Borges And The Chinese Culture

This paper probes into explore the relation of Borges and China culture. Borges has a strong passion for China; he once said he "has always been in China". This paper demonstrates the reasons why Borges like Chinese culture so much. His thinking and works are evidently influenced by Chinese culture. He nourished a strong interest in Chinese culture and literature. Although he is not good at Chinese, he read a lot of Chinese classics, poetry, legends by means of English, French and German, and made a careful study on the works about the Chinese and Oriental literature, written by western scholars. Borges translated and edited some works on Chinese literature. Many times he talked about China in his conversation and lectures, and in his poetry, he repeatedly expressed his appreciation and admiration for China. In addition, he commented on china's ancient literature time and again in his papers of literature and art. He cherished a strong admiration for the Chinese ancient philosophy and literature. With his ever-lasting works, he created the succinct but complex maze one after another. In 1941 he published the novel "The Garden of Forking Paths" which is known as his masterpiece and one of the classic works in the 20th century. Although its subject matter is the metaphysics on time, it set the background entirely on China, which reflects Borges's affection for the theme of China. "Fables of the Imperial Palace", another Borges's works taking China as its background, discusses the matter of maze under the background of China. Without the background of China the author still can express the thoughts on the maze, but that would no longer the maze with Borges's characteristics. Borges acquired a profound knowledge on LaoZhuang philosophy, "Taoism" and relativism can be found in his thoughts and works. In Borges's "Aleph" and "a sick person Utopia", the relativism of ZhuangZi, and the political view "small territory and population" of LaoZi are embodied. "Chuang Tuz dreams of butterfly," is a China fable that Borges cited at a high frequency, his work "Round ruins" is obviously influenced by it. These two works with the theme of China bear identity with the Chinese culture and its spirit. This paper, applying the methods of impact study and reception study, interprets the relation between Borges and the Chinese culture relations with China. The paper firstly makes an overall analysis of Borges's relation with the Chinese culture, a textual research and a summarization on the fact that Borges acceptance of Chinese cultural influence, and then falls into three chapter to explore the inherent link between Borges and the Chinese culture, as well as the reasons why Borges chooses China as the background and theme of his works. To interpret Borges from the perspective of Chinese traditional culture, not only provides a clear fact on the Chinese cultural influence on Borges, but also an enlightening way to understand Borges better.