Sampson's Top Ten
By Eric Abrahamsen, July 23, '08
Catherine Sampson, author and longtime China resident, picks her ten favorite China novels (all in English translation, or originally in English).
Our News, Your News
50 Best Translations…
By Eric Abrahamsen, July 18, '08
From the past fifty years. So says The Times, at any rate. One Chinese book, Gao Xingjian’s Soul Mountain, and that almost certainly because Gao is a Nobel laureate. On the other hand, if I had to vote for a best Chinese-English translation from the past fifty years, I’d be hard-pressed to come up with a definitive champion…
Update: Esther Allen, Executive Director of the Center for Literary Translation at Columbia University, posted this up on the Guardian about the list of 50, in which, alongside ruminations on the books that made the list, she mentions that the recommended translation rate posted on the British Translators' Association webpage is 80 pounds per thousand words of prose! Golly.
Job Security
By Eric Abrahamsen, July 16, '08
If I'd ever considered hurling my wooden clogs into the guts of Babelfish's machinery (in a Luddite attempt to preserve my livelihood as a manual laborer of the mind) this should bring some comfort.
Excerpt from He Qifang's The Peddler
By Canaan Morse, July 15, '08
He Qifang (1912-1977) was a poet, essayist and revolutionary of the Modern Period, one of the group of well-heeled but oppressed and intellectually voracious young people who, having at one point campaigned for democracy, threw their lot in with the Communist Party once the Nationalists proved themselves incompetent at solving the country's problems. He began as a poet and a creative nonfiction writer, and his first publication Record of Painted Dreams (hua meng lu) is composed of a series of brief but intense pieces of poetic prose, which in their manipulation of tense and image show a kind of sensitivity that is hard to find anywhere else in the literature of that period.
The more I listen to Wolfgang Kubin, the more his opinions unsettle me, but I agree with him in spirit on one point: the sixty years before 1949 produced an incredible amount of original, well-wrought and moving work. Most of it has fallen through and disappeared into the gap that opened up between the last generation of China students and this one, in part due to a lack of good quality translations, which damages its appeal as fashionable literature. He Qifang is an extreme example of a first-class writer who has been almost entirely forgotten.
Below is one of the shortest entries in the Record, entitled The Peddler. I'm gonna take it on faith that it's bad manners to copyright, though I do plan on publishing this later.
Fiddling
By Eric Abrahamsen, July 14, '08
As you might have noticed, we’ve made a few changes to the website. The main thing is that it now runs on a different framework – besides that and a few very small bells and whistles, the most noticeable change ought to be that it's much snappier. The new system will pave the way for future grandiosity, as well.
With any luck the transition will go smoothly – your comments and suggestions are very welcome!
edit: I forgot to mention that, while the old RSS feed address will redirect to the new one, you might as well just subscribe to the new address directly. Sorry for the hassle!
Because Han Han is Too Damn Old
By Eric Abrahamsen, July 12, '08
A week or so ago I attended the press conference for The Next (文学之新), a new literary competition designed to sniff out the newest in Chinese literary talent. Most of you may know this already, but Chinese writers are generally referred to by the decade of their birth. So-and-so is a 70s writer, or an 80s writer, etc. Whether there’s any real utility to this kind of classification I don’t know – I suppose it’s possible that China’s recent history has changed so dramatically, so swiftly, that any given ten-year cohort might actually have something in common.
The 80s writers were the last hit sensation, but the sad truth is that Father Time spares no one and they’re starting to show their age – graduating from college, developing taste in music, having sexual experiences, etc. The Next is the mutual brainchild of the Yangtze River Art and Literature Publishing House, Top Novel magazine, Penguin, Sina.com and the Qidian literature website, and the goal is a return to the purity of the under-25 set. The competition is accepting submissions from now until the end of September, following which comes several rounds of elimination: from 36 contestants to be announced in December, to a grand champion by next July. Each month in between will see another, smaller group of contestants announced in that month’s issue of Top Novel.
