Moment in Peking and Chinese Traditional Culture

杨晶金

Abstract: Lin Yutangs Moment in Peking was a huge success, because he showed the long history of Chinese traditional culture in the book. The era background, character set and the plot of Moment in Peking reflects the significance of Chinese culture in many aspects. The great English masterpiece is a Chinese culture carrier which painted a grand social and historical picture, created a series of vivid images, especially images of traditional Chinese women character. The philosophy of novel is going through the history of space and time tunnel and becoming the main clue of many events in the book.

Keywords: Lin Yutang; Moment in Peking; Chinese culture

Lin Yutang wrote a long English masterpiece named Moment in Peking, with its excellent artistic features and special cultural connotations, won the nomination of the Nobel Prize for literature. Time magazine said “it is likely to be the classics about modern Chinese social reality”[1].Whether it is the historical background of the book, the main characters shaped, or the philosophy spirit, all revealed the Chinese traditional culture.

1. The historical background

Moment in Peking is a story of social structure transformation in modern China. It is a historical novel, because it reflects the changes of Chinese social history, among them were the events such as the restoration lead by Zhang Xun, warlords battles, May 4th movement, and the outbreak of World War Ⅱ. It is also a social novel, because the characters in the novel are numerous, nearly 100 different characters, reflects the life in Beijing at that time and how their living style changed. Moreover, it is a human feelings novel that describes many love romances and marriage stories. Last but not least, it is a custom novel, which introduced the ceremony of wedding or funeral, traditional Chinese herbal medicine, antique calligraphy, painting, and poetry.

All in all, the book represented the Beijing life of various aspects and it is the panoramic description of Chinese culture, which praised as A Dream of Red Mansions in modern China. A Dream of Red Mansions is the encyclopedia of our countrys life in the late feudal society, which has an irreplaceable influence on the later literary writers and their works.

Lin Yutang is a scholar whom we have plenty of thing worth to learn to, and “he is like a living national monument”[2]. He understands all aspects of the traditional Chinese social and cultural life and has a superb insight and extensive knowledge, like Chinese rites, local architectural?style, and Chinese idioms.

2. The character set

One heroine in Moment in Peking is Yao Mulan, a woman character whom originated from Shi Xiangyun in A Dream of Red Mansions. Lin Yutang create the character Yao Mulan as an optimistic, generous, elegant, and self-disciplined woman who considered as an ideal female image in the modern China. Mannia, another heroine of the novel, bearing the quality of traditional Chinese women. She really love her husband and willing to “trunghsi, or confronting an evil by a happy event in short, having the wedding while the boy was ill”, when he was dying. After the man died, she never married for life in order to protect her virginity to her past husband, so she is a representative of tens of millions of Chinese traditional working women. They have kind and industrious virtues and always abide by the feudal ethical codes, but when they met the ferocious foreign invaders, they sacrificed their own lives to resist, so as to maintain their own dignity.

Both characters are typical followers of traditional Chinese philosophy, their lives are different with western styles, but they are the mirror of the real Chinese society.

3. The philosophy spirit

Lin Ruth, the eldest daughter of Lin Yutang, said, “the biggest merit of the book is not describing the lively personality, not presenting vivid scenery, not describing the psychological movement of the characters, but endowed the book with philosophical significance.”[3]in evaluating Moment in Peking. In terms of philosophy, Moment in Peking expressed the concept of all lives are floating clouds and smoke in Taoism. Lin Yutang gives the theme “life passes like a dream”[4] to the novel and complete a panoramic story of the Chinese society. And Lin Ruth thinks Moment in Peking created a world of Chinese culture with philosophy spirit.

“The culture of Confucianism and Taoism are two pillars of the Chinese traditional culture. In a sense, the Chinese culture is the combination of the two theory.”[5] The core thought of the two greatest Taoists, Laotze and Chuangtzu, is of nature, which means everything goes smoothly according to the rule of nature. Moment of Peking reflects the real Chinese people pursuing the art and lofty ideals of life, just like the masterpiece in Qing dynasty named A Dream of Red Mansions.

4. History and culture

In Moment in Peking, there is a large amount of explanatory description to show a vivid picture scroll of Chinese lives to the foreigners, especially to the westerners. The author described the war in the third volume, the aging of old China, and the bud of new China, in order to portray the transformation of Chinese culture through times. The different life-styles of eastern people is the favor of modern western readers, furthermore, when they read the novel, they are undoubtedly attracted by the artistic charm of Chinese culture.

In conclusion, Moment in Peking is a novel truly reproduced the history of China in the early 20th century, and its success creates a series of vivid characters and express Taoism philosophical thought, which has very high value for reference and study of Chinese culture.

References

[1]林語堂. 京华烟云[M]. 北京：外语教学与研究出版社，1999

[2]林语堂. 京华烟云[M]. 西安：陕西师范大学出版社， 2002

[3]林语堂. 瞬息京华[M]. 郁飞, 译. 长沙：湖南文艺出版社，1991

[4]施建伟. 林语堂在海外[M]. 天津：百花文艺出版社，1992

[5]陈鼓应. 道家文化研究[M]. 北京：生活·读书·新知三联书店，2003