Re: EJ & China

["Richard J. Stewart" <rjstewar@pacbell.net>]

Richard Brem wrote:
> 
> -- [ From: Richard Brem * EMC.Ver #2.5.02 ] --
> 
> So Hongkong has become Chinese ... On the occasion of the British handover
> of HK to China I want to draw your attention to an interview that Ernst
> Juenger gave to the German newspaper "Welt am Sonntag" on  31 December 1978.
> 
> The interview starts with the following question: "Wie lautet Ihre Prognose
> fuer das 21. Jahrhundert?" ["What's your prognosis for the 21st century?"]
> And Juenger answers: "Das 21. Jahrhundert wird mexikanisch und chinesisch
> sein. Ich meine, machtmaessig werden die Chinesen sehr zunehmen: durch ihren
> Fleiss, ihr Organisations- talent, ihre Zahl." ["The 21st century will be
> Mexican and Chinese. I mean in terms of power the Chinese will become very
> important,
> because of their assiduity, their organizational talent, their number."]
> (With "Mexican" Juenger refers to sacred drugs)
> 
> In Juenger's utopian novel "Eumeswil", published in 1977, the Chinese seem
> to play an important role as well. As always Juenger is not explicit, but
> prefers to drop hints: he introduces the character of Kung, a cook, who is
> attached to Martin (Manuel) Venator at the Casbah; and he mentions the
> Yellow Khan at several occasions, who seems to be some sort of global power.
> 
> In one of the last paragraphs of the chapter "Ein Tag in der Stadt"
> ("A Day in the City") Venator talks about his affection for chess:
> "Der Genuss ist archaisch; ich bewege die Bauern und Offiziere,
> den hurtigen Laeufer, den listigen Springer, den maechtigen Elefanten, den
> Koenig, den Vezier."
> Now, I'm no expert in chess, but the elephant and the vizier seem to
> symbolize some major cultural change here. I think I've heard somewhere that
> the Chinese play their own version of chess with some of the pieces being
> different. I think I've heard they use elephants instead of rooks, but I
> might be completely wrong. Maybe some of the list members know more about
> this.
> Btw, Joachim Neugroschel in his 1993 translation of the book has
> left out the "elephant" and the "vizier"; he translated them as "the
> powerful rook" and "the queen" (p. 364 of the UK edition).
> I don't know, I think Juenger tried to indicate something here and
> Neugroschel should have sticked more to the original text.
> 
> Anyway, if Juenger is right with his prognosis then we should get accustomed
> to the prospect of a dramatically increased Chinese hegemony over large
> parts of the world. Has anyone read Humphrey Hawksley's and Simon
> Holberton's "Dragonstrike: The Millenium War" yet? Juenger would probably
> like it a lot. Any comments, Bertil?

My two cents on Chinese Chess.  There is an elephant piece but it's not
anything like a rook.  It's closer to the Western bishop piece except it
can't cross the "river", a barrier that seperates the two halves of the
board.  I have no idea how this all fits in but I do think the
assumption that it would have been better to translate elephant as
elephnat is a good one.

RJ Stewart