Images of Chinese Women in the Hands of Translators:A Case Study of the English Translations of Pu Songling’s Liaozhai zhi yi

Wayne Wen-chun LIANG

Lingnan University

Abstract This paper discusses the images of traditional Chinese women in the English translations of Pu Songling’s Liaozhai zhi yi.This is a fictional work famous for its vivid and lively love stories between young male scholars and beautiful female spirits,immortals,and demons.Pu Songling often described the female supernatural beings in his fictional work as beautiful,kind,obedient,loyal,and passive.These are characteristics that reflect the values and images of traditional Chinese women from the Confucian perspective.According to Beller and Leerseen (2007),imagology examines “the origin and characteristics of other countries and peoples”,which are often depicted in works of literature at the textual level.Previous studies of Liaozhai zhi yi’s English translations also touched upon the translation of imagology (e.g.,Dong & Hu,2013; Chen,2014).However,none of them considered the sociological aspects that influence how translators reconstruct original images in their translations.Nevertheless,when reformulating original text images,translators,whose behaviours are constructed by sociocultural determinants in a given social space and time,should not be immune from the imagological approach in the study of translations.This paper studies two English translations of Liaozhai zhi yi,namely,Herbert Giles’s Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (Pu,1880/2010) and John Minford’s Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (Pu,2006).This paper examines how these two translators reaccentuated the image narratives of traditional Chinese women portrayed in Liaozhai zhi yi.It discusses how these images transformed in the West by investigating the social contextualization of the two translators.It is hoped that this paper’s emphasis on the sociological aspects of image-making through translation will constitute a significant contribution to the study of imagology.

Keywords:Liaozhai zhi yi; images of Chinese women; English translation; imagology

1.Introduction

The present paper examines the image of traditional Chinese women in the English translations of Pu Songling’sLiaozhai zhi yi聊斋志异,which has long been linked to one of the most symbolic representations of fictional fantasy works in Chinese literary discourse.Pu Songling1Pu Songling (1640—1715) lived during the Qing Dynasty of imperial China,and his Liaozhai zhi yi has long been regarded as a masterpiece of the fantastic and supernatural that stretches the boundaries of human experience.Although Pu lived his life as an obscure private schoolteacher in Shandong Province,his Liaozhai zhi yi gained fame when the work was first printed around 50 years after his death.蒲松龄 wrote this fictional work in 1679,constituting a collection of nearly 500 mostly supernatural tales drawn from Chinese folktales.The elements in the stories include ghosts,fox spirits,Taoist exorcists,and abnormal human experiences (Zeitlin,1993).What makes Pu Songling’sLiaozhai zhi yispecial is “a unique type of feminine image whose actions are in total contradiction to the conventional image of mortal women” (Barr,1989,p.501).It is a pity that Pu Songling could not afford to publish his work when he was alive,limiting the circulation of his manuscript copies to only families and friends.It was not until Zhao Qigao 赵起高 publishedLiaozhai zhi yiin 1766 that this collection of strange tales reached a wider readership.Zhao Qigao’s edition ofLiaozhai zhi yi,which consists of 12juan卷,or volumes,was circulated among the general public for more than two centuries (Chiang,2005).Given the settings and characters of the stories,Liaozhai zhi yimight be considered as fantasy fiction genre.

As is often the case,fantasy fiction is strongly related to myths,legends,fairy tales,and folklore from all over the world.Manlove (1975) claimed that fantasy fiction is a highly localized form that is peculiarly expressive of the country where it develops.Fantasy fiction with mythopoeic elements is a pervasive form of literature in every culture (Mathews,2002),including those of India,China,Egypt,Norway,and England.The heart of stories in fantasy fiction may sometimes be derived from the author’s imagination and creativity.Wu Cheng’en’s 吴承恩Xiyouji 西游记 (Journey to the West),one of the four masterworks of Chinese classical novels,is one typical example.The story depicts the Buddhist monk Xuan Zang’s pilgrimage to India with his three disciples and their battles with magical creatures and monsters during the journey.Along a similar line,Liaozhai zhi yialso demonstrates the author’s tactical skills in creating a storyline that is full of dark or delusional images.The bizarre subject matter of the tales is a vehicle for Pu Songling’s self-expression,which speaks of what is foremost in his mind.While Pu Songling described the supernatural beings as bold and trustworthy inLiaozhai zhi yi,human beings were considered as easily manipulateds and indecisive.The foolishness and simple-mindedness of human beings are actually the manifestations of the author’s dissatisfaction with society,which irresistibly leadsLiaozhai zhi yito become a social satire (Zeitlin,1993).In this sense,although fantasy fiction consists of marvellous plots,it is not something that is merely a figment of the imagination or an illusion.Instead,it is something that actually reflects the writer’s opinion or their critiques of the real world.