This competition is interesting both for the muscle behind it – major foreign and domestic publishing houses, as well as two of China’s largest internet portals – and for the judging panel. Top Novel magazine is an element of the Guo Jingming franchise, and Guo Jingming is the major star power behind this project. Guo, of course, is a definitive 80s writer – possibly the most famous of them, certainly one of the richest, without a doubt the most glittery. He’s on the judging panel, but right there with him is one of China’s hoariest authorities, Wang Meng. Wang Meng is a government writer of the old school: genuinely talented, a smart guy, but also a past master of toeing the line. The rest of the panel includes Zhang Kangkang, Wang Haipeng and Hai Yan – they’re aiming for a mix of market appeal and literary cred.
The press conference was a standard affair – emphasis on the fairness and openness of the competition, and major stress on picking works that are ‘positive’ (积极的) and ‘sunny’ (阳光的). Take heed, ye adolescents! If life sucks and you hate everybody, keep it to yourself! I’ll save the odiousness of ‘sunny’ as a mind-control adjective for another day. My favorite quote came from Guo Jingming, describing his reaction to the submissions so far: “Now I know how my esteemed colleagues on this panel must have felt when they read my writing for the first time. I just don’t understand it.”
Excerpt from Zhu Wen's What is Love and What is Garbage
By Cindy M. Carter, July 9, '08
Xiao Ding sat at the narrow, cigarette-scarred wooden table with his head cradled on one arm, wondering whether or not he ought to scream. But of course, he didn't; he only went through the motions, noiselessly opening and closing, opening and closing his mouth. In the dim light of the bar, the faces of the hostesses clustered behind him looked sickly, almost green. Xiao Ding found himself distracted by their Sichuanese-accented chatter, drawn into their conversation and flung out again, like some traveler stranded on a highway bound for Sichuan.
He stood up and headed for the exit. As he passed the bar, the hostesses fell silent. One of the girls swiveled around to stare at him, her big, heavily-lipsticked mouth parted as if to speak. Xiao Ding gazed back at her uncomprehendingly, and took another step toward the door. Unable to hold back any longer, the large-mouthed girl called after him: Hey, you haven't paid your bill yet! Without bothering to answer, Xiao Ding reached the door and pushed it open, ushering in a wave of noontime summer heat. Seen from the perennial darkness of the tiny bar, the city outside was dazzling, a blaze of light. There were a few pedestrian stragglers, tongues lolling out of their mouths, panting in the heat. Xiao Ding surveyed the scene for a moment before allowing his hand fall to his side, and the door to swing closed on its spring hinge. He returned to his original seat and lit up a cigarette.
A short while later, the large-mouthed girl approached and handed him his check with feigned politeness: Excuse me, sir, but if you wouldn’t mind settling your bill...Why should I? Xiao Ding asked, an edge of hysteria to his voice. The hostess seemed startled: What do you mean, why? I mean why do I have to pay first? Xiao Ding demanded belligerently. Afraid I'm going to make a run for it, is that it? Shocked by his rudeness, the hostess began to stammer. The longer she stammered, the more pronounced her Sichuanese accent became. Xiao Ding was, if anything, even more shocked by his own behavior; he bowed his head and fidgeted uncomfortably. The hostess hesitated a moment and began to walk away, but Xiao Ding called her back and promptly paid the amount indicated on the bill. The moment the hostess had the money in hand, her fear seemed to dissipate. She turned away with a snort of derision and flounced back to the bar.
After this, Xiao Ding had no desire to remain in the bar, but if he left right away it would seem even more humiliating, like he'd been driven away. At that moment, he was seized by an overwhelming urge: Man, did he ever have to take a shit. The call of nature was a timely one for which he couldn’t help but feel grateful. As Xiao Ding stood up to leave, he experienced a moment of dizziness, and the room went black. He waited until the sensation had passed, then proceeded to grope his way to the back of the bar. Man, was this place ever dark. He located the restroom door and went inside, stopping in shock when he realized it wasn't a restroom at all, but an outside stairwell piled with construction debris. Naturally, he experienced an initial pang of disappointment at having made an exit when he had so clearly intended to make an entrance, but the stairwell was so hot—and his need to defecate now so intense—that he soon forgot about everything else. Fuck, he thought, at times like these, you might as well die and get it over with. Assuming he didn't intend to follow through on this and keel over on the spot, however, he had little choice but to follow the arrows on the wall and hope they led to a toilet.
