Rui Zhang

Boston University
The Chinese Translations of The Arabian Nights

Since the first translation by Antoine Galland in 1704, The Arabian Nights has not only

generated great influence in Europe, but also gained enormous popularity in the other parts of

the world. In China, the first translation of selected stories from One Thousand and One

Nights appeared in 1900 and proved to be a great success. Following various translations, a

more complete translation based on the original Arabic manuscript was published in the early

1940’s. The translator, Na Xun, kept revising his work and published his final version in

1985. The richness of and the magic in the stories have amazed the readers of every

generation and stimulated their imaginations of the Arabic world.

For this paper on the Chinese translations of The Arabian Nights, Xi Ruo’s republication

in 1987 and Na Xun’s in 1977, are employed to investigate the adjustments made by the

translators for their different Chinese audiences. The two most influential translators in their

times, late feudal and Communist eras respectively, Xi Ruo and Na Xun carefully handle the

sensitive theme of sexuality and the problematic status of women presented in The Arabian

Nights, along with the geographical adjustment, in order to suit their different target

audiences. Xi Ruo’s geographical alteration aims to reduce the cultural foreignness and draw

The Arabian Nights culturally closer to his audience. The adjustment of sexuality presented in

the Nights by both translators serves to raise the status of women in the stories and make this

foreign literature more acceptable to the Chinese audience. Na Xun deliberately deletes or

revises the sexual scenes or any suggestive details of infidelity and wickedness as women’s

natures. Occasionally, his translation even conveys a political message that adjusts the
political agenda during the Maoist Communist China. Through their careful treatment of

geography, female characters and sexuality, both Xi Ruo and Na Xun strive to make One

Thousand and One Nights more acceptable and edifying for their respective audiences.

By the end of the Qing Dynasty, Zhou Guisheng introduced the famous One Thousand

and One Nights into China. Following his success, Zhou Zuoren translated the two most

popular stories, “The story of the Sindbad the Sailor” and “The Story of ’Ali Baba and the

Forty Thieves” in 1903. Three years later, a more complete translation with 55 stories by Xi

Ruo based on an English version was published with the name Tian Fang Ye Tan. Since then,

the term tian fang ye tan “has been used interchangeably with the traditional idioms for

‘unbelievable’ or ‘nonsense’” (Na Guolü). All of the versions published so far were translated

from English into classical Chinese. This changed in 1957, when Na Xun published the first

Chinese translation of One Thousand and One Nights based on an Arabic manuscript. Since

then, his several revised versions dominated the Chinese market of The Arabian Nights.

Recently, another translator Li Weizhong published eight volumes, which include almost a

thousand new stories that did not appear in the previous versions (Na Guolü).

Xi Ruo’s translation in 1906 was comparatively more complete than his previous

versions. His birth and death dates are not very clear. According to the source by Oberlin

College, Xi Ruo was born in Suzhou, China in June 8, 1880 (Baidu). He graduated from

Soochow University, China in 1907 and worked as an editor from 1902 until 1908.

Meanwhile, he published his own works under the name, Xi Ruo and translated English

textbooks and literature into classical Chinese. In 1910 Xi Ruo studied at Oberlin Theology
Seminar, registered as Richard Paishou Yie, or Hsi Paishou, (Li Kai). In 1911 Xi Ruo

received his master degree and returned to China. He died in Shanghai, 1914.

In order to draw The Arabian Nights culturally closer to the Chinese audience in a late-

feudal society, Xi Ruo creates new titles for the stories and changes the setting of some

stories. Xi Ruo’s titles indicate the objects or events in the stories rather than the names of the

characters in the original version. “The Story of Aladdin and the Magic Lamp” is shortened to

“The Magic Lamp,” “The Story of the Merchant and the Demon” to “The Dates” and “The

Story of ’Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” to “The Persian Lady.” Similarly, the earlier

translator Zhou Zuoren named ’Ali Baba’s story as “Xia Nü Nu” (The Heroic Maid) and

“The Story of the Sindbad the Sailor” as “Hai Shang Shu Qi” (The Strange Stories on the

Sea). With limited experience with foreign literature in the feudal society, the ordinary

Chinese would feel distant with the Arabic names. This cultural adaptation of shortening the

titles reduces the sense of foreignness and enables the readers to remember the stories much

more easily.

