East Meets West | Spanish Sinologist Relinque: Why I am committed to the sparks between Chinese and Western classical theatre?

Ms Alicia Relinque, a renowned Spanish sinologist and translator, has been engaged in sinological research for 47 years since 1976. She has devoted herself to the translation of ancient Chinese literary monographs, novels and theatre works of the Yuan and Ming dynasties, translating Dragon-Carving and the Literary Mind, The Plum in the Golden Vase, The Romance of The West Chamber, Dream in Peony Pavilion, The Orphan of Zhao, and so on, as well as translating the Chinese translation of Don Quixote by the modern Chinese translators Lin Shu and Chen Jialin, the Magic Chivalry, back to Spanish, creating a precedent for the translation from Chinese into Spanish, which is the first of its kind in the field of literary translation. Chinese President Xi Jinping mentioned in a signed article published in Spanish media in 2018 that "contemporary Spanish sinologists such as Relinque have been working tirelessly", fully recognising her contribution to enhancing cultural exchanges between China and the West.

What is the significance of introducing classical Chinese literature to contemporary world readers? What are the historical collisions between Chinese and Western theatre? What does this tell us about cultural exchanges between East and West today? What is the value of translating Don Quixote from Chinese for Spanish-speaking readers? Recently, Relinque was interviewed by East Meets West and shared her understanding and thoughts.

Alicia Relinque, translator and professor at the Department of Philosophical Languages, University of Granada, Spain.

You started learning Chinese in 1976, what brought you to China and the Chinese language?

When I was a kid, I loved learning other languages. In high school, one of my favourite literature teachers visited China in the 1970s and came back raving about the country, spending an entire class talking about its people and landscapes. From then on, I became interested in China and decided to learn more about the country. The fact that the Chinese language is so different from Spanish, and my love for the Chinese kung fu star Bruce Lee at the time, sealed the deal for me.

On 5 September 2023, Spanish sinologist and translator Relinque visits the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang. Credit: Li Yalong

Why did you focus your Sinological studies on the literary language and choose to translate classical Chinese literary theoretical works and novels? These works are even difficult for many contemporary Chinese to understand.

This was not my intention from the beginning. In Madrid, my Chinese teacher, Feng Zhumei, showed us a poem from the Tang Dynasty, and although I don't remember exactly what it was, I remember it described a mountain scene, and I didn't feel like I was "reading" the poem, but rather, I was immersed in it, more like I was admiring a painting. I later learnt that it was a poem by Wang Wei, which Su Shi described as "a poem with a painting in it, a painting with a poem in it". This made me fall in love with Tang poetry.

But at that time, there were almost no translations of ancient Chinese poetry. Since no one around me knew such beautiful poems, I decided to research, translate and share them. Later, when I was studying in Paris, I met some wonderful teachers of classic literature that confirmed my decision. When I was awarded a scholarship to Peking University and travelled to China to study, there was no longer any doubt about specialising in traditional Chinese literary.

As far as I know, the classical world has been almost forgotten, not only in China, but in almost all modern countries. But I believe that understanding the past is vital to humanity.

If that doesn't convince a new generation to turn their attention to the past, I suggest that people also read science fiction literature. Many of the future stories constructed in science fiction are also based on the past, such as mythological stories. The experience of reading classical literature, like many science fiction stories, gives us the feeling of "time travelling".

Anyone who understands Chinese language and Chinese literature knows that classical Chinese literature offers everything a reader wants to know, from knowledge of history, philosophy and language to entertainment in the form of love stories, myths, ghosts, monsters, and adventures of soldiers or travellers. Ancient Chinese literature is both elegant and popular, and is able to make clever use of wit, humour and satire to create a unique taste. I discover and learn new things from classical Chinese literature every day and also enjoy it.

On 6 September 2023, Relinque shopped for souvenirs at the Dunhuang Cultural and Creative Shop. Credit: Cui Bailu

Of the "Four Great Classical Chinese Plays", you have translated The Romance of The West Chamber, and Dream in Peony Pavilion, why did you choose to translate them for a Spanish-speaking audience?

Regarding The Romance of the Western Chamber, I was invited to translate a classical Chinese novel or play. Long novels are very time-consuming, so I focused on theatre, and The Story of the Western Chamber is one of the most representative and complete works from the early development of Chinese theatre.

Dream in Peony Pavilion was translated and published in 2016, the 400th anniversary of the death of Tang Xianzu, the Ming opera writer known as "Shakespeare of the East," who died in the same year as the Spanish novelist and playwright Cervantes. When I read this work, I was immediately attracted to it. At that time, although I had a fragmentary understanding of Dream in Peony Pavilion, I had not conducted any in-depth study, and I was also interested in the social changes in the late Ming Dynasty reflected in it. Dream in Peony Pavilion is undoubtedly a masterpiece, both from a literary point of view and from the perspective of understanding the society of that time.

In addition, I had just finished translating the The Plum in the Golden Vase, which has a completely different genre style, and I wanted to see how love was expressed in two different genres during the same time period.

Spanish theatre has a history of more than 700 years, and Chinese classical theatre has a history of more than 800 years, counting from the Song and Yuan dynasties. When did the cultural exchange of theatre between the East and the West originate? How did this exchange affect the development of Chinese and Spanish theatre?

There is now a saying that "Chinese theatre became popular in Europe in the first and middle of the Qing Dynasty", which I think is inaccurate. The first Chinese play to be translated into a European language was The Orphan of Zhao by the Yuan dynasty opera writer Ji Junxiang, translated into French by the Jesuit Marussia and published in 1735. However this was only because the plot of The Orphan of Zhao was reminiscent of a story from the Bible. Several other writers, later on, based other plays on parts of the plot of this work, most notably Voltaire's The Chinese Orphan. But these were still purely Western plays, with only an Oriental setting to add an exotic sense, very different from Chinese theatre.

I would argue that it was not until the early 20th century that East Asian theatre forms became truly known to the West, and that there could be said to be a mutual "influence" between Chinese and Western theatre. It was then that forms of theatre from East Asia and some of its performers - such as Mei Lanfang - became known to the West and provided inspiration for Western theatre. Bertolt Brecht and Antonin Artaud, two dramatists and theatre theorists who decisively changed modern Western theatre, drew on Chinese opera.

In this collision to each other, distant forms meet to produce new things. It is only through the collision of ideas, the exchange of ways of seeing the world, that new things are born and that we are all better off.

On the evening of 7 September 2023, the "Orchid Night - Bridge Banquet", an international cultural exchange event accompanying the Orchid Award, was held in Beijing. The picture shows Relinque delivering a speech at the dinner. Credit: Cui Bailu

In your experience and observation, how is the acceptance of Chinese literature by the Spanish-speaking population in recent years different from before? What are the points of interest?

In Spain, people's knowledge of Chinese culture, and of China in general, has increased a lot in the last 15 years. This has a lot to do with the opening of the Confucius Institute, and especially with the emergence of Chinese literary talents in recent years, such as the science fiction writers Liu Cixin and Xia Jia, whose works are familiar to Spaniards. The spread of Chinese literature does not lie in "China", but in the form of "literature", which can be Chinese, American, British or any other language. In addition, understanding of Chinese culture has been fuelled by the development of comics and video games, in which historical figures with literary roles, such as Liu Bei, Cao Cao or Zhuge Liang, have begun to be recognised by young people, who are interested in the adventures of these characters. It is an interesting experience to see how these games and new tools are helping to bring people closer to the past, and thus helping them to understand the future.

However, Spaniards do not know enough about Chinese culture, and some prejudices that are difficult to eliminate still exist. Nevertheless, I think we are making progress little by little.