What do the First Opium War (1839-42), the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05), World War I (1914-18), the Irish Civil War (1922-23) and the Chinese Civil War (1927-36 and 1945-49) have in common?
Aside from the apparent bloodshed, these events coincided with the gradual ascendancy of William Shakespeare in China. Well, not exactly the man--he was around from 1564-1616--but his literary works.
While many slaughtered their own kind in the pursuit of their country’s respective political interests, some in China busied themselves in making the actor, poet and playwright from Stratford-upon-Avon, England, familiar to the Chinese people.
Britain illegally exported opium to China in the 18th century, and Lin Zexu, a scholar and senior official during the Qing (Manchu) Dynasty (1644 to 1911/12), detested the opium trade and did everything under his power to end it, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica.
According to Wm. Theodore de Bary’s “Sources of East Asian Tradition, Volume 2: The Modern Period” (2008), Lin “made strenuous efforts” such as the translations of materials, books and newspapers “to gather information about the West.”
He commissioned the Chinese translation of Scottish geographer Hugh Murray’s “Encyclopedia of Geography, a Description of the Earth, physical, statistical, civil, and political” (1832) in 1840, which resulted in “Sizhou zhi,” according to James M. Polachek’s “The Inner Opium War” (1991).
The “Sizhou zhi” or “Gazetteer of Four Continents” (1840) mentioned Shakespeare as one of the Elizabethan poets, according to Meng Xianqiang’s “The Reception of Shakespeare in China: A Historical Overview” (2002).
As early as the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the formal study of Shakespeare was introduced in China within the four walls of a classroom.
Reverend Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky, Bishop of the American Episcopal Church (1877-1883) in Shanghai, founded St. John’s University (1879-1952) in the city where Shakespeare was part of the curriculum, according to Alexander Cheng-Yuan Huang’s “Chinese Shakespeares: Two Centuries of Cultural Exchange” (2009).
The students performed in English the trial scene of “The Merchant of Venice” in 1896. In another institute, in 1935, the administrators of the National Drama School in Jiang’an, Sichuan Province, required their students to be involved in a Shakespeare production before allowing them to graduate, wrote Huang.
The Western author’s works became more familiar when “The Mysterious Stories of the English Poet” (1904) came out. It was the Chinese translation of Charles and Mary Lamb’s “Tales from Shakespeare” (1807) through the joined efforts of Lin Shu and Wa Lei, both translators.
Of course, plays are basically meant to be seen and heard.
Wang Guo Ren adapted “Hamlet” under the title, “Murdering His Brother and Marrying His Sister-in-Law.” The Ya An Sichuan Opera Troupe staged it in Sichuan Province “in the form of Sichuan opera” in 1914, according to Zhang Xiao Yang’s “Shakespeare in China: A Comparative Study of Two Traditions and Cultures” (1996).
It was the first Shakespeare play to be interpreted through a Chinese opera.
Playwright and poet Tian Han translated “Hamlet” into Chinese. It became the play’s first full-length Chinese translation, which appeared in book form in Young China Association Series in 1922, according to Li Ruru’s essay, “Hamlet in China: Translation, Interpretation and Performance” (2010).
Actor-director Li Pingqian, co-founder of Shenzhou Film Company (1924-27), and writer-director Qiu Yixiang directed for the Shanghai-based Tianyi Film Company (1925-1939) the silent movie, “The Woman Lawyer,” an adaptation of “The Merchant of Venice,” according to The Chinese Mirror, a site about Chinese film history. This first Shakespeare film in China premiered on May 29, 1927 at the Palace Theater in Shanghai.
Essayist and literary critic Liang Shiqiu published 40 volumes of Shakespeare’s works--the first complete Chinese translation--in 1967, according to “Chinese Shakespeares.”
Come the 21st century, Liu Bingshan, a professor, compiled “Shakespeare Dictionary for Chinese Students” (2002).
Recently, new Shakespeare collections surfaced.
According to China.org, Beijing-based China International Publishing Group released the Chinese editions of Shakespeare’s tragedies on April 14.
Some eight years in the making involving more than 20 Chinese translators, the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press in Beijing published the 39-volume “William Shakespeare: Complete Works” (2016), reported China Daily on April 27.
This month, the Chinese and people across the globe commemorated the 400th death anniversary (April 23) of Shakespeare.