English translation of Chinese in Moment in Peking

I have read at least five or six of Lin Yutang’s (林語堂) books, all in English, and read his novel of Moment in Peking, also in English. After writing the Importance of Living in New York City in 1937, he moved to Paris to write Moment in Peking in 1938 when Europe was seething for war; 危邦不入亂邦不居.  Lin Yutang apparently loved Paris so much or he was oblivious of what's happening politically, which cannot be possible.  He also went there after leaving Harvard.  He was the Director of Arts at UNESCO based in Paris 1947-1950.  While living in Taiwan, he led the PEN Group to attend the Congress of International PEN Club in Paris.

It was said that Lin Yutang himself didn’t like the Chinese translation of Moment in Peking, if that were true one should read his English version.

This post will talk about the English translation of Chinese that I came across in his Moment in Peking.  Having mastered both Chinese and English, Lin certainly did a good job the best he could in translating, but as we all know if one knows both Chinese and English, one will have deeper appreciation.

Here are some examples:

“The rice is cooked and I cannot abandon her.”

“The rice is cooked” (生米已煮成熟飯), which usually means the boy got the girl pregnant during a courtship and before marriage.

“a former secretary of a Viceroy had written a poem about her, she had become one of the "reddest" (最紅的) or most popular courtesans of that day.”

“The reddest” is “the most popular”.

In describing the beauty of Sutan, Mulan’s school friend, Lin Yutang wrote,

“She was pale as a ghost, but extraordinarily beautiful, like an exotic blossom, with seductive eyes like the water of an autumn lake. “

眉似春山，眼如秋水 (老殘遊記·第九回)

“The ceremonies were simpler because this was Chinya's second marriage, being known as ‘re-stringing’ (續弦)(of a violin)”

Re-stringing 續弦 means a man’s (not a woman's) second marriage.

Mr. Yao said, “You still have this idea of tsunghsi[沖喜].  It did not work in the case of Mannia, did it . . .? Wait until she is better.”

Tsunghsi [沖喜 ] is a more complicated concept for the Americans. When Pingya, Mr. Tseng’s eldest son, was hopelessly ill, it was arranged to have him marry Sun Mannia, hoping the happiness spirit (喜氣) would “dilute” or even “wash away” the bad luck. Pingya died a week after the wedding.

“Let this be my humble present to you Old People”

Old People (老人家) is a revered way to address people much senior to you; old age commands respect in China.

“This is what is known as ‘killing the landscape [煞風景]’”

煞風景 can be loosely translated to “spoil the fun”.

“Mr. Tseng called the whole lot of revolutionists barbarians, ‘forget-eights,’ ignorance talking about what they didn't understand, particularly Confucianism (which was probably true.)”

The “forget-eight” (忘八) is titally Greek to Americans, “忘八” is referred to someone forgetting the eight virtues of 孝、弟、忠、信、禮、義、廉、恥, 忘八 somehow is evolved into 王八 and 王八蛋.

“But meifatse(沒法子). Who has the luck like you, young mistress? ”

Meifatse (沒法子) was a common fatalistic phrase meaning, “there is no choice,” or “one can do nothing about it.”

“The Dog-Meat General (狗肉將軍) was called a man of ‘three don't-knows’” (一問 三不知)

“The Dog-Meat General (狗肉將軍)is referred to a very bad military general who is also ignorant. 

In 1940, Lin wrote an article about a war lord 張宗昌 " 狗肉將軍回憶記 " " Memoir of a dog meat general ". In it , he described general Zhang 一問三不知，"he doesn't know how much money, how many soldiers and how many wives he had.”

“The Cassia bent down and whispered to him that Dimfragrance had ‘happiness’ in her body( 有喜), and then old man smiled and drew his last breath.”

Having ‘happiness’ (有喜) in one’s body means one is pregnant.

“Cassia said, ‘If this bride of Sunya's can be bullied by her husband or anybody else, I will cut off my head to be a stool for you to sit down.’”

“cut off my head to be a stool for you to sit down.” (我會斬頭譲你坐) is a very common swear emphasizing the swearer is absolutely right.

disturb the bridal chamber

(鬧洞房) is not really “disturb” the bridal chamber; it is a boisterous, animated or even rambunctious and rowdy event to finish the wedding ceremony.

The art of bargaining (by Lin Yutang)

Lin Yutang

Moment in Peking was written in English targeting the Americans and English-reading readers.  No one can do a better job than Lin Yutang in telling the story of Chinese living in a turbulent period between 1900 and 1938, literally telling the story of His Country and His People.  I’ll write a series of posts with a category of “Moment in Peking” in this blog, let them serve as my “book report”.

His My Country and My People, The Importance of Living and The Importance of Understanding are the best books to introduce Chinese culture to the western world.  I never read his novel until recently when I picked up Moment in Peking.  Pearl Buck repeatedly nominated Lin for Nobel Literature prize; I always thought he was never so honored because he was not a good novelist; how wrong I was!

