A Tour of China in Late Qing/ 晚清的“支那旅行记”

本期《读书》杂志 （2007年7月）登出了我的这篇文章。全文如下，欢迎学者及同好指正。

晚清的“支那旅行记”

王敦

“支那旅行记”三千字左右，刊在1910年第3期《小说月报》上，文言自述体，不具作者姓名。主人公以“余”自称，说是英国人，学了十年中文，之后周游中国，故事因此得名。

“余”中学毕业，适逢英国创立“支那文学堂”。考取之后，跟随“支那北京通儒”从蒙学入手，循序渐进，经过十年苦读，已精通制帖试艺。故事开始的时候，“余”以“最优等”毕业。可是，毕业典礼上这一刻即标志着打击的开始：好不容易学来的中文，竟在应用中连连碰壁。

在毕业典礼上，“余”基本上听不懂支那钦使的话。与中国随员交谈，也是“茫然不辩为何语” 。比如，武官是合肥人，一张嘴则“有声如鸮出自彼之舌底”。“余”记起孟子说的“引而置之庄岳之间”，觉得“欲学其语，固非躬致其地不可”，遂有东游“支那”之志。“余”先去香港，然后辗转至上海。一路之上，“余”益发领略了 “支那文”的复杂性。和形形色色的“支那人”交谈，皆互相不知所云。中国之博大，语言之复杂，可比孟子时代的一个“齐语”难懂多了。“余”听香港人说话，觉得“其声如击柝”。“余”说的“支那话”，却被讥为“外江话”。此处有一行小字批注：“粤中俗人不辨他省之名。称无论何省，均谓之外江”。上海话听起来像“山鸟之鉤輈”。湖南籍的官员说话“声如镗鞳，一字不可辨”。总之是“不通如故”，“不觉怅然。深悔前此之虚掷光阴矣”。辛辛苦苦积攒来的“支那”语资本不能带来收益。掌握“支那”语的那一天被推延，希望变成了沮丧。

方言和语音方面的障碍终究还是可以解决的。一日“余”经一个“文人”朋友点拨，方才醒悟自己有“操官音”和“掉文”的毛病，难怪所到之处没有人能听懂“余”说的话。听得懂官音的人，也未必能领会“余”的文言表达方式。彻悟之后，“余”可就有长进了。他混迹于上海的官场洋场，对中国的人情世故越来越熟。这才跨越了语音、语义层面的障碍，深入到了语用层面。他发现在实际应用中，文言与俗语远非壁垒分明的关系。具体的选用，都取决于场合、亲疏，和社会阶层。

“余”能够取得进步，第一要感谢“支那”的官员，第二要感谢官员身边的妓女。主人公在“支那文学院”里学来的，是文人士大夫经营“道德文章”所必备的“高等语言”。然而，他认识的士大夫却喜欢和“下流”的妓女说上海俗话，整天混在一起。官僚与妓女，两者的“社会用语”水乳交融，二者的社会存在也是相濡以沫。“余”就是从官员和妓女那里学舌开始来领会中文的妙处。只是他还说不太好，该“文”的时候不够文，该“俗”的时候又太文，闹出很多笑话。可能他还需要经历一个和“十年寒窗”同样漫长的“灯红酒绿”，才能掌握语言的得体和微妙。

在与“支那”官员的交往中，“余”每每惊诧于他们投来的“名刺”（旧时中国官场和商人使用的“名片”），“其色红，巨盈尺，字若鹅卵”，为“世界所仅见，亦余游支那之纪念品也” 。然而，中国官员之间并不交换这样的巨物。这种独特的名刺是中国“官府特制以投外国人者”。为什么会是这样？“余”百思不得其解。有一天赴约“燕于妓家”，客人没有全来齐的时候，“余”无意在妓女的妆阁中“忽睹一巨大之名刺”，好象是中国官员之“投我者”。问之，得知“上海妓者，所用名刺皆似此，所以投狎客者”。官员给洋人准备的名片，竟然与妓女为狎客准备的一模一样！“余”不禁莞尔，“盖支那官之待吾辈如妓女之待狎客。即谓吾辈为支那官之狎客可也”。一语道出半殖民地中国的官儿与洋人的本质关系。名片做得大些，鲜亮些，是为了给“恩公”难忘的印象，长相思，莫相忘。

