Confusing Judaism and Christianity in contemporary Chinese letters.

WITH THE OPENING OF CHINA TO THE WEST IN THE 1980s, knowledge of and interest in Jews and Judaism began to spread beyond the intelligentsia in ways not possible before. The escalated introduction of foreign cultures led the Chinese to discover the contributions made by many eminent Jews and persons of Jewish origin to modern Western philosophy, culture, science and economics. With that discovery came a curiosity about and admiration for Jewish wisdom. The establishment of Sino-Israeli diplomatic relations in 1992 only added to the Chinese hunger for understanding what it was about Jews and Judaism that fostered such wisdom.

This highly desirable development has focused thus far mainly on three fields: the study aimed at "decoding" the Jews' success in learning and business; the introduction of and research about Jewish religion and philosophy; and the translation and study of Jewish literature, in which Jewish religion and philosophy are treated more seriously and with greater accuracy. However, the influence of these studies is largely limited to academic circles, whereas books about the recipe for Jewish success in business and the translation and study of Jewish literature have much broader social influence.

The increasing "Jewish fever" in China--largely positive, as several recent studies have shown--has a down side, however. It has been accompanied by a common misreading of Judaism or confusion of Judaism with Christianity. Such misreading, appearing first in the translations of Jewish literature, has caused readers of the translated Jewish literature to deepen their knowledge about Judaism and Christianity, and also to muddle it. Indeed, many of them believe that Jews and the Christians belong to the same religion because they share the same Bible.

This paper will examine the phenomenon by examining selected Chinese versions of the works of Isaac Bashevis Singer. To be sure, there are other texts and even other kinds of data that might be equally appropriate for this study. The Chinese translations of Singer stories, however, are generally regarded as the most typically Jewish compared with those of such other well-known Jewish writers as Franz Kafka, Saul Bellow, Philip Roth and Bernard Malamud.

It may suffice to quote Su Tong, a famous Chinese writer who recently said, "If you want to get to know the Jews, but are handicapped by not knowing how, it might be a shortcut to read Singer's stories." (2) Yet, as will be demonstrated here, the confusion of Judaism and Christianity in the translation and study of Singer's works is both striking and representative of a larger problem.

I. Confusions Respecting the Bible, the Virgin Mary, the Messiah

A. The Bible

The Chinese version of Singer's works includes five novels, 45 short stories and several children's stories, many of which have more than one translation. And there are at least 51 Chinese translators who have tackled Singer's works. Most of these Singer translators appear to understand that the Old Testament is the holy scripture of Judaism and part of the Christian Bible. Few, however, seem to realize that that to the Jews, it is called the Tanakh (3) or the Hebrew Bible, but never the Old Testament. Chinese scholars of Judaic philosophy and religion, to be sure, do understand that, but they are not the one doing the translating.

It is a common practice in academia to transliterate Torah as Tuola, with a note when it first appears in books. Most Singer translators, however, are far from clear about the matter. Some render it as Shengjing, the Bible (4), or Shenxun, God's instructions; (5) or they transliterate it as DuoLajing, (6) with a footnote--"DuoLajing is the entire Jewish scriptures"--which may be incorrect, but would be less likely to cause religious confusion. More translators, however, render it as Jiu Yue Quan Shu shou wu juan, the first five books of the Old Testament, or Jidujiao Jiu Yue Quan Shu shou wu juan, the first five books of the Christian Old Testament. (7)

Other translators, however, seem to have no idea what Torah is or what it represents. To them, it is Tianqi, a Chinese Buddhist term meaning the revelation from gods. (8) A few translators combine three different terms found in one Singer story--Shema, Rashi and Torah--into one Chinese word--Jingwen, scriptures--or one phrase, "Youtaijiao quanbu Jingwen," the entire Jewish scriptures. (9)

It should be noted in passing that the translated names of such other classic Jewish works as the Mishnah, Talmud, Commentaries, Zohar, etc., as well as the notes by the original translators into English on which the Chinese translations are based, are even more kaleidoscopic. There is in these less chance to cause religious confusion, however.