The following excerpt from Moment in Peking is the best writing of the art of bargaining by Chinese.  Only Lin Yutang can do it.  Western writers would have no such insight whereas Chinese writers couldn’t write such an exquisite English that rivals that of the best American/British writers.

The art of bargaining

He [Mr. Feng, brother of Mrs. Tseng, who is the manager of Mr. Tseng’s shops] had the merchant’s typical manner of talking, which was interspersed with many silent “hah’s” and “haw’s” and ran the gamut from silent whispers to vociferous shouting as circumstances required.  He had acquired all the nuances of raising his voice in an emphatic tone of determination and repudiation when bargaining for a purchase, and softening it to a heartfelt cordiality when closing the bargain, knowing how to appear to stand his ground when he was prepared to yield, and yielding abruptly with a gesture of friendship at the last moment as if he was conferring a favor.  He knew how to condemn or deprecate what he desired to buy and to extol to perfection what he wanted to sell.  All these hot arguments, those red-faced loud-voiced repetitions did not mean anything except he didn’t like the price you quoted, and a stepping down on his part was always conveyed by a whisper in your ear, as if it was the greatest diplomatic secret and you were his most intimate confidant.

When the novelists wrote about medicine: Moment in Peking and Middlemarch

I still have nearly 300 pages to go for the 813-page Moment in Peking.  I would have finished had the garden work not been going on in earnest.  I don’t know exactly how many hours I worked this past Sunday; it was double digits for sure.  I have read many of Lin Yutang’s books and I regret that I haven’t read Moment in Peking sooner.

This is why I am somewhat hesitated to write this post pointing out an error when Lin Yutang talked about medicine (or more precisely insulin)

The following is the excerpt from Chapter 31:

Sutang, who had come to visit them occasionally, had sometime ago convinced him that he [Mr. Tseng] had suffered from the "sugar-urine disease" and that there was a sure scientific cure for it in the Western medicine called insulin. . . .

For three months he observed strict mourning [of his mother's passing], and in the first weeks he even refused to take medicine. Lying there, broken in spirit and body, Mr. Tseng at last yielded enough to try insulin regularly. 

He [Mr. Tseng] was anxious to leave the capital anyway, because Yuan Shihkai's monarchist plans had become public and rebellion had begun.  General Tsai Ao secretly slipped away from Peking, escaping Yuan's vigilance by pretending to debauch himself in sing-song houses, and declared the rebellion on Christmas Day, 1915, in southwest Yunnan. . . .

he [Mr. Tseng] was so grateful for his recovery from near death, he said to Sutung one day, with his usual mandarin dignity: "I will make you my son-in-law.  You have saved my life.  I will give you my daughter."  He did not even mention which daughter, and Sutaung did not dare ask. . . . Sutung took it for granted that it was Ailien that her father meant, . . . He [Mr. Tseng] decided that the wedding was to take place as soon as she [Ailien] was graduated from school, in the summer of 1917.

It clearly said that Sutung [a Western medicine trained doctor] gave Mr. Tseng insulin before “Christmas Day 1915”.  Frederick Banting and Charles Best isolated insulin in 1921.  Insulin was first given to human, a 14-year-old boy, in Toronto in January 1922 and Banting was awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1923.

Thus there is no way that Mr. Tseng could have received insulin back in 1915.  Lin Yutang left New York for Paris in 1938 and spent one year to write Moment in Peking.  Lin must have heard about the wonder of insulin then [Lin wrote “for sure a scientific cure] and didn’t double check the dates of insulin discovery and clinical use.

In preparation of writing Middlemarch George Eliot read medicine and observed how doctors practiced medicine in her time because Dr. Lydgate is a main character. She once visited Oxford University and had a professor of medicine demonstrated the neuro-anatomy for her.

The followings are excerpts from Middlemarch, showing George Eliot’s observation of the medical professionals in her days is still true in our modern time.

In short, Dr. Spragg had weights, and might be expected to grapple with a disease and throw it; while Dr. Minchin might be better able to detect it lurking and to circumvent it.  They enjoyed about equally the mysterious privilege of medical reputation, and concealed with much etiquette their contempt for each other's skill.

The following is what Eliot wrote when Dr. Lydgate read medicine far into the smallest hour.  What a keen insight into a young doctor’s mind.

Lydgate felt a triumphant delight in his studies, and something like pity for those less lucky men who were not of his profession. . . I should never have been happy in any profession that did not call forth the highest intellectual strain, and yet keep me in good warm contact with my neighbors.  There is nothing like the medical profession for that: one can have the exclusive scientific life that touches the distance and befriend the old fogies in the parish too.

 No wonder Virginia Woolf described Middlemarch as ”one of the few English novels written for grown-up people.”