tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-139742966457337752024-03-03T19:27:15.815-05:00An Immigrant's Evolving Perspectiveby Xujun EberleinXujunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05534267282303815433noreply@blogger.comBlogger370125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13974296645733775.post-15940726210896229932020-05-10T20:50:00.000-04:002020-05-12T11:49:47.177-04:00The Summer before Thirteen<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: spectral, serif; line-height: 2rem; margin-bottom: 1em;">
“Is he dead?” I asked Mother, who grasped my wrist tight and strode hurriedly.</div>
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“Don’t know,” she said. I hoped this was an indication that he wasn’t, despite my belief in Chairman Mao’s teaching that “wherever there is struggle there is sacrifice, and death is a common occurrence. . . . When we die for the people, it is the right death.” The neighborhood kids and I bellowed these words as a song every day, and I can still sing it now, the last clause a sonorous refrain:</div>
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“It <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">is</em> the right death, it <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">is</em> the right death!”</div>
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Read the complete essay here: <a href="https://agnionline.bu.edu/essay/the-summer-before-thirteen">https://agnionline.bu.edu/essay/the-summer-before-thirteen</a>Xujunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05534267282303815433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13974296645733775.post-58770186283597552222020-05-08T13:34:00.001-04:002020-05-08T13:35:29.452-04:00The End of...?<span style="background-color: white; color: #8899a6; font-family: "helvetica neue" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: center; white-space: nowrap;"></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #8899a6; font-family: "helvetica neue" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: center; white-space: nowrap;">Since 2012, there has been no doubt in my mind that Chris Buckley <a href="https://twitter.com/ChuBailiang?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ChuBailiang</a> is one of the most intrepid and acute foreign correspondents doing field reporting in, not just on, <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/China?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#China</a>. His leaving likely marks the end of on-the-spot reporting from China by foreign journalists. <a href="https://t.co/2NhdsI7Qhw">https://t.co/2NhdsI7Qhw</a></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #8899a6; font-family: "helvetica neue" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: center; white-space: nowrap;">— Xujun Eberlein (@XujunEberlein) <a href="https://twitter.com/XujunEberlein/status/1258802895841038342?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 8, 2020</a></span></blockquote>
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A wonderful, devastating piece by a wonderful writer. <a href="https://t.co/fyrD811RrO">https://t.co/fyrD811RrO</a></div>
— tania branigan (@taniabranigan) <a href="https://twitter.com/taniabranigan/status/1143864203192819712?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 26, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Just read and am in awe of <a href="https://twitter.com/XujunEberlein?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@XujunEberlein</a>'s "In Which No Sex Takes Place" in the latest issue of <a href="https://twitter.com/AGNIMagazine?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AGNIMagazine</a>.</div>
— Elizabeth Bales Frank (@elizafrank) <a href="https://twitter.com/elizafrank/status/1090654905835184128?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 30, 2019</a></blockquote>
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And here in <a href="https://twitter.com/XujunEberlein?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@XujunEberlein</a>’s “In Which No Sex Takes Place”: “the novel lit my insides like a torch set to dry kindling.” *gulp* <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/essay?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#essay</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/AGNIMagazine?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AGNIMagazine</a></div>
— Susan Lerner (@susanlitelerner) <a href="https://twitter.com/susanlitelerner/status/1072138772454801415?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 10, 2018</a></blockquote>
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"In Which No Sex Takes Place," by Xujun Eberlein, is an EXCELLENT essay on life during China's Cultural Revolution! Read it and learn! <a href="https://twitter.com/XujunEberlein?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@xujuneberlein</a>.</div>
— Russell Bittner (@Russell538) <a href="https://twitter.com/Russell538/status/1070396452529233920?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 5, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Beautiful coming-of-age essay by the amazingly talented <a href="https://twitter.com/XujunEberlein?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@XujunEberlein</a> "In Which No Sex Takes Place." Take a few minutes this day and lose yourself in some great writing. <a href="https://t.co/BY4JAJOFdy">https://t.co/BY4JAJOFdy</a></div>
— Jeremiah Jenne (@JeremiahJenne) <a href="https://twitter.com/JeremiahJenne/status/1066844388892934144?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 26, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Xujunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05534267282303815433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13974296645733775.post-61077156640769751812018-12-25T10:54:00.001-05:002018-12-25T14:31:08.885-05:00Their First Christmas: 1981-- A true story I heard from a friend who experienced this<br />
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It so happened that they arrived in New York City on Christmas Eve, three years after US-China diplomatic normalization. It was an unplanned date for those exchange students, the first bunch in more than three decades. Beckoned by extraterrestrially lighted trees on the oddly named 42nd Street, three of the students, two boys and one girl, stepped out from the Chinese Consulate's moldy guesthouse against warnings. They came upon a 24-hour store and went in. Picking out a Boston map, priced $2, one of the newcomers hesitantly handed the cashier—owner? —a $20 bill, still warm with his body heat. It was a huge bill, one-third of their monthly food allowance. But none of them had anything smaller—American currency was so new to them it was still a mystery, as was English the new language. As the student and his friends silently waited for his change, the proprietor came around the counter, chanting, "Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas," and cheerfully steered them out.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/paulobar/230134559/" target="_blank">New York City at Night (photo by Paulo Barcellos Jr. </a>)</span></div>
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Xujunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05534267282303815433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13974296645733775.post-73305169531491159972018-12-18T13:48:00.000-05:002018-12-31T01:21:54.447-05:00In Which No Sex Takes Place(Personal essay, published in <a href="https://agnionline.bu.edu/essay/in-which-no-sex-takes-place" target="_blank">AGNI 88</a>)<br />
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1.<br />
By the time middle schools finally resumed classes, three years of complete freedom had turned my cohort—who’d last sat in a fourth-grade classroom—into a herd of wild things. There was never a moment of quiet when we sat down at our desks. High-pitched talking mingled in the air with the low burr of voices, but a careful observer could see two parallel streams not crossing, as no dialogue took place between the girls and the boys.<br />
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The Cultural Revolution was entering its fourth year. Rampant violence had crested a year earlier, but there were still no books to read. Boys I didn’t much care about (not yet); they were just a species with shorter hair. But the dearth of books—that was like roasting my brain in a hot wok.<br />
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<i>Continue to read my essay on <a href="https://agnionline.bu.edu/essay/in-which-no-sex-takes-place" target="_blank"><b>AGNI's new website</b> </a></i>Xujunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05534267282303815433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13974296645733775.post-78960059767725773622018-12-01T16:58:00.000-05:002018-12-01T20:46:36.169-05:00The Cremation"It is better to have the first cremation of the day, my younger sister said, because the furnace is clean. It is better that the view of the furnace is blocked, she again said."<br />
