Ethnic ChinaLit

Time/date: 9:30-17:00, February 8, 2013

Venue: UCLA, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

Theme: Urban Discontent in the Long Eighteenth Century across Eurasia. Conference will examine various social and literary expressions of discontent in the main urban centers across these landed empires.  Topics may include urban violence, sexual mores, literary lampoons, as well as states’ responses to such challenges to their authority.

Speakers: Will include Janet Theiss, University of Utah, Lessons from a Scandal: Sex, Corruption and Social Ferment in China’s “Flourishing Age”; Keith McMahon, University of Kansas, Social Decline and Sexual Disorder in Fiction of the Qing Dynasty; Andrea S. Goldman, University of California, Los Angeles, Historical Plays and Urban Discontent in Beijing during the Long Eighteenth Century

Jan 13 Update:

高僧与匈奴王 (The Eminent Monk and the Hun King)

Launched and Available online in Chinese

—–

Eighteen years after he penned his best-selling Last of the Huns (最后一个匈奴), Gao Jianqun (below right) has announced his new novel The Eminent Monk and the Hun King  (高僧与匈奴王，高建群著) will be published by year-end 2012 (封笔之作).  It is based on his screenplay for Tongwan City (统万城) whose filming is scheduled to begin March 2013. It will be directed by Jin Tiemu (金铁木) with scenes shot in both Hungary and northern Shaanxi.

The storyline consists of two parallel narratives: the reign of Helian Bobo (赫连勃勃),  founder of the Xiongnu state of Xia (407-431), and his decision to build his heavily fortified capital at Tongwan (modern Yulin, Shaanxi), a city that remained difficult to siege even hundreds of years later; and the life of the Kuchean Buddhist monk and scholar, Kumārajīva (344-413), renowned for efforts to propagate Mahāyāna Buddhism and his Sanskrit-to-Chinese translations such as the Diamond Sutra.

Gao has long been fascinated by the Hun and their “nomadic culture. . .that helped sustain the Chinese civilization by periodically pumping fresh blood and energy into the Han culture whenever it began to show signs of decline,” writes Li-Hua Ying in the Historical Dictionary of Modern Chinese Literature. In this sense, there are parallels with the more recent Wolf Totem (狼图腾，姜绒著) that finds inspiration for the sedentary Han in traditional Mongolian culture.

Other historical novels by Gao include Nomad Horses and the Northern Wind (湖马北风与大漠传) and his Trilogy of the Great Northwest: Last of the Huns (最后一个匈奴), Last of the Folk World (最后的民间) and Last Long Journey (最后的远行).

A conference highlighting writing by Salar authors  (撒拉族文学) was held earlier this January in Xunhua County (循化), Qinghai Province, home to most of the 100,000 Salar  (撒拉族) who consider themselves descendants of Muslims who migrated in the 13^th  century from Samarkand (present-day Uzbekhistan) in search of religious freedom.

Subsequent contacts and intermarriage with Han Chinese, Tibetans and Hui have created a unique culture and strongly impacted the Salar language. Wikipedia notes that there are two large dialect groups: one branch influenced by Tibetan and Chinese, and another by Uyghur and Kazakh vocabulary.

The conference featured a focus on homegrown Salar poet Han Wende (韩文德) whose pen name is Samarkand (撒玛尔罕), and Muslim name is Habibullah (哈比布拉). He has been writing for two decades and has reportedly published nearly 1,000 poems (百度百科) and received many awards. Most recently, his fourth collection, entitled <清水微澜>, was released by Writers Publishing House (作家出版社).

The Baidu Baike Chinese entry states that he writes about the past and present of his people along the banks of the Yellow River, and that his poems have been translated into Uyghur, Mongolian, Tibetan and English.

Since Salar is still a living language, reportedly spoken by over half of those who identify themselves as Salar, and—unlike many minority languages in the PRC—it can be written, one might expect that Han Wende write in Salar. However, as far as I can tell from my limited research—I found just one of his poems, <微澜之水> , online—he writes in Chinese. Read the rest of this entry »

Several years ago, UK publisher Canongate commissioned contemporary ethnic Tibetan writer Alai to pen his own creative version of the King Gesar saga. The plan: to launch Alai’s King Gesar (格萨尔王, 阿来著)  as part of its global Myth Series, joining other creatively re-told tales including The Penelopiad (Margaret Atwood’s take on Penelope of The Odyssey), Baba Yaga Laid an Egg (Baba Yaga as per Dubravka Ugresic), and Binu and the Great Wall (by China’s Su Tong).

