Shakespeare in China FAQ
The rise, fall and return of Old Man Sha
Few will be surprised to discover that Shakespeare (transcribed Shashibiya) never visited China. Nor was his work widely known there until comparatively recently.
The first confirmed appearance of the name Shashibiya in a Chinese language publication was a brief mention in a translation of Milner’s The History of England in 1857. But it was the publication of Lin Shu’s Tales from Shakespeare in 1904 that first brought the Bard to a wider Chinese audience.
Lin Shu remarketed Shashibiya for a Chinese readership. He promoted the plays as traditional ‘stories of gods and spirits’. One of these tales was used for the first professional production of Shakespeare in China: a staging of The Merchant of Venice in 1913.
Why was Shakespeare politically important?
Sha Weng, or Old Man Sha, became an icon of modernity amongst Chinese intellectuals. Universities were a centre of protest against ‘old China’ and Shakespeare was seen as symbolizing progressive western ideas. He was still a cult figure, however. Full translations of the original plays were not published until the 1920s.
Was Mao a fan?
The Communists came to power on the mainland in 1949. They were initially on Team Bard, as Shakespeare came with the personal endorsement of Karl Marx. He had also been safely in his coffin for over 400 years. There would be no embarrassing authorial dissent if Romeo & Juliet was repackaged as a rousing parable about class struggle.
But under Mao’s capricious rule only Lenin and Marx were permanently beyond reproach. During the Cultural Revolution (1966–77) Shakespeare was moved to the dastardly ‘foreign influences’ section of the library — now closed and bricked up. In fact, the national reading list was reduced to a single pocket sized volume: The Little Red Book.
In 1967, New Cultural Secretary, Jiang Qing (aka Madame Mao) officially banned Stratford’s ‘bourgeois counter-revolutionary’. The prohibition would remain in force for ten years.
And Shakespeare today?
The removal of the Shakespeare ban in May 1977 was a signal that the Cultural Revolution was over. Shakespeare was once again officially feted as a ‘renaissance giant’. His plays became more popular than ever.
They are still doing good business. Hamlet was revived in 2018 and a play about Shakespeare’s life Will (2021) performed to large audiences in Beijing and Shenzen. According to China Daily, Will was ‘warmly received by audiences and critics alike’.
Contemporary productions sometimes incorporate elements from traditional theatre, like music and dance. But they treat the original text with reverence. You’re unlikely to find a rapping Romeo on a Chinese stage.