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Read my flash nonfiction "<a href="https://brevitymag.com/current-issue/the-cremation/" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">The Cremation</a>"<b> </b>in <i>Brevity Magazine</i><br />
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<i><br /></i>Xujunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05534267282303815433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13974296645733775.post-29063296623318791412017-12-04T16:16:00.000-05:002017-12-04T16:23:24.593-05:00Aren’t We All Accomplices (Book Review)<a href="https://i1.wp.com/chinachannel.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/larb4.png?resize=295%2C420&ssl=1" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://i1.wp.com/chinachannel.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/larb4.png?resize=295%2C420&ssl=1" style="background-color: transparent;" width="140" /></a><br />
In May 2012, a stranger contacted me through my website. A professor of cultural psychology at Hampshire College, Q.M. Zhang was interested in talking about Chongqing, the city I grew up in. What triggered her request for a meeting, apparently, was my article titled “Another Kind of American History in Chongqing,” which had appeared on the Atlantic website the previous year. She was writing a memoir about her relationship with her father, who had worked for the Kuomintang (aka the KMT or the Nationalists, the ruling party of China from 1928 to 1949) in Chongqing during WWII.<br />
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By contrast, my own parents were underground Communists in the 1940s. So her father and mine, though unknown to each other, had literally been enemies in the same city. (<span style="color: #660000;">Read the rest of my review on </span><a href="https://chinachannel.org/2017/12/04/accomplice-to-memory/"><i>LARB China Channel</i></a>)Xujunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05534267282303815433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13974296645733775.post-31247715916006359132017-08-19T23:22:00.000-04:002017-08-20T10:07:24.595-04:00Sketches of Boston's Counter-Protest TodayA group of my Chinese American friends and I joined Boston's counter-protest today, because we feel that increasing racism, encouraged by Donald Trump, has become a significant and ever-dangerous trend in America. We were all outraged by Heather Heyer's murder a week ago, and shocked that Nazis could openly stage such a comeback. Is this America?? Is this still the America we immigrated to?<br />
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So as soon as we heard about the so-called "free-speech rally" in Boston, we felt the need to show the world that we are with the majority of Bostonians who have no tolerance for bigotry and hatred. "作为少数族裔,我感到义不容辞,需要现身表明立场" — "As a minority member, I feel duty-bound to show up and take a clear stand," was how one friend put it.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlxSoQEzDyrmiFeEJnUVPBhaehYdx2JG43_O8doJUAVwEg8h8vafbor2U551fl7M-UgM7rWbvf8T7l4CUbAF-CPA6xQL-aA_CR_WoGklcM9tWBZEieZ7StWOgsQfgxeajRcL9IGi5vIe8/s1600/IMG_2381.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlxSoQEzDyrmiFeEJnUVPBhaehYdx2JG43_O8doJUAVwEg8h8vafbor2U551fl7M-UgM7rWbvf8T7l4CUbAF-CPA6xQL-aA_CR_WoGklcM9tWBZEieZ7StWOgsQfgxeajRcL9IGi5vIe8/s320/IMG_2381.JPG" width="320" /></a>A little after eleven this morning, when my friends and I arrived at Boston Common, the police had fenced out a large area around Parkman Bandstand (see photos below). From a distance, only a few, hardly discernible small shadows could be seen on the Bandstand stage; otherwise the protected area was completely deserted. And so the scene of a sea of counter-protesters —thousands? tens of thousands? —outside the fence looking into a largely empty ring was kind of funny, but in a good way. Apparently, the police were determined to make an effective firebreak between the right wing speakers and counter-protesters, but with the unexpectedly tiny size of bushfire, the firebreak seemed oversized. It worked though. Where were the thousands of attendees the so-called "free speech rally" organizers said would be there? Had their rally petered out before it even began?<br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-liUVfLF3eGY/WZj1mba4c2I/AAAAAAAAB8w/I_NbWH3-b6Y8PUqO5m1MDc6f05RRFiMKQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_2387.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-liUVfLF3eGY/WZj1mba4c2I/AAAAAAAAB8w/I_NbWH3-b6Y8PUqO5m1MDc6f05RRFiMKQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_2387.JPG" width="320" /></a>Some of us thought those racists might show up at noon, the scheduled time of their "event," and that would be our time to confront them. A few minutes before noon, I managed to squeeze through the counter-protesters to a gap in the temporary fence, in time to see an array of policemen walking out. I asked one of them if more of the "free speech" guys were going to arrive. "That's it," he said, refereeing to the sparse grouping of figures on the stage.<br />
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Later, after the "event" ended early, before 1 pm instead of the scheduled time of 2 pm, I asked another policeman guarding the Common how many people were there; he said about two dozen from the "free speech" side, and 25k counter protesters. I asked why he thought so few of the former party showed up.<br />
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"Because they are idiots," the police said with apparent scorn.<br />
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I was actually not that surprised by the faltered "free speech rally." Yesterday, a friend had found this on Facebook:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWQI-rUpwvJa1PKq36YRoEJIYleebOJGyqOoG0U1hyphenhyphen5Jx-iNgz416i_VMbku9cc61HATaTz_QO3Y2-MpdEAcXP9_xc35P6MnkpUMlUyznl28mMFeA4FRy8Sh9LE2aU38e2hfvbaX5h9iI/s1600/mmexport1503194527764.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="539" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWQI-rUpwvJa1PKq36YRoEJIYleebOJGyqOoG0U1hyphenhyphen5Jx-iNgz416i_VMbku9cc61HATaTz_QO3Y2-MpdEAcXP9_xc35P6MnkpUMlUyznl28mMFeA4FRy8Sh9LE2aU38e2hfvbaX5h9iI/s320/mmexport1503194527764.jpg" width="179" /></a></div>
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What does this mean? Go figure.<br />
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So the counter-protest, for which we had worried about Charlottesville-like violence, turned out to be a largely fun outing. Here are a few anecdotes from today.<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vcmL85wwxsM/WZmXUERB6nI/AAAAAAAACAU/74BIp942TQ4shJr8SEYMs7_s2Wu-DKOuQCLcBGAs/s1600/c32e5df46513972646929726a36f842d.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vcmL85wwxsM/WZmXUERB6nI/AAAAAAAACAU/74BIp942TQ4shJr8SEYMs7_s2Wu-DKOuQCLcBGAs/s320/c32e5df46513972646929726a36f842d.jpg" width="320" /></a>Shortly after walking into the Common, we heard a thunderous chanting echoed by what must have been thousands of people: "Fuck Donald Trump! Fuck Donald Trump!"<br />
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One of us, a photographer, saw a number of men who claimed they were "free speech" members and wanted to join those on the stage. Police guarding the entrance told them their names were not on the list given by the organizer, and refused to let them through the fence. Our photographer followed those guys, escorted by police, moving around the big circle, and saw that at every entrance they met with rejection.<br />
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My husband, an American who had lived in Canada in his youth years, was dismayed to see a Canadian flag on the Bandstand. <i>Some Canadians came to Boston to be racists</i>? He wondered aloud.<br />
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People were booing someone waving a Sickle-Hammer Soviet flag. It was too far from where I stood and I could only see the flag swinging in air. Couldn't figure out the motivation of the flag-holder.<br />
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At one point, the crowd before us cheered loudly. I then heard that someone had turned on the sprinkler in one area of the Common, and a few "free speech" members passing through got a free shower.<br />
