Negotiating Culture Space and Identity: The Translation and Analysis of Tongzhi and Ku-er Fiction

Example 3
3.1

ST: \寒寒虛弱地抬起手來，用及輕的力量為我抹去眼淚，然後一直撫摸我額前和鬚角的頭髮，來來回回，向微風吹動的小船。[Han Han weakly lifted her hand, using very slight power to wipe away my tears, and continuously to stroke my the hair on my forehead and side burns, going and coming, like a little boat pushed by a light breeze]
TT: Weakly, Han Han lifted her hand, and with the lightest of touches she wiped away my tears. Then she stroked the hair on my forehead and by my ears, back and forth, her hand like a little boat floating in a light breeze.
3.2

ST: 我也曾對別人做過相同的動作，但我從來沒想過，也不曾體會到，這些輕微的觸摸裡，竟然薀藏著如此大一段溫柔的力量， 那就是「女性」，我恍然大悟。[I have done the same thing to other people, but I never thought, and never felt, these light touches, contain such strong tender power, that’s “female”, I suddenly understands.]
TT: I had done the same thing myself for others in the past, but I’d never thought that these gentle touches could harbor such a power of tenderness. Suddenly I understood this was “femininity”.
3.3

ST: 意識到「女性」這個東西，我才真真正正明白使我狼狽哭泣的原因，只因我也是「女性」啊！ [Understanding this thing “female”, I truly truly understand the reason for my embarrassing crying, it’s because I’m “female” too!]
TT: Only with this new consciousness of the thing called “femininity” did I truly understand what it was that had made me cry so helplessly. It was that I was “female”, too!

The extract is divided into three sections: 3.1 and 3.2 portray Han Han’s feminine behavior. In the examples, Qui emphasizes a more conventional form of femininity, using adjectives associated with softness: 虛弱 [weakly] 溫柔 [tender] and 輕微 [light] are used to describe Han Han’s touches. The metaphor for her movements :“向微風吹動的小船”[like a little boat pushed by the breeze] is an image of delicacy and gentleness. Although Martin’s translation on most parts follows Qui’s narrative language, there is an additional category between “femininity” and “female” in the translated text. In Qui’s original, the term「女性」is more accurately as a noun for ‘female’ or ‘woman/women’ than the translated “femininity”. While the change does not alter the meaning of the original, it does subtly shift the concept of being a ‘woman’ from something that’s inherently ‘natural’ to ‘female traits’ – closer to Martin’s queer/ku-er interpretation of gender. Whether or not this is a conscious decision by the translator, the translated text reveals itself to be partially framed by Martin’s activist and academic background. As Martin’s foreword illustrates, critical readings such as Judith Butler places offers the translated text reader a useful point of reference.

The notion of femininity being innate implies sexuality as innate. The metaphor of hair is also a representation of female desire. There is a minor, but significant moment in the short story in which ‘the writer’ describes her hair to have a ‘preference’:
Example 4:
ST: 就這樣頭髮又漸漸長長，長到它又快要能勒死你了，這是髮的「傾向性」，正如你必須做妓女，而我是。。。

[so hair gradually grow longer, long towards the point it can almost strangle you, this is hair’s “preference”, just like you need to be a prostitute, and I am….]

TT: With time my hair gradually grown long again – long enough to soon to strangle you once more. This is my hair’s “inclination,” just as you must prostitute yourself, and just as I am…

Similar to Example 2, the description of hair as suffocating/entwining is reinforced here. If long hair represents the writer’s irrepressible desire for Han Han, then the hair’s ‘preference’ further testifies to her (homo)sexual longings. Martin translates the highlighted 「傾向性」[preference/penchant] as ‘inclination’ – subtly noting the unspoken sexual orientation of the writer. This is contrasted with Han Han’s ‘inclination’ to be a prostitute for men. It should be noted that although most critical interpretations of Platonic Hair focus on the t-po/lesbian/tongzhi dynamics, the characters’ own sexual identity is never explicitly defined. Interestingly, there is a brief mention of Western sexual politics in the text, from which the writer distances herself:

