瑞典著名汉学家马悦然对孔子学院的看法

成舍我

来源：北欧时报

瑞典著名汉学家马悦然在其博客上发表对孔子学院的看法

（记者陈雪霏）——瑞典著名汉学家马悦然15日在其博客上发表对孔子学院的看法。他说是回答一个中国记者的问题。全文如下：

我对孔子学院的观点，回答一个中国记者的问题

据去年12月份的信息，在过去十年里，已经有475所孔子学院和851个孔子课堂在126个国家建立。这些孔子学院旨在作为一种软实力促进中国文化的全球化。不同于独立的歌德学院和法语联盟的是，孔子学院与现有的大学和高等学校东道国合作。在我看来，这正是问题所在。我个人觉得，孔子学院与所在大学的关联产生了要废掉他们自己目标的威胁。孔子学院和它们所在大学之间已经出现的冲突和分歧似乎主要起源于什么样的话题可以或不能成为课程的一部分。当然，如果孔子学院是完全独立的，他们可以自由地从他们的课程中排除那些在中国可能不会自由讨论的话题。

在过去的两年里，美国大学教授协会和加拿大大学教师协会为了维护大学的学术自由，已建议其相关大学取消或拒绝与孔子学院续合同。对这些机构的负面看法在欧洲也在蔓延。我自己的母校，斯德哥尔摩大学，在去年12月20日决定不再继续其在2005年成立的欧洲第一所孔子学院的合同。

我自己对孔子学院的态度部分地基于这样一个事实：许多西方大学的中文院系在与孔子学院建立联系之后，已经变成了专门进行中小学基础汉语教学中心，对学术研究造成损害。我的态度也是基于我相信，孔子学院的总部国家汉办对中国文化的基本要素（在西方的传播）了解得不充分。若干年前，国家汉办决定启动重新将儒家经典翻译成英语（易，书，诗，礼，春秋），作为教科书向西方读者传输。

“易”是一个古老的占卜手册，语言缺乏文学素养，几乎刻意晦涩难懂，即使是那些专门研究它的学者都觉得难以读懂。质量低劣的翻译版本却一直，而且依然在作为几代嬉皮士的新时代圣经。

“书”是过时的文件集，大多是由封建社会名流进行的虚构演讲组成，即使中国人也很少能完全读懂。

”诗“是诗经，305首，成于第一个千年的初期。除了部分民俗诗歌以外，“国风”部分，大部分内容如果不借助以往学者冗长评论无法理解。（瑞典汉学家鼻祖）高本汉已经对全文进行了学术翻译。亚瑟·韦利对文本进行了文学翻译。

”礼“，主要是中国封建社会时期干瘪俗套的礼仪词汇，很少或没有什么文学价值。
“ 春秋“公元前722-481年间鲁国的编年史，完全没有文学特质。

（汉办）这个举措在我看来，反映了（中国）不但不了解西方汉学，而且对于几代著名的中国学者对汉代以来的哲学和文学批评领域的研究都不知晓。这也揭示了人们对用这些文本来传播中国文化并不欣赏。

国家汉办建议的手册内容：
诗经《国风》部分选出的诗经内容，包含民歌节选;
《孟子》，《论语》，《荀子》，《列子》，《庄子》和《墨子》节选。
《左传》节选;
《楚辞》，《九歌》节选，
司马迁的《史记》节选
汉代诗歌节选
南北朝（420-581）诗歌节选;
唐诗和宋词节选;
唐宋时期慧能，六祖坛经佛教布道的选择;
元剧;
明清小说节选。

在我看来，这样的手册远比重新编译的五经更有用。

如果我不指出去年发生在葡萄牙的事件，这无论是对我还是对国家汉办都是不公平的，去年7月欧洲中国研究协会在葡萄牙举行大会开幕式前夕，许琳女士，汉办执行主任下令把会议议程中提到台湾图书馆给大会的赠书和蒋经国基金会对欧洲中国研究协会的支持（资助）的四页纸去掉。她的霸道行为，让全世界汉学家深感遗憾并谴责，也无疑大大地影响了西方汉学家对孔子学院的消极态度。

我也感到遗憾的是许多中国当权人物选择认为任何与他们自己的观点不一致的观点都是旨在伤害中国，冒犯中国人。这使我的许多没有我这样敢大胆直言的同事选择沉默，而不是选择有可能导致积极结果的严肃讨论。

我希望能让你们确信（我想向你保证）我对中国文化怀有最崇高的敬意，无论是古代还是现代（文学），我都有过亲密接触。我也非常感谢，作为一个翻译家，我有机会和我的同胞分享50多卷中国文学，古代文学，中世纪，现代和当代文学，我发现这对我自己也非常有价值。

