Discovering Dreams In Fusang

This paper is a meta-research on the Japanese translation of A Dream of Red Mansions.Meta research is possible in this field for the following reasons: a)its interdisciplinary nature;b)rich literature thanks to the efforts of previous researchers;c)long history of translation that results in many copies;and d)importance of redology in the Japanese academic society.Methodologies based on systematic theory and historical reflection are used to support a horizontal and vertical analysis on academic literatures produced both by Chinese and Japanese scholars,while a dualistic approach based on bibliometrics and content analysis is adopted to look at the existing works in the two countries from the following dimensions:a)information-oriented statistics);b)translation strategies;c)comparative studies;d)the Koudarohan Version(???);and e)book reviews.Major findings from the aforementioned works are introduced,based on which the historic backgrounds and main phenomena are retrospectively discovered and discussed,so as to explore the underlying development context and most common features that serve as the foundation to a tentative but reflective examination on the three most intriguing shared features of the Chinese and Japanese works.The author,after analyzing the past activities and the status quo in the field in question,through a retrospective approach,gives her own ahead-looking words on the future development of academic investigations in both China and Japan,which is summarized in four possibilities for each side:a)modernization and country-specific studies of the translation versions;b)feminism-based research angles;c)comparative studies on poetry;and d)acceptance and publicity studies could be future centerpieces in Japan;whereas studies that are a)integrated with modern translation studies theories;b)based on parallel Chinese-Japanese corpora on A Dream of Red Mansions;c)interdisciplinary in their nature;and d)with regard to the introduction and understanding of non-mainstream and more-recent translations and their authors will be seen more frequently in China.This paper firmly believes in the value and importance of A Dream of Red Mansion as it is undoubtedly the jewel in the crown of Chinese classical novels and that the Japanese translation of it remains under-studied.The author is looking forward to becoming a forward-looking and preliminary attempt that leads to more in-depth studies and contributes to the building of meta-research paradigm in translation studies.