B. Virgin Mary/Mother of God

The doctrine that Jesus was born to Mary, a virgin, and that she was his only human parent, have been the focus of Judeo-Christian disputes in history. (The same is true for the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus.) Singer, in The Magician of Lublin, observes: "Emilia had presented Yasha with a volume on the Christian religion written by a professor of theology, but the story of the immaculate conception and the explanation of the trinity--the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost--seemed to Yasha even more unbelievable than the miracles which the Chasidim attributed to their rabbis." (10)

In the Chinese versions, however, there is more than one misinterpretation, mainly by additions to the text. For example, there were no such words as Virgin Mary, Holy Spirit or Jesus in the original text, but the translators unknowingly misinterpreted the message and added such words in the Chinese version, thus distorting Singer's intention. (Those in favor of the so-called creative misreading or adaptive translation may laugh at my fussing about such "trifles." The frequently cited sentence nowadays in China is Harold Bloom's "all reading is necessarily 'misreading.'")

To illustrate the problems, I will cite some instances mainly taken from The Collection of Singer Short Stories, (11) the first volume of his translated stories. Twenty-two short stories are presented, rendered into Chinese by 22 translators. It is the most influential volume among translated Singer stories to date.

Consider this sentence from Something is There: "I am not a rabbi any more. There is no more court unless you want to take over and become the second Virgin of Ludmir." (12) Court, it should be noted, is meant here in the sense of a royal retinue; such courts are common among the rabbinical leaders of Chasidic movements.

In the Chinese version of the story, Virgin of Ludmir is translated as Ludemiya de Shengmu Maliya, namely the Virgin Mary of Ludmir. (13)

In the translated Grandfather and Grandson, (14) the "Tomb of Mother Rachel" becomes Youtai Shengmu, the Jewish Mother of God. "Priest," referring to a descendant of Aaron (in other words, a kohen) is rendered as Mushi, a term for Protestant pastor in Chinese, while the words "Father, his master," becomes Tianzhu, a term that borrows from a Chinese Catholic term for God. With all these (often comical) confusions, the behavior and belief of the Grandfather, a pious Chasid in the original story, can only deepen the readers' bewilderment about Judaism and Christianity.

Such misreading is found in other stories, as well. Thus, in Short Friday, we find this sentence: "And after he had said his farewells to the invisible angels that accompany each Jew leaving the synagogue, he recited: 'The worthy woman.'" (15) In one of its Chinese versions, the translator first turned the synagogue into Jiaotang, church, then associated "the worthy woman" with Shengmu Maliya, the Virgin Mary, thus delivering the message that the Jews believe in Christianity. (16)

C. Messiah

The misinterpretation of the word Messiah and related concepts is also common in the translated versions. In Chinese, the word messiah is either transliterated as Misaiya or interpreted as Jiushizhu, a word meaning savior, but more in the Christian sense than the Jewish one. To quote an example from The Captive: "No, the Messiah hadn't come yet. The Resurrection was not in sight." (17) Singer, of course, is referring to the coming of Messiah and the Jewish concept of the resurrection of the dead. In the Chinese version, however, this resurrection becomes Yesu fuhuo, the Resurrection of Jesus. (18)

Another misinterpretation may be found in the translation of Something is There: "Until yesterday, the Good Spirit had attempted to reprimand the rabbi and to threaten him with Gehenna or a demeaning transmigration of the soul." (19) The translator first misread the Good Spirit as Holy Spirit, then associated it with the Holy Spirit of the Trinity, and so rendered it as Shengling, the Holy Spirit. (20)

II. Confusions in Other Religions Terms

A. Misreading of Jewish Observances

Ignorance of the religious nature of Jewish observances has also led to misreading. Some of the Singer translators seemed unaware of the strong religious character of the Sabbath, Chanukah, Sukkot or Tishah B'Av, all of which are vividly described in many of Singer's stories. Without standard terms applied to these observances in Chinese, and with insufficient knowledge of them, some translators borrowed terms from other religions.

