Asia-Pacific Daily Liu Lili
In the morning, he received a message from the WeChat account of the translator Teacher Chen Guojian, but it was his wife, Ms. Deng Yushan.
"Xiao Liu, hello! Guo Jian suffered from lymphoma, in April this year due to foot swelling, low-grade fever, emaciation and other symptoms hospital treatment, the condition has been repeated, several times to be discharged from the hospital are fever again, until June was diagnosed, because of the inability to chemotherapy transferred to a nursing home, July 24 due to worsening condition died of death, the body buried in the cemetery. ”
At that moment, I knew that the world had lost a poet, translator, and messenger of the beauty of ancient Chinese poetry.
And I, lost the Don Quixote in my heart.
I met Mr. Chen Guojian in 2017, when I was still working as a reporter at Xinhua News Agency. Teacher Chen is in Spain, I am in China, I interviewed him through WeChat. He said he was a translator poet and only translated ancient Chinese poems. Translating those beautiful and exquisite Tang poems into Spanish, Teacher Chen felt that this was what he should do in this life, "Chinese poetry should be translated Chinese, otherwise I am sorry for the ancestors!" ”
Chen Guojian, who was old, always felt that he had wasted a lot of time in the first half of his life. When he was in middle school, he read Don Quixote, laughed while reading it, and resolutely chose to learn Spanish in college.
When he was young, Chen Guojian translated "Sentinel under Neon Lights", "Who is the Cutest Person", and compiled a dictionary of Spanish synonyms, all because he could not find a channel to publish, and could only throw his manuscripts into the trash.
In 1986, at the age of 48, Chen Guojian completed the Western translation of 137 Tang poems, but no publisher was willing to publish them. In desperation, he sent the translation to a Spanish friend, and unexpectedly, only a few months later, "Tang Poetry, the Golden Age of Chinese Poetry" was published in Spain. Chen Guojian realized that the enthusiastic Spain was the blessing of his translation career.
Later, Chen Guojian resigned from teaching at a university in Guangzhou and officially lived in Spain in 1991. At that time, he was already the year of knowing his destiny, and everything had to start from scratch and start all over again. In order to make a living, Chen Guojian tried various professions, he worked as an interpreter, organized guys from several nearby Chinese restaurants to open Spanish training classes, worked as a translator for Spanish lawyers, bailed out Chinese who had no identity detained by the police, and would also go to the restaurant to do the running hall. He also tried to do import and export business, but because he had no funds, he had to give up.
In the end, Chen Guojian opened a small food store, and his life settled down. At first, a friend quipped to him: "Professors also sell bread?" Chen Guojian disagreed: "When I was young, I went to the countryside to work, and I picked all the dung, what is the point of selling bread?" ”
And all this is to translate Chinese poetry. Perhaps it was at that time that Chen Guojian realized the similarity between himself and Don Quixote, that is, to fight against the imaginary enemy in his heart with a kind of insistence that ordinary people could not understand. And who is that hypothetical enemy? Many people think that Chen Guojian himself, because it is too difficult to translate ancient Chinese poems into Spanish, and it is simply impossible for themselves and themselves to get by.
The Nicaraguan poet Ruben Dario, a representative of the modernist school of the early twentieth century, wrote in his poem "Wandering": "Please express your love for me with Chinese, in the resounding language of Lee Taibai." Since then, ancient Chinese poetry has entered the Spanish-speaking world. However, most of the original Spanish translations of ancient Chinese poems were translated by foreigners, and were often translated from other languages such as French into Spanish... After several twists and turns, some exquisite Tang poems and Song poems have lost their artistic conception and have been completely unrecognizable.
Chen Guojian found through research: "Spring sleep is not aware, everywhere smell birds", originally to describe the happy mood of spring, as a result, there is a translation in Spain that says "I hear the cries of birds everywhere", which is not to make Meng Haoran "laugh and laugh"? "Leaning on the window in the coming day, the cold plum is not flowering", the translation published in Peru is really absurd, "The plum blossoms have bloomed, and the little roses you planted by the pool have been eaten clean by the goats", which makes Wang Weiqing feel embarrassed?
