Chinese Flower in the English GardenHybridity and Cultural Translation in Liu Hong’s The Magpie Bridge1.docx

chinese flower in the english garden:hybridity and cultural translation in liu hongs the magpie bridge1 this paper investigates the possibility of reading literary texts of diasporic writers as thatof hybridity and cultural translation. through a close study of motifs and narratives inthe novel, this paper regards the magpie bridge as a metaphor of how migrants ofcontemporary societies evolve in an organic field of intercultural conflicts andreconciliation. the novel presents forbearance and hybrid cross-fertilisation as answerto the reconciliation between oppositional (albeit hierarchical) cultures, values or beliefs;and it goes beyond the theme of reclaiming history and justice that characterisespostcolonial literature. the novel is read both as a feminine and a feminist celebration ofthe beauty of hybridity borne out of intercultural appropriation (translation).keywords: chinese migrant writer; cultural appropriation; diasporic literature;hybrid identity; translation studiesengland is a garden that was my first thought when i set eyes on it as a fresh-eyedstudent, fourteen years ago. now i have written a novel about it. this book is myfruit, nurtured by the all too generous rain and not so generous english sun .(liu the magpie bridge 245)it has been argued that there is not an immutable link between cultures, peoples,identities or places (lavie and swedenburg) but a person identified as a member of adiaspora cannot escape from the epistemological questions of who are you? orwhere are you from? whether it is a self-inflicted quest for ones meaning ofexistence, or a challenge concerning ones survival in the host country, the hybrididentity of a diasporic person demands serious consideration. the process of settlingdr red chan teaches at the centre for translation and comparative cultural studies, university of warwick.she has published in subjects of translation, literary and cultural studies. her academic profile is available at:bhttp:/www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/ctccs/staff/chan/. correspondence to: red chan, ctccs, h105,humanities building, university of warwick, coventry cv4 7al, uk. email: red.chanwarwick.ac.ukissn 0725-6868 print/issn 1469-9540 online/07/04397-16# 2007 centre for migrant and intercultural studiesdoi: 10.1080/07256860701591227journal of intercultural studiesvol. 28, no. 4, november 2007, pp. 397 412down is a confrontation between the past (home culture) versus the present (hostculture). displacement causes the loss of homeland, disrupts the continuity of alineage but it may also create new possibilities for self-fulfilment. it necessitates thenegotiation between values, needs and beliefs, all of which are fundamentals ofhumanity and integral to the construction of identity.the concept of diaspora is, admittedly, complex. contemporary postcolonialliterary theorists refer to it as the voluntary or forcible movement of peoples fromtheir homelands into new regions (ashcroft, griffiths and tiffin 68). robin cohenconsiders diaspora in categories: victim diaspora, labour diaspora, imperial diaspora,trade diaspora, homeland diaspora and cultural diaspora. and the departure fromhome makes it particularly important to preserve the home culture, alldiasporic communities settled outside their natal (or imagined natal) territories,acknowledge that the old country a notion often buried deep in language,religion, custom or folklore always has some claim on their loyalty and emotions(cohen ix).this paper explores the chinese diaspora in britain through a study of the content,motifs and stylistic features of a novel. compared to the rich growth of american-chinese literature, the field of british-chinese literature is still very bare.historically, more chinese have sought refuge in the usa than in britain. theusa was known by the chinese as a mountain-of-gold (used as a nickname for sanfrancisco since the nineteenth century). the subject of the chinese diaspora inamerica is familiar to many names such as amy tan, maxine hong-kingston andha jin are ingrained in the mind of numerous readers. but few chinese intellectualshave recorded their lives in england or other parts of the uk (see sinan akilli; hughbaker). literary portrayal is scant. the relatively short history of chinese in britain ispart of the reason. it is also because the chinese had not suffered from institutionaldiscrimination like the chinese in america,2where a traumatic, long history offersrich materials for literary exploration. no major tragedies or discriminatorylegislation were introduced in britain to target chinese immigrants before thesecond half of the twentieth century.3it has been only in the last two decades, whenmore chinese could leave their motherland to study or work abroad, that thedocumentation by writers in britain has begun to take shape. timothy mo,jung chang, anchee min, ma jian and xin ran are the most prominent names inthis respect.another reason for the small output of british-chinese documentation is that theuk did not publicise itself as a land of/for immigrants. for a long time, britishpublishers were only marginally interested in diasporic writers living in the backgarden of the kingdom. many non-native writers had to master the language ofenglish and write proper literary works before they could be published and beendorsed as legitimate (english) writers. conrads polish background, for example, isusually forgotten or brushed away when he is upheld as a master in english literature.multiculturalism has become fashionable in the uk only in the last few decades forsocio-political reasons. there has been a gradual increase of british diasporic writers398 r. chanwho take pride