Example 5:
ST: 我也奇怪自己竟一點都不鄙視她對人與人肌膚親近的輕率，原因不在於對歐美「性解放」觀念的嚮往 […] I’m puzzled myself I don’t despise her frivolous person to person skin intimacy, the reason is not because towards Euro-America “sexual liberation” concept’s aspiration
TT: I was surprised at myself for not despising her casual approach to intimacy. This wasn’t because I aspired to some Euro-American notion of “sexual liberation”
‘Sexual liberation’ is outlined in the passage as a ‘Euro-American concept’, associated with Han Han’s predominantly heterosexual libertinism. However, what it actually represents is decidedly vague, used as an all-encompassing term for any unconventional forms of sexual behavior. ‘The writer’s mention of ‘sexual liberation’ in this disparaging way emphasises her deeply ingrained heterosexist values. From a translational reader’s perspective, the statement can also be ironic, considering the short story is included as part of an anthology on ‘sexual liberation’.
The binary divide between ‘male’ and ‘female’, ‘heterosexual’ and ‘homosexual’ is therefore deeply ingrained in Platonic Hair. One of the criticisms leveled by the ku-er writer Hong Ling is that the lesbian relationship in Qui’s writing is based on a heterosexual premise. To paraphrase Hong, the t/tomboy character in Qui’s novels often struggle with their inability to become biological ‘men’, and the desire to consummate a legitimate heterosexual relationship (1997: 98). For Hong, these aspirations mean that the characters still conform to a heterosexist model. However, it can be argued that the very inability to escape these role models underlines the enormous social pressure under which t/tomboys are placed. The impossibility to transcend their circumstances is itself a critique of the narrow gender and sexual roles traditionally assigned to women. There is a moment in Platonic Hair where ‘the writer’ realizes her privilege as a heterosexual female:
Example 6:
ST: 我一向不在意性別的差異，更少注意自己的男性或女性化，我和別人在我眼裡一律都是「人」一個種類。[I never cared about the difference in gender, and further seldom notice my own masculinity or femininity, I and other people in front of my eyes are always “people” a single category.]
TT: I had never given much thought to gender difference, and even less to my own femininity or masculinity. In my eyes, I and others belonged simply to the single category of “people”.
ST: 至於人與人相遇，戀愛，上床，結婚都是自然而然發生的事，我也如此。[As for person and person meeting, fall in love, have sex, marriage are naturally occurring things, I am the same.]
TT: As for people’s relations with each other – love, sex, marriage – I took it for granted that these things just happened naturally, and it was the same for me.
ST: 但如今我{才發現，這「自然而然」底下埋藏了多令我難堪的禁忌。[But now I realized, this underneath this“natural occurring” hides many prohibitions that make me embarrass.]
TT: Only now did I discover that hidden beneath that “naturalness” were prohibitions I found quite intolerable.
In the same way the notion of ‘femaleness’ is highlighted in previous examples, here ‘naturalness’ is placed to the forefront. Both 「人」 [person/people] and「自然而然」[natural occurring] – terms that denote neutrality and normalcy – are ironically highlighted in the narrative through brackets/quotation marks. By emphasising these words, the character (and in turn the reader) is obliged to reconsider what is to be ‘natural’. The presumed normalcy, as embodied by the concept of ‘love’, ‘sex’ and ‘marriage’ excludes anyone who cannot follow this trajectory. Interestingly, Martin’s description of this enforced prohibition as ‘intolerable’ comes across as more strongly worded than the more passive Chinese: ‘難堪’[humiliation/embarrassment]. While the original meaning of humiliation/embarrassment implies acute rejection, the translated ‘intolerable’ indicates a condition that is completely unacceptable and irresistible. The sense of social alienation described in the original, becomes through translation confrontational, a posture of resistance.
To summarise the section on Platonic Hair, the short story can be appropriated as an early female tongzhi story that engages with subversive themes, even if the story itself still conforms to certain heterosexist norms. In Martin’s translated version, the tongzhi/ku-er political angle is stressed. Although Martin does not deviate from the source narrative, the words she chooses in her translation subtly shift the narrative to compliment the overall queer/ku-er positive frame of Angelwings.
The following section will look at Chen Xue’s Searching For the Lost Wings of An Angel, the short story that inspired the title of the anthology.
7.8 Searching For the Lost Wings of An Angel
If Platonic Hair is based on the premise of female tongzhi struggling to find a stable gender/sexual identity, then Searching for the Lost Wings of An Angel concludes that any forms of identity are inherently unstable. Published in the mid 90s during the most prolific period of tongzhi/ku-er fiction production, the short story is arguably Chen Xue’s most well known work. Chen herself openly identifies herself as ‘ku-er’ - a term she reaffirms in the 2005 reprint of her anthology 惡女書 [bad woman book]. In the introduction to the anthology, Chen acknowledges her participation in tongzhi/ku-er movement, and the fact her work continues to inspire ku-er/queer readings and translations¹⁶. Incidentally, Martin counts Chen, alongside ku-er writers Chi Tai Wei and Hong Ling as authors she has a personal affinity with. As she states:
I guess I felt the most intellectual affinity with Chi’s writing, and also a certain closeness with Hong Ling’s and Chen Xue’s work (given that I knew them a little and we are in the same generation, et cetera – there is perhaps a certain historical – cultural familiarity in certain aspects of the way they each write).
Chen’s writing can be seen to resonate with the simultaneous growth of queer culture worldwide. In Martin’s accompanying Situating Sexualities, she views Searching for the Lost Wings of an Angel as a story composed of ‘multiple outsides’; not just the polarity of ‘Western’ culture and ‘Chinese’ culture, ‘modernity’ or tradition’. Martin coins the term ‘hybrid citation’ to describe the short story: Chen engages with the aforementioned themes but from the position of an outsider. Significantly, Martin’s translation is itself a ‘hybrid citation’ of Searching for the Lost Wings of An Angel. The following are examples of how these concepts – particularly in relation to family and ku-er writing - emerge in the source and translated text.
Two significant female relationships characterizes Searching for the Lost Wings of an Angel: the first is the relationship between the main character Cao Cao and her estranged biological mother, and the second is between Cao Cao and her lesbian lover A’Su. The author suggests that Cao’s Cao’s explicit sexual desire for her lover arises from her unexpressed love towards her mother. Martin notes that the text makes a parody of the traditional family structure, rewriting filial piety as lesbian desire (2003: 128). The opening paragraph of Searching for the Lost Wings of An Angel foreshadows the complicated relationship between Cao Cao and A’Su/her mother:
Example 1:
ST: 當我第一眼看見阿蘇的時候，就確定，她和我是同一類的。