Roberts (1979) also argued that the philosophy underlying Pu Songling’s writing conveys the tradition of Taoism,which is a countertradition of mainstream Confucianism.When Pu Songling depicted human nature as weak,indecisive,and easily manipulated by supernatural spirits,he revealed his disappointment with society and disagreed with the Confucian tradition,which emphasizes family and social harmony over spiritual values.As Manlove (1975,p.6) argued:

[…] the presence of the supernatural is of a piece with dislocated plots,frenzied passions,the use of chiaroscuro and underground passages and vaults containing guilty secrets […]:it expresses the revolt of a purely human subconscious against reason,figured in organized religion and social civility.

Many of the supernatural beings inLiaozhai zhi yiare female figures.When writing his stories,Pu Songling attempted to use the supernatural and bizarre narratives to implicitly criticize the injustice of the feudal system and the corruption of the Chinese imperial examination system.He also stressed the value of the unconditional love between husband and wife and conveyed hidden moral messages to his readers.Thus,the collection of stories inLiaozhai zhi yiconsists of “irresistibly beautiful fox-spirits [who] bewitch helpless young men,a Taoist monk [who] creates a magical pear-tree,a scholar [who] recounts his previous incarnations,a ghostly city [that] appears out of nowhere and a heartless daughter-in-law [who]is turned into a pig” (Pu,2006,p.xx).Pu Songling’s perception of human nature lies in “all things [are]equal,giving no one of them dominion over another by virtue of birth or any other inheritable power”(Roberts,1979,p.xviii),which is contrary to the belief in obedience emphasized in Confucianism.

In terms of the characters in Pu Songling’s writing,as Liang and Huang (2016) stated,female figures in classic Chinese literature are so prominent that they occupy the leading roles and influence the progress of the storyline,such asPan Jinlian潘金莲 inJin Ping Mei金瓶梅,andRou Pu Tuan肉蒲团,Lin Daiyu林黛玉,andXue Baochai薛宝钗 inHong Lou Meng红楼梦.Liaozhai zhi yiis another example where female characters have become a driving force of plot.In the stories,they appear as ghosts,fox-spirits,and vampires,with powerful narratives that draws readers into a bizarre and fantastic wonderland.The dominance of female characters inLiaozhai zhi yicontrasts with the subordinate female characters often described in other classic Chinese literary works,which reflect the patriarchal hegemony in Chinese culture.Yet,at the same time,they conform to the values and images of traditional Chinese women from the Confucian perspective as female supernatural beings were also described as beautiful,kind,obedient,loyal,and passive in the stories.

The earliest English translation ofLiaozhai zhi yiwas published in 1842 by German Lutheran missionary,Karl Gützlaff 郭宝屯,under the title,Liáu Chái I’ Chi,orExtraordinary Legends from Liáu Chái,inThe Chinese Repository中国从报 (Wu & Zheng,2012).Yet,Gützlaff’s work only consists of nine short stories from the collection,and is closer to a commentary with translation as a supplement.The second attempt to translateLiaozhai zhi yiinto English was made by the American Christian missionary Samuel Wells Williams 卫三畏,who published the English translation of two short stories fromLiaozhai zhi yiin his manuscriptThe Middle Kingdom:A Survey of The Geography,Government,Education,Social Life,Arts and Religion of the Chinese Empire.The first fuller,yet still incomplete,English translation ofLiaozhai zhi yiwas published under the title ofStrange Tales from a Chinese Studioundertaken by the British diplomat and sinologist Herbert Giles in 1880.After Giles,there were several incomplete English translations ofLiaozhai zhi yicarried out by other translators.Among them are Rose Quong’sChinese Ghost and Love Storiesin 1946,Moss Roberts’sChinese Fairy Tales & Fantasiesin 1979,and Denis Mair and Victor Mair’sStrange Tales from Make-do Studioin 1989.The second fuller English translation ofLiaozhai zhi yiwas not available until the renowned sinologist and literary translator John Minford publishedStrange Tales from a Chinese Studioin 2006.In the present paper,Giles and Minford’s English translation are studied to understand the translators’(re)construction of images of traditional Chinese women.