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An old couple, who held an American flag and said they supported Trump, were arguing with some counter-protesters. I got there at the end of the arguments, when the old couple were leaving. A bystander who looked like had been in the service was helping the old lady, carefully and correctly folding her flag for her so that she could carry it more easily.<br />
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Here are more photos from today, some taken by myself, some by my friends. I got a kick out of the many creative signs.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(Police blocked vehicles from entering the Common)</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMcMBdAbSQgVTcbEBTDM_avV-WJ7IxD1LVagGZLFe45p9aFhWQJy12FOEDT0iutMOHe3HGko5HIzjnz2tFH0lzshs6uA5csVYs5DGLRAue1I-npYL2q9jZfu7QlN4f4PU6pmmhw-qymB8/s1600/IMG_2375.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMcMBdAbSQgVTcbEBTDM_avV-WJ7IxD1LVagGZLFe45p9aFhWQJy12FOEDT0iutMOHe3HGko5HIzjnz2tFH0lzshs6uA5csVYs5DGLRAue1I-npYL2q9jZfu7QlN4f4PU6pmmhw-qymB8/s200/IMG_2375.JPG" width="200" /></a><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBqehiMxV7Jm_7eNgNNBdE-1JolNUsQOx1QaYtGfkMLCTPBjN2P1-Jcu56bPubud2d5XsS1Dvb2dbMeFnyyvRgJ45tb2sSvigtBvf6EtsxeXXUmeglH3I9PmYy-Gy4I77W95wKTywWeFE/s1600/mmexport1503200896587.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBqehiMxV7Jm_7eNgNNBdE-1JolNUsQOx1QaYtGfkMLCTPBjN2P1-Jcu56bPubud2d5XsS1Dvb2dbMeFnyyvRgJ45tb2sSvigtBvf6EtsxeXXUmeglH3I9PmYy-Gy4I77W95wKTywWeFE/s320/mmexport1503200896587.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(when we walked in the Common)</td></tr>
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Counter protesters:<br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VQAiigHZFSk/WZkTlCcH4VI/AAAAAAAAB-g/51NJ4gfXOYwnVEMBCEQCmoH8jUGvHBchQCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/78c499b38fbf79b7a5b6e436088b86e4.temp-1.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VQAiigHZFSk/WZkTlCcH4VI/AAAAAAAAB-g/51NJ4gfXOYwnVEMBCEQCmoH8jUGvHBchQCK4BGAYYCw/s320/78c499b38fbf79b7a5b6e436088b86e4.temp-1.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtTB4wd1f4xmtojPTytL1xmRg5wHZ1Y_8cYpcwRQlXNUOfMDr3u5wyq6QUbInX1neCww-uoWPmlDZu35uJ4YCuiSP3eIHWsRLQDg9b71jbgWPnXcEOelluATcrVlKAqQH-D7CN3EakSb4/s1600/IMG_2388.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtTB4wd1f4xmtojPTytL1xmRg5wHZ1Y_8cYpcwRQlXNUOfMDr3u5wyq6QUbInX1neCww-uoWPmlDZu35uJ4YCuiSP3eIHWsRLQDg9b71jbgWPnXcEOelluATcrVlKAqQH-D7CN3EakSb4/s320/IMG_2388.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(a friend)</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(another friend)</td></tr>
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Xujunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05534267282303815433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13974296645733775.post-81154773055254390932017-08-13T17:57:00.000-04:002017-08-14T12:01:19.624-04:00Another Opinion on Ezra Pound's TranslationJust saw in a Reddit discussion an interesting comment related to my post "<a href="https://insideoutchina.blogspot.com/2014/12/on-ezra-pounds-translation-of-ancient.html" target="_blank">On Ezra Pound’s Translation of Ancient Chinese Poetry</a>" (this is an example where the pronoun "he" is blatantly wrong in a comment, but the commentator still makes a good and on topic point 😊) .<br />
<br />
Here is the gist of the comment (emphasis mine):<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.0769px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin-bottom: 0.357143em; margin-top: 0.357143em; padding: 0px;">
This is an example where one of the poets is blatantly wrong in his translation, but he is still the best poet out of all of them. Even though the blogger tried to come up with <b>his</b> own style that is above the other two, <b>he</b> misses out on a lot of the subtle modernist poetic rhythms that Pound pulls in his. Pound, of course, misses out on the folk-song repetitive & rhymey quality of the original, but makes up for it in his skill.<br />
For example, in the first line of Pound’s poem, he builds up softer sound through “picking the first fern-shoots”, and uses more ‘o’s when the later part comes. The 3rd translation has the rhyme, but lacks this nuance. Pound’s version is lingering throughout because of his superb manipulation of sounds.</blockquote>
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(Complete comment embedded below)<br />
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<div class="reddit-embed" data-embed-created="2017-08-13T21:50:20.843Z" data-embed-live="false" data-embed-media="www.redditmedia.com" data-embed-parent="false" data-embed-uuid="ed6f6f65-e567-4dd7-b94a-058f3124e15c">
<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/6qxek3/is_translation_quality_important_redux/dl1kuzy/">Comment</a> from discussion <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/6qxek3/is_translation_quality_important_redux/">Is translation quality important? Redux</a>.</div>
<script async="" src="https://www.redditstatic.com/comment-embed.js"></script>Xujunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05534267282303815433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13974296645733775.post-31854862285424116822017-07-28T21:12:00.000-04:002017-07-28T22:30:38.977-04:00Chinese Translations of the Atlantic's Cover Stories<br />
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<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/" target="_blank"><img height="200" src="https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/issues/2017/06/19/0717_Cover_NEWNEW/840.jpg?1497885690" width="150" /></a></div>
Translating <i><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/" target="_blank">the Atlantic</a>'</i>s cover stories into Chinese is a project that my friends and I started in March, motivated by a feeling of responsibility to help serious journalism reach a broader audience. In today's internet jungle that can readily swallow (and has swallowed many) uninformed readers, there are time-honored trustworthy publications that stand out by providing people with truth and perspective, and <i>the Atlantic</i> is one of those. <br />
<br />
Fortunately, our attempt received support from the <i>Atlantic</i>'s editorship led by <a href="https://twitter.com/jjgould" target="_blank">John Gould</a>, who had the courage and foresight to let us start this experiment. Since then, our translations have been widely praised by readers; people are saying things like "翻译得真的很好,感觉不到翻译“ (meaning: "the translation is so good it does not feel like a translation"), "非常流畅的译笔" ("very fluent translation "), and "译文像是中文书写的一样" ("the translation is like original Chinese writing").<br />
<br />
Some of our work, such as the translations of "How to Build Autocracy" and "My Family's Slave," has generated a huge readership, and stayed on top of theatlantic.com's "Popular" list for weeks. We are very encouraged and truly appreciative of the editors, supporting staff, and readers. We have worked hard, and the project has been intellectually rewarding.<br />
<br />
Here's the list of our translations so far, in reverse-chronological order:<br />
<ul>
<li>July/August: </li>
</ul>
<b><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/07/the-worst-problem-on-earth/528717/" target="_blank">How to Deal With North Korea</a></b><br />
<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/07/the-worst-problem-on-earth-chinese-translation/530658/" target="_blank">朝核困局:当今最棘手的问题</a><br />
<ul>
<li>June:</li>
</ul>
<b><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/lolas-story/524490/" target="_blank">My Family's Slave</a></b><br />
<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/lolas-story-chinese/526869/" target="_blank">洛拉:我家的奴隶</a><br />
<ul>
<li>May</li>
</ul>
<b><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/05/alec-baldwin-gets-under-trumps-skin/521433/" target="_blank">Alec Baldwin Gets Under Trump’s Skin</a></b><br />
<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/05/alec-baldwin-gets-under-trumps-skin-translation/523221/" target="_blank">鲍德温怼特朗普</a><br />
<ul>
<li>April</li>
</ul>
<div>
<b><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/why-is-silicon-valley-so-awful-to-women/517788/" target="_blank">Why Is Silicon Valley So Awful to Women?</a></b></div>
<div>
<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/why-is-silicon-valley-so-awful-to-women-translation/520479/" target="_blank">硅谷的女性困境</a></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>March</li>
</ul>
<b><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/03/how-to-build-an-autocracy/513872/" target="_blank">How to Build an Autocracy</a></b></div>
<div>
<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/03/how-to-build-an-autocracy-translation/517956/" target="_blank">美国:通往独裁之路</a></div>
Xujunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05534267282303815433noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13974296645733775.post-53228207092893102482017-07-13T13:49:00.000-04:002017-07-13T13:49:16.037-04:00Untitled<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Xujunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05534267282303815433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13974296645733775.post-9388559901211835902017-04-22T20:09:00.000-04:002017-04-28T23:54:30.791-04:00Boston's Science March is a Poster Competition<br />
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<br />Xujunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05534267282303815433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13974296645733775.post-7365737399402737792017-03-28T22:37:00.000-04:002017-03-28T22:37:55.430-04:00On the Intent of Translating<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I'm fascinated by the assertion in Walter Benjamin's "The Task of the Translator" (in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Theories-Translation-Anthology-Essays-Derrida/dp/0226048713/"><i>Theories of Translation</i></a>) that "No poem is intended for the reader, no picture for the beholder, no symphony for the listener." Is this a philosophic contemplation, or the writer's belief of the highest state of art, or his belief of reality? He seems to be using this as a premise to derive a conclusion that, because the original art doesn't take the receiver into consideration, the translation can't either.<br /><br />However, there exist several different approaches to translation, as pointed out in "On the Different Methods of Translating" by Schleiermacher. As far as I can tell, the need for more than one approach arises precisely due to the consideration of the receiver. Creation of art, in my view, is complete only after the receiver receives the art. In other words, art is co-created by the author and the receiver. Without the receiver, there is no art. <br /><br />I would think that, in most cases, the aimed readership dictates the translation method. One example I'd like to cite is the Chinese translation of <i>Finnegans Wake</i>, which I've <a href="https://insideoutchina.blogspot.com/2013/02/foreign-literature-in-china-now-and-then.html">talked about</a> before. I was visiting China when the translation was published, and I went to a bookstore to see what the book looked like. On each page there are more footnotes than text proper. This, clearly, is not meant for casual readers. The translator said in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/feb/05/finnegans-wake-china-james-joyce-hit">an interview</a> that "I thought my readers would be scholars and writers." In this example, a scholarly, academic style was chosen. When I translate Chinese literature into English or vice versa, I would definitely consider my target readership's cultural exposure in regard to the source language. Is this not the right way to approach a translation? <br /><br />Even were I to accept Benjamin's premises for art and literature in general, the above example convinces me his conclusion does not apply to translation. While translation is a creative and artful process, the very act of translation requires that the art has already been received. Moreover, the people who receive the translation want to do so often because they believe there is something special, based on the reactions of others who have already received it. A key motive of the translator is to have translation receivers share the experience, though necessarily in approximation, of the direct receivers, whether it be lyrical, sensual or intellectual (or all three). <br /><br />So even if Benjamin is right about art, his claims do not seem to translate. 😃Xujunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05534267282303815433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13974296645733775.post-21638762424329119032017-01-30T14:26:00.000-05:002017-01-30T14:45:57.219-05:00Flash Nonfiction: "A Memory of the First Battle"<h1 class="entry-title" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Alegreya; font-size: 26px; font-weight: 500 !important; line-height: 1.25; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;">
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<a href="http://concis.io/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; float: right; font-size: 36px; line-height: 25px; padding-bottom: 6px !important; text-decoration: none; width: 920px;">concīs</a></div>
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min words | max heart</div>
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<a href="http://concis.io/issues/spring-2017/eberlein-memory/" rel="bookmark" style="color: #222222; text-decoration: none;">A Memory of the First Battle</a></h2>
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Xujun Eberlein</div>
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At first our city’s two Red Guard factions engaged in “civilized struggle”—using brush pens and words, big-character posters and leaflets, high-pitched broadcast and public debates, loud diatribes and, occasionally, fists to attack each other—until one side started to frequently parade the streets, shouting insulting and damaging slogans such as “Blah-blah is doomed,” and that nettled the nerve of the said faction, middle and high school and college students who had successfully forced the city government to stop classes, so they could carry on the Cultural Revolution, and so they charged into the city’s firehouses, where fire-fighters had been told not to resist the Red Guards, filled fire engines with sewage from big cesspools of communal toilets, drove to the streets, and sprayed their parading opponents—who might have been able to stand up against water cannons but ended up fleeing helter-skelter from the overwhelming foul smell—making the streets stink for days, so badly that stores stayed closed. That was how piss and shit and fire engines became the first real weapon in our city’s “armed struggle,” preceding steel rods and spears, which would, in turn, be replaced by rifles, machine guns, tanks, even warships, all supplies from arsenals stocked to aid Vietnam’s resistance of the U.S., and when those weapons drew blood we’d hear stories such as friends of an injured student tying a towel below his leg wounds, a first-aid method they thought they had learned from war movies, until the boy shed all his blood and stopped breathing.</div>
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Xujunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05534267282303815433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13974296645733775.post-79603811479728498002017-01-26T13:40:00.000-05:002017-01-26T15:34:20.651-05:00Old Adage, New Translation: Calling Deer Horse 指鹿为马 (Note: Zhao Gao (258-207BC) was the highest official under the Second Emperor of the Qin Dynasty.)<br />
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[in translation]<br />
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Aspiring to gain complete control of power, and anxious that others might not obey him, Zhao Gao set up a test. He led a deer to the emperor and said, "This is a horse." The emperor laughed. "Are you mistaken? Calling a deer a horse?" When the emperor asked the other officials in the court, some remained silent, some followed Zhao to say the deer was a horse, and some said it was a deer. Zhao then back-stabbed those who said the deer was a deer, causing them to be punished under the law. From that day forward everyone feared Zhao and repeated his <i><b>alternative fact</b></i>.
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[Original text] 赵高欲为乱,恐群臣不听,乃先设验. 持鹿献于二世,曰:“马也。”二世笑曰:“丞相误邪?谓鹿为马。”问左右,左右或默,或言马以阿顺赵高,或言鹿者。高因阴中诸言鹿者以法。后群臣皆畏高。(司马迁《<a href="https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8F%B2%E8%AE%B0" target="_blank">史记</a>·秦始皇本纪》)<br />
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Related:<br />
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/01/25/we-asked-people-which-inauguration-crowd-was-bigger-heres-what-they-said" target="_blank">This is what Trump voters said when asked to compare his inauguration crowd with Obama’s</a>Xujunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05534267282303815433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13974296645733775.post-41026143747184238862017-01-21T22:15:00.001-05:002017-01-22T15:39:54.309-05:00Interesting Photos from Boston Women's MarchThe following photos were taken by Chinese Americans who also participated in the march today. (I've posted on Facebook <a href="https://www.facebook.com/xjeberlein" target="_blank">a short video</a> I recorded.)<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-effsamLLlBk/WIT50wyie9I/AAAAAAAAB14/OA_2gV-FCfcK8uGH0_9lMn0JFIQSJYQ8ACEw/s1600/ca_wm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-effsamLLlBk/WIT50wyie9I/AAAAAAAAB14/OA_2gV-FCfcK8uGH0_9lMn0JFIQSJYQ8ACEw/s320/ca_wm.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(Photographer unknown)<br />