Skirting a heap of broken ceramic tiles, Xiao Ding climbed the stairs to the second floor and made his way to an unbelievably filthy restroom at the end of the hallway. He quickly chose the stall that looked the cleanest—although it was still squalid beyond compare—and squatted over the hole. The stall was so tiny that he could hardly squat without his head touching the graffiti and sputum-covered wooden door. Xiao Ding tossed his hair and tried to take a step back, but found his retreat blocked by a pile of blackened and congealed feces. Gingerly, he reached out a hand and pushed open the wooden door to give himself more space. Across the way, he glimpsed a row of four yellowing urinals. The two far right urinals had been taped over with rough brown construction paper, upon which someone had scrawled in pencil: "Out of Order". As the stall door began to swing back of its own accord, Xiao Ding pushed it open, only to have it close again. Finally, he used his left hand to prop open the door.
As Xiao Ding labored to take a shit in the unbearable heat, the position proved too exhausting. He withdrew his hand and allowed the door to swing back and rest against his forehead. By now, his shirt and trousers were soaked with sweat and clinging to his skin like a plaster. The task he had hoped to complete as quickly and painlessly as possible seemed to be taking ages. To make matters worse, the scar on his belly was starting to itch again. Two flies buzzed around his head, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about them. After a while, his annoyance was replaced by a strange sense of familiarity, a feeling bordering on affection. Fuck, he thought, how come I never noticed before how close humans are to flies? At that moment, the flies seemed like pretty little songbirds, tiny buzzing pets he had been nurturing for years without even knowing.
Just then, someone opened the restroom door. Xiao Ding heard footsteps followed by a loud splash, as the newcomer trod in the puddle of stagnant water at the entrance. Xiao Ding glanced down at his own feet and saw that his cloth shoes were half-soaked. He heard the man cursing and stamping his feet as he walked over to the urinals. The familiar clink of a belt being unbuckled. A very long silence. No sound of urination. Locked in a stalemate with his own bowels, Xiao Ding could only squat passively in his stall and try to guess what was happening over at the urinals. As the silence stretched on, he began to get nervous; god only knew what sordid business the man might be getting up to. He certainly hadn't left the restroom, because his presence was palpable. Xiao Ding was tempted to open the wooden stall door and take a peek, but it seemed inappropriate, somehow.
At that moment, he was startled to hear the stranger speak: Fuck, can you believe this weather? This heat is murder, know what I mean? Xiao Ding wondered if there might be a third party in the restroom, although he could swear he'd heard only one person enter. When no one answered, the man repeated himself: This heat is murder, you know? Know what I mean? Xiao Ding experienced a moment of confusion. He plugged his nose and lowered his head to peek beneath the partitions on either side. Both stalls were empty. He must be talking to me, Xiao Ding thought, and answered grudgingly: Yeah, yeah, sure. Sighing, the stranger continued: It’s gotta be torture trying to take a shit in here. Worse than a fucking prison, eh? Wiping the sweat from his brow, Xiao Ding kept his reply perfunctory: Yeah, worse than a prison. He could hardly believe it when the man, apparently hell-bent on continuing the interrogation, pressed on: So why are you taking a shit, then? At this point, Xiao Ding was on the verge of pulling up his pants and leaving, but for some reason he answered the man automatically: N-no, see, I just happened to be passing by... Unsatisfied with this rather lame answer, Xiao Ding felt obliged to expand: Had I known what a pit this place was, I’d have never stopped in here to take a shit. The man gave a derisive snort: Fuck, I wasn't asking why you came in here to shit, I was asking why you'd bother to take a shit at all. By now, Xiao Ding's forehead was wet with perspiration. He wiped the sweat from his brow and flung it to the ground. His fingers grazed the floor and came away dripping with some unidentifiable goo. Recoiling in disgust, he reached out automatically for the toilet paper.