2.Imagology in Translation Studies

According to Beller and Leerssen (2007,p.7),imagology examines “the origin and characteristics of other countries and peoples”,which are often depicted in works of literature at the textual level.Thus,it deals with the mental representations or reputation of a specific person or place and its associated attributes (ibid.,p.342).Although the term “imagology” is used in the present study,the discipline of imagology is often misunderstood by others because the discipline itself partially overlaps with “research in visual image studies” which employs various approaches to analyze and interpret images as data.It is surprising to see that the studies on imagology in literature are still in their infancy; until now,only a relatively small number of works have been undertaken in academia (Perner,2013,p.31).In Hung’s(2005) edited volume,several papers address issues of how translation plays a vital role in shaping and developing cultures,especially when the image of a particular culture is projected through the perception and reception processes of translated works that reflect the concerns,preferences,and aspirations of their target cultures.More recently,Li (2018) investigated the construction processes of Alice’s image in Lewis Carroll’sAlice’s Adventures in Wonderlandthroughout various Chinese translations across different Chinese-speaking regions.

Perner (2013,p.31) argued that imagology is about the investigation of “the relation between ‘national entities’ and of mutual perceptions across national borders”.This suggests that the fundamental concept of imagology lies in the studies of national and cultural image (re)construction (Flynn et al.,2016,p.2).Unlike visual image studies where the objects being examined are mostly printed or multimedia images in social and cultural contexts,imagology studies how images of a country are constructed in literary texts.

The realm of translation studies looks into national and cultural image-building through the process of translation.In fact,such image-building could be culturally,socially,or politically motivated.The transformation of the source image would be subjectively understood by the translator based on the sociocultural environment of the translator,which could,in turn,construct a new image for the original in the host culture.This process suggests that the decision a translator makes,restricted or flexible,could possibly reshape the stereotypical understanding of a culture.Thus,the task of a translator involves complicated and multi-layered roles.Imagology in translation studies could,as Flynn,Leerssen,and van Doorslaer (2016,p.3) argued,“distinguish between texts thematizing cultural differences and texts explaining those differences from imputed or perceivednational charactersin what is technically termed anethnotype”.The imagologists do not attempt to discover “the semiotics of cultural difference”.Instead,they focus on “deconstructing ethnotypes and their characterological rationalization of cultural difference”(ibid.).The study of imagology thus takes us to the examination of a nation’s character that would serve as a methodological approach to study the narratives of the stereotypical character of a nation.If imagology is used as a methodological tool to study the construction process of a nation’s image in the translation process,the understanding of the original image would be twofold:the original image facet and the image transformation in the host culture.

3.The female discourse in pre-modern and modern China

It is often the case that writing speaks for the mind of the author.The supernatural and bizarre tales fromLiaozhai zhi yireflect Pu Songling’s discontent with the class and gender inequality embedded in Chinese feudal society during his time.In fact,in this collection of nearly 500 mostly supernatural tales,Liaozhai zhi yihas about 190 tales that feature a feminine theme.Inasmuch as the collection of stories inLiaozhai zhi yiis based on happenings that exceed the reality,Pu Songling employed the stories of female ghosts and fox spirits in his literary composition which “reflects [his] multiple identities as member of a certain gender and class,a scholar and philosopher,and an emotional being and literary talent” (Chiang,2005,p.7) that could signal the national and ethnotypical characters during his time.The Chinese culture has been heavily influenced by Confucianism,which “preaches character building,learning,virtue,filial and ancestral piety,and a family-style morality” (Knapp,1992,p.1).In Confucianism,women are always frail,obedient,and submissive,following the idea that “the virtue for a woman is to be without talent” (女子无才便是德).Indeed,personal sacrifices and obligatory relationships are what make up Chinese history.Despite their adverse position in a male-dominant society,women could at times entail images that are“fearsome and destructive” (ibid.,p.2).Examples of such female images can be seen from the literary and historical discourses in China,such asDaji妲己 of the Shang Dynasty who is featured inFengshen yanyi封神演义 and was possessed by an evil nine-tailed fox spirit,Baosi褒姒 of the Zhou Dynasty,Empress Wu of the Tang Dynasty,and the endangering female evil spirits inXiyou jiandLiaozhai zhi yi.

