What Do You Know about Edinburgh?

I'll be heading to Edinburgh for a writing conference titled "China Inside Out." (I know, the resemblance between the conference's title and my blog's is curious, but I believe this is just a coincidence, with a slight possibility that they copied me. :))

The Chinese name for Edinburgh, 爱丁堡, always rouses the picture of an ancient castle, European style.  I've never been in Edinburgh before and I'm excited for this opportunity, not the least because "in October 2004 Edinburgh became the very first UNESCO City of Literature."

The conference, held in the University of Edinburgh from March 11-13, is "a celebration of Chinese Women Writers in English." Participants include:

• Writer and academic: Professor Shu-mei Shih, Dr Judith Misrahi Barack, Dr Margaret Hillenbrand
• Poet and fiction writer: Wang Ping
• Fiction writers: Xujun Eberlein, Liu Hong, Chiew-Siah Tei,
• Critics: Professor LuMing Mao. Dr Amy Lai
• Scottish writers: Lesley Glaister, Dilys Rose, A C Clarke, Dr Bashabi Fraser
• Convenor of the Women's Committee of Scottish PEN: Faith Pullin
• President of Scottish PEN and writer: Jenni Calder 

New Translation for Lu Xun's Fiction

Prof. Jeff Wasserstrom, editor of The China Beat and author of several books on China, has a very interesting and refreshing article about Lu Xun (鲁迅) titled "China's Orwell" in Time magazine, in which he makes – quite originally – a parallel between Lu Xun and George Orwell, with the insightful point that Lu Xun is not only a great writer, but an essential writer.

I'm also happy to learn from Prof. Wasserstrom's article that Penguin is publishing The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China: The Complete Fiction of Lu Xun, translated by Julia Lovell and scheduled for release in January. Since the book is "the complete fiction of Lu Xun," it must include stories from Lu Xun's collection 故事新编 (or Old Stories Told Anew by my translation – not sure how Julia Lovell would have translated this).  In that collection Lu Xun retells several ancient tales with unique language and twists.

It was those stories – not the officially hailed ones such as "The Real Story of Ah-Q" and "Diary of a Madman" – that haunted me as an impressionable high school student in the 1970s. One story I still remember after all these years is about Meijianchi, an 18-year-old boy who hands his own head to a career assassin in order to kill the king and avenge his father the legendary sword maker. The fighting scene between three severed heads biting each other in a boiling cauldron was quite heart-stirring. I've never read anything like that before or after. I'd be very interested in seeing how this story is translated into English.

The edition I read then had end notes by the editor(s), which quoted parts of the dialogue in Lu Xun's stories that were used as satiric retaliation against "four dudes" ("四条汉子"), a name Lu Xun gave to four underground communists who led the "left-wing writers union" in 1930s Shanghai. Though Lu Xun supported the communists at the time (he was never a Party member), there was quite a bit of discord between him and the "four dudes," and he often felt he was being attacked. As caustic a writer as Lu Xun was, he did not openly fight back, instead he chose to mock their attacks in his fiction. I don't know if Julia Lovell has included any notes on this history – it might be very hard to make sense of it all for a Western audience anyway.

Later during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, the "four dudes," who had become high ranking Party officials then, were ruthlessly "struggled" by the Red Guards because of their historical "crime" of "opposing Lu Xun." I'm not sure that, had Lu Xun not died of sickness in 1936 and instead lived to the time of the CR, he would have been able to escape denunciation himself. Given his scathing nature, it is hard to imagine that he would have placated the Red Guards or Party officials.

In China's literary world, Lu Xun actually was the most famous for his satirical essays, which far exceed his fiction in quantity. His scathing style was extensively mimicked by the Red Guards for faction fighting during the Cultural Revolution, a consequence he wouldn't have dreamed of.

Lu Xun also translated quite a few English works into Chinese, and he advocated direct (verbatim) translation (直译), as opposed to free translation by meaning (意译). Though some of his translation did not work IMO, for example I remember in one story he translated "good morning" as "好早晨" instead of "早晨好", I agree with him in principle. This is to say, to the extent it does not confuse the reader, verbatim translation often lends more vivacity and color than free translation.

Hot Peppers for Thanksgiving

Monday night Bob and I had dinner with Jonathan Tel, author of The Beijing of Possibilities, in a Chinese restaurant named Chili Garden (川王府). This is one of the few truly authentic sources of Sichuan cuisine in the Boston area. (Numerous Chinese restaurants here advertise themselves as Sichuan, but provide only dishes catered to American eaters who don't know what they are getting.)  Another authentic Sichuan cuisine is Red Pepper (重庆食府) on Rt. 9, which we go to most frequently, because it has a great Chongqing chef and is closer to us.  Chili Garden and Red Pepper have different specialties and varieties; the dishes in both restaurants are mouth-watering. Not surprisingly, many of their dishes are cooked with hot peppers as the dominant spice. Try them for Thanksgiving if you want to go for something non-traditional.

