Riding the Wild Horse in Chinese Literature - Transcript

Intro [00:00:05]

Julia Heinle [00:00:13]

Welcome to the Nordic Asia Podcast. A collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region. My name is Julia Heinle, I'm the publishing assistant at NIAS Press and a Master student of political science at the University of Copenhagen. Today, I have the pleasure to talk to a Vibeke Bordahl, senior researcher at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, specializing in Chinese oral literature and dialectology. Vibeke has written extensively on the interplay of oral and written traditions in Chinese popular literature and performance culture. Her latest project involves, in fact, two books that are going to be published at the end of October. The first one is a last translation of Jin Ping Mei- one of the most famous Chinese novels in popular literature published by Vandkunsten. And the second one is going to be published within us, NIAS Press on the Scholarship of the novel. I'm more than happy to greet Vibeke here today, and I'm excited for our talk lying ahead. Welcome, Vibeke.

Vibeke Børdahl [00:01:22]

Thank you.

Julia Heinle [00:01:23]

Before we start of discussing your two upcoming book projects, can you tell us what is Jin Ping Mei? What's its background history and why is it such a famous novel?

Vibeke Børdahl

[00:01:36]

Jin Ping Mei, that's a title of a novel that was published in 1617. About 400 years ago. It is the most famous Chinese novel in the field of erotic literature. It's a kind of Chinese Decameron, but it also belongs to a series of great works, great novels, some published before Jin Ping Mei, some published later that are describing the Chinese history, society, lifestyle, religion in many different ways. The novels that came before Jinping Mei were surely connected to oral literature. They were told in the streets, they were told by the storytellers, and they existed in forms that were very close to oral performance before they hit their form as novels. But Jin Ping Mei. And I'll tell you about the title of that book. That was the first novel that we consider to be truly written. It has lots of oral ancestors and oral connections, we can say. But this work has very specific form as a words put into pen on paper by somebody. The novel is anonymous. We don't know the author. I think the title is always kind of a secret. One doesn't know what Jinping means? What does it mean? It is three syllables that point to three meanings. Jin means gold, Ping means vase, and Mei means plumflower. So gold, vase and plunflower is not good grammar in Chinese. But it's also not an ordinary sentence. It is a title. And these characters that we used to write these three words, they point to three persons in the novel. And it is significant that they point to three women. The novels before that were all mainly about great men. But this novel is also about men, but it is also very much about women. Then the title can also have other hidden meanings, like a plumflower in a golden vase and the vases symbol of the female vagina. So it's also has such undertones. And also just simply be translated like plum flower and golden vase. But actually the normal understanding of the title is that it points to three women, one called Jinlian, one called Pinger and one called Chunmei. These three female persons play a main role in the novel.

Julia Heinle [00:04:12]

That was a very useful introduction, I think, especially for listeners that don't know about the novel. I think that's a good way to start it off with. You have worked on several of the translations from Chinese into Danish. How many translations are there now in total? And can you also maybe tell us a bit about how you discovered the novel in the first place? What brought you on that whole journey of translation and how did you hear first about the novel?

Vibeke Børdahl [00:04:40]

