Tradition Rewritten. Bao Tianxiao's Textual Strategies and the Education of Young Women

Bao Tianxiao was a key figure in China’s early cultural modernisation between the late Qing and the early Republic. As a writer, translator and journalist, he shaped the sentimental strand of Chinese fiction, blending literature, journalism and autobiography. Educated in the Confucian Classics, Bao retained a pedagogical view of literature, advocating the use of fiction to spread modern ideas while preserving traditional values. This study offers insight into Bao’s early works, focusing on his acclaimed tale Yi lü ma 一縷麻 (1909) to explore his views on modernity and women’s education. Translation studies provide a useful lens, with “translation” understood as the migration and transformation of discursive codes, including intertextuality. This chapter examines Bao’s self-intertextual short story Qie ming bo 妾命薄 (1906), embedded in Yi lü ma, and reveals that it is an indirect and creative translation of a sketch by Mark Twain mediated through Hara Hoitsuan’s Japanese version. Bao rewrote the story to emphasise women’s sacrifice over individual freedom, blending the Confucian legacy of qing 情 with a modern discourse on national subjectivity. The textual and rhetorical strategy analysed in this study is the superimposition of domesticated Western imports onto the traditional ethical code. This approach underscores Bao’s progressive literary pedagogy during a transitional era.