The traditional Epic of King Gesar (Tibetan: གེ་སར་རྒྱལ་པོ), believed to date from the 12th century, relates the heroic deeds of Gesar, the fearless lord of the legendary Kingdom of Ling. It is recorded variously in poetry and prose, and is performed widely throughout Central Asia. According to Wikipedia, besides versions of the tale conserved by PRC-based minorities such as the Bai, Naxi, the Pumi, Lisu and Yugur peoples, other variations are also found among the Burushaski-speaking Burusho of Hunza and Gilgit, the Kalmyk and Ladakhi peoples, in Baltistan, in Sikkim, Bhutan, Nepal, and among various Tibeto-Burmese, Turkish, and Tunghus tribes. The first printed version was a Mongolian text published in Beijing in 1716.

When I wrote Canongate in 2010, they told me December 2012 was the likely publication date of Alai’s work in English. Now August 2013 is apparently the new target date. Why the delay? I don’t know the inside story. But perhaps it’s because they eventually recruited the hottest duo in the world of Chinese-to-English literary translation—Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Lin—to render King Gesar in English.  It’s public knowledge that Goldblatt and Lin are the first choice of many publishers, and they are so busy that each new Chinese novel they translate has to (patiently) wait its turn. . .

Happily, asymptotejournal.com has now published an excerpt from King Gesar entitled The Shephard’s Dream:

‘My dear nephew, with so many people around, sometimes the gods simply cannot take care of us all, and that is why you feel out of sorts. When that happens, think about this syllable.’ Read the rest of this entry »

Just a few weeks after 40 Uyghur masters of the rhymed epic tales known as dastan gathered in Hami to stage and talk about their threatened art form (Dastan Training Session), some 60-plus performers of traditional Kyrgyz songs have gathered for a similar get-together in Xinjiang’s Akto County (阿克陶县) bordering on Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

According to the article (约隆歌) re-published on the China Ethnic Literature Network, there are a large variety of these songs known as 约隆歌 (Yuēlóng gē in Chinese, and ïr in Kyrgyz, I think), including those reserved just for a man or a woman, satirical ones, or to welcome a guest. Similar renditions can also be found among other nomadic peoples of Central Asia such as the Kazakh, Altai, Tuvan and Khakas.

This traditional Kyrgyz musical form was designated an Intangible Cultural Heritage by China in 2008, and more than 800 songs have reportedly been collected in the Pamir region to date.

Some 40 Uyghur singers of long rhymed tales that extol heroes in the Turkic tradition—known as dastan in Uyghur and Persian, destansı in Turkish and dasitan (达斯坦) in Chinese—gathered recently in Hami (哈密) for an event that featured seminars and actual performances.

According to the report re-published on the China Ethnic Literature Network (达斯坦奇), some forty dasitanqi took part, with younger ones learning from masters such as 吾布力艾山·麦麦提, 居买·努力, and 买买提图合提·亚森 who performed 《伊斯拉木碧格木》,《铁穆尔哈里法》and《霍佳尼亚孜阿吉》in the Hami tradition.  Some 30 hours of audio tracks were reportedly recorded.

Seminar topics included Current Status of the Three Grand Epic Dasitan of the Uighur, Kazakh, Mongolian and Kirghiz Peoples, and Formation and Categories of Uighur Folk Dasitan.

Billed as a “training session,” this event is part of recent efforts by the authorities to document and preserve art forms of non-Han peoples in the PRC that have been categorized by Unesco as an “intangible cultural heritage.” Considered a dying art, traditional dasitan are largely restricted to cities such as Khotan, Kashgar and Kezhou, as well as small towns in the Hami region of Xinjiang. But they are still frequently performed there in tea houses, bazaars and at maja (麻扎)—the burial sites of revered Muslims—and during the traditional Uyghur Meshrep (麦西来甫).