Yes, I try to explain how these things happened. I had no real plans of translating any of these great novels into Danish. I had in my youth already made some anthologies of the great Chinese novels that were published in Denmark, Norway. There, I tried to select some chapters from each of the most famous novels and then make such an anthology so that people would know about it that it existed. It would be such an introduction, and then perhaps people would would find this literature. They would then have to find it in English or French of German, whatever language they were familiar with because nothing existed in the Nordic countries. And that's not quite true because actually the Jinping made did exist in a very short version, and it was very popular in Finland, but it was not translated from Chinese, but it was translated from German. So nothing existed in the Nordic countries that was translated from Chinese. But I, not considering starting a career as a translator, I had lots of plans for doing research and it was only very late that I began the translation of Jin Ping Mei. And actually my choice has something to do with the research I was doing previously. I was for many years, actually, since 1984/86, I was having a project of studying Chinese storytelling. Originally, I thought it had long died out and didn't exist in China anymore. But during travel to Shanghai and Young Zhou in 1986, I discovered that storytelling. I knew about this old art form, but I didn't know it still existed. But I found out it was still a living art being performed every day in the storytellers house, and the audience was returning every day to sit and listen for a couple of hours of storytelling. In a way, it was there. Television. You can see something they could do every day and follow the same plot for several months. That was the case with storytelling. The people who came there came to listen to what is going to happen today and next and next day for several months. And the storytellers could tell enormously long stories that some of them could tell not only for three months, that would be one period, but they could continue another three months and another three months and another three months. Some of them had such long repertoires that they could tell and they were telling by heart they were not reading and then preparing a textbook every day. They were learning this material from their master, learning from his Mouth, by ear. And this kind of art I found so fascinating to find out about how is this really true in the first place? I was really wondering, is this true? Well, I started a project about that, and that kept me for about 20, 30 years. And I have written many books about young true storytelling. Then when I started it, it was immediately colored by my first experiment. You know, I had made this book into Danish about the great Chinese novels. And for that book I had chosen a special chapter in the novel called Water Margin. I had chosen the chapter about Wu Son Fights the Tiger. So that was in my book already. Then when I came to Yangzhou and I met the storytellers, I used to ask them, Are you able to tell Wu Son fights the tiger? And those of them who belonged to the water margin school, yes, they were absolutely able to tell that story. So I wanted to collect as many storytellers as possible within one school of storytelling in order to see their language. Did they say exactly the same words? What words did they use? How much were they alike? How much were they not alike? What was the kind of language that they used? Was it a live language or was it fixed? Learned by heart? I could do that because I collected all these versions of the Tiger story. And the reason why I asked them about the Tiger story was that it's not so easy to understand a storyteller who is speaking in Yanghzou dialect. And then when I was asking for that story, then basically I knew the story, and that would help my own understanding. I was lazy, so I just took an easy story, but that became my fate. And that was also by chance, because it turned out that all these storytellers who told me to fight the tiger, which belonged to their school of Water Margin. When I say a school, I don't mean a school. It means a group of storytellers who are related by their theme, the master disciple relationship between them. That's the school of storytelling. And then it turned out that all the young pupils, who started to learn storytelling, if they were the son of the family or some interested youngsters or their parents were interested, they should have this as a living. When they started to study this enormous theme. They would all begin with Wu Son Fights the Tiger. So it would their first story. And of course, that meant they learned it very much by heart from their teacher because they were in a period where they would learn by heart, as all the students do in the beginning. And then little by little, they free themselves and become the major storytellers who use the language in a living way. But as small students, they would have to repeat exactly what the teacher was saying and doing. And if they couldn't remember the following day, they would get spanked. The children were much beaten in those days in China. And I think there were many of the storytellers who thought that if you didn't beat it into them, they would never learn it. So there were some of the storytellers who said to me, "my father didn't beat me", and that was unusual. "He didn't beat me". I mean, I found that a little bit strange. I wouldn't imagine my father beating me. But they say my father didn't beat me. So that tells something about the society at that time and ways of educating the storytellers. But if we continue a little bit about this Tiger story, I had translated it already from the novel form. And then now I ask this director to tell this story. And they told me then that it was actually their ABC. It was their first story for learning their enormous repertoires. So that was also a beginning. But it was not only the first story for learning the repertoire, it was also the first story of telling the repertoire. So whenever a storyteller of this school would begin to tell the whole Water Margin Saga, he would start with Wu Son Fights The Tiger. And that is not how it is in the novel. The novel is completely different. It doesn't start with Wu Son Fights The Tiger, it starts from somewhere else completely and other place. So as a storytelling and novels are very, very different, even though there is a relationship, but very, very different in time.

Julia Heinle [00:12:05]

So when you were saying that the novel doesn't start with Wu Song Fights the Tiger, is that related to the general novel about Wu Song or about Jin Ping Mei?

Vibeke Børdahl [00:12:18]