  A Chengdu restaurant prepares hot peppers for lunch (photo by Xujun)

I had thought I was pretty knowledgeable about Sichuan's, especially Chongqing's, history. So much for my conceit.  One thing Jonathan mentioned during dinner surprised me: he said all chili peppers came from South America, and the Chinese history of eating chili peppers is only about three to four hundred years old.

I was suspicious; in my mind we Sichuanese had been eating hot peppers since time immemorial. Digging further after returning home, however, I had to admit Jonathan was right. Apparently, chili peppers migrated into China at the end of the 16^th century, and the first written record of them was found in Ming Dynasty's '草花谱' ("grass and flower album"). They were called 番椒 ("fan jiao," meaning "foreign pepper") at the time. In Sichuan we call hot peppers 海椒 ("hai jiao"), which makes perfect sense to me now because 'hai' in this context means "overseas."

It seems only appropriate to have a post about food today. Tomorrow, for our vegetarian daughter's sake we are going to have a turkey-free Thanksgiving dinner. While Bob is going to cook all those traditional veggy dishes such as cranberries, sweet potatoes and beans, I will cook a Tofu dish spiced with chili pepper. Not your traditional Thanksgiving dish, but neither the turkey nor the chili pepper tradition has been going that long after all. The White House's hypocritical tradition of pardoning one turkey (and eating another) is even shorter. Anyhow, Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Book Review: The Beijing of Possibilities

The Beijing of Possibilities by Jonathan Tel
Other Press (June 30, 2009), 208 pages, $14.95

Reviewed by Xujun Eberlein

Chinese stories can be exotic to foreigners, while a foreigner telling stories about China can be exotic to the natives of the land as well. In recent years, there has been no shortage of nonfiction books set in Beijing written by expats, but fiction in the same category remains sparse. Jonathan Tel's new story collection, The Beijing of Possibilities, stands out as a notable exception, its twelve stories displaying a gripping juxtaposition of realism and allegory.

Tel's prose treats serious themes in a romantic, humorous, at times mystical way. He is evidently very familiar with Beijing's settings, geographically and culturally, having lived in the capital city as early as 1988. The stories, set in places and with characters the author has clearly experienced or observed, present Beijing's distinctness in an enjoyable combination of realistic detail and imaginative musing. Often a story starts by building up a picture of a very real situation, only to surprise the reader by the sudden twist to parable. Or vice versa.

One familiar with Chinese literature might see traces of influence from the classical novel Journey to the West, a hybrid between a fictionalized historical event (a Tang Dynasty Buddhist's journey to India to fetch the holy scriptures) and the myth of Monkey King (who helped the monk completing the perilous journey). Tel's opening story, "Year of the Gorilla," features an unnamed migrant worker in a Monkey King suit. But that is hardly the only connection.

Among the so-called "four greatest Chinese classics" – A Dream of Red Mansions, Three Kingdoms, and Out Laws of the Marsh being the other three – only Journey to the West is a fantasy with a happy ending. In Chinese literature typically filled with great tragic stories, that is a rare presence. In world literature, though written some 350 years earlier, Journey to the West belongs to The Lord of the Rings category. It seems that its fantastic nature makes Journey to the West more easily resonate with Westerners than the other Chinese classics.

It may not be a mere coincidence that The Beijing of Possibilities opens with the line "It's been a while since the Monkey King set out on his Journey to the West." In more than one way, many of Tel's stories apparently continue the literary tradition of Journey to the West, bringing the reader into a fictional dream where reality, parable and fantasy can hardly be told apart.

One of my favorites is "The Three Lives of Little Yu," which tells the story about a childless country couple's life-long attempts at adopting a daughter. Each time they name the girl "Little Yu," and each Little Yu is "as delightful and talented as the previous versions," but each dies unexpectedly young, until time turns to the mid 1980s. At last, to the reader's relief and fascination, the third Little Yu grows up, her "health couldn't have been better," and she has memory of her previous lives:

She remembers her first childhood: the precious spoonfuls of sorghum gruel and how in her hunger she chewed bark off the trees. She remembers the coughing, the ache in her chest, the fever and the fading away of her body. She remembers her second childhood too: the entire school dancing the Loyalty Dance – left hand up, right hand out, "Loyal loyal loyal / to Chairman Mao! / Boundless boundless boundless / Forever forever forever!" – while the commune secretary kept time, taping a spoon on the desk."

Thus, in a clever, parable-like structure, the story reflects a three-decade history realistically.