Here’s Unesco’s description of a Meshrep:

A complete Meshrep event includes a rich collection of traditions and performance arts, such as music, dance, drama, folk arts, acrobatics, oral literature, foodways and games. Uygur muqam is the most comprehensive art form included in the event, integrating song, dance and entertainment. Meshrep functions both as a ‘court’, where the host mediates conflicts and ensures the preservation of moral standards, and as a ‘classroom’, where people can learn about their traditional customs. Meshrep is mainly transmitted and inherited by hosts who understand its customs and cultural connotations, by the virtuoso performers who participate, and by all the Uygur people who attend.

A comprehensive 8-volume, 2-million word translation of the Tibetan classic “King Gesar” (格萨尔王传) has just been published in Chinese by Higher Education Press (高等教育出版社), according to a report carried on China Ethnic Literature Network (中国民族文学网).

The traditional Epic of King Gesar (Tibetan: གེ་སར་རྒྱལ་པོ), believed to date from the 12th century, relates the heroic deeds of Gesar, the fearless lord of the legendary Kingdom of Ling. It is recorded variously in poetry and prose, and is performed widely throughout Central Asia. According to Wikipedia, besides versions of the tale conserved by PRC-based minorities such as the Bai, Naxi, Pumi, Lisu and Yugur peoples, other variations are also found among the Burushaski-speaking Burusho of Hunza and Gilgit, the Kalmyk and Ladakhi peoples, in Baltistan, in Sikkim, Bhutan, Nepal, and among various Tibeto-Burmese, Turkish, and Tunghus tribes. The first printed version was a Mongolian text published in Beijing in 1716. Read the rest of this entry »

Xinhuanet reports (Minority Language Translation Software) that the China Ethnic Languages Translation Bureau has announced the development of several software programs for non-Han languages in China: 

These programs include electronic dictionaries for the characters of the Yi and Zhuang ethnic groups [彝文电子词典及辅助翻译软件 and 壮文电子词典及辅助翻译软件], a proofreading tool for the Zhuang ethnic language [壮文校对软件], and transcoding applications [编码转换软件] for the languages of the Tibetan, Uygur, Kazakh and Kyrgyz ethnicities, according to a statement released Friday by the State Ethnic Affairs Commission.

China-based Jusup Mamay (居素普·玛玛依) is the only living manaschi—a singer of the Kirghiz classic Manas (吉尔吉斯史诗 “玛纳斯”)—capable of performing all 8 parts which amount to over 200,000 lines of verse. A biography of the master singer has been published in Chinese (<居素普·玛玛依评传>, 阿地里·居玛吐尔地/托汗·依莎著).

Manas statue in Bishkek

In a fascinating article (The Bard Jusup Mamay) by Lang Ying (朗樱, Deputy Director of the Institute of Ethnic Literature at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), Jusup Mamay—like many Central Asian itinerant storytellers before him—claims inspiration for his mastery of the epic came to him in a dream:

One morning when I was thirteen, I slept and dreamt that five mounted men appeared with their backs to me.I went up to the last of them and saw he was riding without a saddle. He told me that the hero Manas was first and that he was followed by Old Man Bakay, who in turn was was followed by the hero Almaibet, who was closely followed by great general Chuwak. Behind Chuwak was Ajbay, the man speaking to me. Without finishing his speech he disappeared. I awoke from the dream feeling restless. My parents asked me whether I had had a dream, and I told them everything. They instructed me to remain silent about the dream and not mention it before reaching the age of forty. Since that dream I have been able to remember the lines of Manas upon my first reading of them. 

For a 10-minute video from Unesco introducing traditions surrounding the recitation of the Epic of Manas on the ground in Xinjiang, and a cameo appearance by Jusup Mamay, click here.

The very comprehensive Turkic Oral Epic Poetry: Tradition, Forms, Poetic Structures by the respected scholar Karl Reichl (at left) was published in the US in English in 1992.

Translated by Adil Zhumaturdu (阿地里·居玛吐尔地), the premier Chinese edition (突厥语民族口头史诗：传统、形式河诗歌结构) has now been published by China Social Sciences Press (中国社会科学出版社). It is based on the 2009 Russian version.