A Study of Rhetorical City-Portrait in Moment in Peking

LIU Rufei YANG Fang HUANG Zhiqiong

Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, 430070, China

[Abstract] Lin Yutang's English novel, Moment in Peking, whose story mainly focuses on a big family' tragedy under the social changes and Beijing, depicts how Chinese people solve the internal and external conflicts with wisdom and how fragile women grow up in the war.Basing on the analysis of rhetorical portrait of Beijing and heroic Chinese people in this novel, this paper explores Lin Yutang's rhetorical preference in constructing image of China and his unique cultural values behind his English writing.

[Keywords] rhetorical city-portrait; Moment in Peking; image of China

I.Introduction

In the spring of 1938, Lin Yutang, who had originally planned to translate Dream of the Red Chamber into English, changed his mind and decided to write a novel in English based on the art form of Dream of the Red Chamber.Moment in Peking (Lin, 2009) , taking the story of Yao Mulan as the vertical line, spanning the Boxer Rebellion in the late Qing Dynasty to the beginning of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, vividly portrays China’s social ups-and-downs in Beijing for more than thirty years.Moment in Peking focuses on the city and the city dwellers, completing Lin Yutang’s construction of China’s image, conveying to the Western world the cultural heritage and spiritual connotation of the nation eventually won a big success, and was nominated four times as candidate for Nobel Prize of Literature.Basing on the city portrait of Beijing in Lin Yutang’ Moment in Peking, this paper, first, identifies the flexible use of some rhetorical devices imparts a unique flavor in his English novel by combing the writer’s rhetorical preference and the concrete analysis of the related chapters.Second, it explores how do these rhetorical preferences affect the characterization of the city and people in Beijing.Finally, it makes an in-depth discussion on how Lin Yutang constructs positive image of China and conveys his cultural values through his English writing.

II.Literature Review

Domestically, among the few pioneers who show academic interest in the novel Moment in Peking, Xie Youxiang et al.(1998) firstly explores Lin Yutang’s cultural values and philosophy of life in Moment in Peking thus establishing a new angle for its research.Jiang Huimin (2012) once compares three English-to-Chinese translation versions of Moment in Peking and explores the phenomenon of “rootless back-translation” in this work;Xiao Bairong (2014) explains the family and cultural narration style of Moment in Peking from the narrative angle of trace and points out that characters in Lin Yutang’s novels are created from social model to cultural model; Also, later, Feng Zhiqiang and Pan Wenguo(2022) discuss the translation style in Moment in Peking from the aspect of compositional translatology.Those positive attempts on Lin Yutang’s English novel Moment in Peking,undoubtedly, are so encouraging.

Abroad, Huson (2016) treats Lin Yutang’s Moment in Peking Cross-cultural elements as a transmission of Culture of Social Critique; Dudásová (2015) notes on a comparative reading of Pearl Buck’s The House of Earth Trilogy and Lin Yutang's Moment in Peking,comparing and analyzing the portrayal of the Chinese people in the novels, and explores the differences in the language and narrative styles of the two authors and their underlying reasons when they face the American readers.

For all the research done domestically and abroad, regretfully, seldom did people shed the light on the relationship between the city and people in Lin Yutang’s Moment in Peking.Wang Dewei (2016) once comments that novels are essentially geographical, the creation of hometown feeling is the deep geographical construction in the text, his “People and City” (Wang, 2016) theory is so significant that many scholars begin to explore the novel from city-portrait angle.Therefore, this paper will start from the perspective of “People and City” theory, and discuss the ways Lin Yutang constructing Chinese image through his rhetorical city-portrait.

III.Portrait of Beijing: Symbolic Colors and Magnificent Imperial Capital

Yu (2015) points out that symbolism refers to the art or practice of using symbols especially by investing things with a symbolic meaning or by expressing the invisible or intangible by means of visible or sensuous representations.In Moment in Peking, by using the symbolic colors during the seasonal change in Beijing, Lin Yutang gives a vivid portrait of sublime and ideal city.