Another amusing story is "The Unofficial History of the Embroidered Couch." It starts as a time-travel sort of tale, about a relationship across four centuries, between a Ming Dynasty princess and a modern-day young man who works at an advertising agency in Beijing. The cross-century communication between the two is certainly entertaining, but it is the turn at the end that is the drollest yet totally realistic: their dialogue that has been exuding tenderness and love unexpectedly turns into a text message war. Both characters' personalities change, a common phenomenon we can't be more familiar on today's internet.

Tel's stories are full of contrasts. The past and the present are comingled in the romance across time. The city and countryside are blended when the two farmers arrive in Beijing to collect baby Yu on the words of a soothsayer. Right and wrong are confused when the man dressed as a monkey is punished for his good deeds. Adventure and duty are probed when a boy tries to collect a cotton-candy machine for his grandfather. The underlying theme in all of this, not surprisingly, is that Beijing offers opportunities both real and imagined for those who come. That the opportunities are fraught with peril, and that the people taking them are both good and bad is as it should be.

Americans are said to be an optimistic people. The Chinese are accustomed to millennia of calamities. Perhaps the biggest contrast between Chinese and American authored stories is pessimism vs. optimism. From China's classical literature to its contemporary counterpart, it is rare that a novel or story has a happy ending. In contrast, none of the stories in The Beijing of Possibilities ends tragically. For those readers who have had their fill of Chinese "scar fiction," this book should be a pleasant change. On the other hand, while the descriptive details about the Chinese lives usually ring true, the musings and imaginative reality that occupy in the stories seem more akin to Western perceptions of China than to the way Chinese people think. A reader should not expect to gain significant insights into Chinese thinking, but he or she will certainly get a good glance at the Beijing life through an observant expat's eye.

Calyx Review of "Apologoies"

Calyx, a very good literary magazine, just published an intelligent review by Sharon McGill for "Apologies Forthcoming" in their Summer Issue (Volume 25:2). The content is not on-line, but you can probably find a copy in a B&N bookstore or a library.

Here's an excerpt of the review:

        In "Watch the Thrill," one of the eight stories in Xujun Eberlein's debut collection, Apologies Forthcoming, a Chinese official explains his cruelty toward a young boy's father when he states, It's revolution, kiddo, not personal. Each of these tales, mostly set during and immediately after China's Cultural Revolution, explores the truth and the irony of this statement. Eberlein's characters discover that political motives are, in fact, not personal and yet their effects will be -- as the consequences of political action break apart families, turn neighbors into rivals, victims into victimizers. Growing up in Chongqing in the 1960s and '70s, Eberlein witnessed the Cultural Revolution firsthand, and many of these pieces encompass her childhood memories. However, Apologies Forthcoming shines not simply as a fictionalized account of China's recent past, but as a testament to Eberlein's narrative skill in transforming tales of distress about a specific time into universal explorations of loss, betrayal, and hope.

A Very Moving Review in Asia Times

A surprise brought to me by Google alert –

--------------
BOOK REVIEW
Poignant tales of the Cultural Revolution
Apologies Forthcoming by Xujun Eberlein

Reviewed by Kent Ewing

HONG KONG - First, let us pause and lament all of the vast, untapped talent that tragically goes to waste every hour of every day around the globe. And make that a long, deep and profound pause because the waste, as any observant traveler knows, is truly colossal.

Once you are finished contemplating this immense desert of aspiration and aptitude, however, remember to give some small thanks to those who manage to spot and bring to light at least a modicum of what otherwise would have been lost - and I am not referring to drawn-out cultural carnivals such as American Idol or any of its many offshoots outside the United States. Continue to read >>

The First Issue of Terracotta Typewriter Published

Take a look at the inaugural issue of Terracotta Typewriter – not particularly because it includes an essay of mine, but because it is an English language literary journal with Chinese characteristics. The magazine (in PDF format) is published by Matthew Lubin, who has lived in China as a teacher and editor. As far as I know, it is the only literary magazine of its kind. Enjoy the poems and prose.

Shanghai International Literary Festival Live Blogging

Shanghai's international literary festival does an impressive live blogging, which provides real time transcripts of author talks and audience interaction. I found several of the China-related conversations quite interesting:

James Fallows: "People in the U.S. would generally like to think, 'well is China good or is it bad?' and the answer is of course that, like the U.S. it is good and it is bad. You have to embrace the good and work on the bad."

Stella Dong: "In Shanghai the taxi drivers come out and put your luggage in the back of the trunk. They want to do what you want and help you out. In Beijing, people argue with you and you're treated, well, there's this certain attitude like, make me do it. "

Jeff Wasserstrom: "There are so many differences and rivalries between Shanghai and Beijing. When I told people I was writing about important student movements like the May Fourth movement, they said 'but that happened in Beijing!' But I point out that although the protests started in Beijing, they peaked in Shanghai."