Yeah, there's a relationship there. But it is so: The water margin was published more than 100 years before in Ping Me. So water margin is much older. And in the water margin saga, the Wu Song saga is ten chapters within a novel that has 100 or 120 chapters. The whole novel has about 120 chapters. But the story about Wu Son is only ten chapters. There are several of these heroes that have their own sagas inside the big saga, and Wu Son has his own saga inside the big saga of Water Margins. And that saga comes with Chapter 22 or 23. As where the Wu Son saga starts and at 32, 33, it then stops and other heroes are in the foreground. But the storytellers of Yangzhou storytelling, they start with the Wu Song saga. Then they continue with another saga about Song Jiang, the hero of the of the water Margin the hero of the outlaws. But that becomes then the next saga in Yangzhou storytelling. And so it's not the same system. But but when we come to Jinping Mei there is a connection here because Jinping Mei also starts with Wu Son Fights the Tiger. The first chapter of Jin Ping Mei retells the story about Wu Son Fights the Tiger. And then the story about Wu Son's brother and his sister in law. And things have happened. And actually the whole of Jinping Mei is a kind of development of the Wu Song saga and some persons in the Wu Song saga. The female character there, she is, the main female character in Jinping Mei and the Don Juan person of Jinping Mei is also a character in the ten chapter, Wu Song Saga of Water Margin. So something that is only a minor, even though it is a ten chapter portion of the novel, is still a minor part. But it develops in Jinping May into another hundred chapter novel. So these are connected in that way. And there we come to the point, because the reason why I became interested in translating Jin Ping Mei, that was in part because I thought it was fun that it starts with that story that I have been studying all my life from all angles and Jinping Mei too starts with that story. So that was for me, a kind of instigation to do it. But then, of course, it was also that in many years of occupying myself with Chinese literature, I found that this novel is particularly interesting, and I would find it very interesting to translate it. And the Danish culture should also have this work among the works that were available to Danish readers. So things happen, grow out of each other. The stories brought out of each other and our lives also seem to grow out of little things that hadn't become significant. You never know when they become significant. It became significant. I started with that Tiger story and then I ended up there and never got rid of it. I've been working on the Tiger story all my life.

Julia Heinle [00:15:58]

Which is really nice though, because now you grant access to Danish readers, right? Because you make it available for them to dive into the story, maybe just as a background now, for listeners that don't know you because you have published a whole lot of books also with NIAS press, in fact, I counted them and there were about seven. So to whomever doesn't know you yet, just as a background knowledge that you are a researcher of Chinese literature and you have done, as you just explained to us before, a lot of work on the intersection of oral performances and written collections in Chinese popular literature and performance culture. Now for the translation of Jinping Mei. My you've already started describing it a little bit, but I think a very interesting question is to ask, how do you go about translating these stories? What do you do with words maybe that you know, don't exist in Danish in 1 to 1 examples? How do you manage to portray a certain story or a certain feeling into Danish language today? What is your strategy there to go about? Or do you have a strategy?

Vibeke Børdahl [00:17:15]

Yeah. This is what is really the fascinating thing about translating. I'm not sure one can really explain it or, let's say, has the right to explain. I think nobody has the truth about this. There's no truth in it. There's personal experience. But I don't think that you can say one does this in that way or that. I don't think there's any objective truth to find. But it is a field that is so interesting if you are interested in language. This novel describes Chinese society in the Song Dynasty in 11,000 AC. This is the setting of the happenings. And then the book was put on paper in the middle of the 16th century and published for the first time in 1617, beginning of the 17th century. And the language of Jinping Mei is full of all kinds of, let's say, sub languages, some languages that are much older, but not always is it just a question about age. It's also a question of genre. The Jinping Mei is playing with so many language genres, using so many languages. You could say in language it's all Chinese, but it's different kinds of Chinese. And then I am living in Denmark here in 2020s. How will I translate this old language and society? How would I get that over into Danish? And what kind of Danish should I choose? When I'm translating in a way. I have these questions in my mind all the time. I feel that something happens in your own brain. You become this person who is retelling the story in her own mother language. It was in Chinese, and I'm trying to retell the story in my mother language. And I could say if I'm going to translate a novel that is put to paper in the late 1500s, something then maybe I should try to write like Christian the 4ths' daughter, Eleanor Christina, who wrote her memories of her stay in in that prison in Copenhagen in early Danish and early Danish might be the equivalent of what I'm translating from or more or less. But that for one thing, I think there's nobody who would be able to write like a former person, like like suddenly start to write in the style of an Eleanor Christina who was the daughter of Christian the 4th. We we could not suddenly become persons from that formal time and start to write in that style. And it would also not be more natural. I choose the language of my time, but I'm not at all afraid of using old words that are not so often used, but that I think come right there. They come, right? So I use a big vocabulary of Danish from former times, from present times. But I try to choose what I feel is exactly right at exactly this place. And only when I'm satisfied with a sentence can I leave it. I work on it sometimes for a whole day. Just to make that sentence right, you must find exactly the right words. And then I can go on. And so I've been working sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph. Another thing is, of course, to understand Chinese, that's another problem. But that is not what takes so much time. What takes really time is to find the good Danish sentences that you should use in this place. And that's also what makes it very interesting. But of course, lots and lots of research on Jinping Mei, both in Chinese and in Western languages, lots and lots of research so that you can spend, I think, many lifetimes just on reading what everybody else has been finding out, Since I started late in life to do this translation, I just had to tell myself that there's just a limit to how much you can read, it is simply a question of time. I used ten years for this novel and I mean, I couldn't use the 30 years because then I don't think I'm here anymore. Yeah, you simply have to get 50 if I wanted to. So you have to weigh your work between what is most important for me and try to find the right balance between studying everybody else's work and doing the translation. You have to just find the balance that would make the work possible.