[The first time I saw A’Su, am sure, she and I are the same kind]

TT: The first time I met A’Su, I was certain that she and I were the same sort.
ST: 我們都是遺失了翅膀的天使，眼睛仰望著只有飛翔才能達到的高度，赤足在炎熱堅硬的土地上，卻失去了人類該有的方向。

[We’re both angel who lost wings, eyes staring height only flight can attain, bare foot in the hot hard earth, but losing the direction human should have.]

TT: We’re both angels who have lost our wings. Our eyes are fixed on a height attainable only in flight, our bare feet stand on the searing, obdurate earth, and yet we have lost the direction that mankind ought to have.
The first line: “[…] 就確定，她和我是同一類的” […am sure, she and I are the same kind] establishes the connection between the two characters. The description 同一類 [same kind], translated by Martin as ‘the same sort’ can be seen to refer to Cao Cao and A’Su’s homosexuality. However, they are also ‘the same sort’ because A’Su represent Cao Cao’s mother - they are literally from the same stock. The image of “遺失了翅膀的天使” [angels who lost their wings] recurs in the narrative. Superficially, both Cao Cao and A’Su can be seen as ‘fallen angels’ who have lost their purity and are judged by society to be sinful. However, the image also signifies the oppression they endure, depriving them of freedom. Martin’s translation picks up on the desolation in the original text. The “堅硬的土地” [hard earth] is translated as ‘obdurate earth’, the word ‘obdurate’ suggesting ‘hardness’, emotional as well as physical. The sense of isolation is subtly amplified. The significance of flight and escape in the narrative will be elaborated on further in the section on ku-er writing.
The metaphor of womb recurs in Searching for the Lost Wings of an Angel, suggesting the presence of the mother. The following extract, the meetings of Cao Cao and A’Su, is an illustration of this:
Example 2:
1.1

ST: {我一杯又一杯喝著血腥瑪麗，在血紅色血液看見她對我招手; 我感覺到她那雙描黑眼線亮亮野野的眼睛正似笑非笑的揪著我，我感覺到她那低胸緊身黑色裡包裹的身體幾乎要爆裂出來，我感覺她那低沈暗啞的聲音正在我耳辦泥念著淫穢色情的話語。。。

[I drank one glass of Bloody Mary after another, in the blood red blood liquid saw her waving at me, I feel her pair of black eyeliner bright bright and wild wild eyes half smiling half not smiling ensnare me, I feel the body in her low cut body tight black dress almost bursting out, I feel her low husky voice whisper in my ear obscene pornographic words…]