Jen Lin-Liu: "Nevermind that I clearly informed the administration of this information. 'Miss Lin is a Chinese-American writer and she wants to spread propaganda to the Chinese people...unsurprisingly, they thought I was retarded.'"

A Literary Weekend in Hong Kong

On Saturday and Sunday, I participated in two panels at the Hong Kong Literary Festival, and very much enjoyed meeting the talented writers Chiew-Siah Tei (author of Little Hut of Leaping Fishes), Neel Chowdhury (author of The Inheritors), Nam Le (author of The Boat), and Rana Dasgupta (author of Solo). I bought their books and really look forward to reading them.

One panel was titled "Dislocated Voices" and moderated by Sue Gourlay, who manages the Man Asian Literary Prize. The other was "The Year of the Short Story," moderated by Chris Wood, editor of Asia Literary Review (which published my personal essay "Lost Letters" in December 2007).

Nearly all participants in the two panels had recently had their first fiction book published, with the exception of Rana, who is enjoying his second book. Our panels were anything but dull, mainly because we argued about, instead of agreeing on, things. :-)

A question raised from the audience during the first panel discussion was whether our fiction should help push just causes in the author's native land. My viewpoint was "no," because the definition of whether a cause is just or not changes over time. If you want your fiction to have lasting life, to be read even ten, twenty, or fifty years later, you certainly should avoid carrying any immediate political agenda. I believe fiction should transcend any ideology, and it should let characters rather than the author speak. As I see it, the ultimate goal of fiction is to explore human nature. To issue the author's own political opinions, write nonfiction instead.

This discussion reminded me an old Chinese novelist, father of a writer friend. In my youth, when my first short story was published just after the end of the Cultural Revolution, there was no monetary payment, instead I got a notebook and a three-volume novel as an award. That novel was about China's rural communization in the 1950s. The novelist, and his main characters, wholeheartedly believed in the communization movement. He was a well-known author and the book was well-written. I remember a reading of the novel in a funny local dialect that was broadcast by radio stations all over Sichuan province. People loved it, and the novel became very popular for a while. I loved it too, not just because the author's daughter, a young writer like me at the time, had become my friend, but also because his writing was witty and fun to read, his characters vivid. It was only years later that we learned what disaster the communization movement had brought on Chinese farmers. Now no one reads that novel any more. It can no longer even be found in libraries. The novelist stopped writing novels. Instead he spends all his time researching the ancient Chinese classic A Dream of Red Mansions (红楼梦).

My "no political agenda" view, of course, is not shared by every writer; probably more would disagree than agree. A counter argument given by another panelist was the novel 1984. That novel certainly carries a strong political agenda, and it is still read by many today. (I have to say that was a very good argument.) But 1984 also makes fun of human nature, and that part really transcends the ideological message. It is an exceptional novel in that regard.

In the second penal on short story writing, the other two authors said their stories were mainly products of imagination, while mine were largely experience-based realism. Now, both imagination and "write what you know" are viable vehicles for creating fiction, and the two certainly are not exclusive. In fact, in every work of fiction, each is embedded in the other. But when I heard the strong words against "write what you know" from the younger men, I was in a teasing mood. Is it because you don't have interesting experiences that you put so much emphasis on pure imagination? I asked them. And we went on for a fun round. I must add here that the other authors are really intelligent young men, and it was exactly because of this I had fun arguing with them. Read their books and you'll see what I mean – they are very good writers. And Chris Wood, a delightful gentle Englishman, was a great moderator. I got a copy of the latest issue of his magazine, the Asia Literary Review, and both the format and content look very attractive.

Much to my added delight, I was told that my book (the Hong Kong edition) sold quite well following the panels. Perhaps readers like argumentative authors. :-)

During the weekend I also met my Hong Kong publisher, who has a fascinating personal history. When he was young, he traveled from England along the Silk Road to Xinjiang, China, and ran out of money. He didn't have any means to make a living there; in the course of searching for a job he accidentally landed in Hong Kong, and has stayed there ever since. I will not leak all his secretes in the hope that one day he will write them down himself. His publishing house, Blacksmith Books, is doing quite well now, and he is planning to open an office in London soon.

I want to end this post by saying I had great fun in Hong Kong. Two decades ago when I moved to the United States from China, I had a short stay in Hong Kong for the first time. I didn't like it very much then, probably because it was so different from the inland cities in China. But this time I truly enjoyed it. It completely made up for the 26 hours of flying from Boston.