附博客原文：

According to information of December of last year, 475 Confucius Institutes and 851 Confucius Classrooms for pupils in secondary schools have been established in 126 countries in the last ten years. These Confucius Institutes are meant to play a major role as a Soft Power promoting efforts to ease the way for the globalization of Chinese culture. Unlike the independent Goethe Institutes and the Alliance française, the Confucius Institutes are associated with already existing universities and high-schools in the host countries. As I see it, this is where the problem rests. I personally feel that the association of the Confucius Institutes with host universities threatens to nullify their own aims. The conflicts that have arisen between Confucius Institutes and their host universities mostly seem to originate in diverging views on what topics can and what cannot be part of the curricula. If the Confucius Institutes were wholly independent, they would of course be free to exclude such topics from their curricula as may not be freely discussed in China.
In the last two years the American Association of University Professors and the Canadian Association of University Teachers have recommended that their associated universities cancel or refuse to renew contracts with Confucius Institutes for the sake of safeguarding the academic freedom of the universities. Negative views on these institutes are also spreading in Europe. My own Alma Mater, Stockholm University, decided on December 20 of last year not to renew its contract with the Confucius Institute established there in 2005, as the first Confucius Institute in Europe.
My own attitude toward the Confucius Institutes is based partly on the fact that a number of university departments of Chinese in the Western world, after having established contact with a Confucius Institute, have turned into centers for the teaching of elementary Chinese, to the detriment of serious research. My attitude is also based on my belief that the HANBAN Headquarters of the Confucius Institutes are less well informed about the cultural essentials of China. Some years ago, the HANBAN decided to initiate a re-translation into English of The Five Confucian Classics (易，书，诗，礼，春秋), to serve as textbooks for the indoctrination of Western readers.
易 is an ancient handbook of divination, written in a deliberately obscure language lacking literary quality and exceedingly hard to penetrate even for scholars who have made a special study of the text. Poor translations of the work have served and still serve as a New Age Bible for generations of hippies.
书 is a collection of archaic documents, mostly fictitious speeches, by prominent members of the archaic society of China, which very few Chinese can read with full understanding;
诗 is an anthology of poetry, containing 305 poems from the first half of the first millenium before our era. Except the folk poems in the section 國風,“Guofeng”, large portions of the text could not be appreciated without lengthy learned commentaries. Bernhard Karlgren has presented a scholarly translation of the whole text, and Arthur Waley a literary translation of the text.
礼 consists of collections of dry as dust notes on rites and rituals of feudal China, mostly of little or no literary value;
春秋 is an annalistic chronical of one of the feudal states (Lu) in the period 722-481 B.C., totally void of literary quality.
This initiative in my opinion reveals a lack of knowledge not only of Western Sinology, but also of the researches by generations of eminent Chinese scholars in the fields of philology and textual criticism from the 漢 Han dynasty to the present day. It also reveals a total lack of appreciation of the appropriateness of these texts as an introduction to Chinese culture.
Suggested content of a HANBAN handbook:
Selections from the 國風 “Guofeng” section of the 詩經Shijing, containing folk songs;
Selections from 孟子Meng Zi, 論語Lunyu, 荀子Xun Zi, 列子 Lie Zi, 莊子Zhuang Zi and 墨子Mo Zi;
Selections from the 左傳Zuozhuan;
Selections from 楚辭，九歌Chuci, Jiuge:
Selections from 司馬遷Sima Qian, 史記Shiji;
Selections of 漢Han poetry;
Selections of南北朝 Nanbeichao (420-581) poetry;
Selections of 唐Tang poetry and 宋Song lyrics;
Selections of Buddhist sermons from the Tang and Song periods，such as 慧能，六祖壇經 ;
One Yuan drama;
Selections from 明Ming and 清Qing novels.
It seems to me that such a handbook would be far more useful than a re-translation of the 五經。
I would not be fair to myself, nor to the HANBAN for that matter, if I refrained from referring to an incident that took place on the eve of the opening of the European Association for Chinese Studies Conference in Portugal in July of last year, when Mrs 許琳Xu Lin, the Executive Director of the HANBAN, ordered four pages to be torn off from the Conference program which referred to a gift of books from the Central Library in Taiwan and to the support given to the European Association for Chinese Studies by the 蔣經國基金會Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation. Her high-handed action, which was deeply regretted and condemned by sinologists all over the world, has no doubt greatly influenced Western sinologists’ negative attitude toward the Confucian Institutes.
I much regret that many Chinese authorities choose to consider any views that deviate from their own as inimical, aiming at harming China and offending the Chinese people. This has caused many of my colleagues, less outspoken than myself, to prefer to keep silent instead of entering into serious discussions that could have led to positive results.
I wish to assure you that I have the highest regard for the manifestations of Chinese culture, ancient and modern, with which I have come into close contact. I am also grateful that, as a translator, I have been given the opportunity to share with my compatriots some fifty volumes of Chinese literature, ancient, medieval, modern and contemporary, which I myself have found especially rewarding.
Göran Malmqvist
January 12, 2015