For example: The 25-hour-long fast of Tishah B'Av, marking the destruction of both the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem, has several names in the books by the Chinese scholars on Jewish culture. Some are reasonable, such as Shengdian beihuiri, the day of destruction of the temple; Bei'ai'ri, the wailing day; Ji nian Yelusaleng beihui, in memory of the destruction of Jerusalem. Some Singer translators, however, turned it into zhaijie'ri, which in Chinese usually means the day to eat a vegetarian diet adopted by Buddhists and Taoists, or a day on which one wears clean clothes and abstains from meat, wine, etc., to show one's piety (when offering sacrifices to gods or ancestors).

Another case is the confusion of the Jewish Sabbath with the Christian Lord's Day, which appears in a Singer story published in Translations, the most influential magazine carrying translated foreign literature in China. The title of the story is translated into Chinese as Tongku de shishi, Painful Fact.

In this version, the Sabbath is turned into zhu'ri, a Chinese expression for Lord's Day; the Sabbath meal on Friday evening is translated as zhu'ri can, the meal on Lord's Day; Sabbath clothes are zhu'ri fu, clothes for Lord's Day; and Torah is turned into Jiu Yue Quan Shu shou wu juan, the first five books of the Old Testament. Rabbi becomes Jiaoshi, a Christian missionary in Chinese, and synagogue becomes Jiaotang, equal to church or cathedral. In this way the characters in this story become (grotesquely) Yiddish-speaking Christians. (21)

B. The Mixed Translation for Religious Terms

There are some words such as rabbi, rebbetzin, tzaddik, wonder rabbi, synagogue, etc., in the English text that convey the distinctively Jewish character of Singer's world. But in China, things seem to have run counter to the author's wishes. Without equivalents in Chinese, these words are often assigned misleading meanings. For example, in addition to its translation as Jiaoshi, rabbi is rendered as Zhanglao, elder; Fashi, a title of respect for a Buddhist or Taoist priest; or Faxueboshi, a title for doctor of laws.

Let us take an example from The Re-encounter to see what can happen from misguided translation.

The original sentence reads: "The rabbi had finished his eulogy and a cantor recited 'God Full of mercy'" (El malei rachamim, the special prayer recited for a deceased person). (22) The Chinese version, translated back into English, reads: "The missionary had finished his eulogy and a cantor of the choir in the church recited 'God Full of Mercy.'" (23) Thus, the New York Jews turn into Christians.

In A Wedding in Brownsville, we are told: "Jewish laws and customs were completely distorted; men who had no regard for Jewishness wore skullcaps and the reverend rabbis and cantors aped the Christian ministers." (24)

In Chinese, however, Jewishness is translated as something akin to "Jewish style"; rabbis, as noted, are missionaries; and the officials who lead Jewish congregations in prayer become the precentors who lead the Christian church choir. Given such mistranslations, Chinese readers may find it difficult to identify the difference between the two religions, and this in a passage that Singer intended to be sharply critical of Jews "aping" Christians.

The fact is, words that are common to both religions but mean very different things in each are almost always given their Christian spins in the Chinese version.

There are two Chinese names for the English word priest. One is Mushi, as noted earlier the term used for a Protestant clergyman. The other is Jisi, a term for the kohanim.

In the Chinese version of Singer works, the word "priest" is usually translated as Mushi or Jiaoshi (another title for a Christian clergyman or minister). As is the case in a Chinese version of Shosha, "Rabbi Chanina, the assistant of priests," is translated as Labi Chanina: Jiaoshi de zhushou. (25) Turned back into English, this becomes Rabbi Chanina, the assistant of missionaries.

C. The Mixture of Various Religious Terms

Borrowing terms from Buddhism, Taoism, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, the Orthodox Church, even Brahmanism to translate Jewish terms is also a common occurrence in the Chinese version of Singer stories.