This photo of a Chinese American woman goes viral on WeChat. Her poster reads "Trump get out!" using a northern Chinese idiom. For more Chinese American photos, see <a href="http://blog.wenxuecity.com/myblog/71819/201701/25382.html" target="_blank">http://blog.wenxuecity.com/myblog/71819/201701/25382.html</a> </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zEtstZxJGps/WIQZypvp7aI/AAAAAAAAB00/JDBcLfPcBZwR2ax1uOaWMaYO0ia6cbg_gCEw/s1600/Bwm_5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zEtstZxJGps/WIQZypvp7aI/AAAAAAAAB00/JDBcLfPcBZwR2ax1uOaWMaYO0ia6cbg_gCEw/s320/Bwm_5.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">photo by Audrey Wu </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYVgLmjsgycsgZGwaQmrp6r5Znu_ToRxLcrcBgZluNh5u42XlELlkWnuMwF20dbaMztg5tqNp0U7tRiiX7NzHHHIYXKufO3lAD5YCu8IgvSqWIOoj1TZalTiGQz90IgjroZILdnKtQtTA/s1600/Bwm_6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYVgLmjsgycsgZGwaQmrp6r5Znu_ToRxLcrcBgZluNh5u42XlELlkWnuMwF20dbaMztg5tqNp0U7tRiiX7NzHHHIYXKufO3lAD5YCu8IgvSqWIOoj1TZalTiGQz90IgjroZILdnKtQtTA/s320/Bwm_6.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">photo by LZ</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRPsODcA7YANgjOviwiiBwY8HW4rhZmRhTvW_QzdQQdyLsQokuHWB4rMCYPF38oqHXNNqpBrzcpjvGwbQhHlbMzNyTHlS_XBloK8OcXNfqExmh3CNCa8eEgsk8notRlgeqSvFHOvBgs_k/s1600/Bwm_7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRPsODcA7YANgjOviwiiBwY8HW4rhZmRhTvW_QzdQQdyLsQokuHWB4rMCYPF38oqHXNNqpBrzcpjvGwbQhHlbMzNyTHlS_XBloK8OcXNfqExmh3CNCa8eEgsk8notRlgeqSvFHOvBgs_k/s320/Bwm_7.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(photo by Yan)</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mEamtjuhtI8/WIQaT8vdEpI/AAAAAAAAB1I/DIQvwSD50gwcIp0YGEturXg__j_Gb-XMgCLcB/s1600/Bwm_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mEamtjuhtI8/WIQaT8vdEpI/AAAAAAAAB1I/DIQvwSD50gwcIp0YGEturXg__j_Gb-XMgCLcB/s320/Bwm_2.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">photo by Yan</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0drmBtF93F__u5acMlXjsC320aYdgp042_KIrTKWGVbApO1ug7PhcowAcy6SZu7AuezWrQFiMBWk1DnEbvUTstpOKFYvqYXlrUqGuOv1ymkXTq84OahQfY3FqS_8l-a1i_vdtj78kIGA/s1600/Bwm_8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0drmBtF93F__u5acMlXjsC320aYdgp042_KIrTKWGVbApO1ug7PhcowAcy6SZu7AuezWrQFiMBWk1DnEbvUTstpOKFYvqYXlrUqGuOv1ymkXTq84OahQfY3FqS_8l-a1i_vdtj78kIGA/s320/Bwm_8.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">photo by Ying</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cCoo5lDJ9Ok/WIQxUwN51XI/AAAAAAAAB1c/K29ouz8QjWcLhpWQaGNiSULtgHjXIMtbACLcB/s1600/by_xiayu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cCoo5lDJ9Ok/WIQxUwN51XI/AAAAAAAAB1c/K29ouz8QjWcLhpWQaGNiSULtgHjXIMtbACLcB/s320/by_xiayu.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">photo by Xia Yu</td></tr>
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<br />Xujunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05534267282303815433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13974296645733775.post-12867861773951155542017-01-20T07:00:00.000-05:002018-12-18T14:10:00.082-05:00On Day One of a Prolonged National Mourning<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan;">
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<i>What do we start mourning today then? You tell me.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>I will join Boston Women's March tomorrow, but I feel the need to do something on this Friday as well. Not watching anything live on TV–I couldn't stand it. So I am posting a flash fiction piece I wrote right after Election Day, 2016. I did not post it then, because I was held back by my outrage, disbelief, sorrow, anger, loathing, disappointment, anguish, disgust, trepidation, yet clinging to the constant wishful thought that something would happen to stop the catastrophe, to settle into a resolution.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>But settle it never did. I don't know how we, Americans, got into this muddle. It has started to feel like 1966, in China. That was also a regime with broad, in fact much broader, popular support.</i></div>
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<i>It doesn't take a sophisticated mind to see how wrong it is to let Trump get into the White House. The following story is not one of reason or morality; it simply reflects the emotions of an ordinary mother, emotions many of my friends experienced.</i><br />
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How to Be a Good Parent in 2016<o:p></o:p></h3>
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Xujun Eberlein<o:p></o:p></div>
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You have told your 8-year-old son not to watch TV, but you are intent on seeing the first presidential debate, so you allow him to sit by you on the couch for an hour and a half before going to bed. <o:p></o:p></div>
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You have taught your son not to interrupt when others are speaking; on the TV screen the red-faced man cuts off his opponent at will, or otherwise hovers around to intimidate her. <o:p></o:p></div>
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You have again told your son not to watch TV, but you are anxious to see the second presidential debate, so you allow him to sit by you for 60 minutes.<o:p></o:p></div>
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You have taught your son that America is a democratic country which, unlike China, doesn't hold citizens as political prisoners; on the screen the red-faced man is threatening to send his opponent to jail.<o:p></o:p></div>
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You know you can't tell your son not to watch TV again when the third presidential debate begins, so you allow him to sit by you for 30 minutes.<o:p></o:p></div>
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You have taught your son that people in America, regardless of their ethnicity, race or gender, are all equal; on the screen the red-faced man calls immigrants "bad hombres" and, a while later, squeezes two fierce words out of his fat lips to the other candidate, "Nasty woman."<o:p></o:p></div>
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After that you can no longer be noncommittal in your comments, so you tell your son this man is unfit to be the American President, and he nods hard. "This man will not be elected," you say, and he replies, "FR."</div>
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The evening of November 8<sup>th</sup>, you don't turn on the TV until your son falls asleep. You turn off the TV at midnight. Then you stay awake through the long dark night, having no idea what to say to your son in the morning. # <o:p></o:p></div>
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Xujunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05534267282303815433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13974296645733775.post-38042123250142127052016-12-10T22:50:00.002-05:002016-12-20T12:11:15.830-05:00Gifts from a Great Man<div class="WordSection1">
Today Bob and I attended <a href="http://www.systemdynamics.org/jwf/" target="_blank">Jay Forrester</a>'s memorial service at the Trinity Episcopal Church in Concord. Jay was the founder of System Dynamics and Bob's mentor at MIT. Jay was also the inventor of magnetic core memory—the earliest widely used computer memory. (See the great man's <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/technology/jay-forrester-dead.html" target="_blank">obituary</a> in <i>New York Times,</i> which was written before his death, with his approval.)<br />
<br />
Beyond all that, Jay had a much more personal impact on my life. Twenty nine years ago, Bob was teaching System Dynamics in Shanghai, and I was studying it in Chengdu. Our first encounter in spring 1987 thus was an unintended gift from Jay. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">When Jay was a young inventor of computer memory (1951)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Who'd have thought that Jay, even after his death, would give me another surprise? Today's otherwise completely traditional service took one digression from beautiful Christian hymns: we all stood and sang "Home on the Range" with the church's choir. Jay's children said this was a song Jay loved, and wanted to be sung in his service. Bob was amazed that I, who didn't know the other songs, was utterly at home with this one. I don't know who the Chinese translator of its lyrics was, but in the 1970s, for many of us "zhi-qings" (also called "sent-down youths"), the song had accompanied and consoled our homesick hearts through long days and nights in the countryside far away from home.
