Love-Letters and Privacy in Modern China : The Intimate Lives of Lu Xun and Xu Guangping (Studies on Contemporary China)

320 Pages·2002·1.7 MB·English

Love-Letters and Privacy in Modern China
Studies on Contemporary China
The Contemporary China Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies
(University of London) has, since its establishment in 1968, been an international
centre for research and publications on twentieth-century China. Studies on
Contemporary China, which is edited at the Institute, seeks to maintain and extend
that tradition by making available the best work of scholars and China specialists
throughout the world. It embraces a wide variety of subjects relating to Nationalist
and Communist China, including social, political, and economic change, intellectual
and cultural developments, foreign relations, and national security.
Series Editor
Dr Frank Diko¨tter, Director of the Contemporary China Institute
Editorial Advisory Board
Professor Robert F. Ash Professor Bonnie S. McDougall
Professor Hugh D. R. Baker Professor David Shambaugh
Professor Elisabeth J. Croll Dr Julia C. Strauss
Dr Richard Louis Edmounds Dr Jonathan Unger
Mr Brain G. Hook Professor Lynn T. White III
Professor Christopher B. Howe
Love-Letters and Privacy in
Modern China
The Intimate Lives of Lu Xun and Xu
Guangping
BONNIE S. McDOUGALL
1
3
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For Anders and Torkel
It is an interesting question—what one tries to do, in writing a letter—partly
of course to give back a reflection of the other person.
Virginia Woolf, A Reflection of the Other Person
viii Contents
Part IV: Conclusion
24. Revealing to Conceal: Letters between Two and the Original
Correspondence 207
Notes 210
References 279
Index 299
Acknowledgements
The idea for this book stems directly from the translation of Letters between Two
into English, a task I was first commissioned to carry out by the Foreign Lan-
guages Press in 1980. While employed full-time by the FLP in Peking between
1980 and 1983 and freelance for another two years, I was able to complete a
first rough draft with assistance from my FLP colleagues. I also had the great
good fortune to meet the world’s leading authority on Letters between Two, Wang
Dehou, from whose works and counsel I have profited immensely. On hearing
of my project, William Lyell very generously made available to me the partial
translation he had been working on; although our translation styles are very dif-
ferent, I owe a great deal to his knowledge of Chinese language, literature, and
society.
For the present study I am most grateful to the British Academy Research
Leave Scheme and the Faculty of Arts at the University of Edinburgh for grants
that enabled me to take a year’s leave in 1998–9 as part of a wider project,
‘Private Writing in Public Spaces’, a comprehensive survey of modern Chinese
letters, diaries and memoirs. For travel to Cambridge, MA, I am grateful for
grants from the Faculty Research Travel Fund and to the Carnegie Founda-
tion; for travel to Tokyo, I am grateful for the award of the British Academy
Exchange with the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science; and for travel
to Cambridge, England I am grateful to the British Academy. For my second year
of leave, I must thank the Center for Chinese Studies at the National Central
Library in Taipei for a three-month fellowship in autumn 1999 and to Soochow
University for employment from February to July 2000. For my final year of
leave, I am grateful for the award of a ten-month residential fellowship from the
Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study. For advice and assistance I particu-
larly wish to thank Hamish MacAndrew (The University of Edinburgh), Ezra F.
Vogel (director, Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, Harvard University), Leo
Ou-fan Lee (East Asian Languages and Civilisations, Harvard University), Fujii
Shoˆzoˆ (University of Tokyo), D. M. McMullen (St John’s College, University of
Cambridge), Kang Li-chun, Sun Hsiu-ling, and Francis Tu (Center for Chinese
Studies, National Central Library, Taipei), Henk Wesseling (NIAS) and Yang Yi
(Chinese Academy of Social Sciences). Among the many friends and colleagues
who offered ideas, suggestions, and criticism, I am particularly grateful to the fol-
lowing: Anders Hansson, Tommy McClellan, Robert Hillenbrand, Kam Louie,
Louise Edwards, Mabel Lee, Agnes Syrokomla-Stefanowska, Helen Dunston, Paul
Clark, Lynn Jamieson, Kate Day, Frank Dikötter, Stefan Feuchtwang, Harriet
Evans, Helmut Martin, Bridie Andrews, Ellen Widmer, Suzanne Ogden, Paul