In Something is There, the protagonist Nechemia recalls the trip to Warsaw with his father: "Sextons and court members had accompanied them. A crowd of Chasidim had waited at the station. His father was led to the house of a rich follower on Twarda Street. In his living room Father interpreted the Torah." (26) In the Chinese version, "sextons" become parish clerks; "father" becomes a Roman Catholic priest; "Torah" expands into the Bible; and court (again having the sense of a king's retinue) becomes synagogue. Thus, if turned into English, this passage would read as follows:

    Parish clerks and synagogue members had accompanied them. A crowd of
  Chasidim had waited at the station. His father was led to the house of
  a rich follower on Twarda Street. In his living room the Roman
  Catholic Father interpreted the Bible.

Just a harmonious picture of the friendly coexistence of Judaic and Christian followers in 19th-century Poland! No wonder some Chinese scholars take it for granted that the Jews believe in Christianity.

Such confusion is found in the translations of the four Singer novels, as well. In the Chinese version of The Manor, both the synagogues and the Catholic churches are rendered as Jiaotang, church; and both Catholics and Jews call God Tianzhu, a name for God used only by Chinese Catholics. The "Yiddish version of the Pentateuch" becomes the "Yiddish version of the first five books of the Christian Old Testament," The original text describes enlightened Jews "flaunting Orthodox ritual," (27) while in Chinese, these Jews are depicted as "not caring a pin about the ritual of the Orthodox Eastern Church." (28) (The translator may have misread "flaunting" as "flouting." No doubt true, but it is not what Singer had in mind.)

What is more, in some Chinese versions the Jewish books, terms or titles are turned into a hodgepodge of Christianity, Taoism and Buddhism.

In the Chinese version of The Recluse, (29) for example, rabbi becomes Dafashi, a title of respect for a Buddhist or Taoist priest; and beggars become begging Buddhist monks. The word for fast is Chizhai, which is a Buddhist term meaning to follow the law of eating a vegetarian diet. And the word excommunicate (in its Jewish sense meaning a form of social isolation) is translated in its Christian sense, meaning to shut out from the church.

D. Confusion in Annotations

The misreading and confusion of the two religions is also reflected in annotations, which are meant to help readers gain a better understanding of the story, but only deepen the readers' confusion. (The reader, of course, is unaware that there is confusion.)

When explaining in the notes what is or may be related to the Bible so as to help readers to a better understanding of the story, translators tend to cite "the Christian Bible." Take as an instance the note in a Chinese version of The Son from America. The original text reads:

"He kissed her again and asked, 'Mother, didn't you receive a cable?'

"'What? If I lived to see this, I am happy to die,' Berlcha said, amazed by her own words." (30)

Astonishingly, the translator turns this into "If I lived to see the camel, I am happy to die." In the note, the translator explains:

    Berlcha does not know what a cable is, and mistakes it as camel and
  it reminds her of the New Testament, Matthew 19:24, when Jesus said to
  his disciples: 'It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a
  needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.'
  Berlcha feels happy to see such a mascot. (31)

The translator, familiar with the New Testament and taking it for granted that Jews believe in it, as well as Christians, assumes that he has grasped the implication in the sentence and is eager to "enlighten" readers who lack a knowledge of the Gospels. Good intention, grotesque result. A story about the gap between traditional Jews of Eastern Europe and their children who left for America becomes a missionary tract.

Yet another example is found in Feng Yidai's translation of Short Friday. Feng is a translator and scholar held in high esteem in the Chinese literary world. In a footnote, he seeks to explain a reference to "the four letters of the Holy Name" as "namely the English word LORD," (32) not knowing that the sacred name is the four Hebrew letters known as the Tetragrammaton (YHWH).

