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Lin Yutang
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Lin Yutang
Lin Yutang (10 October 1895 – 26 March 1976) was a Chinese writer, linguist, and inventor. A prolific bilingual writer in both Chinese and English, he was celebrated for pioneering a humorous prose style in modern Chinese literature and for serving as a cultural bridge between China and the West, most notably through My Country and My People (1935) and his English translations of Chinese classics. As a linguist, he compiled a series of ESL textbooks for Chinese learners in the 1930s and later produced an English–Chinese dictionary in the 1970s. As an inventor, he designed a Chinese typewriter, which was patented in the United States in 1952, though it was never mass-produced. From 1940 to 1973, Lin received six nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Lin was born in 1895 in the town of Banzai, Fujian. His father was a Christian minister. His journey of faith from Christianity to Taoism and Buddhism, and back to Christianity in his later life was recorded in his book From Pagan to Christian (1959).
Lin studied for his bachelor's degree at St. John's University, a Christian university in Shanghai. Then he received a half-scholarship to continue study for a doctoral degree at Harvard University. He later wrote that in the Widener Library he first found himself and first came alive, but he never saw a Harvard–Yale game.
In financial difficulty, he left Harvard early and moved to work with the Chinese Labour Corps in France and eventually to Germany, where he completed his requirements for a doctoral degree in Chinese philology at the University of Leipzig. From 1923 to 1926, he taught English literature at Peking University.
Enthusiastic about the success of the Northern Expedition, he briefly served in the new Nationalist government, but soon turned to teaching and writing. He found himself in the wake of the New Culture Movement which criticized certain ancient traditions as feudal and harmful. Instead of accepting this charge, Lin immersed himself in the Confucian texts and literary culture which his Christian upbringing and English language education had denied him.
His humor magazine The Analects Fortnightly (Lunyu Banyuekan, 1932–1940, 1945–1949) featured essays by writers such as Hu Shih, Lao She, Lu Xun, and Zhou Zuoren. He was one of the figures who introduced the Western concept of humor. In 1924, Lin invented the term youmo (幽默), a phono-semantic match with the English word humor. Lin used the Analects to promote his conception of humor as the expression of a tolerant, cosmopolitan, understanding and civilized philosophy of life.
In 1933, Lu Xun attacked the Analects for being apolitical and dismissed Lin's 'small essays' (小品文; xiǎopǐn wén) as "bric a brac for the bourgeoisie". Lu Xun nevertheless continued to write for the magazine.
Lin's writings in Chinese were critical of the Nationalist government to the point that he feared for his life. Many of his essays from this time were later collected in With Love and Irony (1940). In 1933, he met Pearl Buck in Shanghai, who introduced him and his writings to her publisher and future husband, Richard Walsh, head of the John Day Company.
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Lin Yutang
Lin Yutang (10 October 1895 – 26 March 1976) was a Chinese writer, linguist, and inventor. A prolific bilingual writer in both Chinese and English, he was celebrated for pioneering a humorous prose style in modern Chinese literature and for serving as a cultural bridge between China and the West, most notably through My Country and My People (1935) and his English translations of Chinese classics. As a linguist, he compiled a series of ESL textbooks for Chinese learners in the 1930s and later produced an English–Chinese dictionary in the 1970s. As an inventor, he designed a Chinese typewriter, which was patented in the United States in 1952, though it was never mass-produced. From 1940 to 1973, Lin received six nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Lin was born in 1895 in the town of Banzai, Fujian. His father was a Christian minister. His journey of faith from Christianity to Taoism and Buddhism, and back to Christianity in his later life was recorded in his book From Pagan to Christian (1959).
Lin studied for his bachelor's degree at St. John's University, a Christian university in Shanghai. Then he received a half-scholarship to continue study for a doctoral degree at Harvard University. He later wrote that in the Widener Library he first found himself and first came alive, but he never saw a Harvard–Yale game.
In financial difficulty, he left Harvard early and moved to work with the Chinese Labour Corps in France and eventually to Germany, where he completed his requirements for a doctoral degree in Chinese philology at the University of Leipzig. From 1923 to 1926, he taught English literature at Peking University.
Enthusiastic about the success of the Northern Expedition, he briefly served in the new Nationalist government, but soon turned to teaching and writing. He found himself in the wake of the New Culture Movement which criticized certain ancient traditions as feudal and harmful. Instead of accepting this charge, Lin immersed himself in the Confucian texts and literary culture which his Christian upbringing and English language education had denied him.
His humor magazine The Analects Fortnightly (Lunyu Banyuekan, 1932–1940, 1945–1949) featured essays by writers such as Hu Shih, Lao She, Lu Xun, and Zhou Zuoren. He was one of the figures who introduced the Western concept of humor. In 1924, Lin invented the term youmo (幽默), a phono-semantic match with the English word humor. Lin used the Analects to promote his conception of humor as the expression of a tolerant, cosmopolitan, understanding and civilized philosophy of life.
In 1933, Lu Xun attacked the Analects for being apolitical and dismissed Lin's 'small essays' (小品文; xiǎopǐn wén) as "bric a brac for the bourgeoisie". Lu Xun nevertheless continued to write for the magazine.
Lin's writings in Chinese were critical of the Nationalist government to the point that he feared for his life. Many of his essays from this time were later collected in With Love and Irony (1940). In 1933, he met Pearl Buck in Shanghai, who introduced him and his writings to her publisher and future husband, Richard Walsh, head of the John Day Company.
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