in, and succeed in, using their hybrid background as a source ofinspiration. among a handful of british diasporic writers who have achievedinternational fame include kazuo ishiguro, jung chang and salman rushdie. amongthe small group of chinese writers in britain,4most of them are concerned withhistoriographies of china the motherland. only a few, such as timothy mo or liuhong, have tried to delve deep into the experience of the chinese diaspora incontemporary britain.in both form and content, diasporic literature is coded with elements that areforeign to readers in the host culture. by virtue of living in between cultures andlanguages, diasporic individuals are cultural translators. as an outsider, the diasporicindividual struggles to settle down and be accepted by the mainstream society as amember of the host culture. the process of settling down is similar to the struggleof a translators search for an ideal translation, which is deemed faithful in theinterest of the source text and its author on one end, and be regarded as readable andauthentic by the reader on the other end. diasporic literature makes the boundarybetween creative writing and translation fuzzy: a diasporic fiction is simultaneously atext of translation. writers observe their experience in the host culture as a memberfrom within, while maintaining the (double) identity as an outsider. the inherentforeignness of diasporic writers means that their works are effectively culturaltranslation. the stories are documents of the heterogeneous, racially and culturallydiverse space that the minority occupy alongside members of the dominant culture.diasporic literature allows an otherwise underrepresented or voiceless minority theagency to articulate an identity of their own. it also pushes the boundaries ofacceptance and expands the linguistic scopes of the language in which the diasporicwriter uses as an adopted mother tongue. an early and paradigmatic example issamuel selvons collection of interlinked stories about the lives of caribbeanimmigrants in london, the lonely londoners (1956).compared with other chinese writers overseas, liu hong, the author whose workis being studied in this paper, is rare in her prime engagement with the question ofidentity and hybridity. her creativity exposes the conflict between chinas relation-ship with the west in the past and the present; it deals with the longing for themotherland and the desire to be accepted by the host culture that many chinese face;it also depicts how diasporic individuals can rise above confrontational values ofdisparate worlds and find the right place for themselves. in her writing liu hongdemonstrates the interventionist, innovative quality of cultural translation. throughstrategic, deliberate foreignisation (venuti) in her narratives, liu challenges the targetreader to transgress conventional norms of literary english. her style of storytellingand her calculated imposition of chinese expressions in english (literal transla-tion) are ramifications of her diasporic identity. the following parts offer apreliminary account of the developing genre of chinese diasporic literature in britainby means of a textual study of the magpie bridge, liu hongs second novel publishedin 2003.journal of intercultural studies 399the authorthe accomplishment of liu hong as a novelist is unusual. to begin with, she does notmove in the right circles. she does not live in the metropolitan cities of london,manchester or birmingham where the strong presence of chinese communitiesprovides a network of social support. indeed she is subtly sceptical about the need forbonding with her fellow country(wo)men a way of living that many chineseimmigrants take for granted. liu hong lives in a small english village on the outskirtsof swindon, which is about an hours train ride from london, followed by a further30 minutes by car. she does not possess great wealth or powerful contacts. she comesfrom a most ordinary chinese family. she arrived in london from northern china asa student in the late 1980s. although she is married to an englishman, he does notown a publishing house or know a certain big name in the media industry to provideher with a shortcut to fame. liu hong does not even present herself as one of thosewriters of belles-lettres from china.5most significantly, liu hong has chosen to writefiction about the chinese diaspora in britain, rather than autobiographical stories orreportage about her motherland. she expects artistic appreciation, not sympathy,from english readers. her first novel, startling moon was published in 2002. to thesurprise of her publisher and indeed of the author herself this debut work soldrather well with minimal publicity. as a result, she received the contract to write asecond novel, the magpie bridge . in 2006, her third novel, the touch, was published.the storyaccording to the blurb, the magpie bridge is a love story spanning two cultures. itshares some themes with other diasporic literature, such as exile and belonging,cultural differences, assimilation and resistance, the search for identity andreconciliation. the scars of history force two generations of women to debateand re-interpret the meaning of past events. memory and the need for survivalunderline the intense love and hostility the chinese feel towards the british. itnarrates the struggle of jiao mei, a young chinese woman living in london6as astudent. she is staying with barbara, an englishwoman who speaks chinese and hasbeen to china before. it was because of barbaras encounter, and love affair, with jiaomeis father that jiao mei has come under the care of barbara. the novel begins withthe reader following the footsteps of tie mei, grandmother of jiao mei, in her searchfor her granddaughter in hampstead, north london. after a few