In the whole chapter 12, Lin Yutang portraits the beauty of Beijing’s scenery like this,

“ Winter in Peking is unsurpassable...with its girdle of the blue Jade River and the purple Western Hills outside...purple Western Hills outside...the sky was such a clear deep blue, the water of the Jade Spring… such a jade green,...the Western Hills… such rich lavender and purple...” (Lin, 2009: 112)

Beijing’s winter is full of colors and natural beauty everywhere, the author uses 28 words such as “unsurpassable”, “paralleled nowhere” and “unparalleled” illustrating superlative degree in this paragraph alone.He describes Beijing’s sky as “clear deep blue”,the water of the Yuquanhe River as “jade green”, and the western mountains as “rich blue”,the West Mountain is “rich lavender and purple”, therefore, the blue sky and jade-green lake give the city a beautiful natural environment.

As we know, the color of “yellow” “blue” “purple” “jade” all symbolize sublime and nobility, connoting the air of an emperor and conveying the image of a vibrant imperial capital, and the most impressive thing is that the reader can touch Lin Yutang's heartfelt praise for this beautiful and ideal city and his deepest feelings for be-loved China.

IV.Portrait of People in Beijing: Dialectal Metaphors and Unmistakable Poise

Metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them( Zhu, 2011).

Also in Chapter 12, the author talks about the beauty of the voice of the people in Beijing at the root of the Imperial City.

“The unmistakable poise and leisurely accent of speech of a Pekinese is their geniality of life...An accent is but the spiritual voice of a whole people.” (Lin, 2009: 203)

In this paragraph.The author uses “The unmistakable poise and leisurely accent” and “spiritual voice” to highlight the unique taste of life of Pekingese and their deep-rooted stability and happiness.

In Chapter 44, when writing about the fall of Beijing, dialectal metaphors are put forward for illustrating Pekingese’ calmness when facing war.

“To go shopping at a bazaar is but to kuang or “play” the bazaar, walk in the moonlight is to “play” the moonlight, dropping of a bomb from an airplane is but the “iron bird laying an egg”, to be hit by the bomb is but to “win first prize in the aviation lottery”...(Lin, 2009:535)

The author uses the “A is B” or “A is but B” type English metaphors with the notes given, and explains in detail the metaphors.These metaphors with the cultural characteristics of the Beijing dialect in the author’s article seem to be full of flirtatious tone, but in fact they vividly portray that even when the war breaks out, Beijing will be a place where the people living in peace and the people of Beijing, being kind and amiable, still have a relaxed and humorous attitude, and won’t be frightened by the chaos.

V.Portrait of China: “Mother-Tree” Similes and Determined Power

Simile is a figure of speech in which two unlike things are explicitly compared, as rhetoric is the reflection of thoughts, simile may reveal people’s ways of thinking (Guan,2011).

In Chapter 12, the author compares the vast Beijing to a thousand-year-old tree and a loving mother:

“She had grown up there and had drunk in all the richness of life of the city which enveloped its inhabitants like a great mother softly toward all her children’s request...or like a huge thousand-year-old tree in which the insects making their home in one branch did not know what the insects in the other branch were doing...” (Lin, 2009: 204)

Beijing, symbol of China, is compared to a great mother who is benevolent and generous.Here, Lin Yutang builds a beautiful image of the China as gentle and patient,peace-loving mother unruffled by danger.In addition, Beijing is also compared to a tolerant “thousand-year old tree”, with no difference between the momentary and the eternal,and the tradition of life and living will be continuous and everlasting.Thus, the image of a China full of legend and magic, full of history, has been vividly portrayed.

In portrait of Beijing, Lin Yutang tries his best to convey to the readers the cultural words that reflect the cultural heritage of China through symbolic colors, humorous dialectal metaphors and subtle similes , all of which build the image of an ancient and modern China that is both calm and receptive to the world.

