhy`s Fiction” (Voicu, Cristina-Georgiana),
“Transcultural Identity Constructions in a Changing World” (eds. Gilsenan Nordin, Irene/
Edfeldt, Chatarina/ Lung-Lung Hu/ Jonsson, Herbert/ Leblanc, André), “The
Transcultural Streams of Chinese Canadian Identities” (Li, Jessica Tsui-yan), “The
Oxford Handbook of Modernisms” (Brooker, Peter, Gasiorek, Andrzej, Longworth,
Deborah and Thacker, Andrew) and “The Hong Kong Modernism of Leung Ping-kwan
“( Au, Chung-to). Au Chung-to´s analysis inspired me in my own investigation of Leung
Ping-kwans writings. My sources in Chinese are essays, poems and short stories of Leung
Ping-kwan, Fúshì Bha (The transient world of Bach)(2013), Xinggng
wénhuà shí lùn(Ten essays on Hong Kong) (2012), Y S de Xinggng
(Ye Si´s Hong Kong) (2005), Yóul de sh (A poetry of moving
signs)(1995) and L, Wèizuì, Jinádà huárén shèhuì nèi bù de hézuò y chngt
yánji (1923-1999) (1923-1999) (Research on
Cooperation and Conflict in the Canadian-Chinese Society) (2007).
2.2 Previous studies about Chinese in America
The history of the Chinese in America was long ignored in academic research. The first
scientific book "Chinese immigration" by Mary Roberts Coolidge about the Chinese was
published in 1909. It describes the lives of Chinese immigrants. However, the source
material is based on outside observations of missionaries and government reports and not
on the Chinese people's own statements. In the 1960s, several historians wrote about
Chinese immigrants, but even here there was a lack of primary source material. At the
same time, another sociological focus of research on Chinese life emerged in which
academics with Chinese background were involved. They were inspired by writing the
new social history "from the bottom up". They used oral and written stories of the Chinese
themselves, Chinese newspapers, and personal papers. Through their research, they were
able to find out more about the Chinese people's work, their social and family life and
how they perceived America's culture, politics, values, and attitudes. They were interested
in how the Chinese treated other ethnic groups and how they reacted to racial
4
discrimination. Other questions that were investigated were reasons for such strong
transnational family ties and political and cultural ties with their home country. An
example of such studies is “The Chinese in the United States of America”, written in
1960 by Rose Hum Lee. The experiences from early immigration have also been
compared with the following generations born in America and the large influx of Chinese
people to America after 1965. In recent years, Chinese American academics have done
extensive work in collecting large amounts of documents, e.g.. immigration papers,
business papers, legal documents, testimonies, letters, interviews, stories, etc. One
example is “Chinese American Voices: From the Gold Rush to the Present” ( Yung,
Judy, Chang, H. Gordon, Lai, Him Mark). This has helped to create a more nuanced
picture of Chinese Americans. The new research has tried to challenge stereotypical
images of Chinese Americans as "silent sojourners" by showing social and political
activity throughout Chinese American history. Studies on the current transcultural stage
of migration have just started. An example of this is the book "The Transcultural Streams
of Chinese Canadian Identities" (Li, Jessica Tsui-yan). There is a need of further studies
on how transculturalism affects people with Chinese backgrounds in the diaspora socially
and culturally.3
2.3 Research questions
The aim of this study is to examine how life in the diaspora has influenced Leung Ping-
kwan's literary production and to investigate the features of transculturalism and
modernism in some of his most famous literary works. How does his specific work with
translation contribute to transculturalism? Which methods and topics does the author use
to create a global literature that is inspired by different artistic genres and by the author's
experience of travelling in the world?
