Since the sixteenth century, there has been a recurrent tendency to use key concepts, often translated or adapted from Chinese, to understand Chinese culture. These have varied over time, but include face, filial piety, fengshui and guanxi. The process of transcultural understanding in relation to these concepts has been complex, with many of them making multiple trips back and forth between English and Chinese, and being used by the Chinese to explain their own culture, or to criticise ingrained prejudices that some in China saw as holding the country back from modernity. This book addresses how specific ideas describing the uniqueness of Chinese culture influence the ways users of these concepts think about China and themselves. It looks at how historical moments have been epitomised by, and could be connected through, various processes of translation, establishing the close link between history-making and translation exchange. Conceptualising China through translation encourages an understanding of translation as a multi-faceted practice or way of knowing the world that, at its best, helps deepen understandings of self and others. Too often in the case of China, translation has been used to establish stereotypes and a sense of exoticism. In uncovering how both sides of the translation process stand to be transformed by it, this book makes evident instead the humanity of all parties.

This aim is achieved through an innovative use of digital humanities methods and close reading of key texts, thereby helping to construct an alternative sinology.