My only regret is I missed Prof. Jeffrey Wasserstrom's session "Bloggers: Should They Be Taken Seriously?" (moderated by Rebecca MacKinnon, whose blog I love) on Monday evening. Jeff had very kindly invited me to share the stage with him, however by then my plane tickets were already arranged by the Festival. As I had to leave Hong Kong Monday morning, I missed the great opportunity to meet in person two people I admire. I hope their session went well last night.

The Need for a New English Pronoun

This resonates with me:

There have been at least 18 recent tweets about the fact that English has no grammatically correct substitutes for words like "he," "him," and "his" that do not have a gender implied.

Consider the sentence "Everyone loves his mother." The word "his" may be seen as both sexist and inaccurate, but replacing it with "his or her" seems cumbersome, and "they" is grammatically incorrect.

Read the complete CNN report here.

What's your take? What is the word we need and want?

(Interestingly, in written Chinese, there isn't such a gender-neutral pronoun either.)

Comments from Behind the Great Firewall

[I'm still in China. Today I received the following note through the Contact page. Because the Great Firewall prohibited me from viewing or commenting but not posting on my own blog, I'm making a special post for those comments. Discussions are welcome. -- Xujun]

Comments from hsknotes:

I'm in the mainland so I can only access your site through secure-tunnel. (If you know of a better alternative that would allow me to post comments directly in response to post, that would be much appreciated.)

Anyway, here are a few comments I wanted to leave, but couldn't. By the way, I'm an American who is currently living in Beijing working as a translator.

Comment 1:

Does anyone in the English speaking world even know where or what Canton is? What are we from the 70s? Peking, Canton, Chungking fell off the map for English speakers at least 20 years ago at the latest.

As for Charter 08, I don't even know why the government tries to block such things or even takes actions against a few of the signers, the impact and push for that kind of thing is non-existent in China. The rioting in the countryside where the real disquiet and unrest is is so out of sync and out of touch with the rhetoric coming out of the foreign (overseas) intellectual community that it's bizarre. Its more disturbing that the overseas intellectual community still even bothers or thinks that their declarations make any difference.

Comment 2:

Ok. About "awkwardness". I myself work as a translator and also had the experience of reading Chinese literature in translation (and loving a lot of it) before I ever knew any Chinese. Years later when I got around to say, looking at what Howard Goldblatt does to modern Chinese literature in translation, I was frightened. 师傅你越来越幽默 becomes Shifu, You'll do anything for a laugh. What the fuck is that? Was he planning on putting a footnote on the cover?

Ok, back to the point at hand. When you pick a book translated from any language into English there's a certain amount of "local flavor" you can stand without it being 拗眼? Sometimes, when you're translating you feel like you can go pages and translate things freely, because every other word isn't piled with chengyu or beijing slang (Wang Shuo's writing for example). When I translate his work, there is no choice like you have, to think about a phrase. From the first word to the last line of much of his work there's nothing there that cleanly "translates" to english. When people like Goldblatt take Mo Yan or even Wang Shuo and make it clean and "Nobel-worthy" they're essentially rewriting it in nice smooth English of their own creation. That is bad, very, very bad.

Ok, once again back to your issues. You obviously have to choose the "english" phrase as opposed to the "literal" chinese one. The problem here is that you're thinking the "literal" chinese phrase carries some sort of meaning when the truth is that even in chinese, these "stock phrases" are incredibly unimportant. No serious chinese-to-english translator in a million years should ever consider translating "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me" into Chinese literally, but Chinese people live under this delusion that chengyu and "phrases" somehow operate differently in their language. They don't, they operate how all these "historical sayings" worked in European languages till about 50 to 100 years ago. Allowing the "chengyu" and other related sayings to be translated "literally" for "effect" or "flavor" when there is no incredible and abiding reason (for example, someone says the "sticks and stones" line and then has rocks thrown at them, but even then a footnote explaining the phrase is well-deserved) is mistake, a giant mistake that ghettoizes, ethnicizes, and just is one whole pile of otherness and things good translations shouldn't get into. Awkwardness, strangeness in "language" is the enemy of any good translator or writer. Your well intentioned search for flavor and "effect" should come across from characters, style, story, etc. Given all that, tons of the translators still feel it's ok to throw in a few "non-translations"/"literals" for effect. To anyone who knows the original language it's almost always an eyesore/embarassment, but to people who don't, its always up for grabs. The point is your readers don't know anything, I could translate 200 pages of "literal" translations of Wang Shuo's hoodlum dialect mixed with slang and refined Chinese and I can guarantee you not a single person would like it. On the other hand, I could pull a Goldblatt and make shit up and that's also horrible. The point is, be very, very careful and never try to "ethnic up" something. Look at Naipaul's comments about the young Indian writers writing in English and doing the whole exoticism shtick. He rightly calls a spade a spade and sees it as horribly crass boutique multicularism gone marketing. Don't do the same with translation, and the literal chengyu translations go scarily close to that. It's why people who know chinese feel so incredibly uncomfortable when they see things like that.