<br />
<br />
My eyes were wet when I softly sang the Chinese words I remembered from my youth—words I was surprised to still remember after all these years—they mingled harmoniously with others' English rendition. The words and music are so dear, intimate, nostalgic, that I've lost the ability to judge the translation.</div>
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[Chinese] <b><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: "simsun"; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">草原上的家园</span></b><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
在草原上 野牛自由流浪 <br />
我愿 把草原当家园 <br />
这儿难得听到 诅咒和吵闹 <br />
黑云消失在天外远方 <br />
<br />
我家 在草原上 <br />
有小鹿和羚羊在游荡 <br />
这儿难得听到 诅咒和吵闹 <br />
黑云消失在天外远方
<br />
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[English] <b>Home on the Range </b>(listen to it <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgfQSSnzDLI" target="_blank">on YouTube</a>)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam </i><br />
<i>Where the deer and the antelope play </i><br />
<i>Where seldom is heard a discouraging word </i><br />
<i>And the skies are not cloudy all day </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Home, home on the range </i><br />
<i>Where the dear and the antelope play </i><br />
<i>Where seldom is heard a discouraging word </i><br />
<i>And the skies are not cloudy all day </i><br />
<br /></div>
Xujunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05534267282303815433noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13974296645733775.post-88189388826417107532016-11-10T21:34:00.002-05:002016-11-10T21:53:04.901-05:00An Amazon ReviewI was surprised and very touched today by an Amazon review of my book, <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Apologies-Forthcoming-Xujun-Eberlein/dp/160489007X/" target="_blank">Apologies Forthcoming</a></i>. This is a good time to be touched by something nice, so let me share it with you:<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R3JBWWCHB8YAZT/ref=cm_cr_getr_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=160489007X"><b>The kind of literature that makes you stop and feel</b></a><br />
By M on November 2, 2016<br />
Format: Paperback|Verified Purchase<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This is a genuine work of literature. The two stories I remember most are "Feathers" and "Pivot Point." The former is a devastating portrait of family loss, the latter, a haunting illustration of longing. In several of these stories is a protagonist who really establishes herself as a sort of feminist hero, a young woman at once happier as "just one of the guys" and critical of the way they treat women, including herself. An additional pleasure is the way the stories get the cognitive faculties working: suddenly the reader will come across two characters debating a mathematician's theorem, or a substantive quote by Confucius. Eberlein has a poet's eye, giving us the image of two birds on a wire when we don't expect it, and it's these unexpected moments--many of them image-based, some of them dramatic--which the reader remembers vividly. At the heart of Eberlein's craft is a finely tuned and inimitable sense of language. "I want to travel with you to every mountain, every water, I told him," and that use of "water" is le mot juste. To read these powerful works by Eberlein is a great privilege.</div>
Xujunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05534267282303815433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13974296645733775.post-78791391293391781052016-11-02T14:57:00.000-04:002017-01-22T11:58:59.062-05:00Chinese Americans Against TrumpI just can't imagine Trump as the President of the United States. Hillary Clinton might not be the best candidate, but Trump is the worst I've seen. He has demonstrated a fundamental lack of understanding of democracy. (Update: Obama did not overstate when he warned that "The fate of the world is teetering.")<br />
<br />
I'd also like to point out the fact that many Chinese Americans are against Trump. See for example <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ca4ba/" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/ca4ba/</a> (update: the name of the FP page has been changed after the election day).<br />
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(updated 11/4)Xujunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05534267282303815433noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13974296645733775.post-59952138183335553692016-07-21T15:35:00.000-04:002016-07-21T15:42:06.794-04:00Chinese Poetry Translation: Room for Disagreement This might be a bit unusual: in the short span of two months, the <i>LA Review of Books</i> published two essays on Chinese poetry translation: mine titled "<a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/good-way-translate-chinese-poetry/" target="_blank">Is There a Good Way to Translate Chinese Poetry</a>?" and Lucas Klein's "<a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/tribunals-of-erudition-and-taste-or-why-translations-of-premodern-chinese-poetry-are-having-a-moment-right-now/" target="_blank">Tribunals of Erudition and Taste: or, Why Translations of Premodern Chinese Poetry Are Having a Moment Right Now</a>." My piece focuses on contemporary poetry translation, while Klein's gives more attention to the ancient works, but our topics – at times even views – converge. Still, as Klein points out, "There is much room for disagreement inside the agreement that…" (feel free to finish the line with your own words).Xujunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05534267282303815433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13974296645733775.post-71821403418331851922016-07-03T14:14:00.000-04:002017-01-22T12:08:22.321-05:00A Friend on Lessons Learned from the Cultural RevolutionThis is a long overdue post that I have been meaning to write. Now that the July 4th long weekend is here, I finally got the time.<br />
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After the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/05/world/asia/china-cultural-revolution-eberlein.html" target="_blank"><i>New York Times </i>interviewed me</a> <o:p></o:p>in early April, a friend who read it emailed me a comment, in which she says (in translation from Chinese):</div>
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<span style="font-family: "bell mt" , serif;">The Cultural Revolution kept lots of youngsters out of school,
but in a cruel way it also taught a few hard principles. For example:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "bell mt" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="border: none; margin-left: 0.25in; padding: 0in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->-<span style="font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "bell mt" , serif;">Stay far away from the Cult of Personality
(regardless of its genesis and agenda);<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="border: none; margin-left: 0.25in; padding: 0in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->-<span style="font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "bell mt" , serif;">Don't easily believe accusations against anyone
(especially large-scale, top-down accusations);<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="border: none; margin-left: 0.25in; padding: 0in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->-<span style="font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "bell mt" , serif;">When it comes to forming opinions on a
person or a matter, don't use group thinking;
</span><span style="font-family: "bell mt" , "serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
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How well said! How fundamentally down-to-earth these principles are to every individual. Those born later than our generation, those who are lucky enough to not have experienced the Cultural Revolution – a time when mob mentality played to its extreme – might not get the urgent point or understand the importance of these principles. I dare say, chances are, people will more often do exactly the opposite. It's human nature; it's the kind of human nature we need to be on guard for and fight against.<br />
<br /></div>
The friend then adds:<br />
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<span style="font-family: "bell mt" , serif;">As long as human nature doesn't change, it is possible that the
Cultural Revolution will be repeated. If we perceive any sign of that tendency,
we must try to stop it regardless of personal dangers. This is the mission that history entrusts to
those of us who were there.<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
What a courageous thing to say.<br />
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On a different but related note, I will be in Berlin on July 13 to participate in a panel discussion as part of the Robert Bosch Stiftung's "Engaging with China" program. The topic is "50 years after the Cultural Revolution – how dealing with the past is shaping China's future."Xujunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05534267282303815433noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13974296645733775.post-31495112846273465802015-11-21T13:08:00.000-05:002015-11-21T13:15:27.946-05:00What an Honor<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/418BNuPr3VL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/418BNuPr3VL.jpg" height="200" width="132" /></a></div>
My essay, "<a href="http://www.americanliteraryreview.com/xujun-eberlein---clouds-and-rain-over-three-gorges-nonfiction.html" target="_blank">Clouds and Rain over Three Gorges</a>," is listed as a notable essay in the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Best-American-Essays-2015/dp/0544569628" target="_blank"><i>Best American Essays 2015</i></a>. This piece was the winner of <i><a href="http://www.americanliteraryreview.com/" target="_blank">American Literary Review</a></i>'s nonfiction contest last year, and a finalist in <i><a href="http://www.narrativemagazine.com/" target="_blank">Narrative</a></i>'s winter 2013 Story Contest.Xujunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05534267282303815433noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13974296645733775.post-43902009856711559242015-05-21T19:35:00.000-04:002015-05-21T21:42:01.411-04:00Poems After Poets(Note: I wrote poems in Chinese when I was young, and have also translated poetry from Chinese to English in recent years, but this is my first attempt to compose a few in English.)<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Ambiguity</span></b><br />
<span style="text-indent: -24px;">—</span><span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; text-indent: -24px;"> </span>After Gregory Corso<br />
<br />
Her death<br />
is as vivid<br />
as memory<br />
can evoke<br />
and as blurred<br />
as my memory<br />
is to me<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Layers of Sand</span></b><br />
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<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">—</span><span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">After C. P. Cavafy</span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
The memories of the current flow
down in me<o:p></o:p></div>
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like fine sand sliding into a pit
on the beach—<o:p></o:p></div>
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sun-warmed, glittering, and
slippery fine sand<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
The memories of the past sink deeper,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
cold layers of sand now hidden
beneath;<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
some grains near the top still
occasionally shine through, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
shortly before being covered, out
of the sun<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
I want to dig them up; their
disappearance upsets me,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
and I'm upset, too, for the mix-up
from my digging.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
I look in, at the topmost grains<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
I don't want to stop digging for fear
the sand at the bottom</div>
will start to turn into mud, and the mud take over the pit,<br />
as quickly as the river water takes over the beach<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Three Paradoxes</span></b></div>
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<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">—</span><span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">After Wistawa Szymborska</span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I speed across the intersection<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I'm delayed, all cars deadlocked
