Translating the Chinese Monster in Waste Tide

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

Abstract

This chapter examines the monster in Chen Qiufan’s Waste Tide (2014) through the considerations of cultural translation between China and the West, reflecting on the interpretation of the monster as a product of China’s progress in the world, and how the science fiction genre provides for a platform to evaluate and criticise the response to this economic growth today. Often viewed with techno-Orientalist characteristics—in hyper-and hypotechnological terms led by the anxieties of the West—this notion is unavoidable as China’s progress is driven by the pressures of globalism that implicitly centres the West for comparison—to modernise and progress in a world of information capitalism that is led by the West. Waste Tide highlights the price of modernisation while illustrating the perils of stereotyping in the techno-Orientalist mindset that ignores any meaningful understanding of progress. Through considering the monster(s) in Waste Tide, I argue that the value of Chinese science fiction is in understanding the response or action applied in Chinese science fiction to compensate for these techno-Orientalist tropes; this response is what separates Chinese science fiction from problematic techno-Orientalist productions. I term this the techno-Occidentalist strategy—Asia’s response to the techno-Orientalist anxieties of the West.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationScience Fiction in Translation
Subtitle of host publicationPerspectives on the Global Theory and Practice of Translation
EditorsIan Campbell
PublisherSpringer
Pages237-261
ISBN (Electronic)978-3-030-84208-6
ISBN (Print)978-3-030-84207-9
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2021

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