At The Scene In the middle of the street Lies a pile of broken glass There is no need to guess What just occurred This time, someone finished their drink And smashed the empty bottle on the ground A car, driving by The glass gives off a shimmer Of sound, delighting the ears 事故现场 马路中间 撒着一堆玻璃渣 不用猜测也知道 刚才发生了什么事 这时,有人喝完酒 将空瓶砸碎在地 一辆汽车驶过 玻璃渣,发出一片 悦耳的响声 From the collection Qiutian Shi Mozhong Sixiang Peizhe Wo, by Liu Jianhua, published in Chinese by Zhuhai Publishing Co., 2012. Translated here by Henry Buchtel, with help from Brodie Burris
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Lecture Tomorrow! Tradutorre, Oktosi: Qing Bodies After ‘Chinese Medicine’, Dr. Carla Nappi1/23/2013 I'm quite disappointed that work will prevent me from attending Dr. Carla Nappi's lecture tomorrow afternoon (see PDF for details), especially as it might have been my only chance at finding out what the word 'Oktosi' means. :) Dr. Nappi is a prolific scholar whose interviews with current authors in the field of East Asian Studies have introduced me to a number of valuable books exploring various aspects of East Asian medicine and history. According to the flyer, this lecture will be about: Situating the history of medicine within a broader context of empire in Chinese early modernity transforms the way we understand science and medicine in relation to a historical notion of “China.” Paying special attention to the ways that translation shaped how bodies and their norms were understood in the Qing (1644-1912), this talk will consider the ways that a medical body emerged from Manchu, Tibetan, Mongolian, Chinese, and other language practices. I have to confess that there are too many unfamiliar concepts in this abstract for me to make any sense of it; starting with the idea of a 'medical body'. I've seen this usage before, but never had a firm idea of what exactly is being referred to. Thinking as I write, it seems that it is used to refer to what a certain culture accepts to be facts regarding the physical body, as informed by that culture's medical professionals. For example, the findings of anatomical studies have played an essential role in the development of modern biomedicine's 'medical body'. In ancient China the 'medical body' was informed primarily by texts such as the Nei Jing, large portions of which cover medical topics. Now what is confusing me is 'language practices'. The Manchu, Tibetan, Mongolian, and Han peoples were four of the major cultures that made up Qing dynasty China. Each culture had its own language, certainly, but what is being referred to by saying "a Manchu language practice", for example? How much influence could the practices (?) of a certain language have on the development of a 'medical body'? And by referring to 'empire' is Dr. Nappi saying that Qing dynasty China was an empire, rather than a nation? Is the reference to 'Chinese Medicine' in the title talking about the gathering together of disparate traditions into the single field called 'Chinese medicine' in response to the arrival of 'Western medicine' (and culture) in the late Qing? And what the heck does 'oktosi' mean??!! So many questions...if anybody who attends the lecture or who is familiar with these concepts can enlighten me here, please comment away! :) Yesterday I attended a talk by Dr. Pierce Salguero of Penn. State University, part of a series of talks on Chinese medicine organized by Yi-Li Wu and Miranda Brown at the University of Michigan. Professor Salguero started his talk by showing a map of Eurasia, and introduced the term ‘Indo-European Humoral Medicine’, which he uses to describe the common elements between ancient Indian, Greek, and Roman (and to some extent Persian) medical traditions, all of which recognized the four elements of earth, fire, water, and wind, as well as humors such as bile, phlegm, and blood. These ancient cultures were in close communication with each other and shared medical theories. An independent and distinct style of medicine was developing on the other side of Eurasia: Classical Chinese medicine, as exemplified by the 2nd century C.E. text 《黃帝內經》(Yellow Emperor's Internal Classic). This was the medicine of “qi, yin-yang, and the five phases”, a conceptual framework quite distinct from that of ‘humoral medicine’. These two distinct medicines were isolated from each other until the ‘waking up’ of the silk roads (including both land and sea routes), and by the 3rd century C.E. there was widespread communication via these routes. Professor Salguero’s research focuses on the exchange of medical information and practices that were transferred across the silk road networks in the first millennium C.E. He has observed a close relationship between Buddhism and the medical information (goods, items) that was traded throughout this region; with Buddhism acting either as the vehicle for this information, or the inspiration for the transfer of this