3 Yung, Judy, Chang, Gordon H, Lai, H. Mark, Chinese American Voices: from the gold rush to the
present, Berkeley: University of California 2006, xv-xx
Li, Jessica Tsui-yan, The Transcultural Streams of Chinese Canadian Identities, Mc Gill-Queens
University Press 2019
2.4 Research method
I began my study with reading Leung Ping-kwan´s above mentioned literary works
together with academic articles and books that deal with the subjects transculturalism and
modernism. I have also read academic articles that discuss problems and possibilities in
translation work. I will be applying a comparative literary analysis in my examination of
Leung Ping-kwans writing where I present similarities and differences in terms of
influences from traditional Chinese literature, Westerns authors and modernism. The
study is based on the theory of intertextuality that was introduced in the literature of Julia
Kristeva in 1966. She develops further Mikhail Bakhtin’s' theory of dialogue, a concept
that emphasizes that stories do not exist in a vacuum but are based on other stories. By
this, Kristeva points out that texts are written in a context. Examples of intertextuality are
adaptions i.e., transfers of a story from one medium to another with allusions, quotes,
imitations, and parodies. 4 The literary scholar Julie Sanders has addressed the concepts
of adaptation and appropriation which implies that one takes an element from a culture
and transforms it into a new cultural context, a practice that usually can be observed when
it comes to classical works. One typical example is Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Julia”
which has been appropriated into many different performances, for example into “West
Side Story”. My research questions are based on theories of identity, transculturalism and
modernism.5
2.5 The concept of identity
Cristina-Georgiana Voicu discusses the complex concept of identity in her book
“Exploring Cultural Identities in Jean Rhy´s Fiction” (2014) based on different theories
of identity. According to the Oxford Dictionary (1999), identity is "the distinct personality
of an individual regarded as a persisting entity". An individual's cultural identity consists
of several aspects such as race, ethnicity, social, economy, geopolitics, gender, religion,
ability, inability, language, profession, etc. Each aspect represents a particular category
4 Kristeva, Julia,” Word, Dialogue, Novel”, in The Kristeva Reader, ed. Toril Moi Columbia University
Press New York 1986, 34, 37- 39 5 Sanders, Julie, Adaptation and appropriation, London, and New York, 2016, 1-7
6
to which a person belongs. Identity is not a finished product but an ongoing process that
is never completed. Cultural identity belongs to both the past and the future. It transcends
place, time, and culture. Identity linked to assimilation, diaspora and hybridity are other
ways of analysing identity. Diaspora identity is based on diversity and hybridity. The
collective identification family, kinship, nation, race is constantly present and excludes
those who do not belong to ‘us’ . Voicu believes that the collective identity cannot win
over the individual identity because the loyalty to the latter is greater than the former.6
The cultural identity is not static, it arises, is adapted, and adopted. Travelling is a start to
this process. Hybridity is perceived as a process of cultural mixing where the diaspora
changes different aspects of the host culture and creates a new hybrid culture or hybrid
identities. Usually, identity is linked to a place, but the place is not a stable concept and
is not adequate when describing the modern diaspora where people travel back and forth
across many borders. Through their shared experience of mobility, diaspora poets express
questions about boundaries that are both barriers and bridges. There is a tension between
the culture in different places that challenges and defines the diaspora's self.7
2.6 Transculturalism
The concept of transculturalism was first formulated by the Cuban anthropologist
Fernando Ortiz in the 1940s. His concept described the new mixed cultural and social
society that emerged after Spanish colonialism on the Latin American continent. Ortiz
argued that transculturalism would replace the term acculturation because the latter
concept is limited to describing the transition from one culture to another and it creates a
false dichotomy between native and colonizer. 8 The philosopher Wolfgang Welsch
believes that all modern societies in our globalized world are transcultural at both the
micro and macro level. Even earlier in history, there have been encounters between
different cultures, so one must re-evaluate the concept of delimited cultures, especially in
6 Voicu, Cristina-Georgiana, Exploring Cultural Identities in Jean Rhy`s Fiction, Warsaw/Berlin 2019,
15-22 7 Zhang, Benzi, Beyond Border Politics: Article excerpt “The problematics of Identity in Asian Diaspora
Literature”, Studies in the Humanities Vol.31. No.1, 2004, 69-70 8 Ortiz, Fernando, Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar, Durham and London 1995, 102-103
7
our time of globalization with rapid changes and a diversity of cultural exchanges.
Transculturalism goes against the perception of a traditional culture that develops from
the nation state and it does not recognize borders. This contrasts with multiculturalism
which strengthens the ties with the cultural heritage.9
According to Richard Slimbach transculturalism is based on the search for common
interests and values. When you recognize yourself in others, you get a feeling of a global
citizenship. He gives examples of different transcultural competencies: 1. Ability to
question one´s own cultural values. 2. Ability to observe social behaviour, establish
friendships across cultural boundaries and explore topics of global importance. 3.