Julia Heinle [00:22:06]

Yeah, but Vibeke, it sounds like you have made it possible, especially because the actual translation is about to be published at the end of October. And your other book that goes out with NIAS press on the scholarship of Jinping Mei is also going to be available very soon. Now, I'd love to ask you many more questions on Jinping Mei, the novel and your work. But we are also slowly coming to an end of our interview now, which is why I think I have one last question that concerns your other book, Jinping May a Wild Horse of Chinese literature that you published with Nias Press, where you collected different works from different authors on the novel. How did you make that decision or how did you decide in the end with contributors to ask?

Vibeke Børdahl [00:22:59]

Hmm. You know, it is Vandkunsten publishers that publishes the translation into Danish in ten volumes, and this is coming to its end now in October. The final volumes are being published by Vandkunsten And we saw that we were coming to the end with this work. And then we decided that we should have a big book launch and if possible, also a symposium about Jinping Mei in order to make this event more widespread. We ran into several problems. We came in the middle of the Corona crisis, and we had actually planned several times to have a symposium in order to discuss Jin Ping Mei with scholars worldwide. But we had to postpone because Corona made it impossible to travel. But then at some point we had an idea why not make the symposium book while we are waiting, so to say, waiting to to be able to have the meeting, the symposium. Let's start and collect all the papers from the participants of the symposium and try to make the book so that it could be ready for the symposium now in October. And we succeeded. We had funding from the S.C. Van Foundation in Denmark, which made it possible to start such a project. And then we had support from NIAS Press, I should say, as always, had this wonderful support from Gerald Jackson that he would help us to do this book on very short notice. This meant that the symposium this time is going to be a bit different from what they are usually. Usually you have the symposium, you have the papers, and if you find the symposium is interesting enough, you might make a book afterwards. But we made the opposite thing. We make the book first and then we have the symposium afterwards. People are coming from Australia, Japan, China, USA, all of Europe and presenting papers. The book has become very beautiful and very interesting and I'm just so grateful to NIAS Press and Gerald in particular for always standing behind me. Now, with little by little so many books and they are all beautiful and this is also very beautiful and very well done.

Julia Heinle [00:25:37]

We're very happy about that as well and are going to pass it along to Gerald. Now, one last thing. Is the symposium going to be for signed up participants or is it also going to be open to the public at the end of October for whomever is in Copenhagen?

Vibeke Børdahl [00:25:55]

We cannot have everything completely open, but it is very much open. Let's say we have a book launch on the Royal Library on 26th of October, and that is completely open. There will be some performances that have something to do with Jinping Mei, we will have a storyteller perform Wu Song Fights the Tiger, and we will have reading from the Danish translation and we will have Chinese music, various things. This is open to everybody. But then we have the symposium proper. We invited Sinologists and other interested people from all over Europe. Actually, some are coming from USA too. That is not public. We had to invite because otherwise we wouldn't know how many we are.

Julia Heinle [00:26:45]

That makes complete sense. I'll make sure to post a link to the event for the open book launch into the show notes.

Vibeke Børdahl [00:26:53]

Thank you.

Julia Heinle [00:26:54]

Well, then I think we are at the end of our interview. Thank you very much Vibeke, for joining me today. Thank you to all the listeners for joining the Nordic Asia podcast, showing Nordic collaboration in studying Asia. I am Julia Heinle and have been talkting to Vibeke Bordahl, editor of the upcoming NIAS Press book Jin Ping Mei a Wild Horse in Chinese Literature and also the translations of Jin Ping Mei into Dansih that are published with Vandkunsten.

Outro [00:27:27]

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