VI.Rhetorical Preference and Cultural Values in Lin’s City-Portrait

Lin Yutang gave the city colors with cultural symbolism, sounds with local people,and metaphors and similes with urban characters, all of which combined to create an image of China that is “ancient but modern, calm and united, unyielding and independent”.Why does Lin Yutang show such rhetorical preference in this English novel? Besides the rhetorical preference, what kind of cultural values do the author have behind such molding?

First, as a Chinese writer who writes in English, Lin Yutang’s language reflects his rhetorical preference which takes into account the psychological characteristics of different nationalities.He once said: “The way of thinking, concepts, images and the tone of each sentence are very different between English and Chinese...” (Lin, 2008: 76).Being a linguist and writer, Lin Yutang has always acknowledged that language is unequal in expression efficiency and different in cognition.From the perspective of language, the differences between English and Chinese languages and cultures will inevitably lead to great differences in the process of writing, and the differences between Chinese and Western modes of thinking will inevitably lead to the transformation and rewriting from the surface of language to the structure in the process of writing.Lin Yutang has a clear understanding of the differences between Chinese and Western ways of thinking, therefore, in the process of portraying and narrating the characters, he prefers to use the most distinctive similes, symbolism and metaphors with Chinese cultural colors, which can also be seen as his performance of giving consideration to the psychological characteristics of English and Chinese.And, moreover, conveys his determination to spread Chinese culture to foreign readers.

Second, behind such rhetorical preference, we can find that Lin Yutang firmly bases his city-portrait on Chinese Taoist culture.“From the perspective of Taoist philosophy, the world is influenced by Yin and Yang, strong and weak, positive and negative forces” (Sun,2007: 34).Lin Yutang shows the foreign readers Chinese tragic-comic characters, which is a bit of Taoism through his novel.For him, if life is cruel, people should stay out of it and dispel it with poetic outlook.That is the reason why his novels are often permeated with some sad colors as well as filled with comic, harmonious and gentle peace.In his writing,we can feel that although the whole social environment is covered by the shadow of war, the tragic color is often resolved with a positive attitude towards life, forming a unique comedy color.Furthermore, as mentioned in Taoism, “The result will be unified in Tao, and only the way of justice is eternal” (Sun, 2007: 59).Beijing, undoubtedly in the author’s mind, is closest to the “Taoist” cultural value, no wonder that the titles in each chapters of Moment in Peking , “Zhuangzi” quotes from the Tao Te Ching as a prelude to the whole novel, be it plot, characters and events carry its own cultural colors.At the end of this novel, although China has been invaded by foreign enemies for many times, it is still a unity of nature and civilization.Invasion and chaos are relatively instantaneous compared with the whole history of mankind, so are the whole nation, by grace of obeying the law of Taoism, China will fight to the end of the war until victory.

VII.Conclusion

Edward W.Said (2007) firstly mentions conception of Orientalism in his book, which implying that when introducing Chinese culture to Western readers, writer as Lin Yutang actually obtain an “Orientalist” (Said, 2007) vision for he chooses to export the filtered and rearranged Chinese culture, by constructing the “image of China” to actively cater to the foreign readers.Actually, such assertion is lopsided.

From above analysis, we may see that in his city-portrait of Beijing, Lin Yutang seems to be a master of painting, in which colorful pictures are displays between the lines.The interweaving of the city’s warm and cold colors coincides with the change of seasons,with the war in the city and with the psychological changes of the common people of Beijing.In the description, we can see the brave and unyielding spirit of Chinese people in the face of aggression and disaster.

In fact, Lin Yutang doesn’t deliberately cater to the Western discourse hegemony in his writing.It can be said that the his rhetorical preference and culture value conveyed in Moment in Peking will not dispel the value of the whole novel, but set up a model for foreign writers, enabling Western readers to touch the otherness of languages and cultures different from their native values.Behind the rhetorical preference and culture value he convey in Moment in Peking , we can see Lin Yutang’s determination to promote Chinese culture to the West and establish a positive image of China, and furthermore, to spread Chinese wisdom around the world.