III. From Misinterpretation to Confusion in Research Papers

In China, not all scholars of Jewish literature are capable of reading the English text. Some must read the translated (Chinese) version. Obviously, mistakes in that version inevitably lead these scholars to confuse Jewish concepts with Christian ones. Another consequence is that many of them also tend to take it for granted that the Jews believe in Christianity.

In her essay "The Religious Feeling in the Contemporary Literature in China," Ji Hongzhen uses Singer's works to explore the deep influence of religions on ordinary people described by writers throughout the world. She states:

    Some short stories of the Jewish writer Singer mainly depict how the
  poor Jews, fettered by the Christian doctrine, can only dream of love
  in their religious illusion. He [Singer] is a Jew and the Jews'
  miserable situation during the Second World War caused him to take a
  skeptical attitude to Christianity. In his novel The Magician of
  Lublin, through the description of Yasha's transformation, Singer
  shows the deep influence of Christianity on the mind of the Jewish
  people. (33)

Apparently, this critic lacks elementary knowledge of both religions.

An article titled "Under the Crucifix of Tradition and Reality: A Study of Singer's Religious Stories" (34) claims to discuss Singer's self-contradictory attitude toward Judaism in his stories. By inserting "the crucifix," however, which is a Christian symbol so familiar to Chinese readers, it absurdly turns Singer into a Christian before the first word is read.

Such misinterpretations are related to the religious confusion in the Chinese versions. In fact, the unfortunate influence is not only in the small group of scholars but, not surprisingly, in many readers, as well.

IV. The Causes of Misreading in China

Studies show that there has never been any form of anti-Semitism in China and the confusion discussed in this paper has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. In Chinese, the word "Jew" has no derogatory connotations, as it can have in English and other languages. Often, it is associated with such words as "pre-eminence," "cleverness," "born businessman" and "born intellectual." Books about Jewish thinkers, scientists, politicians and especially businessmen are in great demand. Of the seven books in Chinese containing "Talmud" in their titles, three of them take Talmud to mean the Jewish business bible. This apparently results from the publishers' and editors' ignorance, and their pursuit of instantaneous gains in catering to the reader's search for the secrets of business success of the Jews.

This ignorance of Judaism and confusion with Christianity is a common phenomenon in China, but probably does not exist in most other countries of the world. To understand how this came about, we need to explore the unique Chinese perspective of religion and philosophy.

A. The Chinese Religious Perspective

Unlike Abrahamic religions, Chinese belief systems allow for syncretism. Therefore, it is common to profess a belief in multiple belief systems. A person can claim to be a Buddhist while living life according to Taoist principles and participating in ancestor worship rituals. A Buddhist would have no trouble viewing Jesus as a Bodhisattva and incorporating Christian concepts into Buddhism.

This syncretism traces back to the tolerance and magnanimity of traditional Chinese philosophy, which maintains an open-minded attitude toward all kinds of religions. Some scholars even suggest that the assimilation of the Jews of Kaifeng is the consequence of this all-embracing spirit.

It is well known that the Chinese, especially the intellectuals, take little interest in religion per se, and are encouraged in this attitude by Confucianism and Taoism, both of which are viewed by them more as philosophies than as religions. Both Confucianism and Taoism recognized and even encouraged the trend toward skepticism in their early stage about 2,000 years ago. The effect is even more evident nowadays because of the official support of atheism. Because Chinese intellectuals tend to treat Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism, etc., as philosophical systems rather than religious beliefs, it is easy for them to mix and match ideas into personal systems that work best for them. As Lin Yutang wrote in his My Country and My People, a book hailed in America in its first publication in 1935: "Christianity as a way of life can impress the Chinese, but Christian creeds and dogmas will be crushed, not by a superior Confucian logic but by ordinary Confucian common sense." (35) This perception of religion gave the Chinese license to borrow terms from other religions in translation. When Buddhism first entered China from India during the Later Han Dynasty (58-76 C.E.), its Chinese translators borrowed many terms from Taoism, the local religion. The result is that Buddhism is the only important foreign influence that has become part and parcel of Chinese life.

