Introduction

Selected Bilingual Essays of Lin Yutang

Qian Suoqiao
City University of Hong Kong
Lin Yutangs works continue to attract Chinese readers today and they still
occupy conspicuous spaces in major bookstores in Chinese cities. It
seems that Chinese readers understand very well that Lin Yutang (1895
1976) is still talking to them. Comparatively, however, critical interest in
Lin Yutang lags far behind. This is not merely due to the political legacy
of modern China, but more importantly because of the disciplinary
conditioning of critical discourses. Two fundamental assumptions of
modern Chinese literary studies are concerned with nationality and
language: modern Chinese literature must be Chinese. But if a Chinese
writer writes in English, does that count as Chinese literature? asks one
critic provocatively.
1
I believe the feld of modern Chinese literary studies
is still ill-prepared to answer such questions, hence its incompetence in
dealing with such a writer like Lin Yutang.
Lin Yutang is now generally regarded as an important modern Chinese
writer mainly for his Chinese essays that appeared in Lin-edited magazines
such as Lunyu (Analects), Renjianshi (This Human World) and Yuzhoufeng
(Cosmic Wind) in the 1930s. But that is only less than half of Lins literary
identity in terms of his use of languages as the medium for literary expres-
sion. Born to a Chinese Christian family in a mountain village in Fujian
province, Lin Yutang went to St. Johns College, an Episcopalian missionary
1
See Zhao Yiheng, Two One-Way Roads, (Taipei: Chiuko, 2004), p. 95.
Introduction
x
school in Shanghai, earned his MA in Comparative Literature at Harvard
University, and obtained his doctoral degree in Philology from Leipzig
University, Germany, in 1924. Lins frst publication was in English, and in
1930, he started the Little Critic column in The China Critic. Hailed as a
Master of Humor, Lin was seen in 1930s China as an exemplary
Westernized modern Chinese intellectual introducing western notions of
humor into the Chinese language and Culture. After Lin Yutang moved
to the US in 1936, he produced voluminous works in English during his
protracted stay in the US and Europe, including several bestsellers such as
My Country and My People, The Importance of Living and The Wisdom of China
and India which made Lin a most infuential public fgure in America who
was outspoken on cultural and political issues related to China and Asia in
the 1930s and 1940s. Self-fashioned as a kind of world citizen, Lin estab-
lished himself as an internationally renowned writer/intellectual in the 20
th