Confucianism,although not a religion,has influenced Chinese culture for more than 2,000 years,exerting a dominant influence on its national consciousness.Women are thus primarily considered through images revealing them as willingly self-sacrificing,devoted,obedient,determined,and chaste (Li,1994).Such images are,even today,the stereotype of Chinese women.In the story of theZhang Hongjian张鸿渐,the heroine fox spirit,Shun Hua 舜华,broke the relationship off with Zhang Hongjian when she knew his feelings for her were not true,but she still helped him whenever he was in trouble.Shun Hua not only showed that kindness is the inherent virtue of Chinese women,but she also stood in a powerful position capable of using her skills and intelligence to resolve Zhang’s difficulties.This shows that despite women’s inferior status within their household and throughout society in general,some women are intelligent,faithful,and strong characters ready to fight against the imposed social norms.This complies with the fundamental value of Taoism that all creatures should exist on the same level.

In the story ofYingning婴宁,the heroine,Yingning,was born to a fox mother and raised by a ghost mother.Pu Songling described Yingning this way,“One young lady was out walking with her maid and had just picked a spray of plum-blossoms.She had the prettiest face imaginable,with a great beaming smile” (有女郎携婢拈梅花一枝，容华绝代，笑容可掬) (Pu,2006,p.152).The images shown from this portrayal of Yingning lie not only in her beautiful appearance but also in the innocence and purity that the girl possessed.Such positive images can sometimes coexist with more adverse images of Chinese women in literature.If there is a negative image of women in literature,it would most likely be the one with enormous sex appeal who bewitches and induces men,like the images of fox spirits or demons portrayed in Gan Bao’sSou shen ji搜神记,Liaozhai zhi yi,and Yuan Mei’sZibuyu子不语.In the story ofDong Sheng董生,the fox was transformed into a female human form and bewitchedDong Xiasi董遐思,who eventually died after experiencing too much joy with the fox spirit in bed.In Chinese literary discourse,the fox spirit is often portrayed as a beautiful young lady filled with strong sexual desire.It is clear that in both pre-modern and modern Chinese literature,independent women have existed,even though the quest for gender equality and the movement for women’s liberation did not begin until the late 19th and early 20th centuries when the Western idea of gender equality was introduced to China.Indeed,such a portrayal of Chinese women in Chinese literature contradicts Confucian values and may reveal how the author rebelled against prevailing social norms through literary writing.

4.The transformation of images of traditional Chinese women

The discussions of the imagology studies in the previous section raise the issue of employing a narratological analysis to a nation’s character.Pu Songling’sLiaozhai zhi yiand its English translations are clearly of interest to this study,because examples from these literary works represent the collective feminine image of Chinese culture,depicted by Pu Songling in the original and by the translators in their translations.As discussed previously,Liaozhai zhi yiis a literary work famous for its vivid and lively love stories between young male scholars and beautiful female spirits,immortals,and demons.Pu Songling’s writing of femininity in supernatural beings likely echoes the Chinese notions ofyin阴 andyang阳.As Zeitlin (2007,p.16) argued,the concepts ofyinandyangdenote the “human reproduction” and“creation of the world” where the interaction of human male and female supernatural beings represents regeneration.Pu Songling described the female supernatural beings in his writing as beautiful,kind,obedient,loyal,and passive.These feminine characteristics reflect the values and images of traditional Chinese women from the Confucian perspective,and constitute the cultural stereotypes of the images of Chinese women as a whole.In addition,under the Chinese concepts ofyinandyang,supernatural beings,especially those of spirits,are the symbol ofyinas they are associated with “cold,dark,moisture,earth,lower,death,femininity,etc.” (Zeitlin,2007,p.16) as opposed to man withyang.This study takes into account the national stereotypes of female images in the literary discourse (but not the construction of nationalities or ethnicities),and it discusses the complex process of image transformation through translation.Liaozhai zhi yiis considered a perfect example of the study of image transformations of Chinese women.As Zeitlin stressed,“Pu Songling enjoyed breaking down simple dualities such as yin/yang and ghost/man,particularly through the mechanics of the love triangle” (ibid.,p.17).