by mine<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I walk toward the horizon<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I make it further away<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I look forward to tomorrow's
sunlight<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I come closer to the ultimate
darkness<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Xujunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05534267282303815433noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13974296645733775.post-20638575824821040982014-12-17T15:32:00.001-05:002018-12-01T21:28:33.853-05:00On Ezra Pound’s Translation of Ancient Chinese Poetry<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Can one translate poetry without knowing the source language? Certainly that was what Ezra Pound did. In his volume <i>Cathay</i> (1915), Pound translates a total of 19 pieces of ancient Chinese poetry spanning a period from the 11<sup>th</sup> Century <span style="font-variant: small-caps;">B.C. </span>to 4<sup>th</sup> Century A.D. But of course he couldn’t have done it without help from someone who had knowledge of the Chinese language, in this case Ernest Fenollosa, an American orientalist. The unusual situation, however, was that Pound was approached by Fenollosa’s wife after the man’s death. At the time, in the 1910s-20s, English information about Chinese poetry must have been scarce, thus Pound’s only basis for the translation was <a href="http://brbl-archive.library.yale.edu/exhibitions/orient/mod3.htm" target="_blank">Fenollosa’s meticulous unpublished notes</a>. In addition to providing a word-by-word mapping between Japanese and English, the notes also include line-by-line draft translation into English.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Given Pound’s lack of knowledge of Chinese at the time, it is probably not a big surprise that <i>Cathay</i> contains quite a few citation errors. For example, the first poem in the collection, “Son of the Bowman of Shu,” is cited by Pound as from Kustugen (the Japanese name for Qu Yuan) in the 4<sup>th</sup> Century B.C., however it in fact is an anonymous work collected in <i>Shijing</i> (also known as <i>Book of Songs</i>), the earliest known volume of Chinese poetry. Another example is the third poem, the famous “River Song.” Though correctly cited as from Li Bai (whom the Japanese called “Rihaku”), one of the most acclaimed poets in the Tang Dynasty, Pound had mistaken two poems as one. The first 22 lines of “The River Song” correspond to a poem titled “<span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">江上吟</span>” (“Humming on the River”), while the rest, starting from “The east wind brings the green color…”, correspond to a different poem by Li Bai titled “<span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">侍从宜春苑奉诏赋龙池柳色初青听新莺百嗽歌</span>”, meaning literally “Following orders to write about listening to new birds singing in early spring, while serving the Emperor in Yichun Park” -- two completely different occasions in distinct settings. It is curious that Pound would regard their contents as fitting perfectly in a single poem. There are a few other minor errors that I will skip here.<o:p></o:p></div>
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If the above errors are merely technical, wherever Fenollosa had missed the original Chinese meaning (though such occasions were few), the same problem also transferred into Pound’s “translation.” Take “The River Merchant’s Wife: A Letter” as an example. In Li Bai's original poem, "<span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">长干行</span>," there is this famous line that has since become a timeless allusion known as "bamboo horse and green plums": <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">郎骑竹马来,绕床弄青梅。</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Which Pound translated as (underlines are mine):<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse, <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>You walked about my <u>seat</u>, playing with <u>blue plums</u>.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Here, the word “<span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">床</span>” usually means “bed,” but in ancient Chinese it also means the fence of a backyard well. The latter meaning happens to be what Li Bai is referring to in this poem. Such language nuance can present difficulties for even a native speaker, not to mention a foreigner. Curiously, In Fenollosa’s notes the word is translated as “seat” instead of the usual meaning “bed.” He might not have known the other, less-common meaning of the word, and felt that “bed” wouldn’t have made sense: the first part of the line obviously refers to an outdoor setting. Either “you walked about my <u>seat</u>” or “you walked about my <u>bed</u>” wouldn’t read right, but apparently Fenollosa went for the less nonsensical. Pound might or might not have noticed this inconsistency, but there was not much he could do about it, being unable to read the original text. In any case, a glitch like this could probably be explained away by “poetic license.” So the error is kept. In the same line, “blue plums” should actually be “green plums,” indicating the fruits are unripe, a metaphor for the young girl and boy. This metaphor is completely lost in the translation. <i> <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Another interesting thing to note is that the original poem alludes to an allegory known as “Holding-pillar faith,” which originates from a book by ancient Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi. The allegory goes like this: a man is waiting for his female date under a bridge. Before the woman arrives, however, the river water unexpectedly rises. To be faithful to his promise, the man doesn’t leave; he holds onto a pillar of the bridge until he drowns. The moral of this allegory is one can place love above his own life. Li Bai's lines that allude to this<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">十五始展眉,愿同尘与灰。</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">常存抱柱信,岂上望夫台。</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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were translated by Pound as<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>At fifteen I stopped scowling, <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>I desired my dust to be mingled with yours <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Forever and forever and forever. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Why should I climb the look out? <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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In Fenollosa's notes, he had written a draft translation “I always had in me the faith of holding to pillars / And why should I think of climbing the husband looking out terrace.” This is quite accurate literally; however it is unclear whether he was aware of the allusion. In any case he did not explain it. At this point Pound, who had faithfully followed Fenollosa’s translation so far, took the liberty to exclude that line completely, probably because he couldn’t make sense of it. In its place he put “Forever and forever and forever.” The meaning of “forever” was indeed implied by Li Bai in his poem, but the great Chinese poet would never have said it so tritely; that would not be his poetic style. <o:p></o:p></div>
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This example is one of a few places where Pound's translation departs from Fenollosa’s notes. Reading the two men’s translations side by side for this poem, one can see that Pound copied Fenollosa’s complete lines more often than not. T.S. Eliot said in a 1928 essay that “There is as much as to say that Chinese poetry, as we know it today, is something invented by Ezra Pound.” It seems to me in that statement Ernest Fenollosa’s name should have at least been in line with, if not replacing, Ezra Pound’s. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Interestingly, Pound’s translation of the Chinese poetry – or should I say Fenollosa’s translation instead? – especially of the longer poems, often reads more fluid than what I’ve seen from ethnic Chinese translators. Let’s compare two different translations of the first poem included in <i>Cathay</i>. <o:p></o:p></div>
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---------------------------------------<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Chinese original:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">采薇</span><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">采薇采薇</span><span lang="ZH-CN"> </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">薇亦作止</span><span lang="ZH-CN"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">曰归曰归</span><span lang="ZH-CN"> </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">岁亦莫止</span><span lang="ZH-CN"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">靡室靡家</span><span lang="ZH-CN"> </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">玁狁之故</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">不遑启居</span><span lang="ZH-CN"> </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">玁狁之故</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">采薇采薇</span><span lang="ZH-CN"> </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">薇亦柔止</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">曰归曰归</span><span lang="ZH-CN"> </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">心亦忧止</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">忧心烈烈</span><span lang="ZH-CN"> </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">载饥载渴</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">我戍未定</span><span lang="ZH-CN"> </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">靡使归聘</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">采薇采薇</span><span lang="ZH-CN"> </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">薇亦刚止</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">曰归曰归</span><span lang="ZH-CN"> </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">岁亦阳止</span><span lang="ZH-CN"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">王事靡盬</span><span lang="ZH-CN"> </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">不遑启处</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">忧心孔疚</span><span lang="ZH-CN"> </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">我行不来</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">彼尔维何</span><span lang="ZH-CN"> </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">维常之华</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">彼路斯何</span><span lang="ZH-CN"> </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">君子之车</span><span lang="ZH-CN"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">戎车既驾</span><span lang="ZH-CN"> </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">四牡业业</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">岂敢定居</span><span lang="ZH-CN"> </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">一月三捷</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">驾彼四牡</span><span lang="ZH-CN"> </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">四牡骙骙</span><span lang="ZH-CN"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">君子所依</span><span lang="ZH-CN"> </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">小人所腓</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">四牡翼翼</span><span lang="ZH-CN"> </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">象弭鱼服</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">岂不日戒</span><span lang="ZH-CN"> </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">玁狁孔棘</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">昔我往矣</span><span lang="ZH-CN"> </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">杨柳依依</span><span lang="ZH-CN"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">今我来思</span><span lang="ZH-CN"> </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">雨雪霏霏</span><span lang="ZH-CN"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">行道迟迟</span><span lang="ZH-CN"> </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">载渴载饥</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">我心伤悲</span><span lang="ZH-CN"> </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">莫知我哀</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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---------------------------------<o:p></o:p></div>