pages, though, thereader begins to realise that this grandmother might not be real. she appears to be aghost, lingering in the human world because of unfinished business: taking care ofher granddaughter. the author skilfully maintains the mystery concerning thereal identity of the grandmother throughout. the reader is never certain whethertie mei is a real ghost or just an imagined spiritual existence in jiao meis mind.7the family of the protagonist and the national history of china are told inalternating first-person monologues by either the granddaughter or the grandmother.re-telling historical or family events in fiction destabilises both the source culture400 r. chanand the host culture, as perspectives and interpretations vary with eachrepresentation. the narratives of the women interweave and contrast with that ofeach other. on the surface, jiao mei, the granddaughter, is under the spell of hergrandmother tie mei, who re-iterates the past in an effort to secure hergranddaughters understanding of a proper account of this history. the past andthe dead live again in the accounts of tie meis ghost-spirit. jiao mei learns howthe british invaders killed her great-grandmother and other ancestors of her family inthe nineteenth century. but the truths come in plural forms: now i had two versionsof my great-grandmothers death, one told in life, the other in death, by the samewoman (85). the grandmother insists on the divide between china and britain butthe granddaughter is ambivalent. the story develops as the grandmothers night-timevisitations persist, and the granddaughter begins to experience increasing confusionabout herself. the history of her family and the bigger issue about china and britain,which are charged with tragedy, violence, legendary figures and mysticism, are putunder scrutiny. the climax comes when jiao mei finds herself pregnant with herenglish boyfriend, kens baby, and her guardian barbara is dying from a mysteriousillness. the grandmother and the granddaughters conversations become moreintense. tie mei is resentful of jiao meis attachment to ken. she wants jiao mei toget rid of the baby and return to china.the love-and-hate relationship with britain is further complicated by jiao meisrelationship with her patron, barbara. she feels an instinctive distance from barbarabecause of her fathers affair with this woman. she also feels affection towards barbarabecause, unlike jiao meis own mother who abandoned her during the culturalrevolution (196676), barbara has taken good care of her in england. the chinesein me wanted us to be closer, and the english in her pushed us apart (60). butbarbara seems to be living in between china and england too; as jiao mei notices,barbara is two persons in china and in england:ive known her for years, although shes different here in england from how she wasin china. its as if there are two barbaras. there she was trying to act chinese, buthere she seems as english as can be. (45)cultural conflict features large in diasporic literature. in the process of settlingdown as a diasporic individual, the person wrestles with acculturation just like atranslator. the process is a negotiation between the source culture and the targetculture. in her secret communication with the grandmother, and through her dailydealing with barbara and ken, jiao meis cultural heritage and present conditionconverge and confront each other. with every round of conversation between tie meiand jiao mei, a revised interpretation of their personal and family as well as nationalhistory is created. it would then alter jiao meis perception of her relationship withthose close to her in reality. it is a process of adjustment, which is at the same time aprocess of re-writing, translating the past for the purpose of the here and now.the manipulation of narratives and value judgements is part and parcel of seekingequilibrium.journal of intercultural studies 401metaphors of hybriditythe epigraph to this paper is from the postscript of the magpie bridge , in which liuhong says that england is like a garden to her. the garden serves as a place forintercultural encounter in the novel. barbara is a specialist in horticulture. her love ofthe garden brought her to china and there, she met and fell in love with jiao meisfather. the garden brought barbara and baba father together (164). whenbarbara returned to england she planted a chinese plum tree, mei , in her garden.when jiao mei first saw the mei tree in barbaras house, she was both surprisedand delighted, whats it doing here? i wouldnt have thought it could grow inengland (21).the plantation of the chinese mei in an english garden is symbolic. mei isparticularly endearing for the chinese. it bears flowers in winter and thus has longbeen associated with the spirit of the chinese. its beauty is delicate, but it endures andthrives in the bitter coldness of winter. this is what chinese would like to think ofthemselves. both the protagonist and her grandmother carry the word mei in theirname. the grandmother is named tie mei, which literally means iron mei.8the granddaughter is jiao mei, meaning proud mei. the first mention of the meitree in the book is when the ghost-spirit of the grandmother is led by the scent of itsflowers and thus finds the house in which her granddaughter lives:a slender trunk, small pink flowers shivering on its bare branches, petals openinglike a pretty girls mouth. this is the tree im named after; it is what i am about.remember what mei stands for. be pure, brave and resilient. you are the blossomthat braves the cold. my mothers words come back to me even now. (4)the sight of the mei tree always prompts her to think of her origin. on the day ofqing ming, when chinese remember their dead ancestors, jiao mei goes into thegarden and looks at