SinceLiaozhai zhi yifirst appeared in 1766,different scholars have completed several transcriptions with commentaries and annotations.The two English translations ofLiaozhai zhi yistudied in the present paper are Herbert Giles’s (Pu,1880/2010)Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio1Herbert Giles’s 1880 version was titled Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio,which was later renamed as Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio in the version published by Tuttle Publishing in 2010.In this paper,the study of Chinese feminine image in Giles’s version is based on Tuttle’s 2010 edition; thus,the English title Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio is used when referring to Giles’s version.The question whether there is any intertextual relationship between Tuttle’s edition and Minford’s version on the renaming of the title is outside the scope of this study.and John Minford’s (Pu,2006)Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio.Giles’s translation of Pu Songling’s collection of strange tales was based onDan Minglun’s 但明伦 1842 edition,Liaozhai zhi yi xin ping聊斋志异新评,and his version is considered to be the first full English translation ofLiaozhai zhi yi.Minford’s version,which was translated fromZhang Youhe’s 张有鹤 1962 edition,Liaozhai zhyi huijiao huizhu huiping ben聊斋志异会校会注会评本,is a more recent version published 126 years after Giles’s version.Herbert Giles’sStrange Tales from a Chinese Studioincludes only 164 out of the nearly 500 stories inLiaozhai zhi yibecause Giles deleted the stories that contain overt references to sex and violence (Chiang,2005).In the “Preface” to his English translation,Giles writes:

I had originally determined to publish a full and complete translation of the whole of these sixteen volumes;but on a closer acquaintance,many of the stories turned out to be quite unsuitable for the age in which we live,forcibly recalling the coarseness of our own writers of fiction in the last century.(Pu,2010,p.xx)

The social atmosphere during Giles’s time conditioned his choice and constructed his behavior in the production of the translation.In his “Note on the Text,Translation and Illustrations”,John Minford admitted that his translation was influenced by Giles’s version:

In entitling this selectionStrange Tales from a Chinese Studio,I am consciously paying homage to Giles and hisStrange Stories,which I have always admired,even though a close reading of Giles’s work certainly reveals the limitations of the taste of his time,which dictated what he thought he could permissibly do.(Pu,2006,p.xxxii)

Interestingly,Minford and Tong,on the other hand,criticized Giles’s version,commenting that Giles’s English translation ofLiaozhai zhi yi“ha[s] been at best quietly tolerated,more often derided,and dismissed as orientalist bowdlerizations of P’u Sung-ling” (Minford & Tong,1999,p.1).Minford and Tong’s criticism of Giles’s version is mainly derived from,as mentioned above,Giles’s deletion of the erotica parts ofLiaozhai zhi yi.According to them,Giles lived through the Victorian era when erotica was deemed“underground” and those deletions “greatly dilute[ed] the texture of P’u’s fictional world and enhance[d]the acceptable ‘quaintness’ of Giles’s stories” (ibid.,p.11) under the influence of Victorian morality.

As mentioned previously,Minford himself also did not translate the full volume ofLiaozhai zhi yi;he only translated 104 stories in his version,and 59 of them are from the first two volumes of the original 12-volume edition.Minford confessed that the selection of stories included in his translation was largely due to his own personal preference (Pu,2006).Although the two English versions studied are only partial translations of the original,they still present a clear picture of how Chinese female images were constructed in the new host culture through the translation process at different times by various translators.

Previous studies on the English translations ofLiaozhai zhi yi,although touching upon the translation of imagology (i.e.,Dong & Hu,2013; Chen,2014),do not consider the sociological aspect of translation and its influence on the translators.Indeed,the current understanding of imagology has put more emphasis on the issues of localities,nationalities,and ethnicities based on the contextualization of literary texts (Perner,2013).However,translators,as translation agents whose reformulations of the images of the original literary source are influenced by socio-cultural factors in their social spaces,should not be immune from the imagological approach in the study of translation.

In the following discussion,I will illustrate how the two translators’ social contexts informed their behaviors in building the images of Chinese women portrayed inLiaozhai zhi yiin their respective English translations.

In the story ofHua Pi画皮,an evil ghost spirit turned into the form of a young and charming girl and tried to seduce a man called Wang to render her refuge.Later,Wang met a Taoist priest who warned him of an imminent danger.Wang went home,peeped through his bedroom window,and found the ghost spirit with a green face and saw-like,jagged teeth.Wang asked the Taoist priest for help and was told to hang a fly-whisk outside the bedroom door.Unfortunately,the ghost spirit broke the priest’s magic and ripped out Wang’s heart.The priest then beheaded the spirit,which caused her to vanish.After the tragedy,Wang’s wife sought help from a maniac who claimed capable of bringing Wang back to life.The maniac produced loathsome phlegm and asked Wang’s wife to swallow it.In the end,the phlegm turned into a heart and Wang came back to life.The story conveys the traditional Chinese value that a wife should always be loyal to her husband,no matter how difficult the situation is.The narrative where Wang’s wife asks the maniac to help bring her husband back to life reads thus:

