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Finding Beauty in the Ugly and Strange: A Study of the Origin of Petromania in Tang China during the First Half of the Ninth Century This paper examines aesthetic issues related to the Lake Tai rocks, ugly and strangestones that were celebrated as valuable items in Chinese garden culture. The underlying purpose of the study is to better understand the origin of petromania literature starting during the first half of the ninth century of Tang China. More importantly, it contributes to a deeper appreciation of the relationship between beauty and ugliness in Chinese literati’s thoughts. Based on existing sources, “A Pair of Rocks,” written by Bo Juyi in 826, is the first poem of the Lake Tai rocks in the history of Chinese literature. The poet was sympathetic toward its ugly and strange configurations. In 839, however, only twelve years after the poem was written, Bo Juyi, Liu Yuxi, and Niu Sengru gathered in Niu's rock garden and expressed unanimous acclaim of the stone as a rarity. Such change of perception shows that the Lake Tai rocks began to be appreciated as an aesthetic object. The cult of the Lake Tai rocks is vividly described in “The Record of the Lake Tai Rocks,” a prose account written by Bo Juyi in 843. This account reveals Bo's intentions to defend Liu's obsessive collection of the rocks but it still contains important content, such as categorization and rank of rocks, aesthetic standards, and circumstances during that period. My study of ninth-century petromania suggests that there is no absolute distinction between the beautiful and the ugly, and that a sense of beauty may change depending on time and circumstances.

The reason why we are worthy of notice on <The Women warrior> which was written based on the Chinese character “Mulan”(<Mulanshi(木蘭詩)>) in minority discourse is that it has cultivated important cultural domains in modern society in which subject and discourse of minority have been raised and America society which has multiethnic and multicultural aspects. Mythical heroine named Mulan suggested that minority women should challenge to acquire new life through the overcoming of pain, which assured that minorities had ability and potential power. Due to the unique literary characteristics and tendencies of Mulan, it propounded the social messages such as femininity, ethnicity, sociality, popularity entertaining, and convoyed them to the public, moreover to build the unique literary domain. That kind of qualities were combined with her feature of minority and created a synergy effect. It was incredibly inspired that Mulan as a social minority icon who was belonging to equestrian culture and nomadic tribes not a part of Confucian culture was realized a person who could not only resolve conflicts and but also as an ideological leader who drove newly positive life as well. Ultimately Mulan declared to assimilate into the America mainstream society, acknowledged herself as a main body of culture who can construct new culture area, reached full growth as a capable person who can change society and culture, and became qualified as a guard who can alert the sovereign majority.

Zhu Xi's interpretation on “illustrious virtue” on the basis of original Confucian classics in Pre-Qin dynasty, the interpretation with original Confucian classics are preserve the unanimity, and increase Neo-Confucianism's viewpoint. He interpret “illustrious virtue” with “reason”. The interpretation as follows: First, he advocates illustrious virtue are heavenly order and Not ignorance of void and bright. Second, he think that illustrious virtue are conscience and good conscience. Third, he think that illustrious virtue possess noumenal function, also possess the status in metaphysics of morals. Zhu Xi's interpretation on “illustrious virtue” receive Neo-Confucianist's succession and development. It makes Zhu Xi's “illustrious virtue” interpretation possess classical status on interpretation in the historyof Chinese philosophy. Zhu Xi's succession of the pre-Qin Confucian “illustrious virtue” idea, he acknowledged the possibility of moral practice and good of human nature. He believes that “illustrious virtue ” as the mandate of heaven, therefore, we haveto practice the mandate of heaven. Wang Fuzhi's also pre-Qin Confucian “illustrious virtue” idea, and played his own pointof view. Wang Fuzhi the “moral” classified into innate virtue and morality of the day after tomorrow. Zhu Xi's “Matilda” and “de” the possibility of him “Matilda” is Heaven, “de” is the practice of heaven. Wang Fuzhi underscores “de” the day after tomorrow the cultivation process, in his view, the “de” is a conscious and ethical behavior. To sum up, I think of Zhu Xi's “illustrious virtue” interpretation has a negative side, instead of Wang Fu-Zhi's “illustrious virtue” interpretation of a positive side. This is consistent with their philosophy and cultural conceptions, Zhu Xi's scholar is a comprehensive and innovative scholar Wang Fuzhi was in turn, it affects their “illustrious virtue,” understanding and interpretation. In any case, their “illustrious virtue” interpretation is influenced later Confucianism of “illustrious virtue,” understanding and explanation of the thought of. Both “illustrious virtue” thought research pending follow-up studies.