century world of letters.
In this respect, Lin was perhaps unprecedented in achieving interna-
tional reputation through his own English writings as a Chinese writer. It
is quite obvious that Lins English works produced in his American years
were targeted towards a Western audience. Lin Yutang knew such inten-
tionality very well and he hardly attempted translation of his works by
himself, nor did he even authorize such translation by others. But what
complicates Lins literary identity, and consequently modern Chinese liter-
ature as a whole, is that Lin Yutang was not only a bilingual writer but a
bilingual writer of bilingual works as well. To students of modern
Chinese literature, it is well-known that Lin Yutang established himself as
a leading essayist in the 1930s literary world by promoting humor and
launching a series of Chinese literary magazines. But it is little known that
Lin Yutang had served simultaneously as a columnist for the Shanghai-
based English journal The China Critic, and many of his famous Chinese
essays in fact had English versions first published in The China Critic.
There are altogether 50 bilingual essays Lin Yutang authored throughout
his writing career, of which 25 have been collected here. These bilingual
essays form the critical core of Lin Yutangs writings. His bilingual writ-
ings and cross-cultural practices have left a formidable liberal cosmopol-
itan legacy in the modern Chinese intellectual realm and beyond. After all,
Introduction
xi
Lin Yutang is first and foremost an essayist. It was in his essays, both
Chinese and English, that Lin Yutang was most brilliant and free with
himself. As a bilingual writer of bilingual works, Lin Yutang has been
truly unprecedented in Chinese literature, if not in world literature as a
whole, and his bilingual works present a unique literary phenomenon for
critical refection.
From Johannean to Little Critic
When we look at these pairs of bilingual essays together, one cannot fail
to notice a couple of striking features: Lin Yutang wrote his bilingual
essays mainly in the 1930s before he left Shanghai in 1936; From the
publication date it appears that Lin wrote the English versions frst, with
the majority of his English essays being published for the Little Critic
column in The China Critic.
2
This discovery will present challenges to the
nationalistic and monolingual assumptions of the modern Chinese
literary studies. Once we examine these pairs of English/Chinese bilin-
gual essays together, we are already engaged in a cross-lingual practice,
and one of the frst things that practice reveals to us is that, in most cases,
Lins English essays anticipate his Chinese essays.
In a sense, this should not be that surprising if we take modern
Chinese cultural history seriously in the frst place. Cross-lingual practice
and cross-national cultural traffcking were in fact defning features of
Chinese cultural modernity. After 1905 when the millennium-old civil
examination system was abolished, modern Western education became
the new measure for career advancement, and waves of Chinese students
crossed the borders and received higher education in Japan, in the US and
2 Some of Lin Yutangs Little Critic essays were collected in two volumes: The Little
Critic: Essays, Satires and Sketches on China, First Series: 1930-1932, and Second Series: 1933-
1935 (Shanghai: The Commercial Press, 1935). Very slight editorial changes were made
in some of the essays, usually in the opening paragraph, when they appear in the
collected books. Here in this bilingual collection, I have also followed the frst collected
versions whenever available, even though the citations follow the original sources in
The China Critic.
Introduction
xii
in many European nations. In the meantime, Christian missionary schools
had been springing up everywhere in China and the Chinese educational
system itself had undertaken reform through nationalization and modern-
ization. This allowed the new generation of Chinese to have access to a
modern Western education. In a sense, the rise of the New Culture
Movement signified the coming-of-age of the new generation of
Western-educated returned studentsit was not coincidental that
Literary Revolution was a collaborated effort between Chen Duxiu, who
had studied in Japan, and Hu Shi, who was still a student in the US at the
time.
Lin Yutangs education exemplifed the emerging milieu of western-
ization affecting the young Chinese mind. Born to a Chinese Christian
family from a mountain village in Fujian, Lin Yutang was able to receive
the most Westernized education China could offer at home. One of the
advantages of growing up in a Christian pastors family was that the chil-
dren were accessible to free missionary school education. At the age of
ten, Lin Yutang was sent to missionary school in Gulangyu, Xiamen
(Amoy), a colonial enclave some 60 miles from Lins hometown in Banzi
village, Zhangzhou. Lin Yutang would later tell a moving story on several
occasions that his college education very much owed to the sacrifce of
his second sister Meigong who was a brilliant student and had always
dreamed to go to college, but the family simply could not afford to send a
girl to college.
3
Still, it was rather impressive for a village pastor to be able
to send three of his sons to St. Johns University, an Episcopalian
missionary college already known as the best higher education institution
in China for producing English-speaking and Western-educated
graduates.
At St. Johns University, Lin Yutang excelled and was in every sense a
top student. Particularly in the mastery of the English language and in the
demonstration of literary talent, Lin Yutang had no parallel. Four years
of St. Johns college training had won Lin Yutang a series of honors and
distinctions. He was President of the Class of 1916, Leader of the Class
3
Lin Yutang, A Sisters Dream Came True, The Rotarian, August, 1941. See also, From
Pagan to Christian, (Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1959), pp. 25-29.
Introduction
xiii
English Debating Team, President of the English Literary and Debating
Society, Medalist for Fiction and English Oration, English Editor of The
Echo, St. Johns student journal, Editor-in-chief of Johannean, the St. Johns
University yearbook. He was voted by fellow students as the most distin-
guished student, the Best English writer, the Best English speaker,
and the Best English debater.
4

