Women in Republican China: A Sourcebook (review)

Editors Hua R. Lan and Vanessa Fong have achieved their goal of making available in English numerous essays on the "woman question" by May Fourth Movement writers. They have also provided biographical sketches of twenty-nine of the writers included here.

Some pieces are familiar, such as Chen Duxiu's "The Way of Confucius and Modern Life," Mao Zedong's essays on Miss Zhao's suicide, and Lu Xun's short story "The New Year's Sacrifice" and his "In Memory of Miss Liu Hezhen." The other most prominent intellectuals represented here are Li Dazhao, Hu Shi, Cai Yuanpei, Zhou Zuoran, and Shen Yanbing (Mao Dun). Among the women whose essays are included are Bing Xin, Lu Yin, Xiang Jingyu, and Yang Zhihua.

Thirty-six of the translations appear to be the editors' own, while four are by others. An additional three essays appeared originally in English. The editors' translations are generally smooth and readable, although less so than those of Gladys Yang republished in this volume. I wonder why the editors selected their translation of Lu Xun's "In Memory of Miss Liu Hezhen" rather than that by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, excerpted in Jonathan Spence's The Gate of Heavenly Peace. The latter touches the heart; the former, by contrast, is flat. A brief comparison may illustrate the point. From Lan and Fong's translation:

"Among the more than forty victims, Miss Liu Hezhen was a student of mine. At least, I used to think of her as one; but now I hesitate to call her my student, for it is I who should present her my sorrow and respect. She, as a young Chinese woman who has dedicated her life to the nation, is no longer a student of a person like me, who still lingers on superfluously in this world."

(p. 111 )

From the translation by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang:

"Liu Hezhen, one of the more than forty young people killed, was my pupil. So I used to call her, and so I thought of her. But now I hesitate to call her my pupil, for I should present to her my sorrow and my respect. She is no longer the pupil of one dragging on an ignoble existence like myself. She is a Chinese girl who has died for China. . . ."¹

This is perhaps a minor point, for the meaning is conveyed in any case.

Not so minor, in my view, is that the editors and Christina K. Gilmartin in her introduction all appear to have accepted rather uncritically the May Fourth intellectuals' own views of women in China's past and the early twentieth century. Those views, it seems to me, are perceived realities, some of which proceeded from fact (suicides), others of which became accepted—through repetition? or through the political agendas they served?—as fact, thus perpetuating a rhetoric not always grounded in objective reality. This has impeded understanding.

Even if it was not the editors' and Gilmartin's purpose to critique the essays collected here, readers might still reasonably expect them to have taken into account Dorothy Ko's cogent argument on the ways in which the May Fourth Movement intellectuals shaped both Chinese and foreign perceptions of the treatment and place of China's women in the past.² Indeed, I have difficulty imagining how anyone focusing on the May Fourth Movement can ignore Ko's argument. For example, Ko writes:

The May Fourth image of the miserable traditional woman was reinforced by the political agenda of the Chinese Communist Party. . . : to claim credit for the "liberation" of women, the CCP and its sympathizers perpetuated the stark view of China's past as a perennial dark age for women.³

And:

. . . the deep-seated image of the victimized "feudal" women has arisen in part from an analytical confusion that mistakes normative prescriptions for experienced realities. . . .⁴

One...