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Lin Yutang

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:

Lin Yutang

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(born Oct. 10, 1895, Longxi, Fujian province, China — died March 26, 1976, Hong Kong) Chinese writer. The son of a Presbyterian minister, he studied in the U.S. and Europe. In 1932 he established a highly successful Western-style satirical magazine of a type totally new to China; soon he introduced two other publications. A prolific writer of works in Chinese and English, he produced his first English-language book, My Country and My People, in 1935. From 1936 he lived chiefly in the U.S. His other works include The Wisdom of China and India (1942), books on Chinese history and philosophy, and highly acclaimed English translations of Chinese literary masterpieces.

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Gale Encyclopedia of Biography:

Lin Yutang

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Chinese writer, philosopher, translator, and poet, Lin Yutang (1895 - 1976), wrote more than 35 books in English and Chinese, and brought the classics of Chinese literature to western readers.

In 1919, at the age of 23, he received a half - tuition scholarship to attend Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He married at this time and moved with his wife to the United States. At Harvard he worked toward his doctorate in comparative literature and counted literary scholar and editor Bliss Perry and humanist Irving Babbitt as his professors. Next to T.S. Eliot, Lin has been called the most influential of Babbitt's students. Lin was perhaps the only writer to feature Babbitt in one of his own poems, having mentioned him in "Autobiographical Poem of the Author at Forty," written in Chinese, and again forty years later in his Memoirs of an Octogenarian.

Lin did not finish his degree at Harvard; instead he moved to Le Creusot, France, to study with other Chinese and to work for the Young Men's Christian Academy (YMCA), teaching Chinese laborers to read and write. In 1921 he was accepted at the University of Jena in Leipzig, Germany, where he finally completed his doctorate. Lin returned to China to teach for thirteen years. He was a professor of English literature at the University of Beijing from 1923 - 1926, and served as Dean at Amoy University in 1926.

Participated in the Literary Revolution

The event known as the May Fourth Movement ushered in a new perspective on Chinese culture and literature. On May 4, 1919, students and intellectuals demonstrated in Beijing, calling for a sense of nationalism, anti - imperialism, and linguistic reform. Lin, part of the latter movement, favored abolishing the old, formal Chinese writing style in favor of everyday vernacular. He also supported expressionism and following one's own beliefs.

Two literary groups evolved during this time - those who maintained that literature was a vehicle for morality plays and government propaganda, and the likes of Lin, who believed literature should reflect personal experiences. He supported realism and humanitarianism in literature.

Lin's desire for literary reinvention carried through his academic life. Around 1924, he was one of the first writers to turn to the new, popular writing form of essays. Considered one the best known essayists, he contributed to the influential magazine Yü Ssu. Lin wrote satirical and critical essays filled with sarcasm about government inefficiency and corruption, and wrote rebellious essays that encouraged independent thinking.

Lin had written in an article that appeared in the publication, Random Talks. As quoted in Lai Ming's A History of Chinese Literature, he said, "All independent thinking persons who honestly hold their personal opinions will, at some time or other, become abusive. But this abusiveness is exactly what upholds the dignity of scholars. The scholar who never criticizes anything, only loses his self."

Eventually, those in power noticed Lin's writings, and warlord "Dog - Meat" General Zhang Zongchang chased him out of Beijing. In 1926, Lin fled with his family back to Amoy where he took a position at Amoy University, then served as a secretary to the foreign ministry with the Wuhan Nationalist Government at Hankou.

Established Popular Satirical Magazines

Lin did not lose his love of self - expression in his essay writing and delved into publishing journals and magazines that accepted new writers. In 1930, Lin and a few colleagues started the China Critic, written in English, that focused on political and social issues. This journal attracted western scholars, and commentaries in the New York Times discussed Lin's writings.

In 1932, Lin established The Analects Fortnightly, a western - style satirical magazine that encouraged individuality. It was an instant success, spurring Lin to start This Human World and Cosmic Wind in 1934 and 1936, respectively. These magazines featured contemporary writing that celebrated the human spirit and everyday pleasures.

Chinese peer Chou Tso - jen and western writers Benedetto Croce and Joel Elias Spingarn influenced Lin. He sometimes drew criticism for his lack of intellectual standards in creating serious modern literature, preferring instead to write about personal experiences and whimsical topics such as the joys of smoking a pipe. Nevertheless, in 1936, in the face of imminent Japanese aggression toward China during World War II, Lin joined others in issuing a Manifesto of the Literary Circle advocating for writers to stand together against suppression of free speech.