Similar to the function of changing the titles of the stories, the geographical adaptations

bring some familiarity into this Arabic literature for the Chinese. As China was very much

self-interested during the Qing Dynasty, the ordinary people hardly had any information

about the world outside China. Although trade and “cultural exchange” between the Chinese

and Persian Empires existed, “there is […] no evidence to suggest historical connection”

(Marzolph, 522). In order to help them visualize a completely different life and culture in a

foreign country, Xi Ruo locates The Arabian Nights in Tartar, in addition to the introduction

of the Sasanid dynasty in Persia. The close relationships between the Chinese and the Tartars
“existed […] from the very earliest times” (Parker, 261). Although wars between them were

frequent, cultural interchange also existed through trade and the Chinese emperors often had

to marry their daughters to the leaders of the Tartars in exchange for peace. The establishment

of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) by Kublai Khan brought the Chinese and the Tartars even

closer. Xi Ruo employs this connection in his translation in order to create a sense of

familiarity and a better, although not correct, visualization of the distant empire.

While attempting to construct familiarity in the stories, Xi Ruo again changes the

locations of the stories that take place in China in order to create a sense of distance. In The

Arabian Nights, the remote empire China serves to create more variety and fantasy. China

symbolizes “the edge of the world” as well as “exoticism and strangeness” (Marzolph, 522).

In Xi Ruo’s version, “The Story of the Hunchback” takes place in a city near the border of

Tartar and “The Story of ’Ala al-Din and the Magic Lamp” in the farthest east of Indochina.

The relocations of the stories intend to cause the effect of China in the original stories.

Setting the stories in remote cities generates more imagination and exoticism. Xi Ruo’s

additional introduction of the Tartars tends to bring The Arabian Nights culturally closer to

the common Chinese readers. On the other hand, his relocation of the stories that originally

take place in China serves to mimic the function of the use of China in the original texts.

Despite of Xi Ruo, Na Xun was the most prominent Arabic translator in China as well as

a contributor to the cultural exchanges between the Arabs and China. Born in 1911 in Yunnan

Province, Na Xun was a Hui Muslim and sent by his school with other Chinese Muslims to

study at Al-Azhar University in 1934. His stay in Egypt for 15 years motivated him to

translate The Arabian Nights into Chinese. Meanwhile, he also introduced Chinese literature
into the Muslim world. After the Second World War, Na Xun finally could return to China in

1947 and he became the editor for a Muslim paper in Yunnan (Naguzhen). His first

translation had already been published in the early 1940’s, but in his own words, this version

was “incomplete” and “indelicate;” therefore, he revised the first version and in 1957

published “the most important and remarkable stories into three volumes as a preparation for

a more complete version in the future” as well as a response to the continuous demand of the

readers for the Nights stories (Na Xun, Preface 3). During his work on One Thousand and

One Nights, Na Xun also translated other Arabic works, such as the Quran and a children’s

edition of the Nights. Four years after the publication of his final version with six volumes,

Na Xun died in 1989 in Beijing. He devoted his whole life to the translations of One

Thousand and One Nights as well as other Arabic literature.