Here's a link to some of what I'm talking about with Naipaul.

http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/naipaul_04_06.html

(from hsknotes)

Terracotta Typewriter

One more thing before I go --

Matthew Lubin, a writer and editor living in China, is starting a new literary magazine, Terracotta Typewriter. The magazine welcomes submissions from Western expats in China and Chinese expats in other parts of the world, or anyone who has something to say about China. You can write about any subject, as long as there is a connection to China. I think this is a great idea. Please take a look and send your creative work to Terracotta Typewriter!

See you in February.

Today!: China's Premiere Underground Magazine Turns 30

(image from http://book.ifeng.com)

The January 2009 issue of Hong Kong's Mingpao Monthly published an article titled "For Today's Yesterday and Tomorrow" by poet Liao Weitang. It reports on the celebration activities for the 30^th anniversary of Today magazine in Hong Kong during December 11-13. The celebration was initiated by Bei Dao (北岛), and many Chinese poets participated, including my old friends Zhai Yongming (翟永明), Ouyang Jianghe (欧阳江河), Meng Lang (孟浪), and a new friend Xi Chuan (西川, whom I met in Beijing in summer 2007).

American readers probably know nothing about Today, the once extremely influential "underground" literary magazine in China. Nobel nominee Bei Dao was one of the founding editors of the magazine, and his poetry first became known to us through Today. When I was a university student in China, in the early 1980s Bei Dao's sorrowful lines such as "Privilege is the passport of the privileged / low is the epitaph of the lowly" were recited on every campus I visited. Whoever got hold an issue of the mimeographed Today magazine, it was quickly grabbed by another student. The magazine passed from hand to hand until it literally melted to pieces. Oh, what an unforgettable time it was! I can't think of it without being sentimental. We gathered in undersized dormitory rooms in this and that university, in small groups, arguing about China's future and read aloud poems from Today. As the first batch of students admitted to universities after the Cultural Revolution (the so called "year 77," though our first class began in spring 1978), we felt responsible for changing China. Each issue of Today induced more passion in us, even after the magazine was banned (around the time the "Democracy Wall" in Beijing was demolished in late 1980, I think).

I know of no other literary magazines, official or otherwise, that had the influence on young people Today did in the early 1980s. (Around that time there were many others, underground magazines thrived like bamboo shoots after a spring rain.) Later Today resumed its publication overseas, however it has lost its clout. On the other hand, it is the only unofficial magazine from the post-CR time that still exists today.

Bei Dao says in commemorating Today magazine's 30^th anniversary that (in translation):

I want to emphasize that, a nation needs a spiritual sky, especially at a time of materialism. Without imagination and passion, no matter how wealthy a nation is, it is still poor; no matter how powerful a nation is, it is still weak. In this sense, Today returns to its starting point: it revolts not only against autocracy, but also against abuse of language, mediocrity in aesthetics, and wretchedness in life.

Sadly, the impact of poetry seems to be getting weaker and weaker as society grows its material wealth. Perhaps poetry's revitalization requires mankind's purposeful effort to restrain both material wealth and the development of luxury technologies.

"Thirteen Books that Changed America"

Monday morning, my friend Jessica alerted me that Jay Parini was going to be on WBUR's "On Point with Tom Ashbrook." She told me this because she knew how much I admire Jay and his writing.

I first met Jay when I attended Bread Loaf Writers Conference under a fiction scholarship in the summer of 2005. Jay was the instructor for my group of twelve writers. We each brought a short story manuscript to workshop. The morning before we workshopped my story, Jay told me he dreamed about Sail, the 10-year-old protagonist in my story. "Sail is such an unforgettable character," Jay said to me. These were the warmest words I had ever heard about my writing, especially surprising as they came from such a prominent author, at a low point of my writing career. I had submitted that story to many magazines, only to receive form rejections. Toward the end of the conference, Jay surprised me even more by recommending the story for the Best New American Voices anthology. Though in the end it did not get in, Jay had saved my writing career. That story, now titled "Feathers," is included in Apologies Forthcoming.

After the conference, I occasionally emailed Jay. I did so a bit gingerly, worrying about disturbing him. But he always replied. He has no airs. This is a rare quality in a great writer, in a time when it's common for established authors to be dismissive of newcomers. Jay stands out not only for his masterful writing, deep insights and great humor, but also his generosity and big heart. He has won forever my respect and fondness.