Quite unlike other modern Chinese writers, Lins very frst piece of
creative writing was in Englisha short story entitled A Life in a
Southern Village published in The Echo, the student magazine of St.
Johns University, in October 1914. Although the story was supposed to
take place in 1887, the background setting was obviously autobiographical
and the story itself refected Lins youthful obsession and questioning of
religious beliefs. The story opens up with a beautiful description of Lins
hometown village: In the southern part of Fukien there lies a large
stretch of rich, fertile soil, well watered by a fne system of rivers, fowing
i n common toward the east to the beauti ful harbour of Amoy.
Everywhere we find an instance of the bounty of magnificent nature.
The climate is, for the most part of the year, mild and pleasant, except in
a short period of hot summer. Wild fowers, berries, and delicious fruits
flourish on the mountains during every season of the year.
5
On a
summer day in 1887, Han-lock, the protagonist,
6
comes from his
missionary school in Amoy to his home village for the vacation. Han-lock
has a very loving and caring family with his parents Mr. and Mrs. Tsao, his
sister Ching who is also studying in a girls school in a town 20 miles from
home, as well as his fance Chi-yao who is already staying in his home
taking care of his parents. Chi-yao was a very gentle girl, very kind,
patient, obedient, and serviceablea more intelligent, sensible girl than
4
The Johannean, Vol. II, 1915-1916, published annually by the students of St. Johns
University, Shanghai. Besides excelling in English and literature, Lin Yutang also
actively participated in sportsa St. Johns legacy, as he made the Track team of 1915
and 1916 as well as the Football 2nd team of 1916. My thanks to Qin Xianci for
sharing The Johannean journal with me.
5
Lin Yutang, A Life in a Southern Village, The Echo, October, 1914, p. 20.
6
Lin Yutangs childhood name is Hele, or Ho-lok according to the old spelling.
Introduction
xiv
her companion of her own age.
7
But later, somehow something goes
wrong with her, it is as if she is suffering from some kind of depression,
but she refuses to talk to anybody about what actually happened to the
bewilderment of the whole family. It turns out she has detected that
Han-lock is having doubts about his religious beliefs and is wandering
away from God. It is not until Han-lock is studying in the US when he
receives a letter from her that he realizes that she has been troubled for
his soul-wandering, while at this time Han-lock has realized his own faults
and come back to firm religious belief; he even becomes a minister
himself. The story ends with Han-lock coming back from America to his
home village, and the young pair lived happily together, preaching the
Gospel to the village people with their words and with their own example
of a kind and loving life.
8
Lin Yutang published two more short stories in The Echo, San-po
in October, 1915 and Chaou-li, the Daughter of Fate in March, 1916,
both carry a religious nature. And he was also the author of the story A
Case of Johanitis for the Literary section of The Johannean 1916. In this
story, the protagonist I visits a madman in a hospital, but despite his
eccentricities, the madman turns out to resemble certain treasured qual-
ities of a Johannean. Despite being a missionary college, the I makes
the madman burst out with a strong patriotic call (and with a sense of
humor): Wake up! Wake up! You young men of China! Be strong
morally, intellectually, and physically, for sleep is necessary to health.
Therefore put out your lights after eleven oclock, and make China one of
the greatest nations in the world!
9
Lin Yutang graduated from St. Johns University in 1916, and went on
to become an English instructor at Qinghua College, which in turn earned
him a ticket to further graduate study at Harvard University and later
Leipzig University in Germany. But it is safe to say that Lin Yutang had
already become completely proficient in English and competent in
Western knowledge thanks to his Missionary school education in Amoy
7
Lin Yutang, A Life in a Southern Village, The Echo, October, 1914, p. 22.
8
Ibid., p. 28.
9
Lin Yutang, A Case of Johanitis, The Johannean 1916, p. 116.
Introduction
xv
and Shanghai. To many of Lins fellow students on board the ship for
America in 1919, for instance, Lin Yutang was already a kind of model
westernized man, as he seemed to behave more like an American than a
Chinese. He wore western clothes, knew how to use knife and fork at
dinner, and even walked with his bride, arm in arm.
10
To highlight the educational background and cultural training of Lin
Yutang will offer us a fresh perspective in understanding modern Chinese
literary phenomena. It is well-known in modern Chinese literary history
that Lin Yutang and the Lunyu group of writers launched a series of
literary magazines in the 1930s to promote little essays, or xiaopinwen,
which contributed signifcantly to the fourishing of the essay genre in
modern Chinese literature. Lins statement that little essays should
center around ones Self, employ leisurely style. and in content cover
everything from the big universe to tiny fies,
11
which appeared on the
inaugural issue of This Human World, has become so well-known that it