Due to the difference in the time periods of translation, Na Xun takes a different

approach to satisfy his readers in the Maoist Communist China through reflections of

Communist ideas in his work. Throughout the book, Na Xun frequently uses the term “fu nü”

for women. “Nü” refers to the female gender and is normally associated with girls or

unmarried women. When women get married, they are called “fu.” The compound “fu nü” is

a collective noun that refers to “massified and political subject” that “stood for the

collectivity of all politically normative or decent women” in the CCP under Mao (Barlow,

38). The other collective term for women, or female, “nü xing” was seen as an “eroticized

subject” and a “Westernized” or “bourgeois” term that stood for the “reverse of normality for

women,” because “xing” means sex (37). In the most recent Chinese translation by Li

Weizhong, the neutral term “nü ren” replaces Na Xun’s “fu nü” in the poetry in the prologue,
“Rely not on women” (Burton, 13), after Shahriyar and Shahzaman have encountered with

the woman imprisoned by the demon. Na Xun’s “fu nü” conveys much more a sense of

politeness and respect for women and also satisfies the CCP politically.

Using the term “fu nü” for “all politically normative or decent women,” Na Xun

propagates the idea of female equality for the CCP. In fact, both Xi Ruo and Na Xun

introduce progressive feminism in their works. Although Xi Ruo published his translation

before the collapse of the feudal Qing Dynasty in 1911, political unrest for new social norms

against the empire was already active and the early 1900’s marked the beginning of

progressive feminism in China. After the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in

1949, human equality was formally introduced to women as well. Therefore, one of the major

concerns of Xi Ruo and Na Xun in common is to delete the defensive words or phrases

towards women and change the details that suggest infidelity, narrow-mindedness and

wickedness as their natures.

For instance, in Xi Ruo’s “The Tale of the Enchanted King,” the king’s wife no longer

needs to pretend to love him “so much, so that if [he is] away from her even for a single day,

she would refuse to eat and drink until [he returns to her]” (Haddawy, 56). In Xi Ruo’s

version, they do not love each other anymore after five years of their marriage and treat each

other equally as a stranger on the street. Such alteration reduces reader’s sympathy for the

king as well as the wife’s immorality and guilt of infidelity, as love does not exist in their

marriage anymore; therefore, the wife is relatively less condemnable for betraying her

husband, who treats her like a stranger, than the wife in the original version. In addition, both

Xi Ruo and Na Xun exclude the sentence, “You (the wife), dirtiest of whores and filthiest of
all venal women who ever desired and copulated with black slaves” (60), which directly

offends women.

With the same intention, Na Xun revises “The Jewish Physician’s Tale.” The young man

from Mosul in the tale does not have the chance for romance with the two beautiful ladies in

Damascus, as they become two men that the young man has befriended. The young man’s

misfortune then originates from the fight between his friends, while they are drunk. He stops

the fight and asks both of them to stay over night at his house, but one of his friends kills the

other at midnight and escapes. The original story indicates that the lady’s jealousy drives her

to murder her own sister and indirectly results in the young man’s loss of his right hand and

thus, the disappearance of the two ladies consequently removes the message that woman is

the source of man’s misfortune and failure.

The translators attempt to downplay the infidelity of women further and even make them

sympathetic characters as victims of man’s narrow-mindedness and brutality. Na Xun places

the second lady in “The Story of the Porter and the Three Ladies” in a passive position. She

accepts the young man’s proposal, as she feels threatened in other people’s house alone. This

small change makes the lady less easy and explains her immediate acceptance of a proposal,

even before meeting the man, as a way of self-protection. In both translations, the lady

promises her husband to be only loyal to him forever, instead of taking “a solemn oath” that

she “[will] not look at any other man” (Haddawy, 144). The difference in the details of the

pledges intends to reduce the lady’s guilt later in the story, as nowhere in the original text

indicates her lack of love for her husband. When the lady buys the fabric in the market, the

merchant wants to sell it to her “for neither silver nor gold but for a kiss on her neck.” In
Haddawy’s version, the lady turns her face to him, “tempted by [the old woman]” (145). In

contrast, Na Xun’s lady is beaten and kissed by the merchant violently, after she refuses his

request. She never shows any sign of willingness and therefore, is completely irresponsible

for breaking her oath. The narrow-mindedness of the husband, which causes his

misunderstanding and ruthless treatment of his wife, leads to the lady’s misfortune. Here,

woman is not the one who results in trouble and misfortune due to their natures, but the man

is. The two translators constantly modify women’s guilt of unfaithfulness and responsibility

of men’s calamity and failures through the changes of some details from the original versions,

in order to adjust to the social phenomenon during their times of translations.