The definition of the core word Tao (sometimes it is transliterated as Dao) in the Chinese religious arena may also be of some help to our understanding of the Chinese perception of and attitude toward religion. According to Dr. Yao Zhongxin, the critical doctrine of Chinese religion is expressed by Tao, a word that was used by the ancient Chinese to name mystical essence or unfathomable religious laws. In the past, it has been rendered by such words as God, nature, reason, logos, law, tenet, word and way, thereby illuminating its complexity. As each religion commits itself to the theory and practice of Tao, it has become a current word among different religions or sects. Taojia, that is Taoism, a native Chinese religion, is famous for its practice of Tao; Kong Tzu's teaching is called Master Kong's Tao; Neo-Confucianism call its doctrine as Taoxue, that is the doctrine about Tao. Even Buddhism is regarded as a kind of Tao, the eight paths leading to Buddhist enlightenment is called Eight Righteous Taos. And some of the Christian words are also translated as Tao; thus, the opening verses of the Gospel of John, "In the beginning was the Word," is translated as "In the beginning was the Tao."

Therefore, with its universality, Tao is regarded as the source of all truths and the final reality. This reveals another feature of the interpretation of religions in Chinese intellectual life: Religion in pursuit of Tao is both unitary and plural. One religious creed is seldom considered as a single or unique belief and practical system. More often, it is regarded as one of the many ways leading to the truth. So most Chinese hold an attitude of cultural diversification toward the traditions of religion and philosophy, simply because they view each doctrine as only one of the ways toward Tao.

In modern China, ever more people have become interested in Christianity, but few have converted to it. Those who claim to be interested in Christianity do not know, or have much interest in identifying, its individual manifestations, treating Christianity as a whole as one of the ways toward the Truth. Of those who are interested in the Jew and Jewish culture and also aware of the hostility between Judaism and Christianity, few if any care much about the difference of doctrine between the two religions. What they really want to know is what they can learn from the Jews.

In other words, borrowing terms and titles from other religions--mainly Christianity--to translate or explain the Jewish message in Singer's stories, without any awareness of religious misreading (or of the Jewish indignation it may cause), is part of a long-practiced approach to the introduction of foreign cultures in China.

B. The Christian Element in the English Language 

It also needs to be observed, however, that there is a close connection between the English language and Christianity. As the late Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg once noted, "When you write in English, a fairly substantial amount of the language has within it its own Christian past. Any serious Jewish writing in English has to overcome the Christian past of the language." (36)

When Chinese translators, who are not aware of the doctrinal differences between Judaism and Christianity, come across those English words that mean different things to both religions, misreading seems unavoidable. The misreading of the term "resurrection" may be a case in point. In two English dictionaries commonly used in China--Collins Pocket English Dictionary, 1981; Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary, 1998--the Resurrection is explained as: "(religion) (a) the rising of Jesus from the tomb; (b) the rising of all the dead at the Last Judgment."

And in two other nationally used English-Chinese dictionaries, which give explanations in Chinese only, the Resurrection is explained as: "(a) [Christianity] the rising of Jesus from the tomb; (b) each religion believing in Christ declares the rising of all the dead at the Last Judgment." (37) The word "messiah" is explained in this way by The Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary: "the Messiah: 1) person expected to come and save the world. 2) the Messiah: Jesus Christ regarded as this savior; 3) similar person expected by the Jews."

What is more, in various Chinese dictionaries--including those most frequently quoted throughout the country, such as Word Ocean, The Great Dictionary of Religions, and Modern Chinese Dictionary (38)--the word Jiushizhu, "Savior," is unanimously interpreted as the title for Jesus Christ, with no mention of the connection between the word "savior" and the word "messiah." A regrettable fact is that "messiah" is often translated as Jiushizhu, "Savior," and most Chinese dictionaries have no definition for "messiah." To readers with little knowledge of Judaism (which interprets "messiah" as "anointed one," from the root [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], "to anoint"), it would be easy to gain the false impression that the concept of messiah is the original creation of Christianity.

