Table Of ContentNew Frontiers in Translation Studies
Dan Jiao
Defeng Li
Lingwei Meng
Yuhong Peng Editors
Understanding
and Translating
Chinese Martial
Arts
New Frontiers in Translation Studies
Series Editor
Defeng Li, Center for Studies of Translation, Interpreting and Cognition,
University of Macau, Macao SAR, China
Translation Studies as a discipline has witnessed the fastest growth in the last 40 years.
With translation becoming increasingly more important in today’s glocalized world,
some have even observed a general translational turn in humanities in recent years.
The New Frontiers in Translation Studies aims to capture the newest developments
in translation studies, with a focus on:
•
Translation Studies research methodology, an area of growing interest amongst
translation students and teachers;
•
Data-based empirical translation studies, a strong point of growth for the discipline
because of the scientific nature of the quantitative and/or qualitative methods
adopted in the investigations; and
•
Asian translation thoughts and theories, to complement the current Eurocentric
translation studies.
Submission and Peer Review:
The editor welcomes book proposals from experienced scholars as well as young
aspiring researchers. Please send a short description of 500 words to the editor
Prof. Defeng Li at Springernfi[email protected] and Springer Senior Publishing Editor
Rebecca Zhu: [email protected]. All proposals will undergo peer
review to permit an initial evaluation. If accepted, the final manuscript will be peer
reviewed internally by the series editor as well as externally (single blind) by Springer
ahead of acceptance and publication.
· · ·
Dan Jiao Defeng Li Lingwei Meng
Yuhong Peng
Editors
Understanding
and Translating Chinese
Martial Arts
Editors
Dan Jiao Defeng Li
Full Professor of College of Foreign Professor of Translation Studies
Languages University of Macau
Capital Normal University Taipa, Macao
Beijing, China
Yuhong Peng
Lingwei Meng Beijing Normal University-Hong Kong
School of Foreign Languages Baptist University United International
Henan University of Technology College (UIC),
Henan, China Zhuhai, China
ISSN 2197-8689 ISSN 2197-8697 (electronic)
New Frontiers in Translation Studies
ISBN 978-981-19-8424-2 ISBN 978-981-19-8425-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-8425-9
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023
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Acknowledgments
We would like to acknowledge the support of the following grants, which have made
the present research possible.
Discourse Construction in the Translation of Chinese Martial Arts funded by the
National Social Science Fund of China (20BYY074).
Innovative Research Grant in Social Sciences of Henan University of Technology
(2021-SKCXTD-09).
v
Introduction: A Note on the Popularity
and Importance of Chinese Martial Arts
and Their Translation
In Chinese parks, sports grounds, or in the living rooms or in the backyards of family
houses, a common scene is people doing Wushu or Kung Fu exercises collectively
or individually, either in very quick movements or slow motions, as there are various
schools and styles of this traditional physical culture, named after individual masters
or regions. Particularly noteworthy are the scenes we have captured from the tempo-
rary hospitals built earlier in the year in Wuhan during the difficult days of trying
to contain the onset of novel coronavirus disease: doctors and patients standing in
the hospital corridors collectively doing Wushu as a way to quicken the return of the
health of the inward patients and build up their resistance to the ailment.
Why is Kung Fu So Popular?
One reason is its long tradition. If you ask a Chinese what he knows about physical
exercise as typically Chinese, the answer you get will most likely be Wushu. Its
graceful movement is a big attraction. Kids admire those who can do a few bouts
of any style of Wushu. For them, it means being cool and strong. Being able to
do it immediately raises the profile of a school kid like in many other sports such
as basketball stars or football stars. As a young boy or girl, if you can do it, you
become attractive or you get attracted to those who can’t. When I was at primary
school, a maths teacher was well versed in Wushu and he was extremely popular
among students. He organized training sessions and picked those interested to learn
with him. I was one of the lucky ones to get into his group. We practiced every day
after school and performed during holidays or school celebrations, we performed for
the school or even the local public. We became the envy of fellow students. This I
remember was as one of the most proud things when I was in grade II and grade III.
Another reason for the popularity of Wushu is its value in health advancement.
Today, as people now live longer and increasingly large numbers of retirees engage
in physical exercises to keep themselves fit, it is more frequent to see groups of old
men and women, clad in loose traditional garments, practicing Wushu in groups.
vii
viii Introduction:ANoteonthePopularityandImportanceofChinese…
There are even various kinds of local and regional contests veteran citizens are eager
to attend. Foreigners might have seen pictures of young people doing the exercises,
but since 18 percent of the Chinese population is 60 years old or beyond, doing
exercises to keep themselves fit has been a big boost to health undertakings. This is
also one of the reasons that more and more people these days are studying or engaged
in activities related to senior citizen’s physical exercises. And among these things
perhaps first and foremost people tend to Wushu practices.