Listening to Jay's talk on WBUR Monday, I was very pleased to find that his new book, Promised Land: Thirteen Books That Changed America, is just what I need. I've always wanted to learn about American history more systematically and thoroughly; what a fun way to do it via discussion of influential books! Jay's book comes just in time for me to get myself a very nice Christmas gift.

Here are the thirteen books Jay is talking about (h/t www.onpointradio.org):

- Of Plymouth Plantation (1620-47), by William Bradford
- The Federalist Papers (1787-88)
- The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1793)
- The Journals of Lewis and Clark (1803-06)
- Walden (1854), by Henry David Thoreau
- Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), by Harriet Beecher Stowe
- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), by Mark Twain
- The Souls of Black Folk (1903), by W.E.B. DuBois
- The Promised Land (1912), by Mary Antin
- How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), by Dale Carnegie
- The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care (1946), by Benjamin Spock
- On the Road (1957), by Jack Kerouac
- The Feminine Mystique (1963), by Betty Friedan

Interestingly, and I'm quite proud to say, during my childhood and youth I've read at least three of the thirteen in Chinese translation (in comparison, my American husband had only read two: "Walden and Huck Finn," he said), which are:

- The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
- Uncle Tom’s Cabin
- Huckleberry Finn

As I recall, those were popular books in China at the time. Ironically though, Uncle Tom’s Cabin had served as evidence to support China's anti-America propaganda in the 1960s and 70s. And all of us school kids had bought into the notion that the capitalist America had nothing good but was full of racial discrimination and labor exploitation. This is not much different from the way average Americans view China today: that the communist country has nothing good but is full of human rights suppression and government corruption. I'm sure Americans got that simplified notion from reading some well-written books, just like we Chinese did. Once again, reading diversely is crucial for real understanding.

On the radio, in answering an audience question, Jay said another book, Whitman's Grass, would have been the 14th in his list but was reluctantly left out because not many people read it upon its original publication. Interestingly though, the Chinese translation of Grass was a most popular poetry book among Chinese writers and poets when I lived in China.

Now I wonder, if I come up with a list of 13 most influential contemporary Chinese books, how many would have been introduced to America? I wouldn't even ask how many have been read by Americans.

Another thought: it would be an interesting research to find out which American books have been most influential in China. I can think of a few already. I would love to conduct this research if someone is willing to sponsor it.

"Reading is thinking, and writing is thinking," Jay said on the radio. That is exactly what I feel. Thank you, Jay, for saying this!

The holiday is upon us and let me stop here for now. Merry Christmas, everyone!

On "Translationese"

Lucas Klein correctly asserts in his Rain Taxi review of Apologies Forthcoming that the value of my writing "is to convey to an American audience the emotional complexities of individuals amidst the historical change of recent Chinese history." I find consolation that a discerning reader and reviewer has recognized my intention in realistically portraying individuality of Chinese people even in a time of collectivism.

In terms of writing style, on the other hand, Klein raises an interesting – and recurrent – issue. He writes:

Written in English, the stories often narrate with an awareness of the distance between the circumstances told and the circumstances of their being read. While the narrative voice tends toward a native fluency, quotations of speech or writing often come across in a kind of translationese. At its most productive, the styles of English and Chinese are blended, as when a character in "Second Encounter" is described as having "to spend too many lips and tongues in explanation." Too often, however, the stylistic switch locks the Chinese language into an essentialized otherness, and Chinese speakers come across as linguistically clumsy.

Not coincidentally, the same issue of "translationese," or "Chineseness" in English writing, has concerned other readers and reviewers as well, for example in Cliff Garstang's review, see discussion in an earlier post titled "On Chineseness". In that post the same example is mentioned ("to spend too many lips and tongues in explanation") – what a coincidence! – though with an opposite view.

I appreciate very much Klein's recognition that such stylistic switch is by design. He has noticed, again correctly, my purposeful use of the "translationese" style in dialogue, as opposed to the more standard English expressions in the narrative voice. And he isn't the only one. Matthew of Waiguoren Critic of South China, for example, writes in his review:

One quirk of Xujun's writing is the dialogue. It's not typical dialogue by American standards, but it is a close translation of Chinese speech, which helps to portray more of the culture to readers.

Obviously, my dialogue-writing approach has met with different reactions. My rationale is exactly what Matthew points out, that the "Chineseness" in dialogue can help portraying realistic characters in the context of their culture. As Chinese, in our real-life daily dialogues, folk adages (俗语), two-part allegorical sayings (歇后语)，and even 4-character idioms (成语) are a common occurrence. To me, nothing reflects the thousands of years of Chinese culture more than the language. So why not use it with as many of the native idiosyncrasies in place as possible when writing in English? There is also, of course, the intentional effect of "otherness" – in Klein's word – to be considered.

