Jane Austen in popular culture
The novels of Jane Austen were unknown in China until 1917 when Wei Yi mentioned Austen in her book "Brief Profiles of Famous Western Novelists" where she was described as "one of the celebrated English novelists". Only a few western novels were translated in China during the 19th century, and it was not until 1898 when Lin Shu translated "Camille" by Alexandre Dumas, which unexpectedly become a bestseller, that Chinese publishers became interested in western books. Austen was first translated into Chinese in 1935, when two editions of "Pride and Prejudice" were published in Beijing and Shanghai. After 1949 Austen was out of favor in the People's Republic of China as a "bourgeois" author whose work was considered frivolous. In the 1950s most of the foreign books published in the People's Republic were translations of Soviet books, and Western authors were only translated into Chinese if they were "revolutionary" writers like Lord Byron or if their books portrayed Western societies in an unflattering light like Charles Dickens; Austen did not serve either purpose very well. In 1956, Austen was first translated in the People's Republic when "Pride and Prejudice" was published in Beijing, with an introduction by the translator explaining how the translation was justified on Marxist grounds as the novel showed the decline of feudalism and rise of capitalism in England. In 1965 Dong Hengxun, an academic, condemned Austen in an article titled "The Description of Love in "Pride and Prejudice"" in the "Guangming Daily" as "artistically insignificant". Austen was banned along with other Western authors in China during the Cultural Revolution and during the 1980s, translations of Austen were grudgingly allowed, though officially Austen remained out of favor. The first Chinese academic in the People's Republic to write favorably of Austen was Zhu Hong, who complained in his 1986 essay "The Pride and Prejudice against Jane Austen" that ordinary people liked Austen well enough, but academics had to condemn her because of the Party line, which led him to ask for books to be judged on artistic grounds only. In the 1990s Communist Party condemnations of Austen ceased, and a number of Chinese students produced dissertations on Austen, with Austen being very popular with female students. In 2011 one Chinese academic, Zhang Helong, wrote about Austen's "huge popularity" in modern China. In 2017, "The Economist" noted that in China: "... Austen is seen as having a particular affinity with Chinese culture, where “manners matter” as they did in Georgian England." "Pride and Prejudice" has been translated into Chinese at least 50 times while "Sense and Sensibility" has been translated 10 times in the last decades. Austen's ideal hero as a property-owning gentleman has resonance in China, where a well-off man with good education and manners who owes land is the considered the ideal man. In 2010, Sadoff wrote that the growing appeal of Austen in Asia ensures that market for Austen films continues to grow, and it is possible Asia would soon replace the United States as the largest market for Austen films, if it has not already done so.
Jane Austen in popular culture
The American author Amy Elizabeth Smart visited several Latin American countries in 2011 to see where Austen stood in that part of the world. Smart was at first concerned that a British author like Austen would not be popular in Guatemala, where most of the people are Maya Indians. But she found Austen fitted in well with the Maya, intensely family-oriented people who criticized her for not taking her own family with her to Guatemala, saying how could she possibly leave her parents behind in America. Smart discovered that Austen's picture of close-knit families in the English countryside was to the Maya comparable to their own existence in the Guatemalan countryside. When Smart asked her Guatemalan students if the story of "Pride and Prejudice" could take place in modern Guatemala, the unanimous answer was yes. Smart found her Guatemalan students related to "Pride and Prejudice" better than her American students as the general expectation in Guatemala is that a woman should be married by her early twenties, just as was the case in Regency England, whereas her American students have trouble understanding why Elizabeth Bennet was risking social disgrace by turning down two marriage proposals. Moreover, Smart's Guatemalan students found the subject of class prejudices in Regency England more compelling than her American students, with many also saying racial prejudices against the Maya by Guatemala's "Criollo" elite made them relate to Elizabeth Bennet's struggle for acceptance from the Hertfordshire elite. Smart reported class discussions in the United States about "Pride and Prejudice" did not automatically lead to the subject of racism while in Guatemala, her students always brought up the racism against the Maya when discussing Miss Bennet's struggle against the gentry and aristocracy of Hertfordshire. By contrast, in Paraguay, where the majority of the population are Guaraní Indians, Smart discovered that hardly anyone knew who Austen was, and much of her class was indifferent to the books. Smart suggested that the War of the Triple Alliance, which wiped out most of the Paraguayan population between 1864-70 with Paraguay going from 1 million to 200, 000 people, had left a grim, death-obsessed mentality in Paraguay where the macabre was celebrated and where Austen simply could not fit into.