Rethinking the Relationship between China and the West: A Multi-Dimensional Model of Cross-Cultural Research focusing on Literary Adaptations

In the age of Globalization, cultural identity is a pointed and hotly debated question in academia. Cultural identity involves a core of traditional values and the recognition of several developing layers: the individual, the community and the nation. China has two dominant cultural tendencies: conservatism and protectionism. This has resulted in rejecting Western discourse to preserve a supposedly unchangeable Chinese identity. Comparative models that study cultural and literary exchanges between China and the West were based on dualist perceptions of spatio-temporal orientation. The multi-dimensional model of cross-cultural research espoused in this paper re-examines the relationships between Chinese and Western cultures and their literature. It also examines the misappropriation, transplantation, transfer and transformation of cultural representations and theories across diverse historical periods. As opposed to the dualist model of traditional comparators approaches, where relations are simplified to A influences B. the multi-dimensional model operates complex mapping, between ancient Chinese culture and Western culture, and then back to modern Chinese culture. This paper offers a case study of the complexity of cross-cultural exchanges over time, with the example of Ji Junxiang's The Orphan of Zhao, its sources, (mis)adaptations and critical interpretations.