Interestingly, there is often an English saying corresponding to a Chinese adage with nearly identical meaning and connotation. For example, in English "shoot yourself in the foot" and in Chinese "drop a rock on your own foot" (搬起石头砸自己的脚) . Apparently, when the English invented guns Chinese were still using rocks as weapon :-). If I invoke such a saying in a Chinese story dialogue, which form should I use? Naturally and without hesitation, my choice would be the latter. The reason, again, is the cultural context.

Do I sound convincing? Still, things are not that simple. I have heard several readers and reviewers expressing their feeling of occasional "awkwardness" while reading my book, for example see the latest Amazon review by Linda Austin. And they do have a valid point.

The problem as I see it is not the "translationese" but how to blend English and Chinese expressions in a seamless way, and that is the hard part, as the two languages are, well, not designed for blending. But this is not to say improvement is impossible. One way to do it might be to break long lines into short parts, to make the "translationese" appear more like accent and with less frequency.

Right now I'm proof-reading Apologies Forthcoming for its Asian edition (again in English), which is scheduled for publication by Blacksmith Books around the coming holiday season. I see this as an opportunity for improvement. If anyone who has read my book found a particularly awkward expression, I'd appreciate it very much if you could tell me.

Okay, I've just found one myself, in "Disciple of the Masses":

Then he told her, “They’ll be here. Don’t worry. Who’d have eaten a leopard’s gallbladder to disobey Chairman Mao’s instructions, huh?” He laughed.

Perhaps I should change " Who’d have eaten a leopard’s gallbladder to disobey Chairman Mao’s instructions, huh?" to " Who’d dare to disobey Chairman Mao’s instructions, huh? Unless he has eaten a leopard’s gallbladder." What do you think?

The Camphor Suitcase

My personal essay, "The Camphor Suitcase," which tells the story of what made me quit my high-tech job and start writing in English, now appears in Literal Latté. The reputed New York based magazine has a cool new look.

Cheers, short story writers!

...and Asians no less.

From guardian.co.uk: Vietnam born writer Nam Le has won the 2008 Dylan Thomas prize, picking up a cheque for £60,000 at a ceremony in Swansea last night for his first collection of short stories, The Boat. The Guardian reports that the chairman of the judges, Peter Florence, hailed Le as a "winner worthy of Dylan Thomas". (I've read a couple of Nam Le's stories and he's a natural.)

From bridportprize.org.uk: Malaysia born writer Elaine Chiew, who currently lives in London (and is a cyber friend of mine) won the 2008 Bridport's 1st Prize £5000 for her story "Face." Congratulations Elaine!

Doctor Olaf van Schuler's Brain

My friend Kirsten Menger-Anderson's debut story collection, Doctor Olaf van Schuler's Brain, is reviewed in the Washington Post. I have the book on my shelf and I look forward to reading it!

Simmons International Chinese Poetry Festival

I attended one of the sessions today. One thing I found interesting was that, given China's morality crisis and the lack of a dominant belief system, some poets proposed having poetry as a replacement for religion. Poetry can purify the soul, they argued, and popularizing poetry education might improve morality. Perhaps I'm too cynical - I doubt that's a feasible solution. It seems we are getting fewer, not more, readers of poetry these days. And those who have engaged in the recent scandals are most unlikely poetry readers.

Americans don't like to read translation?

Following yesterday's link to the report about the top Nobel judge's unfavorable comment on American literature and the reactions it stirred up, there is heated discussion on a writer's online forum I frequent. It's understandable that many American writers are angered by Engdahl's words, and they return fire by bombasting the Nobel committee's ignorance, which is quite effective.

Personally, however, I'm more interested in how much truth is contained in this particular statement:

"The U.S. is too isolated, too insular. They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature," Engdahl said. "That ignorance is restraining." (AP)

In the discussion on the aforementioned online forum, at least one writer agrees that most American publishers shun translations due to the assumption that Americans don't like to read stories set outside the US, not even stories written in English set elsewhere.

As I noted in a book review earlier, Howard Goldblatt, America's foremost translator of Chinese literature, says in a March interview with China's Southern Weekly that Americans don't read much literary translation. I wonder why. It is a bit difficult for an immigrant like me to comprehend this mentality, because in my youth I read far more literary translations from Europe (France, England, Russia, etc.) and America (such as Hemingway, Mark Twain and Jack London) than Chinese novels. My older sister, who doesn't even have a college education, loves to read translations too. The only literary magazine she subscribes to is Translation Forest (<译林>). We are hardly exceptions among our generation.

I hope some of you will offer insights into this: is it true that Americans are much less interested in literary translation than works written by Americans about America? If so, why? It seems to me "too isolated, too insular" is a bit too simplified, too trite a conclusion.