TT: I drank another then another Bloody Mary, and in the blood red liquor I saw her beckon me; felt her black edged eyes, glittering, glancing, half smiling at me; felt her body almost erupting out of her low-cut, tight black dress. I felt her deep husky voice murmuring pornographic obscenities into my ear.
1.2

ST: {恍惚中，我發現自己的內褲都寧濕了。點燃我熾烈情慾的，竟是一個女人。

[Mid trance, I found my knickers are soaked through. Light up my fiery desire, is actually a woman]

TT: Vaguely, I realized that my underpants were soaked. What ignited my desire turned out to be a woman.
1.3

ST: 她是如此酷似我記憶中不可觸碰的部分，在她的目光凝視下，我仿佛回到了子宮，那樣潮溼，溫暖，並且聽到血易烹張的聲音。

[she so resemble an untouchable part of memory, under her concentrated gaze, I feel like returned to that womb, so humid, warm, and can hear the sound of blood rushing.]

TT: She so resembled the part of my memory I could not approach that under her gaze, I felt I had returned to the womb, humid and warm, and I could hear the sound of blood pulsing my veins.

From the opening line in 1.1, in which Cao Cao is seen drinking a Bloody Mary, the narrative is replete with symbols of female desire underlines the narrative. In the same way that femininity is emphasised in Platonic Hair, Chen is brazen in her portrayal of female, or more specifically, lesbian sexuality. The 血紅色血液 [blood red blood liquid] of the Bloody Mary for example, evokes arousal, as well as the image of menstrual blood. The sexual excitement A’Su inspires in Cao Cao is strangely maternal, the sentence: “潮溼，溫暖，並且聽到血易烹張的聲音” [wet, warm, and can hear the sound of blood rushing] not only corresponds with the image of vaginal arousal in 1.2, but also reminiscent of a babe in the womb. As a side note, while Martin’s translation largely follows the narrative structure of the source text, the Chinese original comes across as more strongly. For example, the headiness Cao Cao experiences when confronted with A’Su physicality is emphasised by the long, unfinished sentence in 1.1, though in Martin’s translation the sentence is terminated. Similarly, the trance like state that A’Su induced in Cao Cao: {恍惚中，我發現自己的內褲都寧濕了[mid trance, I realized my knickers were soaked through], is toned down with the term “vaguely”. The intensity of the attraction between the two characters in this instance is less apparent in the English translation.

In Searching for the Lost Wings of an Angel.Filial piety, as embodied by the Chinese word ‘孝’ [duty of children towards parents] is defiled. In Situating Sexualities, Martin notes that being homosexual compromises the first condition of xiao - the duty to continue the family line (2003a: 122). In the short story, both role of mother (the producer of offspring) and the daughter (the subservient offspring) defy the notion of ‘孝’ to incestuous extremes. The title for the Chinese anthology ‘惡女書’ [Wrongful/evil Women Book], from which the short story is originally taken in, is, as Martin points out itself a subversion on the title of a traditional women’s etiquette book 烈女傳¹⁷ [Virtuous Women’s Tales] (2003: 126). The characters Cao Cao and A’Su can be seen to embody ‘wrongful womanhood’; casual, spiteful relationships with men and an intense lesbian attraction to one another. Below is an example of their supposed ‘wickedness’:
Example 3:
ST: 遇見阿蘇之後我才知道什麼叫做淫穢與邪惡，那竟是我想望已久的東西，而我母親從來都不是。

[Ever since meeting A’Su I understand what is called sordid and evil, that is actually something I aspires to for a long time, and my mother never was.]

TT: Only after meeting A’Su did I understand what is meant by “wicked” and “sluttish”. Those are the very things I always desired, and my mother wasn’t those things at all.
ST: 阿蘇是我內心慾望的化身，是我的夢想，她所代表的世界是我身命中快樂和痛苦的根源，那是孕育我的子宮，脫離之後臍帶後我曾輟棄它，詛咒它，然而死亡之後它卻是安葬我的墳墓

[A’Su is the embodiment of my inner desire, is my dream, the world she represent is my fate’s root of happiness and pain, is the womb that nurture me, curse it, but after death it is the tomb that bury me]

