「啞行者」蔣彝的「中國眼光」及其跨文化書寫

Abstract

Chiang Yee (1903-1977), throughout his oversea years (1933-1977), dwelled in England and America successively, and had travelling experiences to France, Japan, Australia, Singapore, and etc. His rich transnational and transcultural experiences inspired him to publish travel writings as well as several other forms of works, both of which initiated innovative approaches different from other contemporary Chinese oversea writers: he interpreted the western sceneries, culture, arts, conventions via his "Chinese Eye", and responded to various stereotypes towards Chinese in his "Silent Traveller" series; his cross-cultural strategies demonstrated certain Chinese traits, which was also the foundation for his cosmopolitan identity construction, and ensured his cultural confidence and equality in cross-cultural communications.

This paper re-examines Chiang Yee's writings and identity construction in cross- cultural discourse, to discuss the unneglected significance of his cross-cultural writings and identity construction strategies at that time and at present. Under these research premises and objects, this research unfolds the interaction between Chiang Yee's life and writings, especially his dual roles as both a cross-cultural traveler and recorder, based on the comprehensive study of Chiang Yee's publications, including his travel writings, memoir works, novels, children literature, poems, and articles published on newspapers in English or Chinese, as well as his correspondences, manuscripts, and other private documents.

The paper contains an introduction, five chapters in main body and a conclusion, aiming at close reading Chiang Yee's publications and private archives, to understand his writing self and identity construction.

The introduction illustrates the research background and its significance. By exploring into the shortcomings of current Chiang Yee studies, this part highlights the importance of re-reading and re-studying Chiang Yee, and clarifies research structures.

Chapter one focuses on Chiang Yee's most well-known cultural label- "The Silent Traveller", and analyzes the différance of his identity conveyed in this label. This chapter discusses the change of Chiang Yee's pennames, from "Chiang Shoudian" to "The Silent Traveller"，and of the connotations of "The Silent Traveller" in his cross-cultural lives, which revealed his consistent political ideals and cross-cultural identity construction process. His change from "crazy" to "Silent", and his behavior of using "Silent" in the western discourse, multiplied the indications of "The Silent Traveller", which indicates the process of différance of identity. In the early stage of his cross- border life, "The Silent Traveller" reflected his otherness due to his poor English. When he started to publish books in title of "The Silent Traveller", it then referred to his ambition to change the stereotypes and bias of the western society towards Chinese. Though Chiang Yee changed his penname from "Chiang Shoudian" to "The Silent Traveller", he had never given up his ideal of being a revolutionary.

Chapter two discusses Chiang Yee's "Chinese Eye", by uncovering this cross- cultural interpretation strategy and its impact, to emphasize his distinct writing features comparing to his contemporary oversea Chinese writers. In his The Chinese Eye: An Interpretation of Chinese Paintings, this strategy was formed, which forged the broadcast of Chinese art in Britain in the first half of the 20th century, together with his other art works and communications. These then had impact on British modern art theory and painting techniques. The interpretation strategy of "Chinese Eye" framed Chiang Yee's later traveling writings in his interpreting cross-border scenes, culture and experiences.

Chapter three studies Chiang Yee's travel writings and his identity construction in these writings. After arguing the genre characteristics of travel writings, this chapter discuss the autobiographical features of Chiang Yee's cross-cultural travel series. This section respectively illustrates the features in Chiang Yee's travel writings, including the artful expressions of combination of "poetry, calligraphy, and painting", the strategy of metaphorizing landscape, and Chiang Yee's intention to use dialogue with "the other" to reserve and hybridize different cultural roles. By analyzing these features, we can find that in his continuity of using "Chinese Eye" as an interpretation strategy, Chiang Yee enriched the forms of biographical writings among oversea Chinese community based on his Chinese cultural background. Through these approaches, Chiang Yee managed to tell stories of China underneath the narratives about the west. Hence, in travel writings, Chiang Yee not only constructed his identity, but also invited his English readers to think about the mutual interpretation between different cultures, and then helped them reflect bias and stereotypes.

Chapter four traces Chiang Yee's evaluation of his identity construction at his old age, - "from Chong Er to Su Wu to Chiang Yee", to further discuss his strategies of confronting "exile" crisis in cross-cultural years. This chapter unfolds the characteristics of hometown as a special "place" to uncover Chiang Yee's strategies of eliminating geographical sense as well as his reconstructing "intimate experiences of place" to find hometown in displacement. "Chong Er" referred to Chiang Yee's inspiring ambition in the hard situation of being the Other in his early years in Britain, while "Su Wu" indicated his diasporic state around 1950, when his nationality was changed at that time. After all, with his devotion to writings and publications, he gradually found his goal of cross-cultural writings and eventually became "Chiang Yee".

After discussing the multiple aspects of Chiang Yee's writings and identity construction, and the paradoxical aspects of Chiang Yee in the four chapters above, the fifth chapter further explores Chiang Yee's cross-cultural identity. This chapter quoted the critic of New York Times of Chiang Yee as "a true cosmopolitan" to discuss his cosmopolitanism expressed in his writings. However, Chiang Yee's being cosmopolitan is a contradiction, as he expressed a certain national consciousness in either public speeches or private archives. He had specific understandings towards Chinese, and used "return to the original family after marriage" to indicate his returning to China after forty-two years, which imply his unbreakable connection with China in a cross-cultural way. And this complexity could be concluded as the result of "rooted cosmopolitanism".

The conclusion is the analysis of the multi-layered discussions of Chiang Yee's cross-cultural identity and writings. In particular, Chiang Yee's differences from other contemporary Chinese oversea writers, especially his interpretation approaches to present China, justify his significance in cross-cultural dimension. His interpretation approach of "Chinese Eye", and his strategy of integrating paining into travel writings should be relocated in the non-native language overseas Chinese writings; also, his construction of "rooted cosmopolitanism" is worthy being studied in his cross-border lives.

Date of Award	7 Sept 2022
Original language	Chinese (Traditional)
Awarding Institution	City University of Hong Kong
Supervisor	Jialin LIU (External Supervisor) & May Bo CHING (Supervisor)