作为旅行在中国语言文化里的外国人，难免会有不习惯的时候。遗憾的是，小说的主人公因为想不通一件事，就再也不学中文了。事情的起因甚微。“余”看到一个妓女“面目尚娟好而施脂甚红”，不由得想恭维之。然而，因为没有掌握好措辞的褒贬，“余”把妓女的粉面描述为“猢狲屁股”。妓女骂“余”：“你格杀千刀断命外国人”。第二天“余”斥责一个中国侍者时，回想起了这句骂人话，便也借用来骂道：“你格杀千刀断命外国人”。侍者不惧反笑。“余”不解。文人朋友又解释给“余”说，“子自外国人，而称彼为外国人，彼乌得不笑”。

没想到，俩人对“外国人”这个词的理解，也就是说到底谁应该被“杀千刀”，产生了严重的歧义。对于“余”来说，“所谓外国者，我国之外之国也”。所以，“余英国人，称彼支那人，宁不可谓外国人耶”。中士朋友万万不同意，说道“吾等自是中国人。支那者，汝外国人之强以称我者耳”。他们反复论辩，互不相让。对中士来说：“自古皆分中外。不闻有指中国为外国者也”。——这是在中国土地上固有的规矩。不管“你”来自何方，但凡在我这儿说我的话，就必须遵守我这儿的规矩。来自英国的“余”甚为不悦，坚持认为既然对“余”来说所有中国人都算是外国人，“余”自然可以在中国的土地上用中文骂中国人是“杀千刀断命外国人”。就因为这场争执，“余”对学习“支那文”彻底失望了：“嗟夫。支那人之语言，如是其难解也。余从此更不欲学之矣”。学语言正是这个地方最难学，语音、语意都还尚可，唯独他人语言里给自己预留好的“他者”位置，让“余”不甘心接受，让“余”放弃。

妓女泼辣直率，一针见血地骂洋人“杀千刀断命”，比官员刚性得多；因为妓女需要取媚的是官员，却不用顾忌洋人的脸色。而恰恰这一句激愤之语，显示语言的暴力所在，正是民族、文化冲突的前沿。这篇小说题为〈支那旅行记〉，笔者觉得应该叫做〈“支那语”旅行记〉似更贴切。“余”在中国斑驳的语言领地里穿行。行程的记录，就是想象中那一连串的语言误用与冲突。

小说结尾，不知是出于编者还是拟想的译者之手，又加了个评语，从文化相对论的角度来“解构”中外之别，说那就如同是“若合世界之大。仅得中国外国两地也”。评者认为，如此的狭隘眼光，与粤人称别省为“外江”，不啻“五十步笑百步耳”。其实，同样的揶揄，也可以转送给那位努力学习汉语的“外国”人。从粤人到英国的“余”再到“余”的中国朋友，谁也无法超越自己的局限。由此也联想到一百年来，中国人在西方话语里的处境。面对早已为自己预留好的的“他者”位置，那份不平与无奈，与小说里来自英国的“余”的感受，该差不多吧？

草成此文不久，看到吴趼人主编的《月月小说》第四号（光緒三十二年十二月），才知道对“支那”官场和欢场的名片，在“余”之先，早有“非支那人”发表观感。观感见于“俏皮话”栏目，是一位无名的“支那人”转述其“西友”的话：

大字名片

外国人之名片。大仅一二寸许。中国人之名片。大至五六寸。而官场中与外国人交涉往来之名片。则又加大。且字大如拳。不知是何命意。上海各歌妓之名片。亦崇尚大字。几满纸柬。有西友至某妓处小坐。谈笑之顷。观见其名片。不禁诧曰。汝等之名片。何以亦是大字。妓曰。此备以请客人之用者。西友叹曰。原来汝等待客人。就如同官场待我辈一般。

© Copyright by Dun Wang (王敦). All rights reserved. 著作权拥有者：Dun Wang (王敦)。

巴西的现代性 (Brazilian Modernity)

Flora Süssekind, Cinematograph of Words: Literature, Technique, and Modernization in Brazil (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997).