二郎亦习知之。乃别道士，与嫂俱往。见乞人颠歌道上，鼻涕三尺，秽不可近。陈膝行而前。乞人笑曰：“佳人爱我乎？”陈告之故。又大笑曰：“人尽夫也，活之何为？”陈固哀之。乃曰：“异哉！人死而乞活于我，我阎摩耶？”怒以杖击陈。陈忍痛受之。市人渐集如堵。乞人咯痰唾盈把，举向陈吻曰：“食之！”陈红涨于面，有难色；既思道士之嘱，遂强啖焉。(Pu,1963,p.35)

In the sentence “陈红涨于面，有难色；既思道士之嘱，遂强啖焉”,the two translators adopted different approaches to deal with the original.Giles translated the original into “After this,he produced a loathsome pill which he told her she must swallow,but here she broke down and was quite unable to do so.However,she did manage it at last” (Pu,2010,p.68).On the other hand,Minford translated the original into“She flushed deeply and could not bring herself to obey his order.Then she remembered what the Taoist had commanded and steeled herself to swallow the congealed phlegm” (Pu,2006,p.132).The difference between the two is that Giles did not include the phrase “既思道士之嘱” in his translation,while Minford translated it into “she remembered what the Taoist had commanded”.In traditional Chinese Confucian culture,a woman should respect and be loyal to her husband and family.In other words,women were excluded from power and important decisions and had to practice the Three Obediences (三从) in their household (Chan,1989,p.5).This cultural value reflects the repressive nature of the suppression and exploitation of women in feudal Chinese society.Under the traditional concepts of Confucianism,women bore the injustice of being denied the equal rights of men.Giles’s translation left out this phrase,which conveys the impression that Wang’s wife was willing to swallow the maniac’s phlegm out of love for her husband and because she had a more submissive attitude.However,Minford kept the phrase in his translation.The narrative in the original shows that Wang’s wife did not blindly comply with the Taoist’s order but operated out of her own free will.The translated version implies that she is an individual who can think independently and thus the subjectivity is manifested.The awakening of gender equality consciousness in the West,which called for women’s equality in legal,economic,educational,and social areas,began in the early 19th century(Yao,1983).The push for women’s rights did not take place in China until the late 19th and early 20th centuries when the concept of gender equality from the West was introduced and spread in China during the Republican Period.Minford followed the original narratives employed by Pu Songling more closely in his translation,which shattered the central tenet of Confucianism that human society should blindly follow a set of obligatory relationships that required women to be totally obedient.Instead,women’s subjectivity was constructed in Minford’s version.

As Minford and Tong (1999,p.11) put it,Giles “was a creature of his time”.Before moving on,it is important to describe the gender situation during the Victorian period (1837-1901).Hughes (2014)argued that women’s role was more sharply defined during the Victorian period than in any other historical period.In earlier times,it had been quite common to see women working with their husbands or brothers for family earnings.During the Victorian period,the ideology of “separate spheres” became pervasive in England,which accentuated the idea that men and women,due to the natural differences between the two sexes,should inhabit separate spheres,only coming together when having meals.Such ideology considered women as “physically weaker yet morally superior to men,which mean[s] that they are best suited to the domestic sphere” (ibid.).The submissive status of women is in line with Confucian family ethics,which legitimize women’s subordination in both domestic and societal life.It can thus be inferred that Giles’s approach in the sentence “陈红涨于面，有难色；既思道士之嘱，遂强啖焉”was driven by his socio-cultural context.On the other hand,Minford’s translation was published after over 100 years after Giles’s translation.Thus,an already-awakened feminist consciousness influenced Minford’s translation such that Pu Songling’s depiction of the woman as a knowing subject able to adjust her behavior accordingly was maintained and conveyed in the translation.