In that instant, Xiao Ding experienced two terrible realizations: (1) There was no toilet paper in the stall and (2) He had neglected to bring any of his own. Perspiring profusely and starting to panic, Xiao Ding raised himself on his haunches and patted his trouser pockets. But what was he hoping to find there? His trousers didn't even have pockets. So uh, why are you taking a shit? The man calmly repeated his question. Although Xiao Ding was now seething with fury, some small corner of his mind registered the fact that he might have to ask this rude stranger for a favor, and soon. He composed his response carefully. Um, what's that? he asked, trying to mask his annoyance, how do you mean? The stranger snorted again: Bet you forgot to bring toilet paper, didn't you? It's like they say: The wise man thinks of everything, but even a sage slips up now and then. Wow, how'd you know I forgot toilet paper? Xiao Ding answered. It's so weird that you knew. Just as he was about to push open the stall door and ask the man for a scrap of toilet paper, he felt his bowels begin to move. The urge to shit was overwhelming. Lowering his head and gritting his teeth, he tried desperately to hold back the flood. At the same time, he began mentally composing his plea for help. Ha, I knew it, I just knew it! the man exclaimed smugly. Xiao Ding heard several sharp staccato bursts of urine, followed by a long, satisfied groan. One of the buzzing flies alighted on his kneecap and sat there, as if pondering the same question as Xiao Ding. Just as Xiao Ding was about to ask the stranger for some toilet paper, the man beat him to the punch: Fuck, I'd like to see how you get out of here! Before Xiao Ding could react, the stranger bolted for the restroom door. Judging by the clatter, he’d nearly tripped over himself in his haste to make an exit. When the noise had subsided, a disheartened Xiao Ding raised a fist and pushed open the wooden stall door. The row of urinals across from him was unchanged, the restroom as seedy as ever, but the place was deserted.
Wang Xiaobo Interview
By Eric Abrahamsen, June 25, '08
A year or two ago I went to a exhibition on Wang Xiaobo’s life at the Lu Xun Museum. Along with the entrance ticket they gave you a DVD with a half hour or an hour of footage of Wang Xiaobo, including an interview he once did for CCTV. I just recently found this interview on Youtube, and am linking to it here, along with a translation of the conversation. This is from 1995, remember, an era caught between the hit-him-with-a-stick Cultural Revolution, and the can’t-be-arsed-to-wag-a-finger 2000s. CCTV, we should note, had not yet achieved the high standards it boasts today.
The interviewer, Liu Wei (刘为), starts off civilly, but by the end he’s nearly given himself a hernia trying to paint Wang as a salacious destroyer of other people’s morals. Observe, particularly, his craftiness as he traps Wang into admitting his books are all autobiographical, and his beautiful parting shot.
Beijing Coma Review
By Eric Abrahamsen, June 24, '08
From Pankaj Mishra's review of Ma Jian's newest Beijing Coma, in The New Yorker:
A dissident writer’s pessimism, you suspect, can be as relentless and simplistic as a socialist realist’s optimism.
Amnesty
By Cindy M. Carter, June 16, '08
This song, which appeared on Cui Jian's 1994 album "Balls Under the Red Flag" (红旗下的蛋) was the first Chinese song I ever attempted to translate. Many years and countless failed revisions later (and newly inspired by a documentary-in-progress about Chinese rock and roll), I've come back to it. As anthems go, it's pretty damned good...a political commentary cloaked in sexual imagery and double-entendre. If I had to reach for a western equivalent, I'd choose The Guess Who's "American Woman" and add a sprinkling of Bob Dylan, just for good measure.
I suspect that some of our translation colleagues have, at one time or another, translated this song into English and tucked it into their desk drawers. If so - if you're one of the proud, the reticent, the scholarly, the bored or the intrepid who have riffed this song and filed it away somewhere for posterity or inclement weather - please post your translation. The song raises some interesting language questions, and seems to defy most attempts at literal translation. As you can see, I've played these lyrics fast and loose.
Amnesty (宽容)
Both eyes closed, leaning on you
All hands down, stroking me
I want this satisfaction
and need you to respond
I want to tell you everything
just don't be mad with me
It's never love or hate with you
you're no more than what you are
I'm exhausted and it's pointless
but I have to go on fighting you
Fuck you, I say, fuck you
I'll talk behind your back
In the end, we'll see who wins
who holds out to the last
My eyes are open now and angry
I see what you've become and I can't speak
I want to sing an amnesty
for all that's happened here
but my voice sounds strange to me...
(click "more" for the Chinese lyrics)