Original link: https://blog.yitianshijie.net/2022/07/26/exoticism/
Eileen Chang “has a few words to share with readers”:
The cover (of “Legend”) was designed by Yanying. I borrowed a picture of a fashionable lady in the late Qing Dynasty, and drew a woman playing dominoes there quietly, with a nurse sitting next to her, holding her child, as if it was a common scene after dinner. But outside the railing, there was a strangely shaped human figure that appeared like a ghost. It was a modern man, and he was very curious and diligently peeked into it. If there’s something unsettling about this image, it’s the atmosphere I hope to create.
The cover was designed by Zhongshan Tai. Night view of downtown America. Bars, hotels, restaurants, dazzling neon lights, two cars lined up neatly on the road, the style is probably the 1930s? But the foreground is abruptly drawn with a bamboo and two peculiar people. From the clothes, it can be seen that they are ancient Japanese, but they are carrying briefcases that did not exist in ancient times. A hooded man ran barefoot in front, followed by a bearded man wearing what looked like running shoes. They flashed like ghosts in America in the 1930s, but they didn’t seem to plan to stop. Undoubtedly, this is the person in “One Week in the World in 337 Seconds”. These 337 seconds are not only space travel, but also time travel. If the Japanese are quoting and playing American music, it’s Japanese music.
Shibusawa Ryuhiko, “The Voyage of Prince Takaoka”, translated by Yao Yiwei, Guangxi Normal University Press 2019:
…Perhaps the word “exoticism” in its purest sense is condensed in the Prince’s conception of Buddhism. “exoticism,” literally translated, carries a sense of reacting to external things. Since the Asuka era, Buddhism can almost be regarded as another name for an exotic culture. Needless to say, it also radiates the backlight of “exoticism”. For the prince, Buddhism is not limited to the so-called backlight, and its interior is like pure gold, tightly filled with “exoticism”, like an onion, no matter how you peel it, “exoticism” is endless. The core of its structure is Tianzhu.
(The original name of the backlight is “back light”, I think it is better to translate it as a halo here.)
In 1997, the author of “One Week in the World in 337 Seconds” adapted the 1928 hit “My Blue Heaven” into “My Heaven”, blowing into the microphone. In 2016, three years after the author returned to the north, this song was included in the second disc of the first production limited edition of the album ” Rebirth “.
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