information. The medical exchanges included medicinal herbs, texts, rituals and deities, and even living individuals who traveled great distances along the silk road and were recorded as having great healing powers in texts of that time. It was during this ‘medieval’ period that the Chinese medicine pharmacopeia exploded – from 365 herbs in the original material medica 《神農本草經》(The Divine Husbander's Herbal Foundation Canon) to thousands of herbs by the Tang dynasty (618-906 C.E.). Much of Professor Salguero’s research has focused on textual exchange during this period – the translation of Sanskrit texts into Chinese. Some of these texts were clearly efforts to integrate foreign knowledge into the pre-existing local understanding of the body, by using qi, yin-yang, and the five phases to make the foreign concepts more understandable to a local audience. There are also examples of popular accounts of Buddhist healers rewritten to match the style of similar stories in Chinese literature. However, other texts clearly try to ‘foreignize’ the material by drawing a distinction between local concepts and the foreign concepts that the author is trying to introduce. Still other texts include both foreignizing and domesticating elements: for example a two-part conversation between a Buddhist and an interlocutor in which a request for information about a particular concept is answered with very foreign sounding explanation, followed by another request for clarification that is responded to in a way that is more familiar. Professor Salguero gave the following example for the translation of the term dhāranī, which is a type of incantation used in Buddhist rituals: The term might be introduced using the Chinese characters 陀羅尼, which is simply a phonetic equivalent (“tuoluoni” in modern pinyin) that sounds similar to the Sanskrit term and doesn’t actually mean anything in Chinese. The first request for an explanation might be met by with the Chinese term 總持, which literally means ‘comprehensively grasp’. This is a type of translation known as a calque, which is a literal translation of the root(s) of the original term. Although this term does mean something in Chinese, it is unlikely that the reader would understand how this term is used; the interlocutor asks for clarification, and lastly the term is explained using the Chinese character 咒, or 神咒. This would be very familiar, as it is a term that had been used for centuries even before Buddhism was introduced to China to refer to magic spells or magic incantations as used by Daoists or others. At this point the interlocutor (and the reader) would have a fairly complete understanding of the original Buddhist concept. There were several other topics covered in this talk, as well as many others brought up during the Q&A period at the end, but in order to keep this post to a reasonable length I will leave those for later posts! I had heard the story of Bian Que (a famous healer in ancient Chinese history) and his not-so-famous brothers several times in oral form, and always wanted to see the original. Recently while doing a little light reading (Science & Civilization in China, Vol. VI:6) I came across this translation of the original story, which first appeared in the Warring States period text《鹖冠子》. Note that Needham uses the Yale romanization of 扁鹊 - Pien Chhüeh Phang Hsüan said to the king of Cho-hsiang, ‘Have you not heard that Duke Wên of Wei asked the great physician, Pien Chhüeh , “of your three brothers, which is the best physician?” Pien Chhüeh answered “The eldest is the best, then the second, and I am the least worthy of the three.” Duke Wên said, “Might I hear about this?” Pien Chhüeh replied, “My eldest brother, in dealing with diseases, is attentive to the spirit (shên). Before [any symptoms] have formed, he has already got rid of it. Thus his fame has never reached beyond our own clan. My next brother treats disease when its signs are most subtle, so his name is unknown beyond our own village. As for myself, I use stone needles on the blood vessels, prescribe strong drugs, and fortify the skin and the flesh. Thus my name has become known among all the feudal lords.” ’ Here is the translated passage in (traditional) Chinese, copied from the Chinese Text Project page linked above: 煖曰:「王獨不聞魏文王之問扁鵲耶?曰:『子昆弟三人其孰最善為醫?』扁鵲曰:『長兄最善,中兄次之,扁鵲最為下。』魏文侯曰:『可得聞邪?』扁鵲曰:『長兄於病視神,未有形而除之,故名不出於家。中兄治病,其在毫毛,故名不出於閭。若扁鵲者,鑱血脈,投毒藥,副肌膚,閒而名出聞於諸侯。』 A few thoughts:
HOT DOG I have a hot dog for a pet, The only kind my folks would let Me get. He does smell sort of bad And yet, He absolutely never gets The sofa wet. We have a butcher for a vet, The strangest vet you ever met. Guess we're the weirdest family yet, To have a hot dog for a pet. 热狗 我的宠物是热狗, 爸妈只准我养 这种狗。 闻起来确实有点臭, 但绝不会尿得沙发 湿透透。 我们的兽医是个屠夫, 没有比他便怪的人物。 说到怪还是我们家最奇怪, 竟然养热狗当宠物。 Poem by Shel Silverstein Translation by 鄭小芸 Thoughts:
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