Published His First English Book

In China, Lin developed a friendship with American author Pearl S. Buck, who wrote the critically acclaimed novel, The Good Earth. At her encouragement, Lin decided to write a book in English about China specifically for western readers. In 1935, he published My Country and My People, an unashamed, and intimate portrayal of the Chinese people and mindset. The book was translated into numerous languages, and made Lin the first Chinese author to reach the top of the New York Times best - seller list.

Lin moved to the United States settling in New York after publishing My Country and My People. He followed in 1937 with his witty The Importance of Living, a precursor to the modern "self - help" book filled with philosophical observations, which also landed on the national best - seller list throughout 1938. Lin, who had become less influential among Chinese writers, had nonetheless become an international success, with his English translations of Chinese texts, historical accounts, and novels. He was a prolific writer for the next 30 years.

Lin saw himself as a "world citizen," an ambassador who brought Chinese culture to the west, and who encouraged communication between east and west. His Famous Chinese Short Stories Retold was a highly acclaimed translation of Chinese classical literature. Lin also gained notoriety for creating a new method of Romanizing the Chinese language and indexing Chinese characters.

Lin, forever an advocate for enjoyment of life, had a reputation for loafing, encouraging the pursuit of leisure, comfort, food, smoking, and relaxation. The Importance of Living contains observations of life's simple pleasures and spiritual happiness. His many philosophical quotes in the book include: "If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live," and "The most bewildering thing about man is his idea of work and the amount of work he imposes upon himself, or civilization has imposed upon him. All nature loafs, while man alone works for a living."

Visited China for the Last Time

In 1939, Lin published Moment in Peking, a novel that follows the lives of two Chinese families over 40 years. His 1942, The Wisdom of China and India, further explored Chinese humanism. Between Tears and Laughter, written during World War II, was Lin's bitter plea for the west to change its perspective of the world order. In that book he wrote: "The white man's mission has become a paradox and a boomerang. The white man gave the yellow man the Bible and guns. He should have given him the Bible, which he himself has no use for, and kept from him the guns that he himself used most expertly."

Lin returned to China for a few brief trips during the war. He and his family once survived a Japanese raid. He published Vigil of a Nation in 1944, an ambitious diary of war and societal upheaval he witnessed in his homeland. After another brief trip back to China in 1954, he returned to the United States, never to visit mainland China again.

Lin remained a staunch anticommunist, further alienating him from China. For his novel Looking Beyond, 1955, he presented a utopian view of life, emphasizing his themes of hedonistic pursuits such as wine, women, and food. Despite avowing the Taoism doctrine of pleasurable pursuits, in 1959, Lin publicly renounced his "paganism" and returned to the Christianity of his youth.

During the 1960s he translated and edited Chinese texts, and wrote several more novels. In 1973 he published a Chinese - English dictionary, and in 1975 he wrote his Memoirs of an Octogenarian. Lin was nominated in 1975 for the Nobel Prize in Literature. In his later years, he lived in Taiwan and in Hong Kong, where his daughters worked. Lin died at 80 in Hong Kong on March 26, 1976, of heart failure after suffering pneumonia. He is buried in Yangmingshan, Taipei, Taiwan.

Books

Hsia, Chih - Tsing, A History of Modern Chinese Fiction: 1917 - 1957, Yale University Press, New York, 1961.

Ming, Lai A History of Chinese Literature, John Day Company, New York, 1964.

Periodicals

Modern Age, Fall 1999.

Online

Murray, Ryan M., Thesis: "Lighting a Candle and Cursing the Darkness: A Brief Biography of Lin Yutang," December 10, 1999, http://www.g8ina.enta.net/lin.htm (December 15, 2004).

Qian, Suoqiao, "The Two - Way Process in the Age of Globalization: Lin Yutang's Masterpiece," City University of Hong Kong, http://www.cityu.edu.hk/ccs/Newsletter/newsletter4/Masterpiece/master.htm (December 15, 2004).

Warring States Sinology, Lin Yutang, www.umass.edu/wsp/sinology/persons/lin.html (December 15, 2004).

Columbia Encyclopedia:

Lin Yutang

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Lin Yutang (lĭn yü'täng'), 1895-1976, Chinese-American writer, translator, and editor, b. Lunqi, Fujian, educated in China and at Harvard, Ph.D. Univ. of Leipzig, 1923. Lin spent most of his life in the United States and wrote most of his many works in English. His nonfictional books include My Country and My People (1935); A Leaf in the Storm (1941), about war-torn China; Between Tears and Laughter (1943), and The Pleasures of a Nonconformist (1962). Among his novels are Chinatown Family (1948) and The Flight of the Innocents (1965). He translated and edited The Chinese Theory of Art (1968).

