This book applies the perspective of cross-identity performance to the translation of a wide variety of Chinese texts into English and French from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. Drawing on scholarship in cultural studies, queer studies, and anthropology, St. André argues that many cross-identity performance techniques, including blackface, passing, drag, mimicry, and masquerade, provide new insights into the history of translation practice. He makes a strong case for situating translation in its historical, social, and cultural milieu, reading translated texts alongside a wide variety of other materials that helped shape the image of “John Chinaman.”