Awareness of transnational conditions that affect man and nature. 4. Experience of
contrasting political stories, family patterns, social groups, art, religion, and cultural
directions based on interaction with a non-English speaking environment. 5. Know a
foreign language spoken, non-verbal and written. 6. Be able to show personal qualities
such as empathy, curiosity, initiative, flexibility, humility, sincerity, kindness, justice, and
joy in the social context in which one lives. Slimbach believes that social scientists have
devoted too much time to studying human differences instead of similarities. In his view
there are obvious universal elements in human nature such as the life cycle, the division
of labour between sex and age, social networks, language as a means of communication,
along with institutions such as marriage, education, religion, economics, government, and
health.10 Jeff Lewis believes that transculturalism is a fluid state in which people can
adapt and adopt new discourses and values. In transculturalism, there is both stability and
instability in social encounters, which can lead to the dissolution of groups and cultures.
It implies an acceptance that language and material are integrated within an unstable place
in specific historical circumstances. Through critical thinking, power relations are
discovered in language and history.11
9 Li, Jessica Tsui-yan, 3
Cuccioletta, Donald, “Multiculturalism or Transculturalism: Towards a Cosmopolitan Citizenship”,
London Journal of Canadian Studies, 2001/2002 Volume 17, 8-9
Gilsenan Nordin, Irene/Edfeldt, Chatarina/Lung-Lung Hu/Jonsson, Herbert, Andre (eds.), 13 10 Slimbach, Richard, “The Transcultural Journey”, Asuza Pacific University, Frontiers Journal Aug
2005, 206-209 11 Lewis, Jeff, From Culturalism to Transculturalism, Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies, March 2011, 4
8
The concept of transculturalism has become a way of understanding how human identities
are created where one sees change and diversity instead of borders and differences. The
term transculturalism is increasingly used in several disciplines to understand the
processes that shape culture and societies, as well as the formation of transcultural
identities. Traditional analytical categories such as migration, multiculturalism,
cosmopolitanism and postcolonialism have been reconsidered. Transcultural identities
arise when different groups of people interact with each other and create new cultures.
The transcultural culture is characterized by diversity and mobility. Chinese immigrants
in North America are constantly negotiating their transcultural identity. The identity is
not stable it changes over time and space. The cultural identity contains many elements
such as class, gender, sexual orientation, level of education and religion. The Chinese
diaspora in North America is a heterogeneous group with different backgrounds.12
2.7 Modernism
Modernism emerged in the late 19th and early 20th century (1880-1930) as a new direction
in culture as a reaction to the earlier natural realism. In the literature, experiments were
made with new forms as well as structures, and new subjects were developed. There is a
connection between modernism and science with new discoveries in medicine and
technological development in society with new media such as photography, film, and
telephone. The art of photography made it possible to depict reality in a more precise way
than paintings, therefore realistic art becomes uninteresting for the modernist artists who
in their art show how they perceive reality from within themselves. The same applies to
modernist literature. Everyday life is the main subject, but the objects are not described
from a realistic perspective but from a person's subjective experience. One seeks the
unconscious as in Freud's psychoanalysis which is a source of inspiration. Modernist
authors saw themselves as cosmopolitans and they wanted to broaden their perspectives
by travelling. There are many travelogues that depict life outside the Western world.13
12 Li, Jessica Tsui-yan, 3
Gilsenan Nordin, Irene/ Edfeldt, Chatarina/ Lung-Lung Hu/ Jonsson, 11-13 13 Au, Chung-to, The Hong Kong Modernism of Leung Ping-kwan, London 2020, 5-7
Brooker, Peter, Gasiorek, Andrzej, Longworth, Deborah and Thacker, Andrew, The Oxford Handbook of
Modernisms, Oxford University Press 2010, 21,25, 63-64, 87, 410-411
9
Leung Ping-kwan also has everyday life as his major subject. He writes about love,
weather, food, fashion, medicine, home-place, travels etc. It is not the everyday objects
themselves that count but the thoughts around them. Like the early modernist writers,
Leung Ping-kwan has an international perspective due to life in the diaspora where one
is forced to live with many identities. He wants to communicate with other cultures to
find common ground. Since he is a previously colonized person, his travelogues differ
from the outside perspective of Western writers' travelogues. Many of the modernists
devoted themselves to translation and this is also something that Leung Ping-kwan has
worked with from the beginning of his literary career. Translation makes it possible to
discover other ways of thinking. In my research, I want to see how Leung Ping-kwan
deals with various topics such as food, fashion, home-place, medicine, travel, translation
and in what way his writing does apply a transcultural and modernistic perspective.14
2.8 Translation
Translations contribute to transculturalism in various ways. Translations help to transfer
ideas and cultures across borders. Several modernist writers, e.g. Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot,
and James Joyce, worked on translations to get new impressions and inspiration in their
writing.15 In English, translation can have…