Abstract
Reviews 277 his worthless life is saved, first by the blood ofdie tenant farmer Baldy, transfused following a near-fatal car accident, and then by the milk ofBaldy's wife, drunk as a tonic. Throughout, Guanguan retains his contempt for the peasant classes and relishes the brutality with which Baldy is publicly executed. Like his contemporaries Shen Congwen and Qian Zhongshu, Wu forsook literary creation for scholarly pursuits following the communist victory in 1949. Though a significant contributor to the literature of the republican period, Wu did not amass a sufficient body ofoutstanding work to qualify as a leading figure. Still, he has received less attention than he merits; this study, enriched by interviews with die audior and readings ofhis diaries, goes a long way toward redressing the balance for Western readers. Richard King Canadian Embassy, Beijing Mm Nigel Wiseman, with Ken Boss, translators and compilers. Glossary of Chinese Medical Terms and Acupuncture Points. Brookline, Massachusetts: Paradigm Publications, 1990. Ix, 477 pp. Hardcover $55.00. The translation oftechnical terminology from one language to another is often problematic, but when the translation also crosses fields with different conceptual and ontological origins, the difficulties are even greater. In the specific case at hand, die translation of Chinese terms used in traditional Chinese medicine into English , there are even more problems because the Chinese terminology often retains deep historical meaning for which there is no equivalent in modern English. The challenge to the translator, then, is to find ways to render Chinese medical terms into modern English which preserve the historicity ofthe Chinese meaning and do not add contemporary Western (or, for that matter, Chinese) concepts in the process. For example, when a Chinese physician, trained in Western medicine, writes about lung cancer today, he or she would likely use the term Hu (^), which Wiseman and Boss render simply as "tumor." The vernacular use in English of this Latin term is imprecise: is it simply a "swelling," a lump on the body, or a , TT . clinically malignant or benign "neoplasm"? In current Western medical usage,© 1995 by University° ° ofHawaiiPresshowever, "tumor" is usuallyrestricted to the last range ofmeanings. On the other hand, in anotiier current medical source, Dictionary ofTraditional Chinese Medicine , edited by Beijing Medical College (San Francisco: China Books and Periodi- 278 China Review International: Vol. 2, No. 1, Spring 1995 cals, 1985), "cancer," the modem Western equivalent for "malignant neoplasm" is given by the term yan (^), which Wiseman and Boss render as "rock." In common usage yan might mean "a cliffor crag," a meaning related to "rock." Indeed, in Western medicine, a descriptive term often applied to a palpable tumor (i.e., swelling) is "stony" or "rockyhard" (usually interpreted as a sign of"malignancy"). The modern Chinese writer may make choices which reflect his or her conceptual framework (perhaps Hu for those trained in Western medicine and yan for those trained in Traditional medicine). The translator of such modern texts must somehow be sensitive to diis kind of context; the translator of older texts faces even more difficulty: does yan mean any kind of stone—for example bladder stones passed in die urine—or is it used only for hard, palpable swellings? Does Hu have the same broad range of uses as does die word "tumor" in older Western texts? These are the kinds of problems Wiseman and Boss address in the thoughtful introduction to diis book. Their approach is one ofcaution and concern for the difficulties—for example, when discussing the problem of qi (Md- "as with using 'energy' to represent qi, the words appear natural not because they faithfully translate the ideas of Chinese medicine, but because they faithfully re-present ideas tiiat are our own." In the lengthy introduction to Glossary ofChinese Medical Terms and Acupuncture Points, the authors set out their views on the problems that beset translators of Chinese medical works, ancient and modern. They present a consistent argument for their approach, which has as its first principle avoidance ofunintended meanings connoted by die chosen English word. For the most part, the translations seem conservative and meet die autiiors' goals of conveying the meaning of the Chinese term and avoiding English terms with pre-loaded Western concepts...
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