TT: A’Su embodied my innermost desire; she was my dream. The world she represented was the source of all the happiness and pain in my life, the womb carrying me. Once the umbilical cord was cut, I reviled it, but after I died, it would be the tomb that interred me.
In the passage, Cao Cao aspires to the ‘wicked’ qualities of A’Su. The images of life and childbirth recur, though in this instance it is synonymous with death – the womb becomes the ‘tomb’. The virtue associated with maternal instincts is explicitly and implicitly rejected in the narrative. Martin translates the adjectives 淫穢與邪惡 [sordid and evil] as ‘wicked’ and ‘sluttish’. In one of the more overt shifts in the translated text, Martin places the two words in quotation marks (absent in the original) for emphasis and switches the word order. The word “sluttish” is an interesting substitute for 淫穢 [sordid] in the translated text. While the Chinese original denotes sordidness in a sexual sense, ‘sluttish’ – based on ‘slut’ - is a term of abuse applied to women. Compared to the gender neutral 淫穢 [sordid/dirty], ‘sluttish’ is used specifically to condemns women’s promiscuity. Martin’s translation, in this way, explicates the image of A’Su as a ‘wrongful woman’ even further. There is perhaps a sense of irony, or reservation in Martin’s use of “wicked” and “sluttish”, particularly as Martin research is based on defiance of sexual stereotypes of women. However, the use of quotation marks also creates a distance between the words and the narrative, and an understanding between the translator and reader that such views have no place in a ku-er/queer perspective of sexuality.
Family comes across as the dominant power structure, but writing offers the characters an opportunity for escape. Literature, whether real or imaginary, is essential in building the characters’ identity. In the text, Chen cites works by Camus, Kafka and Baudelaire creating a cross-cultural intertextuality. Bauldelaire’s writing, for example, is alluded to in Chen’s text as a way to describe the female characters’ combination of beauty and heartlessness. As the examples below illustrates:
Example 4
4.1

ST: }做過愛之後我躺在她身邊好想擁抱她，她推開我的手站起來，低下頭看我，為微笑著，然後念起波特萊爾的詩。。。

[After making love I lie next to her really want to embrace her, she pushed my hand away and stood up, looked down on me, and smiled, and read Bauldelaire’s poem]
TT: “After we finally made love, I lay beside her, longing to embrace her; but she pushed my hand away and stood up, gazing down at me with a small smile, and recited a poem by Baudelaire”
4.2

ST: }}我搬到學校附近專門租給學生的公寓，開始了我與男人之間種種的遊戲，像一株染了病的花，開到最盛最催燦時，花心已經腐敗了。

[I moved to an apartment specifically for students near my school, began various games between me and the men, like a flower infected with sickness, open at full bloom most dazzling, the flower heart is already rotten].

TT: I soon moved to the student apartments near the school, and the games began between me and the men. I was like a flower infected with a disease: Open at its most dazzling time, its heart already rotten.

Example 4.1 is from the perspective of one of A’Su’s male suitors. The power dynamic between the two characters is evident in the narrative. A’Su holds the dominant position – literally looking down on him: “}她推開我的手站起來，低下頭看我，為微笑著 ” [she pushed my hand away and stood up, looked down on me, and smiled]. Fragments of Baudelaire are implicit elsewhere in the narrative. The recurring description of Cao Cao and A’Su’s beauty as putrid and rotten is comparable to the poem Une Charogne [A Carcass]¹⁸. Example 4.2 is a case in point, in which the prime of Cao Cao’s beauty is portrayed as already rotting. Without delving into detailed literary analysis of Baudelaire’s writing, the examples serve to highlight intertextuality in Searching for the Lost Wings of an Angel. Parallels can be drawn with Alberto Mira’s description of “gay homographesis”. In his paper on gay literary translation, Mira proposes that gay intertextuality is created through appropriations of existing texts. This contributes to a continuum of gay identity, as he states: “[…] in acknowledging shared references the distance between reader and text narrows and the text is perceived as “gay friendly”. Gay identity therefore becomes anchored in a cultural tradition.” In this way, Chen incorporates influential literary works in creating a unique lesbian, ku-er landscape. With footnotes and annotation in neither the source nor translated text, it is left to the readers to recognize these implicit aspects.

While the reader is reading Searching for the Lost Wings of an Angel, the character Cao Cao is completing a novel of the same name, bringing a postmodern slant to the narrative. In the text, Cao Cao announces: “我寫作， 因為我想要愛 ” [I write, because I want love]. Through the process of writing, Cao Cao is no longer alone. There is a poignant moment near the end of the story which coincides with Cao Cao finishing her novel: