Editorial Notes

Selection of Hsiao-p’in Texts

This is the first anthology exclusively devoted to presenting the late Ming hsiao-p’in in English. In the selection of texts, I have consulted all available Chinese hsiao-p’in anthologies but have had to exclude, not without some reluctance, many favorite pieces, as I realized the need to bear the Western reader in mind in the process. In general, I have omitted those that contain too many cultural, historical, and literary allusions and those with which I did not feel fully at ease in translation. Translation is somewhat like a marriage: it won’t work if the two sides are not in love.

I also made special efforts to include those that were not available in English. However, a few exceptions, due to their great literary merit, deserve the perennial competition of “the blossoming of a hundred flowers” in translation.

Two essays, Li Chih’s “On the Mind of a Child” and Yüan Hung-tao’s “A Biography of Hsü Wen-ch’ang,” can hardly be classified as hsiao-p’in: both are somewhat too formal in style and serious in tone. Nevertheless, due to the importance of the former and the possible interest to our reader of the latter, they have been included along with traditional hsiao-p’in by their respective authors.

Translation

Yen Fu (1853–1921), one of the most prominent Chinese translators in history, set down the goals of translation in three words: “accuracy” or “fidelity to the original” (hsin); “intelligibility” (ta); and, last but by no means least, “elegance in style” (ya). Despite the perennial academic discussions on translation and its theory and practice, Yen Fu’s criteria still stand out to this translator as the highest goal one can ever hope to achieve.

When one thinks about the translation of the hsiao-p’in in English, the great pathfinder who immediately comes to mind is Lin Yutang, who surely achieved Yen Fu’s criteria of intelligibility and elegance, though not infrequently at the cost of fidelity. The late James J. Y. Liu, in a rare observation on translation, identified among various schools of translation a group that he called the “scholar-translators,” who would place “fidelity” firmly in first place. I venture to classify Vignettes from the Late Ming as belonging to this type. In my childhood, when I was learning my English, I sometimes ran into one of those texts, popular in China then, in which the original was printed side by side with the translation. In such texts, even the slightest deviation from the original hardly escapes the attention of a meticulous reader. In the process of translation, I often had those texts in mind and hope that this work can stand the test of the harsh critical eye of such a reader.

However, with such eminent translators as Lin Yutang and, more recently, Jonathan Chaves and Richard E. Strassberg in mind, I have also tried my best to stick to Yen Fu’s other two standards. In so doing, my lifelong fondness for and enthusiastic reading of the English essay has proved invaluable. Difficult as it is, I have tried to convey the various styles of the Chinese authors in this anthology, just as great variety of style is evident among English essay masters such as Francis Bacon, William Hazlitt, Charles Lamb, Thomas De Quincey, John Ruskin, Walter Pater, and G. K. Chesterton. I dare not claim that I have achieved that goal in this book, but I have indeed tried my best.

Classical Chinese texts do not use paragraphs. The paragraphing in the translation is therefore based upon the translator’s understanding. On some occasions, words or phrases that are not in the original have been added in order to make the text comprehensible. They are placed in square brackets.

Introductory Notes

An introductory note with biographical information and brief critical comments precedes the selections by each author. These notes are based primarily upon the biographies (whenever available) from the officially authorized History of the Ming (Ming-shih), first published in 1739, but I have also incorporated into them reading from all and sundry sources, including the works of these authors. Readers who want to know more may find more detailed and longer biographies in the works edited by L. Carrington Goodrich and Chao-ying Fang, Arthur W. Hummel, and William Nienhauser.

Annotations

Annotations are provided to help the reader better understand the literary allusions and cultural context. For the preparation of these annotations I have relied on two Chinese dictionaries, Tz’u yüan (Hong Kong: Commercial Press, rev. ed., 1980) and Tz’u hai (Shanghai: Shanghai tz’u-shu ch’u-pan-she, 1980), as well as other lexica.

Romanization

The traditional Wade-Giles romanization system for Chinese names is used in this book, as the editor believes it still is more accessible to what Virginia Woolf called an English-speaking “common reader.” The pinyin system, officially used in the People’s Republic of China and recently gaining ground among Western sinologists, was not designed with the average English reader in consideration and contains several syllables whose pronunciation is difficult to estimate. Deviations from this transliteration system have been made for names that have long been familiar in their nonstandard form to Western readers, such as the Latinized names Confucius and Mencius, and Li Po (rather than Li Pai). For some well-known geographical names I have used traditional Anglicized “post office” names (e.g., Peking, Yangtze).

Chinese Nomenclature

In Chinese nomenclature, family name comes first in order. Educated Chinese were given two personal names, a formal name (ming) and a “style” (tzu). The latter was traditionally adopted for use at the “capping ceremony” when one reached the age of twenty. A scholar would also assume a cognomen (hao), sometimes even several. It was a lasting fashion in the writings of the literati to address people by their “styles” and cognomens, or sometimes by the highest official title they had held. Take the case of “China’s greatest poet” for an illustration: He was born in the Tu family and was given the formal name of Fu. But, in the numerous writings about him, he was referred to mostly by his “style” (Tzu-mei), his cognomen (Shao-ling—the complete form of which was the “Old Rustic of Shao-ling”), or by his official affiliation, Kung-pu (lit., “Ministry of Works,” where Tu Fu served as vice-director). To prevent needless confusion for the Western reader, most “styles” and cognomens have been converted into formal names in translation.

Official Titles

For most of the traditional Chinese official titles, I have followed the excellent scholarship of the late Charles O. Hucker (1919–94) in his magnum opus, A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China.

Measurements

Chinese measurements of length, area, weight, and volume have been converted to their closest Western equivalents, whenever possible, with the exception of occasional rhetorical usage. Traditional Chinese measurements varied in time and place, but in general grew slightly in size over the centuries. Conversions should therefore be regarded as no more than approximate values and in the context of earlier periods should be adjusted downward a little.

Years

For the designation of years, the traditional Chinese calendar used two sets of signs, the Heavenly Stems and the Earthly Branches, with one being taken from each set and combined to form sixty pairs. Those used in these essays have been converted into their Western equivalents, but due to the Chinese lunar calendar, they do not correspond to each other exactly. Readers who need to find the exact date in Western calendars (Julian until 1582 and Gregorian thereafter) may consult Keith Hazelton, A Synchronic Chinese-Western Daily Calendar, 1341–1661 A.D. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984).