has become a kind of defning motto for the modern genre. Of course,
xiaopinwen as a literary genre was most popular already in Ming and
Qing period, especially to the xingling school of writers like Yuan
Zhonglang. It is true that, by promoting Yuan Zhonglang and the
xingling school, Lin Yutang was echoing Zhou Zuoren who made the
frst move in rediscovering the modernity of the xingling school. But
when we put Lin Yutangs bilingual essays together and examine them
cross-lingually, we realize that, frst, most of the Chinese versions were
among the best known of Lins xiaopinwen that appeared in Lins
Chinese-language journals, and secondly, these Chinese versions were in
fact re-writes or translations of the English versions that had appeared
earlier, in some cases a couple of years earlier, in the Little Critic
column in The China Critic.
The China Critic was launched in 1928 and lasted till 1945. It was the
only English-language weekly run by Chinesea group of Western-
10
Meng, Chih, Chinese American Understanding: A Sixty-Year Search, (New York: China
Institute in America, 1981), p. 100. I thank Diran John Sohigian for kindly pointing out
this reference to me.
11
Renjianshi (This Human World) (Shanghai), No. 1 (1934), p. 1.
Introduction
xvi
educated professional intellectuals. Although its circulation was by no
means as large as Lins later Chinese-language journals, its targeted audi-
ence were rather special and unique: the English-speaking or reading
public in China. The English-reading public forms a special elite class in
China, and returned students with their special training and degrees
from England and the US certainly enjoyed an elite status among the
elites of the English-literate. Though the readership of The China Critic
certainly includes foreign residents in China, the journal was not primarily
foreign-oriented. In other words, The China Critic was not solely designed
to introduce Chinas politics, economy, culture and the weeks events to
the West. Rather, Chinese editors and contributors had a cosmopolitan
orientation and made comments and reports on the social, political,
economical and cultural happenings of the week in China from within.
Its regular columns included Editorials, Special Articles, The Little Critic,
Arts and Letters, Facts and Figures, Chief Events of the Week, From
Chinese Press, From Foreign Press, Book Review, Overseas Chinese,
Public Forum, etc. The China Critic was not a literature magazine, but
rather a comprehensive weekly run by a group of Western-educated
Humanities professionalsits Editor was an economist, and other
contributing editors include a philosopher, a eugenicist, a philologist, an
ethnologist, and a legal expert. The China Critic offered an independent
liberal voice of the elite intellectuals whose stakes were nevertheless very
much tied up with the governments reconstruction project. Liberal
critique, so long as it is allowed to be articulated at all, is never revolu-
tionary, but evolutionary in nature. The China Critic was primarily inter-
ested in liberal commentary on every aspect of the social reconstruction
in the hope of putting the country on the track of modernization.
Lin Yutang started to contribute to The China Critic in 1928, and
became a columnist for the journal during the years from 1930 to 1936,
except for the period from May 1931 to May 1932 when he was visiting
Europe as a delegate of the Academica Sinica on a cultural exchange
mission. Lin was associated with The China Critic group from quite early
on, and this was an association of similar educational background and
professional expertise, not literary taste or political ideology. Shortly after
his return from Europe, the periodical Lunyu was launched in September
Introduction
xvii
1932 and as it became an instant success, Lin Yutang also won national
acclaim in the literary world. But this was not such an unexpected sudden
turn of events. For a bilingual reader, Lins success would not seem that
surprising, for many of his humorous essays that made him so popular
were in fact rewrites/translations of his English essays written for his
column in The China Critic, which had already won him considerable
recognition among an English-language readership. The importance of
Lins contributions to The China Critic can not be underestimated, since
most of these English writings appeared in Chinese version in Lins series
of journals, and since they also contain the main ideas and attitudes for
his later bestsellers in America such as My Country and My People and The
Importance of Living. On the other hand, seen bilingually, Lin Yutangs
Chinese xiaopin had an important cross-cultural and cross-lingual
precedence in his practice of English familiar essays, not only in terms
of their form but also in terms of their aesthetic principles. Lin Yutang
was very conscious in calling his column of familiar essays Little Critic,
and spelled out clearly his aesthetic style in the very first essay that
appeared in the weekly column:
In view of the fact that the word little may give rise to various misappre-
hensions, we may say a few words here to remove them, in lieu of the formal
foreword. It would seem that, in the eyes of the editors of the Chinese big
papers, they have a monopoly of all the serious topics of human affairs,
from the London Naval Conference to the progress of Nationalism in
China.