这是一本巴西学者写的书，被翻译成英文在美国出版，得以让英语读者也了解作者对巴西文学与现代性的思考。书里从新技术和新发明的角度来谈论近现代巴西的文化活动，分析了留声机、照相机、电影、打字机等等对文化生产和消费的冲击。这个比较有意思。本书关注的巴西文化进程，差不多是从十九世纪末到二十世纪初这段时间，正好是我们大清国“锐意进取”的末期。巴西在1889年就已经从帝制迈向共和了。我们的大清国一直挺到1911年。做为两个大国，又在大致的历史时期走向近现代社会，晚清民初的日常生活和同时期的巴西有些共性。其中一个相似之处就是对新技术和新发明的好奇。拿我们的晚清民初来说，不管是颐和园的电灯，溥仪的自行车还是上海的照相馆，新玩意儿的引进和应用都五花八门，对文化的影响更复杂得很。留声机刚传入巴西的时候，也是个新奇的玩意儿。值得玩味的是，最先有机会摆弄这个新玩意儿的还是旧制度的头头——巴西的皇上。留声机在巴西最初录下来的，是末代皇帝的声音。此时离皇上的退位仅剩一个星期。

通过讲述新技术和发明进入巴西后所产生的文化意义，此书告诉读者：怀旧和布新，并不是泾渭分明的。

Some quotations:

(The exhibition and the royal auditions of Edison’s phonographs in 1889)
What is ironic about this incident is that it took place on the eve of the proclamation of the republic, and that in its earliest use in Brazil the phonograph should have preserved the last voices of the empire—including that of the emperor himself. (32)

There was yet another phonograph exhibition before the imperial family—the most melancholy of all. This was on November 14, 1889—the night before the proclamation of the republic. (33)

Thus, from a political point of view the phonograph played the part of recording the voices of the rulers of the empire just before their fall from power. These recordings had a somewhat ambiguous effect: at the same time that they preserved and reproduced the voices they also seemed to divest them of their earlier aura, in a rather cruel way. The voice of the emperor, recorded on November 9, was the voice of a deposed monarch only one week later. It was as though the daguerreotypes and phonograms that held such a fascination for Pedro II were announcing, without his being aware of the fact, the fading of the empire’s insignia and the extinction of the monarchy. And the new devices, having been blessed by the emperor, were soon in the service of those who succeeded him in power. (33)

© by Dun Wang (王敦). All rights reserved. 著作权拥有者：Dun Wang (王敦)。

Miscellaneous “primitive” and “savagery”/ “原始”与“野蛮“种种

[T]his great reservoir of moral, social, and physical pollution which is constantly extending its area and threatens to engulf with its filthiness and immorality the fairest portion of our city.

Depiction of San Francisco Chinatown (San Francisco Chronicle February 24, 1880).
***********************************

It was so easy to imitate these people. I learned to spit in the very first days. We used to spit in each other’s faces; the only difference was that I licked my face clean afterwards and they did not.

Franz Kafka, “A Report to an Academy” in The Penal Colony: Stories and Short Pieces (New York: Schocken books, 1948), 180.

Ah, one learns when one has to; one learns when one needs a way out; one learns at all costs.

Ibid, 183.
**********************************

All complacency over his handiwork had vanished; never could he bring himself to exhibit to mortal eye these repulsive creatures. His only thought was the unanswerable question: what should he do with them? On this he brooded continually, reaching no conclusion because he could no more contemplate destroying creatures possessing human intelligence, however distorted and degraded, than he could have taken the life of a born idiot or one insane.

Louise J. Strong, “An Unscientific Story” The Cosmopolitan 34, no 4 (February, 1903), 414.