With almost no other reference books readily available, then, it should come as no surprise that the Chinese translators' confuse the Jewish Messiah with Jesus Christ; it seems embedded in the very dictionaries they rely on. There is hardly a better way then to interpret the unfamiliar Jewish terms in Singer works than through borrowing rough Chinese approximations of the English and Yiddish words that come first to mind, indifferent to whatever religions they may belong to.

C. The Universality of Christianity

The universal diffusion of Christianity is another important reason for mistranslation, misreading and confusion.

Judaism and Christianity were both introduced during the Tang Dynasty (around the seventh century), but the former did not publicize its doctrine or absorb new followers in China, and so went long unnoticed. Moreover, according to the incomplete statistics by Michael Pollak, there were more than 20 names for the Jews and Judaism in Chinese before the 19th century. Small wonder that ordinary Chinese tend to be perplexed by the Jew and Judaism. (39)

On the other hand, Christianity has been evangelistic and expansive. Through the efforts of the missionaries and the church schools established in China, together with the continuously increasing circulation of the Chinese versions of the Christian Bible and the omnipresent sense of Christianity in western literature, its influence on the Chinese, especially the intellectuals, has been much greater than Judaism.

Conclusion

Over a long period of time, the Chinese had no other channel to gain knowledge of Judaism but through books of Christianity or the Christian Bible. There is still no Bible in China that has been translated directly from the Hebrew, and it was only in 2004 that the Shanghai Dictionary Press in China published the useful, albeit flawed, Pocket Dictionary of Judaism. (40) The result is that when the Chinese seek some knowledge of Judaism via Christianity or the Christian Bible, they inevitably receive some prejudice and misinterpretation, as well, without any way of filtering those out.

The misreading of the original text and the consequent misguiding of the readers of the translation are more than a scholarly misfortune; they are likely to give Chinese readers a jaundiced view of the Jews, even if the Chinese are now relatively indifferent to religion.

Worse yet, it may unknowingly wound the ethnic dignity of the Jewish people and cause unexpected conflict between Chinese and Jewish people--and this can be of benefit to neither.

The main concerns of those who are interested in the Jews or Jewish history now in China are to understand the quintessence of Jewish culture and its function in helping the Jews survive the 2,000-year Diaspora and numerous persecutions; they hope, from this history and culture, to find sources of enlightenment for the Chinese themselves, a people now in cultural upheaval, confronted with the challenges of Western culture and in danger of losing its 5,000-year cultural tradition. But without a sound and scholarly knowledge of Judaism, and of the successes (and failures) of the Jewish people, we are unlikely to discover their relevance to ourselves and to our historical moment.

Those of us in China who work with Jewish literary material need to persuade publishers of the importance of finding translators with a sound knowledge of Jewish customs and Judaism to translate Jewish literary works. Only in this way will the Chinese gain genuine knowledge of the Jewish people and Judaism, and perhaps correct the long prevalent misreading and confusion in China. Although I.B. Singer's work is more imaginative than sociological, the unique power and charm of his stories, as well as such non-fictional work as In My Father's Court, make the (re)translation and publication of his work in China a good place to begin.

NOTES

(1) The author is indebted to Prof. Edward Alexander of the University of Washington for his guidance and revision for this paper.

(2) Tong Su, "How to Joke with the World," Xiaoshuo Xuankan/ Selected Stories 7 (2003), 45-49, at 48.

(3) Tanakh is an acronym for the Hebrew names comprising the three sections of Jewish scripture: Torah; Nevi'im (Prophets); and Ketuvim (Writings).

(4) Zi Wan et al., trans. Isaac Bashevis Singer, The Collection of Singer's Short Stories (Beijing: Foreign Literature Publishing House, 1980), 104.

(5) Zi, 337.

