Freud's China connection

Abstract

Freud made several references to Chinee culture and language throughout his work, to support his ideas in a variety of ways. However, a recently discovered letter from him to a Chinese intellectual who had expressed an itnerest in his use of Chinese prompts speculation about the extent to which Freud understood the culture and the language. The traditional Chinese practice of footbinding would apper not to be explained by his theory of fetishism, for example. As well, his use of the supposed ambiguity of the Chinese language to support his theory of dream interpretation is misapplied, but this may be because the question of how ambiguity is removed in the Chinese language is still a subject of debate.