The purpose of this study is to carefully revaluate the historical and aestheticcharacteristics of Shao Xunmei's 邵洵美(1906-1968) third collection of poetry Shiershiwu shou 詩二十五首(Twenty-five Poems), especially focusing on his concern forharmonizing poetic contents with formal device. His enthusiasm for decadentimagination and technique of weaving highly symbolic seductive images became distinctly visible throughout the Twenty-five Poems. Generally speaking, Shao's thirdcollection of poetry is superior to his first and second collection of poetry in aestheticvalue. In his “Self-preface 自序,” he attempts to suggest that poets should employdifferent forms for different inspiration―the form always being appropriate to thesubject. Also he said poet's mission is to evoke an object that suggests the meaning,not to explain an object concretely. Because the inspiration experienced by a poet isunique enough to match the faith in Christianity, the poet is reduced to the use of acomplex and godlike symbolization in an effort to give expression. As a result of this,Shao's aesthetic achievement is superb and has a special significance in that thesepoems reflect his study on the characteristics of decadent literature as being chineseavant-garde.

It is often said that Mashiwentong is the first Chinese grammar book. But It is not true because before this book there were many Chinese grammar books written by Western missionaries.This article introduced about the first Chinese grammar Grammatica Sinica by Martino Martini and the second Chinese grammar book Arte de la Lengua Mandarina by Francisco Varo in 17th and 18th centuries. After comparing two books in various aspects, we found that the grammatical system of Arte de la Lengua Mandarina is much more complicated than that of Grammatica Sinica. However it doesn’t mean grammatical analysis of Grammatica Sinica is not go good, because analysis about Chinese aspect is almost same as modern Chinese grammar. Besides, Arte de la Lengua Mandarina has unique parts, such as religious examples, various particles, three modes of speaking Chinese, Courteous words in conversation, modes of interrogation, etc. Especially on the today’s viewpoint Varo too much emphasized Courteous words and politeness because this topic is not grammatical problem and it should not involve grammar book. Even though these books have some mistakes and were deeply influenced by Latin-Greek Grammar, but these books have an important significance in that they blaze way for other western missionaries to study Chinese.

The focus of texts moves from a source text to a target text, as the focus of translation studies has shifted from ‘translation as a text’ to ‘translation as a cultural behavior.’ Therefore, a source text is just one of various information sources for translators, not the overriding basis for translation. Today, the success of translation depends on the level of readers’ acceptance of translated texts. The perspective that a translated text should function properly in a target culture according to its purpose (skopos) is well established in studies on translation of news texts. By nature, ‘readability’ is a critical feature of news texts, which are designed to deliver information in written or oral forms to the public. At issue is that the abundant information of news texts in foreign media may have negatively affect readability for the audience, due to time (for broadcasting) or space (for newspaper) constraints, whensource texts are literally translated in target languages. Consequently, most media simply preserves the value of the news and changes a source text for a better understanding of the audience. This is especially common in Chinese media. This study suggests characteristics of changes from source texts for ‘readability’ in Chinese media, and explains translation in China using predictable theories based on the examination of various translation perspectives. In general, Chinese scholars employ functionalism while Korean scholars use an ideology approach in studies on translated news texts. However, this study focuses on readability as a factor to changes of translated news texts, and explores how readability is achieved in the process of translation and how it is related to journalistic factors in China.