(6) Guanshang Chen, trans., Isaac Bashevis Singer, Zhuangyuan/The Manor (Jinan: Shangdong Renming Publish House, 1981), 9.

(7) Xing'an Liu and Zhang Jing, trans., Isaac Bashevis Singer, Shagua Jimpei'er / Gimpel the Fool and Other Stories (Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 1981); Guanshang Chen; Zi Wan.

(8) Zi, 369.

(9) Zi, 205-240.

(10) Isaac Bashevis Singer, An Isaac Bashevis Singer Reader (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974), 334.

(11) Zi, et al.

(12) Isaac Bashevis Singer, The Collected Stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1982), 334.

(13) Zi, 212.

(14) Zi, 366-390.

(15) Isaac Bashevis Singer, Short Friday and Other Stories (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1964), 237. "Worthy woman" in the original is itself a translation of the Hebrew Eishet Hayyil, usually translated as "woman of valor."

(16) Liu, 229.

(17) Isaac Bashevis Singer, A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1973), 48.

(18) Zi, 247.

(19) Singer, 1982, 333.

(20) Zi, 210.

(21) Su Lian, translator. Isaac Bashevis Singer, "Tongku de Shishi," Yilin /Translations 3 (1989), 153-56.

(22) Singer, 1982, 590.

(23) Xiang Chen, trans., Isaac Bashevis Singer, "Chongfeng/ The Re-encounter," Yilin/Translations 1 (1979), 222-226, at 223; Isaac Bashevis Singer, Shosha (Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1978).

(24) Singer, 1964, 191.

(25) Qiang Sun, translator. Isaac Bashevis Singer, Tong'ai/ Shosha (Hangzhou: Anhui Renming Press, 1984), 13.

(26) Singer, 1982, 337.

(27) Isaac Bashevis Singer, The Manor (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd, 1967), 52.

(28) Chen Guanshang, 12, 58.

(29) Zi, 333-350.

(30) Singer, 1973, 97.

(31) Zhenguo Hong, translator. Isaac Bashevis Singer, "Youzi Gui Lai/ The Son from America," Waiguo Wenxue Xinshang/Foreign Literature Appreciation 4 (1985), 25-28, at 28.

(32) Zi, 105.

(33) Hongzhen Ji, "The Religious Feeling in The Contemporary Literature in China," Literary Review 5 (1996). It is the authoritative periodical in the Chinese literary circle.

(34) Ling Huang, "Under the Crucifix of Tradition and Reality: A Study of Singer's Religious Stories," Foreign Literature Studies 4 (1998), 43-46.

(35) Yutang Lin, My Country and My People (Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 1998 [The John Day Company, 1935]), p.102.

(36) Arthur Hertzberg, The Jews in America: Four Centuries of an Uneasy Encounter: A History (New York: Simon, 1989), 155.

(37) New English-Chinese Dictionary (Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 1979); The English-Chinese Word-Ocean Dictionary (International Industry Publishing House, 1988).

(38) Word Ocean (Shanghai Dictionary Publishing House, 1989); The Great Dictionary of Religions (Shanghai Dictionary Publishing House, 1998); Modern Chinese Dictionary (The Commercial Press, Ltd., 1980).

(39) Michael Pollak, The Jews of Dynastic China: A Critical Bibliography (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1993).

(40) The reliability of the two recently published dictionaries--The Great Dictionary of Religions (1998) and The Pocket Dictionary of Judaism (2004)--is still in doubt. Both, for example, explain Chasidim (Haxidepai in Chinese) as "a sect which is against Talmud and promotes pantheism," among other things. The Pocket Dictionary of Judaism even takes Chasidim and Chasidism to be two different sects. Chasidim are rendered into Chinese as Haxidipai and explained as an ancient Jewish sect that developed between the second and third centuries B.C.E. Chasidism is translated as Haxidepai and rendered as "a cabalistic group appearing among the Polish Jews in the mid-18th century."

FU XIAOWEI is an associate professor at Sichuan International Studies University, Chongqing, China.