[But the big papers] have lost even the capacity to pronounce a damn as
humanity ought to pronounce it. We do not mean to say that we are going
to bark louder, but let us bark more humanly. After all, a man can be quite
a human being when he takes off his dog-collar and his stiff shirt, and
comes home sprawling on the hearth-rug with a pipe in his hand. In this
unbuttoned mood shall we speak.
12
12
Lin Yutang, The Little Critic: Essays, Satires and Sketches on China (First Series: 1930-1932),
(Shanghai: The Commercial Press, 1936), p. iv.
Introduction
xviii
In other words, the Little Critic deliberately contrasts with the big
Chinese papers by bracketing the grand discourses of historical develop-
ment of the time while shifting his critical attention to social commentary
of everyday life practices in its myriad ways under changing conficts of
modernity. The Little Critic concedes the responsibility of making
judgment or decisions on the big picture of historical tide to others. He
concentrates, instead, on personal accounts of the little quotidian
aspects of society. In his Preface to a collection of his Little Critic
essays, Lin Yutang believes his essays have followed his original inten-
tions, but the editorial we in the original must be replaced by the
personal I. In examining these Little Critic essays as a whole, one
cannot help noticing that a large portion of these essays contain an I in
their titles: What I Want, I Like to Talk with Women, What I Have
Not Done, I Committed a Murder, I Darent Go to Hangchow, and
so on.
Shanghai Modern
The focus on the personal and private I would seem trivial if such self-
indulgence did not arouse sympathetic identification from the readers.
When Lin Yutang unbuttons himself, what is presented is in fact every-
bodys everyday experience of an emerging modern life. Lin Yutangs
literary and cultural practices as shown in his bilingual writings fashioned
a new modern ethos in Shanghaia distinctive cosmopolitan attitude or
sensibility that was suggestive of a certain middling alternative modernity,
attractive and desirable for a readership that was experiencing the anxi-
eties of rapid social modernization. In 1930s China, such a modern ethos
involves both a political and an aesthetic attitude.
Dismayed with the Fascist censorship of the government on the
one hand and the Proletariat ideology of distinction on the other, Lin
Yutangs literary practices in the 1930s sought for a political sensibility
that emphasized the principles of pluralist openness, reasonable toler-
ance, and intellectual independence. As a modern critic, Lin Yutang
fought against both the right and the left for a liberal public space where
Introduction
xix
critique can be made with intellectual integrity and of free will. In such
struggle, Lin Yutang was certainly in line with the liberal line opened up
by Hu Shi in modern China and saw the Enlightenment project still a
very much incomplete one in 1930s China. Very much in line with Hu
Shis, Lin Yutangs liberal practices did not mean to stay outside the power
politics of the time, but strived to maintain a public space for liberal
discourses in face of the increasing partisan sectarian demand for posi-
tioning. Their difference only lies in their different styles of presentation,
as Lin Yutangs liberal views were enunciated in humorous ways.
To insist on liberal principles that embrace openness and pluralism is
certainly not to shun away from social critique. In fact, for Lin Yutang, to
be a critic was a defning identity for a modern intellectual. It is in this
spirit of modern criticism that Lin Yutang carried out his literary prac-
tices and retained his intellectual integrity. Lin Yutang published many
politically charged bilingual essays, including Han Fei as a cure for
Modern China, What is Face, On Political Sickness, On Freedom
of Speech, and so on. To the Nationalist governments tight control of
press freedom, Lins humorous approach was a means of social
critique constantly testing the limits of censorship. In most cases, the
humor Lin Yutang employed in socio-political critique was in every
sense black humor. For instance, in On Freedom of Speecha
speech he delivered in a public forum, Lin acknowledged that in present-
day China freedom of speech was a high ideal, what was really needed
was merely the liberty to squeal when hurt as an animal would do, for all
speech is a nuisance and that the liberty of speech is still a greater
nuisance in the eyes of the offcial. The offcials like quiet people who do
not talk and who do not squeal when hurt.
13
When people have liberty
of speech, the offcials would lose their liberty to hurt people as they like.
Such offcial liberty could be incredibly enjoyable, as for instance, in
the case of a certain general from his hometown who, when depressed,
and could fnd nothing exciting to do or to relieve his depression, would
just write two lines on a slip and order some prisoners to be beheaded in
13
Lin Yutang, On Freedom of Speech, The China Critic (March 9, 1933), p. 165.
Introduction
xx
his presence, to cure his headache.
14