The adjustments of geography and female characters are still not enough to make The

Arabian Nights acceptable for the Chinese audience due to the explicit erotic scenes in the

stories. Xi Ruo and Na Xun delete or change the details related to the sensitive theme of

sexuality, “the most unmentionable topic for the Chinese” (Ho), in order to raise the status of

women and represent The Arabian Nights as valuable Arabic literature. In the prologue of

The Arabian Nights, Xi Ruo moderates the sexual affairs of the two queens with their lovers

and creates ambiguity in order to describe the scenes indirectly. Shahzaman finds his wife

asleep with a slave in his palace, but not “in the arms” of the slave, who is not identified as

“one of the kitchen boys” (Haddawy, 3), “the meanest Officers of the Household” (Galland,

21), nor “a black cook of loathsome aspect and foul with kitchen grease and grime” (Burton,

4). In Shahriyar’s garden, Shahzaman witnesses his brother’s wife bathing with the black

slave Mas’ud and they leave when they are done, in contrast to Burton’s exaggerated

description: “He walked boldly up to her and threw his arms round her neck while she
embraced him as warmly; then he bussed her and winding his legs round hers, as a button-

loop clasps a button, he threw her and enjoyed her.” When the two brothers decide to leave

the palace, they encounter a woman locked up by a demon. In the English translation, she

asks them to make love to her, but Xi Ruo’s choice of diction here makes the woman’s desire

ambiguous. The woman expresses her want for “xiang ai,” which could mean either she

desires to make love with the brothers or she shows her affection towards them.

However, Na Xun goes further. He deliberately eliminates any suggestive scenes of

sexuality. Shahzaman kills his queen, because she sings and plays with his musician and the

original sexual scene of Shahriyar’s wife with the black lover also becomes “singing and

dancing” until the day wanes. More importantly, the woman imprisoned by the demon

completely disappears. Sexuality is considered as “an area of danger and wrong doings” by

the Chinese and woman who “ventures into it […] would suffer gravely” (Ho). In order to

save the female characters from “danger” and suffering, the two Chinese translators have to

reduce the eroticism in the Nights. Although intending to raise the status of women, both Xi

Ruo and Na Xun constrain women to the traditional Chinese value – chastity – by removing

the undesired descriptions of women in the Nights.

The two Chinese translators, Xi Ruo and Na Xun delete and revise the geography,

negative images of the female characters and suggestive scenes of sexuality in order to make

The Arabian Nights more appropriate and acceptable for and draw this Arabic literature

culturally closer to their feudal and Communist-era audiences respectively. The most obvious

change from the original Nights stories is the translators’ adjustment of the erotic scenes. The

treatment of the eroticism depends on the translator’s target audience. In order to present The
Arabian Nights as a valuable Arabic literature, the translators have to make such adjustments

for the Chinese people, who were not prepared for such excessive descriptions of eroticism.

However, some modern Chinese readers still find the Nights too “erotic” and “shocking”

(Douban). Apparently, both translators made the right choice to reduce the description of

sexuality.

Almost five decades later, Na Xun’s translation is still popular and read in most of the

Chinese-speaking countries. Different new editions have been continuously published, but

most of the translators simply steal from Na Xun’s version, even in Taiwan (Na Guolü). As

this paper discusses Na Xun’s 1977 republication of the 1957 version, there might still be

differences between this version and his more complete version with six volumes published

in 1985, after China imposed its open-door policy. The new era may have affected the

translator differently, after the Cultural Revolution, and thus, caused him to make more

changes, according to the new time period, or bring his translation closer to the original

Arabic version.
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