InLiaozhai zhi yi,a multiplicity of women’s images can often be identified throughout Pu Songling’s narratives describing the supernatural beings and their human lovers.Traditional Chinese culture values the loyalty and submissiveness of a woman to her husband and family,yet the female ghost spirits are somehow more willing to take the initiative and express their love to young scholars in theLiaozhai zhi yitales.In the story ofNie Xiaoqian聂小倩,there is a narrative about the first encounter between the ghost spirit Nie Xiaoqian and the young and good-natured scholar Ning Caichen 宁采臣:

方将睡去，觉有人至寝所，急起审顾，则北院女子也。惊问之，女笑曰：“月夜不寐，愿修燕好。”宁正容曰：“卿防物议，我畏人言；略一失足，廉耻道丧。”女云：“夜无知者。”宁又咄之。女逡巡若复有词。宁叱：“速去！不然，当呼南舍生知。”女惧，乃退。(Pu,1963,p.55)

In Pu Songling’s stories,the feminine images of supernatural beings often disregards social norms,being especially defiant towards the conventional image of mortal women.In the above-illustrated example,the scholar Ning Caichen was seduced by the ghost spirit Nie Xiaoqian.The phrase “愿修燕好”indicates a suggestion uttered by the female ghost spirit to have sex with her mortal lover.The behavior pattern of the female supernatural beings described by Pu Songling often has wider implications.In his original stories,mortal women reflect the values of traditional Confucian society where women tend to be conventional and submissive.On the other hand,his female supernatural beings have a tendency to be more unorthodox and iconoclastic (Barr,1989).In Pu Songling’s time,sex within marriage was considered moral and condoned,while premarital sex was immoral and condemned.Thus,the example provided above signifies the sexual freedom and liberation of women in Pu Songling’s narratives,which is certainly unorthodox in feudal China.In Giles’s version,the whole phrase “愿修燕好” was deleted without any trace,which mirrors the social atmosphere of the Victorian period where a young girl was not expected to focus too much on finding a husband because it would suggest that she had a strong sexual appetite (Hughes,2014).Women during Giles’s time were not encouraged to pursue sexual or emotional satisfaction in their daily lives.Such an atmosphere legitimized Giles’s decision to delete the phrase conveying an abnormity to Confucian philosophy in the host culture.“The Author’s Own Record” section in Giles’s translation mentions that “on a closer acquaintance,many of the stories turned out to be quite unsuitable for the age in which we live” (Pu,2010,p.25).It shows that Giles himself was aware that some content was unsuitable for translation in Victorian society.Thus,his reconstruction of the original was conditioned by the socio-cultural environment in which he lived.In addition,Giles (Pu,2010) argued that the translation ofLiaozhai zhi yishould be an addition to the knowledge and folklore of China and a guide to the manners,customs,and social life of Chinese culture.As the stereotypical image of Chinese women is considered to be retiring and premarital sex is immoral,it can also be inferred that Giles deliberately deleted the narratives of sexual freedom as a result of his own ideological view.Ironically,it is the unorthodoxy of the feminine image that makes Pu Songling’s collection of strange tales a Chinese classic.On the contrary,Minford’s more modern version makes the original phrase explicit in the host culture,translating the original to “I want to make love with you” (Pu,2006,p.170).Despite replacing the original poetic allusion with a more straightforward colloquialism,Minford’s version actually signifies the sexual liberation of Chinese women in the Western context through the translation,which can be regarded as a reconstruction of the stereotypical image of Chinese women.

Other interesting examples can be seen from the story ofYingningwhere Pu Songling created a rather complex character for the daughter of fox Yingning,who married Wang Zifu,a young man from Luodian village in Shandong Province.This is the scene when Wang Zifu confesses his love to Yingning:

生曰：“我所谓爱，非瓜葛之爱，乃夫妻之爱。”女曰：“有以异乎？”曰：“夜共枕席耳。”女俯思良久，曰：“我不惯与生人睡。”语未已，婢潜至，生惶恐遁去。(Pu,1963,p.55)

In the story,Yingning was first described as “open and carefree”,and her “simplistic spirit [did] not have the complexity of vulgar human emotions” (Barr,1989,p.502).The above-illustrated example shows the innocence and simplicity of Yingning when Wang Zifu confessed his affection for her and attempted to explain that his fondness of her was not the love for relatives but for husbands and wives.However,her inexperience regarding the mortal world made Yingning confused about the difference between the two kinds of love,so she replied “有以异乎？”,which was translated to “What’s the difference?” in Giles’s translation (Pu,2010,p.90) and “What difference is there?” in Minford’s translation (Pu,2006,p.160).In the original,Wang Zifu answered the question as “夜共枕席耳”,which means husbands and wives sleep together at night.Giles translated it as “Husband and wife are always together” (Pu,2010,p.90),while Minford delivered it as “Husband and wife share the same pillow and mat at night.They sleep together”(Pu,2006,p.160).It can be seen that Minford’s version was more straightforward and explicit than Giles’s version,which suggested that Minford’s behavior was constructed by the openness of the 21st century modern society.Thus,the Chinese feminine image constructed by Minford is more liberated.In terms of the cultural reconstruction of the Chinese feminine image through the approach of translation,Giles’s approach was somehow more in line with the social discourse derived from Chinese Confucianism and Chinese patriarchal society.As discussed in Section 3,Chinese Confucianism frames the discourse of“the virtue for a woman is to be without talent” to mean that Yingning’s innocence and ignorance of the human world have largely to do with her lack of education.Besides,the Chinese patriarchal society shaped a more submissive discourse for the Chinese woman that domesticated and confined them from openly expressing their desire for love and sex.The cultural otherness generated from this stereotypical character of Chinese society was thus reconstructed in Giles’s translation.