In this light, Lin Yutangs bilingual writings in the 1930s inherited and
enhanced the tradition of modern Chinese journalism in providing a
public space for critical discourses, as pointed out, for instance, by Leo
Ou-fan Lee in discussing the social function of the Free Discourse
column in Shen Pao. Lee argues that many essays that appeared in Free
Discourse column were playful in nature, yet it was precisely such play-
fulness that allowed contemporary intellectuals a free critical space,
marginal as it may be. By contrast, Lu Xuns essays that appeared in the
column were rather tight and cynical in nature. And Lee concludes that
Lu Xuns political essays fail to utilize the public space offered by the
Free Discourse column.
15

On the other hand, corresponding to the humorous liberal critique
was a unique aesthetic attitude as an essential part of the modern ethos as
shown in Lins bilingual essays. Such an aesthetic attitude is arrived at
through consciously selective East-West cross-cultural mediations. Along
with the advance of Chinese modernity into the 1930s, groups of
Western-trained professionals returned home. To these bilingual returned
students, Western culture and modernity is no longer alien nor exotic. In
other words, the West is no longer imaginary, but rather part of their
experience. Indeed, they have been assimilated into the western culture to
a considerable extent. Precisely because of this assimilation, they no
longer need to debase their own cultural roots in order to be identifed
with the power and glory of the West. The cosmopolitan attitude of
cross-cultural integration can be seen as a sign of the beginning of matu-
rity for Chinese modernity. Unfortunately, while it does have much appeal
for the emerging urban middle class, it was not the predominant ethos at
the time. The drive for catching up with the latest trend in the Westto
be more modern than thouresults in a conficting negative essentialist
attitude toward Chinese modernity among the Chinese intellectuals. As
14
Lin Yutang, On Freedom of Speech, The China Critic (March 9, 1933), p. 165.
15
Leo Ou-fan Lee, Piping kongjian de kaichuangcong Shen Pao ziyou tan tanqi
(Opening up of the Critical SpaceOn Free Discourse Column of Shen Pao),
Ershiyi shiji ( Twenty-First Century) (October, 1993), p. 50.
Introduction
xxi
Lin Yutang complains, on the one hand, imitation of Western culture is
rampanteven transliteration of Western literary terms becomes the
normwhile everything from the Chinese legacy is condemned as
feudal, and reading any classical books is accused of belonging to the
leisure classthe only solution seems to lie in the next life to be hope-
fully born to white parents.
16
On the other hand, there exists fervent, or
even morbid, nationalism that everything is said to be related to saving
the nation.
The cosmopolitan attitude of cross-cultural integration rejects a nihil-
istic approach to Chinese culture. For Lin Yutang and other professional
intellectuals, their competence in the English language and familiarity in
Western culture allow them in return to appreciate cultural difference and
thus to obtain a renewed appreciation of their native culture and the
people. Lins essay On Chinese and Foreign Dress quite tellingly reveals
his coming back to Chinese in a humorous way, as he satirizes dog-
collar Western dress and eulogizes Chinese dress whole-heartedly: I
dont fnd Hu Shih wearing foreign dress and I would be hanged if any
one could persuade Lusin [Lu Xun] to put on a dinner jacket. The Chinese
dress is worn by all Chinese gentlemen. Furthermore, all the scholars,
thinkers, bankers and people who made good in China either have never
worn a foreign dress, or have swiftly come back to their native dress the
moment they have arrived politically, financially or socially. They have
swiftly come back because they are sure of themselves and no longer feel the need for a
coat of foreign appearance to hide their bad English or their inferior mental outft. No
Shanghai kidnapper would think of kidnapping Chinese in foreign clothes,
for the simple reason that he is not worth the candle.
17
Behind the
humor, however, we see on a closer look that the reasoning Lin offers in
defending the advantages of Chinese dress is scientific and logical. In
other words, a Western-educated writer is using scientific and logical
reasoning to spell out an interesting phenomenon of cultural difference.
16
Lin Yutang, Jinwen ba bi (Eight Sicknesses of Todays Literature), Renjianshi (This
Human World) (May 20, 1935), p. 28.
17
Lin Yutang, On Chinese and Foreign Dress, The China Critic, VI (April 6, 1933),
p. 706.
Introduction
xxii
Apparently, Western-educated intellectuals return to Chinese dress
is by no means an essentialist move. On the contrary, an open attitude
toward and even appreciation of hybridity constitutes a fundamental
feature of the middling style of modernity. In terms of English language,
for instance, Lin Yutang holds a surprisingly unorthodox and liberal view.
Given his professional background as a philologist, and given the fact that
the mastery of English earns him much real and cultural capital, one
would expect him to keep to the standard of something like the Kings
English. In his In Defense of Pidgin English, however, we find an
eloquent defense of pidgin English, as a good example of East-West
hybridity. Lin wagers that, given its inherent logical soundness precisely
due to its hybrid nature, pidgin English will be the only respectable inter-
national language by the year 2400, when words like telegraph, tele-
phone, cinema and radio will simply be replaced by electric report,
electric talk, electric picture and no-wire-electricity.
18
Of course
this is meant to be taken humorously, but it is no mere fantasy, as these
are re-translations of Chinese translation of those modern neologisms.
Hybridity is very much part of Chinese modernity, as it is demonstrated
in the modern Chinese language itself.
The city of Shanghai in the 1930s probably offers the best example
of hybridity. In the July 17, 1930 issue of The China Critic, T. K. Chuan
wrote an essay The Terrible City, comparing Shanghai with Ptolemaic
Alexandria, and Lin Yutang followed with his own essay A Hymn to
Shanghai. Shanghai is a terrible city, according to Chuan, because, like
Alexandria, it is a cosmopolitan city where you find people of many