Bibliography

See his Memoirs of an Octogenarian (1980).

Houghton Mifflin Chronology of US Literature:

Works by Lin Yutang

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(1895-1976)

1948A Chinatown Family. The prolific writer, editor, and lexicographer's only novel about the Chinese American experience traces the rise to prosperity of the Fong family during the 1930s and the conflict between assimilation and upholding traditional values.

Wikipedia on Answers.com:

Lin Yutang

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This is a Chinese name; the family name is Lin (林).
Lin Yutang
Linyutang.jpg
Lin Yutang, photographed by
Carl Van Vechten, 1939
Traditional Chinese 林語堂
Simplified Chinese 林语堂

Lin Yutang (October 10, 1895 – March 26, 1976) was a Chinese writer and inventor. His informal but polished style in both Chinese and English made him one of the most influential writers of his generation, and his compilations and translations of classic Chinese texts into English were bestsellers in the West.

Contents

Youth

Lin was born in the town of Banzai, Pinghe, Zhangzhou, Fujian. This mountainous region made a deep impression on his consciousness, and thereafter he would constantly consider himself a child of the mountains (in one of his books he commented that his idea of hell was a city apartment). His father was a Christian minister. His journey of faith from Christianity to Taoism and Buddhism, and back to Christianity in his later life was recorded in his book From Pagan to Christian (1959).

Academic career and Shanghai intellectual world

Lin studied for his bachelor's degree at Saint John's University in Shanghai, then received a half-scholarship to continue study for a doctoral degree at Harvard University. He later wrote that in the Widener Library he first found himself and first came alive, but he never saw a Harvard-Yale game.[1] He left Harvard early however, moving to work with the Chinese Labor Corps in France and eventually to Germany, where he completed his requirements for a doctoral degree in Chinese philology at the University of Leipzig. From 1923 to 1926 he taught English literature at Peking University.

Enthusiastic about the success of the Northern Expedition, he briefly served in the new Nationalist government, but soon turned to teaching and writing. He found himself in the wake of the New Culture Movement which criticized China's tradition as feudal and harmful. Instead of accepting this charge, however, Lin immersed himself in the Confucian texts and literary culture which his Christian upbringing and English language education had denied him. He maintained friendship and debate with Hu Shi, Lu Xun, and Zhou Zuoren, key figures in the Shanghai literary scene of the 1930s. He was a key figure in founding journals and introducing the Western concept of humor, which he felt China had lacked. His writings in Chinese were critical of the Nationalist government, to the point that he feared for his life. Many of his essays from this time were later collected in With Love and Irony (1940). In 1933, he met Pearl Buck in Shanghai, and she introduced him and his writings to her publisher, Richard Walsh, head of John Day publishers, who published Lin's works for many years. [2]

Career after leaving China

After 1935 Lin lived mainly in the United States, where he became known as a "wise and witty" popularizer of Chinese philosophy and way of life. Lin's first best sellers were My Country and My People (simplified Chinese: 吾国与吾民; traditional Chinese: 吾國與吾民) (1935) and The Importance of Living (simplified Chinese: 生活的艺术; traditional Chinese: 生活的藝術) (1937), written in English in a charming style. Others include Between Tears and Laughter (啼笑皆非) (1943), The Importance of Understanding (1960, a book of translated Chinese literary passages and short pieces), The Chinese Theory of Art (1967). The novels Moment in Peking (simplified Chinese: 京华烟云; traditional Chinese: 京華煙雲) (1939), A Leaf in the Storm (1940), and The Vermillion Gate (simplified Chinese: 朱门; traditional Chinese: 朱門) (1953) were well received epics of China in turmoil, while Chinatown Family (1948) presented the lives of Chinese Americans in New York. Partly to avoid controversial contemporary issues, Lin in 1947 published The Gay Genius: The Life and Times of Su Tungpo which presented the struggle between Su Dongpo and Wang Anshi as parallel to the struggle between Chinese liberals and totalitarian communists.