They were small, oblique, set closely together, of a heady black, their only lids being a whitish membrane that swept them at intervals—but they sparkled and glowed with passion, dimmed with tears, and widened with thought. Those eyes, more than a score of them, were fixed upon him now with entreaty, menace, fear, revolt, and, most of all, judgment burning in their depths. Even the smaller ones, of which there were many in various sizes, eyed him with resentment and hate, while scurrying, like frightened rats, from corner to corner as he moved about.

Ibid, 416.
*********************************

The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretense but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea--something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to.

Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (New York: Norton, 1988), 10. Quoted from Theodore Huters, Bringing the World Home: Appropriating the West in Late Qing and Early Republican China (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press), 266.

William Schaefer, "Shanghai Savage" Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 11.1 (2003) 91-133.
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/positions/v011/11.1schaefer.html

不加按语了。相互关联当然是有。现在只是先列一个感兴趣的单子。当然，我的同情不是站在十九世纪和二十世纪初西方所自诩的“文明人”一边。我所同情的是被“文明人”所诋毁的“原始”、“野蛮”群体，以及他们是怎样被诋毁的。

© by Dun Wang (王敦). All rights reserved. 著作权拥有者：Dun Wang (王敦)。

Hu Ying 胡缨 on late Qing translation/ 晚清的翻译

Never an innocent or neutral linguistic exercise, translation during this period proved even more to be a tension-ridden "contact zone," where different traditions met and wrestled on the solid ground of language, and where the cultural implications of global and local politics manifested themselves in submerged, though no less intense, ways.[1]

这从来不是一个中立的纯语言问题。翻译在此历史阶段更表现为一个充满张力的“接触地带”。这里，不同的文化传统互相遭遇，语言成为角力场。同时，国际和本土的政治意图也暗含在鲜明的文化立场里。（笔者翻译）

[1] Tales of Translation: Composing the New Woman in China, 1899-1918 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 12.

醇亲王载沣和溥仪、溥杰

醇亲王载沣(1883─1951)，清摄政王，光绪皇帝的弟弟，末代皇帝溥仪的生父。1901年为在义和团运动中被杀的德国公使克林德（Baron von Ketteler）“谢罪”而赴德国，才十几岁。照片摄于1907年，牵手站着的是溥仪，抱在怀里的是溥杰。

Second Prince Chun and his two sons, Puyi on the right and Pujie sitting on father's legs, photo taken in 1907. In 1901 he was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary by the imperial court to Germany, to "apologize" for a "conflict" at the beginning of the Boxer uprising. In 1908 his son Puyi was chosen to become the last emperor; he became the Regent. Three years later, China turned into a Republic.

李鸿章大人

Li Hongzhang (1823-1901) was a Chinese general who ended several major rebellions, and a leading statesman of the late Qing Empire. He served in important positions of the Imperial Court, once holding the office of the Viceroy of Zhili 直隸總督. He was best known in the West for his diplomatic negotiation skills and the strengthening of Beiyang Navy 北洋水師. After the founding of the People's Republic in 1949, Li had become a literary scapegoat for China's embarrassments in the late Qing Dynasty.

1895年甲午战败和马关条约的签订，使李鸿章成为众矢之的，暂时退出权利中心。他于1896年先后访问俄、德、荷、法、比、英、美、加诸国。这第二张照片就是李鸿章在出访英国时拍的，与 Lord Salisbury 和 Lord Curzon 的合影。岁数大的那个洋人就是 Salisbury 爵爷，老谋深算，是大英的当朝首相。那位小爵爷叫 Curzon， 也不简单，出身贵胄，是外交部的干才，很快就要做印度总督了。

夹在这一只老狼一只幼虎中间，李大人安之若素。这位老爷子面相威严，身长一米八多，多次在虎口狼牙下抢救中国的权益。大清已经日薄西山了这是事实。其实，大英的殖民地统治何尝不是江河日下，风雨飘摇？

Curzon 日后就体验到印度总督也不好当了。老天有眼，做虎做狼也不能太舒服。

© by Dun Wang (王敦). All rights reserved. 著作权拥有者：Dun Wang (王敦)。