WHY 'XU YUN' IS NOT 'HSU YUN'

[Shi Da Dao]

Master Xu Yun does not appear to have written his name in the English language at any point in his very long life – although of course, he wrote it in Chinese characters many times. Xu Yun’s Ordination name was ‘德清’ (De Qing) which translates as ‘Virtuous Clarity’. He did not ascribe the name ‘虛雲’ (Xu Yun) to himself until around 1900, when he climbed Mount Zhongnan for a period of isolated meditation. In the early days of East-West interaction, a number of Western-produced transliteration systems were developed – none of which had any Chinese academic input. Systems such as that used by Yale University, or that of Wade-Giles, were premised upon presenting the approximate phonetic meaning of Chinese ideograms, primarily through the English language. This led to many errors, misconceptions, and a lack of understanding. As the Chinese people were never consulted about this process, Chinese academics had no experience of it. Furthermore, Western-based transliteration systems were very much part of the Western imperialist presence in China, and was another example of the Western colonial policy of disempowering the Chinese people through co-opting their indigenous culture in the service of oppressive imperialism. After 1949, all this changed, and Western-systems of transliteration were rejected in China for being both inadequate and exploitative. Modern pinyin is the correct rendering of the sounds of Chinese ideograms into the Roman alphabet, designed by Chinese academics. Pinyin has its own simple ‘Chinese’ rules in the use of the Roman alphabet, and is the product of Chinese people explaining their own culture to a foreign audience. Therefore, to erroneously express Master Xu Yun’s name ‘Hsu Yun’ is a deliberate continuation of the Western imperialist era, and as it seeks to dominate at the point of contact (through the misrepresentation of Chinese culture) its use maybe considered ‘racist’ in nature. Those who truly revere Old Master Xu Yun in the West, should work to eradicate this wrong presentation of his name, and with it the racism it represents.