The third reason why Wushu is so widely practiced is that it is convenient, econom-
ical and easy to organize. You don’t need a well-built sports gym since you can do
it anywhere, even in your living room or on your balcony. There is no financial cost
involved for you, you do not need to invest in any sports facilities or equipment if
you do the most simple styles. All you need is comfortable and loose clothes. It is
convenient because you can do it any time you want, for any length of time you
wish, unless you are training for a contest. In movies or videos, you may see fancy
equipment and colourful silk garments, but all those things are not essential if you
are only doing the sport simply to maintain your physical health.
Perhaps the fourth reason is its rich cultural connotations. When you see people
doing Wushu either in lightning speed or slow motion, you have to remember that
they are not only working physically, their mind actually is at work at the same time.
To do any physical Wushu, you have to be highly focused, forget all other things,
happiness or worries, and keep your mind pure. Once your mind diverts and turns
to any other thoughts, your physical movements fail the purpose of exercises. I have
friends who do Wushu on their balcony from 8:30 to 9:00 in the morning, and I never
call them or even send any text messages on WeChat during that time. When doing
Wushu you have to be mentally concentrated, maintain harmony of the mind and the
body, and only in this way can the exercises achieve their desired purpose. Wushu is
virtually not just a kind of physical practice but also a kind of training of the mind
to be focused, devoted, and free of any diversions. When you watch people doing
Wushu, you are not only watching the movements of their body and limbs but also
how they concentrate mentally. To watch Wushu in practice is to watch the Chinese
mind at work.
Traditionally, by doing Wushu you also learn to respect others and protect yourself.
I still remember when I started learning how to do Wushu, the first lesson from my
teacher was not how to move my arms or legs, but a lesson of why I should learn
it and how I should behave once I managed to master a few movements. He said
to us that you do it not to harm others but to prevent people from harming others.
When you arm yourselves with Wushu skills, you are not arming yourselves with a
deadly weapon to make a revolt or to bully others or to kill but to help maintain order
and peace in society. We were told not to be the first to start a fight but to defend
oneself from falling into victim of an uninvited clash. We were reminded that we
should not do it to show off or intimidate people but only to resort to its use when
life is being threatened. Even in a fierce battle we should try to use Wushu to ward
off the adversary rather than kill him right on the spot. Even when we had to bring
a thug down on the ground, we should leave him the possibility of waking up and
being able to stand on his feet later on. So you can see, Wushu even in the extreme
Introduction:ANoteonthePopularityandImportanceofChinese… ix
militant form has its own philosophy which is an integral part of traditional Chinese
thinking. Underneath the dazzling physical entertainment, Wushu is a way to keep
the society calm and hold it in peace. So now you can see it is really a window into
Chinese philosophy.
Now let’s turn to the charm and challenges of introducing Wushu to the foreign
audience. Being so Chinese and so profound a part of Chinese civilization Wushu
should be made better known to people in other parts of the world as an effort of
cultural exchange and sharing of civilizations. This is where translation comes in and
that is even more difficult to accomplish than to learn how to do Wushu itself. There
are typically Chinese names of every movement of every style of Wushu. Deeply
imbedded in Chinese culture and so richly stylized and descriptive, the names of
the movements are not as simple as raising your left arm or kicking your right leg.
For a long time, despite the growing international interest in Wushu, translation into
foreign languages has been a daunting task.
Now thanks to the vision and hard work of Prof. Jiao Dan and her team, we
have this forum to discuss the subject of Wushu. We must give them credit for
translating and publishing the great book entitled Understanding and Translating
Chinese Martial Arts. If you understand the usual difficulties associated with trans-
lating traditional Chinese ideas into any foreign language, you can easily imagine
what a demanding job it must have been to putting across all the technicalities of
Shaolin-style Wushu into English. You have to understand not only the physical
terms but more significantly the philosophical ideas behind them to be able to trans-
late the book. On that note I want to congratulate Prof. Jiao once again for this very
impressive academic accomplishment and look forward to her further achievements
in studying and presenting Wushu to our international audience.
Youyi Huang
Contents
Kungfu—Musings on the Philosophical Background of Chinese
Martial Arts ...................................................... 1
Karl-Heinz Pohl
The Mythology of Chinese Martial Arts Tourism: A Case Study
of the Shaolin Temple on Multiple Dimensions ....................... 15
Lingwei Meng and Chuanying Teng
Translating Chinese Martial Arts for a Global Audience:
A Multimodal Perspective .......................................... 37
Ge Song
A Survey and Critique of English Translations of Jin Yong’s Wuxia
Fictions ........................................................... 49
Hong Diao
Neural Machine Translation Systems and Chinese Wuxia Movies:
Moving into Uncharted Territory ................................... 71
Kizito Tekwa and Jessica Liu Jiexiu
When Chinese Martial Artists Meet Western Heroes: A Stylometric
Comparison of Translated Wuxia Fiction and Western Heroic
Literature ........................................................ 91
Kan Wu and Dechao Li
Writing in One Voice: Thoughts and Memories on Co-Translating
Jin Yong’s Legends of the Condor Heroes ............................ 117
Gigi Chang
Index ............................................................. 137
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