Pursuing the beauty of labour has been an essential part of Chinese people’s lives from ancient times to modern society. Chinese traditional pictures abound with various scenes depicting Chinese ancestors’ passion for and diligent engagement in labour. The types of pictures selected in this book include rubbings of Han Dynasty pictorial stone and brick, rubbings of carved stones throughout all previous dynasties, woodblock printings, and folk New Year paintings, among which the New Year pictures depicting labour theme are highlighted. These New Year pictures, found in Fengxiang, Wuqiang, Yangjiabu, Weixian, and other prefectures, narrate stories of labour and extol the beauty of labour by depicting labour-related activities, such as farming, fishing, woodcutting, textile production, and herding. These pictures embody ancient Chinese life and labour customs, record traditional Chinese stories and labour life, and recount China’s labour history across the times. Among them, the New Year pictures themed on “Fishing, Woodcutting, Farming, and Reading” display four types of professions in the ancient Chinese agricultural society, namely, fishermen, woodcutters, farmers, and scholars. The social rank of these four professions (fishermen first, woodcutters second) represents the basic lifestyle and value orientation of the Chinese Han labouring people in ancient times. The imagery of farmers and scholars reflects a philosophical concept of engaging with everyday life and dealing with the practicalities and challenges of the material world, while the imagery of fishermen and woodcutters signifies a withdrawal from worldly concerns to seek enlightenment. Thus, the four professions were a favourite subject for many ancient Chinese painters, and imgaes featuring this theme were often found on ancient artefacts such as porcelain, woodcarvings, stone carvings, and embroideries, as well as in folk New Year paintings, paper-cuttings, and other folk-art forms. It is evident that Chinese traditional labour-themed pictures not only depict the hardworking scenes of labourers at the bottom but also present the poetic sentiment and artistic conception of literati and scholars, as well as their reflections and insights on life. These pictures are real reflections of the local labour life and customs, as well as the spirit of the times. In my view, I prefer pictures depicting customs related to productive labour. Pictures of ploughing, weaving, and cotton-picking have created peaks in ancient Chinese labour-themed paintings. Moreover, compared to the divine aura highlighted in ceremonial paintings, the mainstream of New Year paintings, those labour-themed folk New Year pictures have a strong flavour of people’s real lives. Apart from the labour-related activities mentioned above, this book also presents Chinese traditional pictures depicting scenes of plucking, breeding, embroidery, and cooking. Given the broad range of topics in labour-themed pictures, this book is not able to make an inexhaustible record, but within a limited space, every effort has been made to let readers know by a handful the whole sack.
Shen Hong
Winter 2021
Qin Li, the professor and doctoral supervisor at the School of Translation Studies, Xi’an International Studies University. She has been a visiting scholar at the Faculty of English, University of Cambridge, a book reviewer for Taylor & Francis, and is selected for the 7th batch of the “Hundred Talents Program” for young scholars in Shaanxi Province. She is also recognized as a talent under the “Six Batches” initiative of the Shaanxi Provincial Propaganda and Ideological Cultural System. Her research interests include translation theory and practice, translation history, and comparative literature translation studies. She has published four monographs, including Research on the Chinese Translation of Foreign Popular Literature in the New Century, The Interplay between Chinese Translated Literature and Native Literature, and A Study on the Translation History of Chinese Science Fiction Literature in the Past Century and so on. Li Qin has published seven academic translations, including works such as Mythology and Philosophy from Pre-Socratic to Plato and Mythology Library Babylon and Assyrian Mythology, both part of the “Mythology Library” under the “13th Five-Year Plan” National Key Books Publishing Plan and National Publishing Fund Project, as well as Annual Report on Culture of Shaanxi (2018)in the Shaanxi Blue Book series, and The Development Trajectory of Eastern Societies and the Theories and Practices of Socialism in the “China National Governance Series” under the China Book International Promotion Plan and the Commercial Press–Routledge Foreign Translation Project. Qin Li has led three National Social Science Fund projects, several Ministry of Education Humanities and Social Sciences research projects, and provincial and ministerial projects supported by the Shaanxi Provincial Social Science Fund. She has collaborated on three horizontal projects with the Commercial Press and China Social Sciences Press. Many of her research achievements have received awards from the Shaanxi Provincial Government.
Qiao-Ke Sun, MA in Linguistics of University College London (UCL), UK; PhD in Translation Studies at Xi’an International Studies University (XISU), China; certified cultural and educational expert by the Foreign Talent Research Center of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of the People’s Republic of China, official member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists (CIOL), professional member of the Translators Association of China (TAC), academic member of the Globalization and Localization Association (GALA), and holder of the CATTI Level 2 Translation Certificate. Currently, she works as the lecturer at the School of Foreign Languages, Wenzhou University of Technology. Her research interest is the translation and dissemination of Chinese culture. She has participated in multiple projects including the National Social Science Fund of China, the Chinese Academic Translation Project, the Chinese Books Promotion Plan, and the Twelfth Five-Year Plan for Translation of National Key Books Publishing Project. She has published the monograph: Study on Translation Theory and Practice Between English and Chinese and the academic translated works: The Contemporary Rural Literature of Shaanxi: A Modernity View and Study on Strategies of College Students’ Entrepreneurial Skill Development. Her main translation project partners include the United Nations, Tencent, Baidu Wenxue, China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Zhejiang University, Omniscient Pte. Ltd., Russian Academy of Sciences Science Publishing Group etc.
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