nationalities and of all kinds, where you fnd youths from missionary
colleges and returned students from England or America proudly holding
forth, sometimes lamentably, in the Kings English.
19
Shanghai is terrible
also in terms of its decadent culture, where you fnd everywhere advo-
cates and preachers of mysticism, sensualism, skepticism, estheticism,
proletarianism, etc, etcTons of books are being turned out annually by
third rate men, which are imitated by the fourth rate and read by the ffth
18
Lin Yutang, In Defense of Pidgin English, The China Critic, VI (July 22, 1933), p. 743.
19
T. K. Chuan, The Terrible City, The China Critic (July 17, 1930), p. 682.
Introduction
xxiii
rate.
20
But terribleness is the very sign of modernitywhatever it is, or
going to become, it is not essentialism. It is precisely due to its hybridity,
with its distraught contrast, that Lin Yutang suggests, humorously, that we
could actually sing a hymn to Shanghai that hosts successful pien-pien-
bellied merchants, masseuses, naked dancers, retired tao-tai and tufei
and magistrates and generals, wealthy, degenerate opium-smokers,
nouveaux riches, nouveaux modernes, girl students, haughty, ungentle-
manly foreigners, and so on.
21
When you sing a hymn to the terrible city,
the singer is already taking a tolerant attitude toward the terribleness of
modernity, accepting the fact that to be a cosmopolitan modern is to live
in the middle.
Yuluti and Bilingual Identity
When we read these bilingual essays of Lin Yutang, we cannot help notice
the unique style of the modern Chinese employed herein, especially when
we understand that most Chinese essays were written after the English
versions and were thus in fact translations. The style of Lins Chinese
essays, known as yuluti, was a carefully cultivated choice. Lins promotion
and practice of yuluti were indeed major contributions to modern Chinese
literature and culture.
In a sense, Chinese modernity opened up with the introduction of
the vernacular baihua as acceptable common and national language. As a
philologist, Lin Yutang was among the frst to advocate the reform of the
Chinese language. Lins frst appearance in the Chinese intellectual world
was his article contribution, entitled A Note on the Index System for
Chinese Characters (Hanzi suoyin zhi shuoming), to the journal La
Jeunessethe mouthpiece of the New Culture Movement. It should also
be pointed out that it was Lunyu that frst promoted the use of simplifed
Chinese characters. On the Nov. 16, 1933 issue of Lunyu, Lin Yutang set
20
T. K. Chuan, The Terrible City, The China Critic (July 17, 1930), p. 682.
21
Lin Yutang, A Hymn to Shanghai, The China Critic, III (August 14, 1930), pp.
779-780.
Introduction
xxiv
up a discussion forum gathering public opinions about the reform of
Chinese characters. Although that discussion did not finalize the stan-
dardization of simplifed Chinese characters, many of the viewpoints and
choices anticipated the final version implemented by the PRC govern-
ment.
22
It is well-known that language reform constituted one of the
essential elements of Chinese modernity.
Lin Yutang was of course one of the staunch supporters of the
nationalization and popularization of baihua. By the 1930s, however, the
actual nature of baihua itself became a rather controversial issue after
several decades of actual practice. On the one hand, wenyan was still very
much in use, especially in government telegraphs and documents. On the
other, the Leftists under the organization of the Left League, who saw
themselves as the most progressive inheritors of the May Fourth spirit,
now began to advocate dazhongyu, or popular language of the masses,
which is taken to be more modern and progressive than baihua. By
contrast, Lin Yutang in his edited series of journals advocated the use of
baihua in the form of yuluti, or semi-classical vernacular style, which was
taken to be the more authentic form of baihua, in order to rectify the
misuses of baihua in contemporary practice.
If one follows the progressive line of modernity in terms of
Chinese language reform, the promotion of yuluti appeared to be very
much a regressive turn, as it tries to retain some of the simple and
elegant features of wenyan. Actually, Lin Yutang was aware that the prac-
tice of yuluti in the Chinese context in the 1930s might be seen as against
the progress of modernity. In his essay entitled Lun yuluti zhi yong
(On the Use of Yuluti), he begins with the following rhetorical question: I
was asked: why are you writing in the classical wenyan, isnt that against the
historical tide [of evolution]? Well, its not that I am fond of writing in
22
As readers may fnd, some of the characters in this collection are simplifed charac-
ters, some are neither standard complicated characters nor standard simplified
characters in current usage, which testifes that Lin Yutang was experimenting with
his own set of simplifed characters in his journals. We have kept the original version
in reprinting his Chinese essays.
Introduction
xxv
wenyan, but I dont have any other choice.
23
What Lin means is that he
cannot follow the popular and prevalent practice of baihua at that time.
Lins objection is that after a couple of decades of practice, baihua has
been hijacked by a new form of dogma mainly due to Western infuence
via translation. The consequence was a Europeanized vernacular Chinese
with convoluted sentences, vague diction and intolerable redundancy. In a
number of essays, such as Lun yuluti zhi yong (On the Use of Yuluti),
Kezeng de baihua liusi (Disgusting Dogmatic Baihua), Yizhang zitiao
de xiefa (How to Write a Note), Yu Xujun lun baihua wenyan shu (A
Talk With Mr. Xu on Baihua and Wenyan), Lin clearly articulated his
distaste for the long-winding Europeanized baihua as a result of the trans-
lation of Western ideological and theoretical discourses. To rectify the
corruption of baihua through translation, Lin Yutang intends to frmly
ground baihua in its own native historical linkage, namely, in the style of
yuluti, which was first originated in the Ming and Qing literature. Lin
claims that he much prefers the simplicity (bai) of wenyan in the form
of yuluti and hates the literariness/opaqueness (wen) of baihua in the
way it has been practiced.
Lin Yutangs insistence on writing in yuluti was against the cultural
tide of westernization, but had much to do with Lins bilingual identity
