December 2023
Editorial Preface
Articles
King of Kings of China
Central Asian Political Imagination After the Fall of the Tang
As a reaction to the fall of the Tang dynasty (618–907), the kings of Khotan, a Middle Iranian-speaking oasis state in Central Asia, adopted Tang-style clothing, employed Chinese reign names, incorporated Chinese official titles in their government, and claimed to be “king of kings of China.” In this article, I uncover this previously overlooked story of Central Asian political imagination through an analysis of multilingual (Chinese, Khotanese, and Tibetan) excavated documents and mural paintings from Dunhuang caves. Unlike many other self-styled Tang successors in eastern Eurasia in the tenth century, the Khotanese kings’ claim is unique in its narrow adoption of the Tang legacy as first and foremost an imperial political apparatus. By creatively combining the Khotanese exogenous view of “China” with the understandings of Han, Tang, and zhongguo (central state) in their political language, the Khotanese kings crafted a uniquely non-dynastic way of imagining what “China” could mean.
唐朝滅亡之後,中亞的于闐國王開始著漢式服飾,用漢文年號紀年,並在其政府中採用唐宋時期的一些官職。從于闐文材料可知,于闐國王甚至曾經號稱”震旦王中之王”。本文通過對多語言文獻的討論,揭示出這一段在中亞政治傳統中,對於中國王權的重新想象。
(Early) Modern Forms of Chinese Literary Play
Database, Interface, and Iconic Characters in Outlaws of the Marsh and Gensō Suikoden
The Ming-dynasty novel Outlaws of the Marsh famously tells the tale of 108 heroes who band together to fight official corruption from their hideout in the marshes of Mount Liang. In the sixteenth-century novel, these characters are firmly embedded in a narrative that poses the initial assembly and final disbanding of this group of heroes as inevitable. But can we also think of these characters outside of the necessity of plot and the demands of fate? This paper examines these questions through one of the most popular remediations of Outlaws, the Konami-produced Japanese video game series Gensō Suikoden. To do so, this study draws on terms often associated with contemporary digital culture—database, interface, and algorithm—to question our assumptions about the novel, in particular the way we have prioritized the structure of plot over the charismatic attraction of characters, whether as individuals or as a group of 108.
《水滸傳》中的一百單八好漢誕生於宋江起義的曆史背景以及明代的章回小說。但於古代讀者而言,他們的人格魅力不局限於此。本文著眼於日本電子遊戲 《幻想水滸傳》,通過現代數字文化來分析明代小說,解讀其中獨立於故事情節的特點進而探討如何看待人物形象。
Stop the Presses!
Publishing Chinese Character Simplification, 1935–1936
Simplified Chinese characters (jiantizi) were first implemented as official policy under the Nationalist government of the Republic of China in late 1935. Less than four months later, in early 1936, the policy was rescinded. Existing historiography emphasizes the role of conservative political opposition in simplification’s demise. However, the practical difficulties of simplification must also be considered. While promulgating simplification, the government also mandated the use of new phonetic annotations (zhuyin fuhao) in pedagogical publications. These two simultaneous demands on publishing companies imposed costs that neither the industry nor the government was willing to bear. Based on previously overlooked archival documents, along with examinations of the financial positions of the leading publishing firms and the national budget of China at the time, I argue that simplification’s failure should be attributed not only to political opposition but also to the material and economic constraints on the companies responsible for its implementation.
1935 年國民政府實施漢字簡化政策,但旋即撤消。歷史學家迄今強調政治力對此政策導致的影響,而忽略物質因素。當時政府要求全國教育出版物需標明注音,致使印刷成本爆增。本文將根據官方檔案和出版業財務數據,論證漢字簡化政策的失敗除因政治因素,經濟面受限為另一主因。