Chiang Yee
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Chiang Yee (1903-1977), later Jiang Yi in the Pinyin spelling system, self-styled as "The Silent Traveller", was a Chinese poet, author, painter and calligrapher.
Chiang was born in Jiujiang, China, on a day various recorded as May 19 or June 14. He married Tseng Yun in 1924, with whom he was to have four children, and in 1925 graduated from National Southeast University in Nanjing. He served for over a year in the Chinese army during the Sino-Japanese War, then taught chemistry in middle schools, lectured at National Chi-Nan University, and worked as assistant editor of a Hangzhou newspaper. He subsequently served as magistrate of three counties (Jiujang in Jiangxi, and Dangtu and Wuhu in Anhui.) Unhappy with the current situation in China, he departed for England in 1933, leaving wife and family behind.
From 1933-1935 he taught Chinese at the University of London, and 1938-1940 worked at the Wellcome Museum of Anatomy and Pathology. During this period, both before and after World War II, he wrote a well-received series of books entitled "The Silent Traveller in....". These books included the following, possibly a complete list: The Silent Traveller in Edinburgh; London; Oxford; the Yorkshire Dales; Dublin; Paris; New York; San Francisco; Boston; Japan; The Silent Traveller in Wartime; and "The Silent Traveller: a Chinese Artist in Lakeland" (written from a journal of a fortnight in the English Lake District in August 1936).
The books characteristically bring a fresh 'sideways look' in a peaceful and non-judgemental way to places perhaps unfamiliar at the time to a Chinese national: the author was struck by things the locals might not notice, such as beards, or the fact that the so-called Lion's Haunch on Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh is actually far more like a sleeping elephant. In his wartime books, Chiang Yee made it plain that he was fervently opposed to Nazism. His writings exude a feeling of positive curiosity, life-enhancing in a unique way. Some of his books have been re-issued in modern times, sometimes with fresh introductions.
After living for some years in a small flat in London and being obliged, during the war, neither to travel nor to take part in the hostilities, on account of being classed as an 'alien', he moved to the United States in 1955, where he became a lecturer (and ultimately Emeritus Professor of Chinese) at Columbia University from 1955-1977, with an interlude 1958-1959 during which he was Emerson Fellow in Poetry at Harvard University. He became a naturalized citizen in 1966. He illustrated all his books, including several for children, and he wrote a standard tome on Chinese calligraphy. He died in his seventies in China after spending over forty years away from his homeland, on a day variously recorded as in October 7 or 26, 1977.
[edit] Bibliography
- Chiang Yee, The Chinese Eye: An Interpretation of Chinese Painting, (London: Methuen, 1935)
- Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller: A Chinese Artist in Lakeland (London: Country Life, 1937 reprinted Mercat, 2004) ISBN 1-84183-067-4
- Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in London (London: Country Life, 1938 reprinted Signal, 2001) ISBN 1-902669-40-1
- Chiang Yee, Chin-Pao and the Giant Pandas, (London: Country Life, 1939)
- Chiang Yee, The Men of the Burma Road (London: Methuen, 1942)
- Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in the Yorkshire Dales (London: Methuen 1941) at least 3 editions by 1942. Not known if re-printed
- Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in Oxford (London: Methuen, 1944 reprinted Signal, 2003) ISBN 1-902669-68-1
- Chiang Yee, Dabbitse, (London: Transatlantic Arts, 1944) for children
- Chiang Yee, Yebbin: a Guest from the Wild (London: Methuen, 1947) ISBN 0-908240-87-2
- Chiang Yee, The Story of Ming, (London: Puffin, c. 1945)
- Chiang Yee, Lo Cheng The Boy Who Wouldn′t Keep Still, (London: Puffin, c. 1945)
- Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in Edinburgh (London: Methuen, 1948 reprinted Mercat, 2003) ISBN 1-84183-048-8
- Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in New York, (London: Methuen, 1950)
- Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in Dublin, (London: Methuen, 1953)
- Chiang Yee, A Chinese Childhood (New York: John Day, 1953)
- Chiang Yee, Chinese Calligraphy, (London: Methuen, 1955)
- Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in Paris (New York: W. W. Norton, 1956)
- Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in Boston (New York: W. W. Norton, 1959)
- Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in San Francisco (New York: W. W. Norton, 1963) ISBN 0-393-08422-1
- Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller in Japan (New York: W. W. Norton, 1972) ISBN 0-393-08642-9
- Chiang Yee, The Silent Traveller’s Hong Kong Zhuzhi Poems (1972)
- Chiang Yee, Some Chinese Words to be learnt without a teacher, (Privately published; date unknown)
- Chiang Yee, Chinese Calligraphy: An Introduction to Its Aesthetic and Technique (Harvard: University Press, 1973 3rd ed.) ISBN 0-674-12225-9
- Innes Herdan (tr.), 300 Tang Poems, (Far East Book Co., 2000) illustrated by Chiang Yee. ISBN 957-612-471-9
- Da Zheng, 'The Traveling of Art and the Art of Traveling: Chiang Yee's Painting and Chinese Cultural Tradition',
- Da Zheng, 'Writing of Home and Home of Writing', Comparative American Studies, Vol. 1, No. 4, pp. 488-505 (2003)
- Janoff, Ronald, "Encountering Chiang Yee: A Western Insider Reading Response to Eastern Outsider Travel Writing" (Ann Arbor, MI, UMI Dissertation Services, 2002)
[edit] References
- Huang, Suchen S., "Chiang Yee", in Asian-American Autobiographers: a bio-bibliographical critical sourcebook, edited by Guiyou Huang, Greenwood Press, 2001. ISBN 0-313-31408-X.
