Mu Shiying: China’s Lost Modernist

Acknowledgements

I would like to begin by thanking David Der-wei Wang for introducing me to the enigmatic figure of Mu Shiying. During a graduate seminar on modern Chinese literature, held at Columbia University in 1994, Professor Wang exposed us to the stories of Mu Shiying and other ‘Shanghai modernists’. Over the years, in addition to counselling me on my doctoral dissertation on China’s Jazz Age, which eventually became the subject of my book, Shanghai’s Dancing World, Professor Wang always encouraged me to pursue a writing project on Mu Shiying. Leo Ou-fan Lee’s exemplary work on Mu Shiying and other ‘Shanghai modernist’ writers brought them into the limelight of Western academic scholarship during the 1990s, culminating in his masterwork, Shanghai Modern: The Flowering of a New Urban Culture in China, 1930–1945. Professor Lee was extremely supportive during the research for my dissertation and first book, and he has indirectly influenced the making of this book as well. In addition, I must also acknowledge the wonderful work of Shu-mei Shih, whose book The Lure of the Modern represents the best scholarship in the English language on Mu and other Shanghai modernists . In researching my own essay on Mu’s life and works, I have Acknowledgements x Acknowledgements drawn on the works of these scholars—I am indebted to them, even if I have taken some liberties with my own interpretations of Mu’s life and works. How this book came together is another story. Knowing of my interest in Mu Shiying and the period in which he lived, Paul French asked me if I would like to publish a short volume about the author, which would include translations of some of his stories as well as a lengthy appreciation of his life, times and works. Hong Yu served as co-translator throughout the process of translating these stories. Mu’s writings posed many linguistic and semantic challenges, but working together we were able to surmount them and provide translations that are intended to reflect the spirit and meaning of his original writings, while also making them accessible and engaging to the English reader. We leave it to the reader to judge the efficacy of these translations . Our goal has been to cleave as closely as possible to the rhythm, style and meaning of his stories, which are not always easy to process in their original language, let alone in translation. Thus, my thanks go to Paul French for providing me with this wonderful opportunity to bring Mu to the world, and to Hong Yu for her patience and dedication to the task of co-translation. A special thanks goes to the Royal Asiatic Society in Shanghai for supporting and helping to fund the making of this book. Another word of thanks goes to Randolph Trumbull for his own outstanding translation of ‘Five in a Nightclub’, and to the journal Renditions for kindly allowing us to publish it in this volume. Finally, I would like to thank Michael Duckworth at Hong Kong University Press for agreeing to publish this volume. —Andrew David Field xi Acknowledgements A Chinese Perspective on Mu Shiying: A Note from the Co-Translator The first time I read Mu Shiying, I was stunned and amazed by his story ‘Shanghai Fox-trot’. During the process of co-translating several of his works for this book, I felt as if I were in a glider flying low across the landscape of a Shanghai fashioned by Mu’s words. From his writings about urban life, within the political context of the times, one marvels at the flexibility, charm and freedom of his prose. Whether one examines Mu Shiying’s deliberate choice of florid language and the experimental style of his early writings, or the avant-garde qualities of his later writings on metropolitan life, even today one can still admire them and see them as being on the cutting edge of Chinese language and literature. The modernity of his works also lies in their contents, particularly in the fresh and unique ways that he explores the space of the modern metropolis and the ongoing tug of war between men and women within that space. His female characters, who make a living by brazenly embracing men in public arenas, have love lives that are daring and progressive even by today’s standards. And one is still shocked by how he portrays women such as ‘Craven...