Lin's political writings in English sold fewer copies and were more controversial. Between Tears and Laughter (1943) broke with the genial tone of his earlier English writings to criticize Western racism and imperialism. After Pearl Harbor, Lin traveled in China and wrote favorably of the war effort and Chiang Kai-shek in Vigil of a Nation (1944), and was criticized by American China Hands such as Edgar Snow. [3]

Ming Kwai Typewriter

He was interested in mechanics. Since Chinese is a character-based rather than an alphabet-based language, with many thousands of separate characters, it has always been difficult to employ modern printing technologies. For many years it was doubted that a Chinese typewriter could be invented. Lin, however, worked on this problem for decades and eventually came up with a workable typewriter—brought to market in the middle of the war with Japan. He also invented and patented several lesser inventions such as a toothbrush with toothpaste dispensing.

He was nominated and served briefly as president (or chancellor) of the Nanyang University created in Singapore specifically for Chinese studies complementary to the English-oriented University of Singapore. He did not, however, choose to continue in that role when Nanyang (South Seas) University became a focus of the struggle for control of Singapore between the Communist-directed left and the liberal, social democratic right. He felt he was too old for the conflict.

With his unique facility for both Chinese and English idiom, Lin presided over the compilation of an outstanding Chinese-English dictionary, Lin Yutang's Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Usage (simplified Chinese: 林语堂当代汉英词典; traditional Chinese: 林語堂當代漢英詞典) (1972), which contains a massive English index to definitions of Chinese terms. The work was undertaken in Hong Kong, where Lin served for a time at the newly founded Chinese University of Hong Kong.

His many works represent an attempt to bridge the cultural gap between the East and the West. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature several times in the 1970s.[1]

Dr. Lin was buried at his home in Yangmingshan, Taipei, Taiwan. His home has been turned into a museum, which is operated by Taipei-based Soochow University. The town of Lin's birth, Banzai, has also preserved the original Lin home and turned it into a museum.

Family

His wife, Lin TsuiFeng (林翠鳳), was an author, who, along with her daughter Lin Hsiang Ju, wrote three cookery books which popularized Chinese cuisinein the English speaking world. Dr. Lin wrote introductions which explained the historical background and relevance for American life.

His first daughter Adet Lin (林鳳如) (1923–1971) was an author who also used the pseudonym Tan Yun.

His second daughter Lin TaiYi (林太乙) (1926–2003) was also known as Anor Lin in her earliest writing, and had the Chinese name 玉如. She was an author and the general editor of Chinese Reader's Digest from 1965 until her retirement in 1988. She also wrote a biography of her father in Chinese (林語堂傳), which shows some signs of her father's literary flair.

His third daughter Lin HsiangJu (林相如) (1931-), was referred to as MeiMei in childhood. She was co-author of cookbooks with her mother, and was a biochemist at Queen Mary hospital in Hong Kong.

The daughters all had names containing the character 如 (Ju): Adet 鳳如, Anor 玉如, and HsiangJu 相如.

Works in Chinese or published in China to 1935

(courtesy Lin Yutang House [1])

  • (1928) Jian Fu Collection (Shangha: Bei Hsin Book Company)
  • (1930) Letters of a Chinese Amazon and Wartime Essays (Shanghai : Kaiming
  • (1930) Kaiming English Books (Three Volumes) (Shanghai: Kaiming )
  • (1930) English Literature Reader (Two Volumes)(Shanghai: Kaiming )
  • (1930) Kaiming English Grammar (Two Volumes)(Shanghai: Kaiming )
  • (1931) Reading in Modern Journalistic Prose(Shanghai Oriental Book)
  • (1933) A Collection of Essays on Linguistics(Shanghai: Kaiming Book
  • (1934) Da Huang Ji (Shanghai: Living)
  • (1934) My Words First Volume (Sing Su Ji)(Shanghai Times .
  • (1935) Kaiming English Materials (Three Volumes) co-written by Lin Yutang and Lin you-ho (Shanghai: Oriental Book Co.)
  • (1935) The Little Critic: Essays Satires and Sketches on China First Series: 1930-1932(Shanghai The Oriental Book Co.)
  • (1935) The Little Critic: Essays Satires and Sketches on China' Second Series: 1933-1935(Shanghai:The Oriental Book Co.)
  • (1935) Confucius Saw Nancy and Essays about Nothing (Shanghai: Oriental)
  • (1936) My Words Second Volume (Pi Jing Ji)(Shanghai Times)