Indeed,foxes are one of the most common supernatural beings in Pu Songling’s narratives,and they occur in 83 tales inLiaozhai zhi yi.The use of fox spirits in Pu Songling’s writing to portray a multiplicity of women’s images brings different tensions between the male characters and the female supernatural beings.In the story ofLianxiang莲香,the heroine,Lianxiang,is a fox spirit whose appearance is stunning,and Lianxiang feels unconditional love for her male mortal lover.When the male protagonist,Sang Ziming,saw Lianxiang for the first time,he was astonished by Lianxiang’s beauty:“积半年，一女子夜来叩斋，生意友人之复戏也，启户延入，则倾国之姝。惊问所来，曰：‘妾莲香，西家妓女。’” (Pu,1963,p.76).The term “倾国” was originally fromJinggong chi wuzi zhi fu er shi yan yanzi jian(景公敕五子之傅而失言晏子谏) inYanzi Chun Qiu晏子春秋,meaning overthrowing a nation.The term was later used in Ling Mengchu’s (1580—1644)Er ke pai an jing qi二刻拍案惊奇 to express a lady who is extremely graceful and gorgeous.Giles translated the phrase as “he beheld to his astonishment a perfect Helen for beauty” (Literally,a young lady whose beauty would overthrow a kingdom,in allusion to an old story which it is not necessary to reproduce here) (Pu,2010,p.112).It is interesting to note that Giles reconstructed the Chinese feminine image with a female figure from Greek mythology,Helen of Troy,who is said to be the most beautiful woman in the world.A translator’s footnote was added at the end of the translation explaining the literal meaning of the Chinese term,but Giles did not elucidate his allusion to the term.On the other hand,Minford translated the phrase as “He gazed in wonder at the ravishing beauty who entered”(Pu,2006,p.212).Compared to Giles’s version,the Chinese cultural allusion was neutralized in Minford’s translation,which lost the Chinese aesthetic in the translation.Giles spent 25 years (1867-1892) in China and published a wide variety of books on Chinese language and culture.Aylmer (1997,p.3) argued that Giles’s linguistic prowess and familiarity with literary allusion in Chinese literary texts can be attributed to his consular duties in China.In the perennial conflict on whether to add a translator’s footnote to provide additional information on the cultural reference,the above example showcases the use of the translator’s note as a manifestation of Giles’s pre-eminence in Chinese studies.Thus,he was able to identify the cultural reference in the original and retain it in the footnote in the translation.

5.Conclusion

The mortal and supernatural heroines in Pu Songling’s narratives form a representational image of Chinese women to the target reader.These images are rooted in the time and place where the stories developed inLiaozhai zhi yi.Indeed,translating foreign literature into a target culture context is a means of (re)constructing another world into a culture with which readers might or might not be familiar(Lo,2012).In this sense,the (re)constructed images can,in turn,constitute a new source world to the target readers.Despite the fact that images themselves do not directly contribute to the development of a storyline,they complete the narrative space with additional details and denote a state of being as indices(Barthes,1977,p.92).The present study shows that a translator’s rendering of the image ethnotype of Chinese women at different historical periods is largely conditioned by socio-cultural determinants in the translator’s host culture.The study’s exploration goes beyond the linguistic level and focuses on the translator’s preference for certain approaches to (re)construct national characters in the translation process through a sociological approach.As Bourdieu (1990) argued,the habitus of an individual is more or less well-adapted to the demands of a particular field.To a certain extent,behaviours of translators may be pre-determined by the social experiences they encounter.The sociological aspects of image-making,therefore,play an important role in understanding the narratives of the stereotypical character of a nation.