Chinese Materials Center, Asian Library Series
No. 32, 1982 (498 pp.).
The Plums are selected short fiction from the pages of The Chinese Pen, the quarterly publication of the Taipei Chinese Center of the International P.E.N. (a global association of writers' clubs). Nancy Ing, who edited the quarterly for many years, is well known as a poet in her own right, as well as a translator of contemporary writing from Taiwan.
The subject matter of the individual pieces is as varied as the food offerings at a Chinese holiday feast. If there is one thing they have in common, it is the disposition of the "chefs" to spare no ingredient, no matter how small, for the purposes of assuring the appropriate nuances of flavor for each "dish".
Prime among all offerings is, perhaps, Flaw, by Wang Wen-hsing, translated by Chen Chu-yun. It is the story of a youth's first love, the wild yearnings, the anguish, and then—disillusionment; but it is also an allegory for all mankind, whose initial enthusiasms are so often overcome by brushes with reality. If you are lucky, or well reared, you go on, the experience resulting in more maturity, and a more determined approach to life.
Another Fortress Besieged, by Chen Jo-hsi, translated by Lon I-cheng, is an exceptionally well-handled tale of an encounter between faculty members of Chinese origin at Stanford University and a visiting delegation of scholars from Communist China. The author's sensitivity to the nuances of individual character and the socio-political awkwardnesses of such an encounter, result in unexpectedly first-rate drama—unexpected, because all too often, such encounters are depicted under the heavy hands of writer-polemists, careless of human insight.
A humanistic tragedy-cum-triumph, Dream of Gold, by Po Tonfang, translator Helen Chang Hsu, probes China's religious heritage, unfolding a narrative of the ways of gods and men. Sometimes, even when the gods wish to come to man's aid, his dogmatic views make it very difficult. The writer is a storyteller from a great and long-lived tradition.
Wang Ting-chun's The Soil (translated by Una Y.T. Chen), although typifying definitively Chinese psyches, will be appreciated by anyone who has made the abrupt crossing from traditional rural life to 20th Century metropolis. In a Drizzle, by Meng Yao (also translated by Ms. Chen), presents very vivid images of theatrical life, and the sometimes tendency of its practitioners to play real life as if it too were a stage.
But rather than go on with thumbnail summaries which, in any case, are very adequately handled in editor Ing's Introduction, the rest of our space may be more serviceably employed in comment on the very difficult translation barrier between most Chinese writers and author-stardom in the Western world.
Translator-writers of the quality of those who have brought Latin America's top writers to the startled attention of the English-speaking world, would aid many a Chinese writer to win permanent audiences abroad. They are difficult to come by.
Many a translator, though talented in transforming other languages into proper English, loses original color and images along the way. For example, syntax more appropriate to Western females may be used for male characters; or hyperbole appropriate in Chinese contexts, be so exactly reproduced that the intended message is never conveyed to Westerners. One of the greatest difficulties for the translator is in expressing tone (vernacular, slang). It is difficult, for instance, to read a Chinese author whose works have been translated in the exact style of a Mickey Spillane detective or a Damon Runyon Brooklyn hood. It takes defter treatment to effectively translate a hard-boiled Chinese cop, or the musings of urban street boys, or the thoughts of a Chinese peasant—and to keep the treatment in a Chinese context. On the other track, prim English destroys many a dialogue, and many a character, and carries boredom in its wake.
Winter Plum is not unafflicted with difficulties in English translation. Nor, for that matter, are the story-telling abilities of all the writers, and their professionalism and sophistication, all equal.
But readers who savor the opportunity to peer into another culture—to look into the hearts and thoughts of another people, will find great riches almost everywhere in the collection, and even in the volume's cover, a work of art by Catherine Cho Woo.
"Summer Glory", an anthology of poetry edited and translated by Nancy Ing, Chinese Materials Center, Asian Library Series No. 31, 1982 (171 pp.).
Also graced by a Catherine Cho Woo cover design, Summer Glory harvests from the bountiful past editions of The Chinese Pen, poetic expressions of modern China.
The approaches, mostly traditional, caress the soft elements and ethereal sensitivities from China past, even when centered on modern-day topics. A few deal in more passionate emotions.
The collection does not attempt comprehensive exposition of contemporary Chinese poetry, only a selection from the journals of the P.E.N. Center. As such, though limited in coverage, it is by no means limited in images.