Works in English by Lin Yutang

  • (1935) My Country and My People, Reynal & Hitchcock, Inc., (A John Day Book)
  • (1936) A History of the Press and Public Opinion in China, Kelly and Walsh
  • (1937) The Importance of Living, Reynal & Hitchcock, Inc., (A John Day Book)
  • (1938) The Wisdom of Confucius, Random House, The Modern Library
  • (1939) Moment in Peking, The John Day Book Company
  • (1940) With Love & Irony, A John Day Book Company
  • (1940) Leaf in the Storm, A John Day Book Company
  • (1942) The Wisdom of China and India, Random House
  • (1943) Between Tears & Laughter, A John Day Book Company
  • (1944) The Vigil of a Nation, A John Day Book Company
  • (1945) Between Tears and Laughter, written during World War II, as a bitter plea for the west to change its perspective of the world order. Published in London by Dorothy Crisp & Co Ltd.
  • (1947) The Gay Genius: The Life and Times of Su Tungpo, A John Day Book Company
  • (1948) Chinatown Family, A John Day Book Company
  • (1948) The Wisdom of Laotse, Random House
  • (1950) On the Wisdom of America, A John Day Book Company
  • (1951) Widow, Nun and Courtesan: Three Novelettes From the Chinese Translated and Adapted by Lin Yutang, A John Day Book Company
  • (1952) Famous Chinese Short Stories, retold by Lin Yutang, The John Day Book Company, reprinted 1952, Washington Square Press
  • (1953) The Vermilion Gate, A John Day Book Company
  • (1955) Looking Beyond, Prentice Hall (Published in England as The Unexpected island, Heinemann)
  • (1957) Lady Wu, World Publishing Company
  • (1958) The Secret Name, Farrar, Straus and Cudahy
  • (1959) The Chinese Way of Life, World Publishing Company
  • (1959) From Pagan to Christian, World Publishing Company
  • (1960) Imperial Peking: Seven Centuries of China, Crown Publishers
  • (1960) The Importance of Understanding, World Publishing Company
  • (1961) The Red Peony, World Publishing Company
  • (1962) The Pleasure of a Nonconformist, World Publishing Company
  • (1963) Juniper Loa, World Publishing Company
  • (1964) The Flight of Innocents, G. P. Putnam's Sons
  • (1973) Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Usage, Hong Kong Chinese University

Works in English by Lin TsuiFeng & Lin HsiangJu (wife & third daughter)

  • (1956) Cooking with the Chinese Flavor, Prentice Hall
  • (1960) Secrets of Chinese Cooking, Prentice Hall
  • (1972) Chinese Gastronomy, Pyramid Publications; 1977 reprint: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (introduction by Dr. Lin Yutang)
  • (1996) The Art of Chinese Cuisine, Tuttle (a retitled edition of 1972 Chinese Gastronomy)

Works in English by Adet Lin (first daughter)

  • (1939) Our Family with Anor Lin (New York: John Day).
  • (1941) Dawn over Chungking with Anor and MeiMei (HsiangJu) Lin (New York: John Day).
  • (1943) "Flame from the Rock" (New York: John Day).
  • (1961) "The Milky Way and Other Chinese Folk Tales" (New York: Harcourt Brace).

Works in English by Lin TaiYi (Anor Lin) (second daughter)

  • (1939) Our Family with Adet Lin. (New York: John Day).
  • (1941) Dawn over Chungking with Adet and MeiMei (HsiangJu) Lin. (New York: John Day, rpr. Da Capo, 1975 ).
  • (1943) War Tide (New York: John Day).
  • (1946) The Golden Coin (New York: John Day).
  • (1959) The Eavesdropper (Cleveland: World).
  • (1960) The Lilacs Overgrow (Cleveland: World).
  • (1964) Kampoon Street (Cleveland,: World).
  • (1965) translated, Li Ju-chen Flowers in the Mirror (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965).

Further reading

  • Suoqiao Qian. Liberal Cosmopolitan: Lin Yutang and Middling Chinese Modernity. Leiden: Brill, Ideas and History Series, 2011. 271p. ISBN 9789004192133.


See also

Blessing message.svg Christianity in China portal

References

  1. ^ a b E. Bruce Brooks, "Sinologists: Lin Yutang"
  2. ^ Qian Suoqiao,Compiled and edited with an Introduction, Selected Bilingual Essays of Lin Yutang '《林语堂双语文選》 (Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010; Liberal Cosmopolitan: Lin Yutang and Middling Chinese Modernity. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011
  3. ^ “Representing China: Lin Yutang vs. American ‘China Hands’ in the 1940s,” Journal of American-East Asian Relations Vol. 17, No. 2 (2010) (99-117)

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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 1994-2012 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
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