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Ezra Pound's translation:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>SONG OF THE BOWMAN OF SHU<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<i>Here we are, picking the first fern-shoots <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>And saying: When shall we get back to our country? <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>Here we are because we have the Ken-nin for our foemen, <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>We have no comfort because of these Mongols. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>We grub the soft fern-shoots, <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>When anyone says "Return," the others are full of sorrow. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>Sorrowful minds, sorrow is strong, we are hungry and thirsty. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>Our defense is not yet made sure, no one can let his friend return. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>We grub the old fern-stalks. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>We say: Will we be let to go back in October? <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>There is no ease in royal affairs, we have no comfort. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>Our sorrow is bitter, but we would not return to our country. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>What flower has come into blossom? <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>Whose chariot? The General's. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>Horses, his horses even, are tired. They were strong. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>We have no rest, three battles a month.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>By heaven, his horses are tired. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>The generals are on them, the soldiers are by them. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>The horses are well trained, the generals have ivory arrows and quivers ornamented with fish-skin. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>The enemy is swift, we must be careful. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>When we set out, the willows were drooping with spring, <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>We come back in the snow, <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>We go slowly, we are hungry and thirsty,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>Our mind is full of sorrow, who will know of our grief?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
--------------------------------<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A translation by Yang Yixian and Dai Naidie, from <i>A Choice Selection of Ancient Poems</i><i><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(</span>Chinese—English</i><i><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">)</span>,</i> published by Foreign Language Press in China:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<b>We Gather Vetch<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>We gather vetch, gather vetch,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>While the young shoots are springing;<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>Oh, to go back, go back;<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>But the year is ending.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>We have no house, no home,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>Because of the Huns.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>We cannot sit or take rest,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>Because of the Huns.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>We gather vetch, gather vetch,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>While the shoots are tender;<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Oh, to go back, go back;<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>Our hearts are sad.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Our sad hearts burn,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>And we hunger and thirst;<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>But our garrison duty drags on,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>And no messenger goes to take news home.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>We gather vetch, gather vetch,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>But the shoots are tough;<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>Oh, to go back, go back;<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>The tenth month is here again,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>But the king’s business is unending;<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>We cannot sit or take rest;<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>Our sad hearts are racked with pain,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>And no one comes to comfort us on our march.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>What splendid blossom is that?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>It is the blossom of the cherry tree.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>What great chariot is that?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>It is the chariot of a nobleman.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>His war-chariot stands ready yoked<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>With four proud stallions;<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>How can we settle in one place?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>We march to three different posts in a month.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i> <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>The four stallions are yoked<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>To make a sturdy team;<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>The nobleman rides in the chariot,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>We take cover behind;<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>Four stately stallions,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>Ivory bow-ends and a fish-skin quiver;<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>Every day we must be on our guard,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>We are hard-pressed by the Huns.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>When we left home<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>The willows were softly swaying;<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>Now as we turn back<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Snowflakes fly.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>Our road is a long one<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>And we thirst and hunger,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>Our hearts are filled with sorrow;<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>But who knows our misery?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #c00000;">--------------------<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The translators were/are all literary experts in their own native language. However, when it comes to translation, neither party appears to have sufficient knowledge of the nuance of the other language. Though both translations are fairly accurate in meaning, they read quite differently as poetry.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
This Chinese poem, "<span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">采薇</span>," from the 11<sup>th</sup> Century B.C., laments soldiers’ homesickness as they guard their kingdom’s border against nomad invaders from spring to winter. Its meaning is straightforward and there are no allusions, but like other poems in <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_of_Poetry">Shijing</a></i>, this one maintains a singing/chanting rhythm throughout, in which a refrain occurs often, not only between stanzas but also within a line. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The Chinese translators certainly understood the form and meaning of this poem better than Pound, and their translation attempts to render the folk song quality with the refrain pattern. However their English is not nuanced enough to match their Chinese level of artistic quality. For example, admittedly nitpicking: using “to go back” without context is a common Chinglish way of expressing “returning home.” It is rather unclear here and could lead to basic misunderstanding of the literal meaning. In comparison, Pound’s translation has lost the original poem’s style and folk-song quality, but reads much more fluid and natural (and "get back to our country" quite clear). This is to say, each translation has its own strengths and weaknesses. This also implies that, it is possible to keep the strength of each and avoiding many of the weaknesses by combining the two.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Consider a modified version that blends the above two translations and fixes their errors. For the sake of the sounds, I'm adopting the word "vetch" for <span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">薇</span>, since there are so many interpretations for what this wild vegetable actually is/was – spinach, wild peas, fern shoots, vetch, etc., you name it – and I have no way to tell which is most accurate. For similar reasons, I'm keeping "Xianyun" from the original poem for the name of the "foemen" tribe. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 31.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>Picking vetch, picking vetch, the first shoots are springing<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 31.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>Saying “Return,” saying “Return,” the year is already ending<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 31.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>No family, no home, because of Xianyun the foemen<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 31.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>No rest, no comfort, because of Xianyun the foemen<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 31.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 31.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>Picking vetch, picking vetch, the shoots are soft and fresh<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 31.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>Saying “Return,” saying “Return,” our hearts are full of sorrow<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 31.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>Sorrowful minds, sorrow is burning us, so is hunger, so is thirst<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 31.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>Our defense is not yet certain, no one can be sent home<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 31.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 31.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>Picking vetch, picking vetch, the shoots are getting tough<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 31.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>Saying “Return,” saying “Return,” it is <strike>October already</strike> the tenth moon<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 31.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>No ease in the king’s affairs, no break for us<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Our hearts pain with sorrow, we still can’t go home <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>What fabulous blossom is that? It is the cherry tree’s<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Whose great chariot is that? It is the general’s<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>The war-chariot is yoked, the four horses are tall<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>No one dares rest, three battles a month<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Four horses are driving the chariot, four strong horses<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>The higher men are on them, the lower men are by them <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>The horses are well trained, bows of ivory, quivers ornamented with fish-skin <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>No one dares relax, the enemy is swift <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>When we set out, the willows were drooping with spring <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>When we come back, snowflakes fly everywhere<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>We go slowly, we are hungry and thirsty<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Our mind is full of sorrow, who will know our misery?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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If my modified version above is indeed an improvement in the translation, then a case <strike>can</strike> might be made that better literary translation would be a cooperative project between two translators, one a native speaker and expert of the source language, and the other the target language. Only in this way, can the nuances in both languages be captured and presented in the translation. This, of course, is mainly for the benefit of readers and the quality of the translated literature. I do understand that not every translator would be willing to share his or her work or cooperate with another translator.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
Xujunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05534267282303815433noreply@blogger.com8