with elite Western training. On one occasion, Lin fatly points out that the
reason for the degeneration of baihua into a Europeanized dogma was
because of modern writers ill digestion of foreign infuence. (si yang bu
hua)
24
That is consistent with Lins point that a key problem for modern
Chinese intellectuals was their lack of confdence in the face of Western
modernity. On the contrary, for an already Westernized Chinese intellec-
tual like Lin, who has experienced Western modernity and was well-
equipped with Western knowledge and skills and had even mastered its
language, he has confidence to look back at his own tradition in a
different light, with compassion, tolerance and realism. Given the fact that
Lin Yutang translated most of his Little Critic essays in English into
Chinese and published them in his Chinese periodicals, he must have felt
23
Lin Yutang, Lun yuluti zhi yong, Lunyu No. 26 (October 1, 1933), p. 82.
24
Lin Yutang, Kezeng de baihua liusi, Lunyu No. 26 (October 1, 1933), p. 85.
Introduction
xxvi
acutely the problem of translation as a cross-cultural act. Translation is
by no means an innocent act of transplanting words transparently from
one language to another, and the translator always plays an active role in
the act of translation. When contemporary writers and translators
produced opaque and jejune Europeanized translated texts, it may be
taken as a deliberate act to highlight their identity as the owner/translator
of new knowledge from the West, as different from any native source.
But Lin Yutang called that a sign of ill-digestion of foreign infuence,
because his idea of a translator is of a bilingual and bicultural identity.
Such a bilingual and bicultural attitude insists upon the integrity and
historical linkage of the native language and culture. To insist upon the
validity of yuluti in modern Chinese as compatible with the English
familiar style suggests that Lin Yutang believes that Chinese modernity
must come from its own historical sources as it blends with Western
modernity. To avoid translating his own English into Europeanized
Chinese, which he could have easily fallen into, Lin rejects a leveling trans-
lation of Western modernity into modern China. In doing so, he does not
have to feel regressive or backward. On the contrary, writing in yuluti
offers him a sense of style that is at the same time modern and
Chinese. Such bilingual and bicultural identity by no means suggests a
negative essentialist stance toward Chinese culture, either. In insisting on
the validity of yuluti, Lin Yutang in fact points to a middle road toward
Chinese modernity, by breaking the dichotomy of wenyan and baihua while
aligning it with the familiar style in English.
To claim that these bilingual essays demonstrate a bilingual identity is
not to say that these bilingual texts are exactly the same. What these pairs
of bilingual texts suggest is a kind of bi-identical relationship. In other
words, the English text and the Chinese text are certainly two separate
texts on the one hand, yet on the other, they are also identical. Actually, to
demand the source text to be exactly the same as the target text, if such
identity exists at all, would be an erroneous idea in the frst place. It is
quite obvious that in producing these bilingual texts, Lin Yutang always
adopted a reader-oriented approach. There are a number of textual
manipulations between the two texts within a pair, sometimes structural,
sometimes content-wise, sometimes additions, sometimes omissions.
Introduction
xxvii
Since most of these bilingual essays were not meant to be published
simultaneously, the contexts of the rewrites certainly varied. One frequent
practice of major textual manipulation lies in the very opening paragraph,
as the author tries to re-situate his audience. A detailed study of these
textual manipulations may be an interesting topic for students of transla-
tion. In the essay A Hymn to Shanghai, for instance, one will easily
notice that the opening paragraph in the English text is omitted in the
Chinese version, as the latter goes directly into the hymn. And as we
read on, we also fnd that the Chinese text actually does not even follow
the English version paragraph by paragraph in the latter part of the essay.
In the English text, when the author conjureth up a picture of the
monstrosities of Shanghai, he describes, paragraph by paragraph, the
different groups of people in Shanghai, which made the faces of the
city quite contradictory yet real and alive. In the Chinese version, the
author changed the specifc groups of people for description, but high-
lighted the contrast by describing two or more groups of people or things
more familiar to Chinese readers in each paragraphfor instance, to
group together Western-styled cookies made by lard and barbers wearing
Western suit in one paragraph. Nevertheless, whatever differences there
exist between the two texts in two languages, it is still undeniable that
these pairs of essays have demonstrated a bilingual identity that binds the
two texts into one.
As Lin Yutang himself never compiled any collection of his bilingual
works, his bilingual identity of bilingual works has somehow remained a
secret, even his contemporary readers might have enjoyed reading either
his Chinese essays or English ones separately. I hope the publication of
this collection of Lin Yutangs bilingual works will be a treat to our latter-
day readers.

1895-
1976

1895
1916
1924
1930

1
200495

xxix

1936

xxx

1905

2

1935

3
A Sisters Dream Came True,The Rotarian, 19418
195925-29

xxxi

1916

191410
1887

5
1887

20

4
1915-1916
1915
19161916

5
19141020
6

7
19141022

xxxii

8
191510
191631916

11

9
1916

1919

10
8
28
9
1916116
10
Meng Chih, Chinese American Understanding: A Sixty-Year Search
1981100Diran John Sohigian

xxxiii

11

19281945

11
119341

xxxiv

19281930
1936

193151932
5

19329

xxxv

12

12
1935iv

xxxvi

13

14
13
131933316452
14


xxxvii

15

16

15
1993
1050
16
2840

xxxviii

17

2400
telegraph,telephone,cinema,radio
electric reportelectric talkelectric
shadowno-wire-electricity
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391934416706
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231933816837

xxxix
1930
717

19

20

21

19
The Terrible City1930717682
20

21
191933616669-670

xl

19331116

22

23

22

23
26193310182

xli

24

24
26193310185

xlii

xliii