As a result, Chen Guo resolutely decided to reshape the beauty of ancient Chinese poetry. He translated poetry, relying on the persistence of breaking the casserole to ask the end and the ten years of grinding a sword, always had to be revised many times before finalizing, sometimes even thirty or forty times, and strived to convey the original text of the thoughts and feelings of the premise of conforming to the reading habits of the Spaniards, and to achieve the beauty of language and rhyme.
After living in Spain for more than 20 years, Chen Guojian has completed 11 translations of Chinese poetry, including a book called "Poetry of Chinese Dynasties", which brings together poems spanning more than 20 centuries from the Book of Poetry to the contemporary poet Haizi. And when "Three Hundred Poems of Tang Dynasty" was published in 2016, he was already 78 years old...
For decades, however, Chen Guojian was lonely. Except for facing the piles of manuscript paper on his desk day after day, he didn't know what was happening in the outside world, what the human heart had become. People also don't know what this emaciated old man with graying hair is for all day long...
Poetry is the white snow of Yangchun, the Chang'e in the moon, who can live forever with a elixir, but the poet is a human being, has seven passions and six desires, and has to eat and dress. But throughout the ages, poets must be equated with "poverty", and sometimes Chen Guojian himself sighs that the income from translating ancient poems in his life is no more than the money earned by a restaurant in a year. At this time, his wife would laugh and squeeze: "Is there so much?" That's half a year's income. ”
"I am born to be useful," Chen Guojian replied pretentiously. But is what the wife said wrong? Translation is a non-profitable business, especially translating poetry, it is not as good as translating novels, good novels are still selling well, and a bunch of books in bookstores must sell the least.
"A lot of people can translate novels, but how many people can translate poetry? Who can hold on to that poverty? Isn't that just me! ”
Chen Guojian, whom I know, is such a person who uses the path of poverty and happiness as a show off of capital. After the interview, I spent one night writing the manuscript in one fell swoop, looping the theme song "Unattainable Dreams" from "Dream Rider Don Quixote" on my phone. There were tears in my eyes.
I abandoned the traditional method of writing, but instead completed the manuscript in my own way according to my heart. To be fair, after more than ten years of practice, "homework" has been completed a lot, and how many times have you carved and decorated a work? I want to express my truth, I know, this is the strength given to me by Teacher Chen Guojian, or it is given by Don Quixote.
It is this force that makes me say categorically when faced with the editorial department's request to "rewrite", "This manuscript can not be issued, let me rewrite it is absolutely impossible!" So much so that the always mild-mannered editing teacher raised a white flag and could only smile at me and scold: "You're a 'heroine'!" ”
On the night of the broadcast of the manuscript, Teacher Chen cried, happy, excited, and the grievances that no one had asked about or understood for decades. He said to me: "This is the highest reward, the recognition and encouragement of the state and the nation for my work." I was as happy as I had won a Nobel Prize. This article can only be written by Zhiyin. ”
Perhaps it is the influence of the report that Professor Chen Guojian was selected as the "Light of China - Person of the Year for Spreading Chinese Culture". He happily flew back from Spain to his homeland with his wife to receive the award and asked me to meet him. He brought me two boxes of chocolates, wrapped in exquisite gift paper, like a gift from the nobility. I gave him a box of brushes, and I couldn't be wrong with sending the four treasures of the humanistic room that were right.
I asked him, is there a lot of thieves in Spain? Teacher Chen said that the locals are very simple and kind, and the penniless foreigners are sick, and the hospital is doing its best to rescue them. He invited me on a tour of Spain, and when he said that, he came as a guide. I was so happy that I couldn't wait to plan my trip the next day.
In the next few years, I had children, quit my job and changed jobs... In the end, he did not go to Spain, nor did he see Teacher Chen again, but only occasionally chatted with him and listened to his translation of Spanish songs. Teacher Chen said that he also wanted to change the Western version of "Three Hundred Poems of Tang Dynasty", after all, the poems have a certain degree of untranslatability, and naturally there is no perfect translation.
Then the pandemic came. For a long time, I did not see Teacher Chen send a circle of friends, send WeChat also did not return, very worried, and then tossed and turned, only to know that he was safe, but the elderly family let him look less at the mobile phone and rest more, we said "cherish" to each other, that is the last conversation ...
Mr. Chen Guojian died on July 24, 2021 at the age of 82, and two days later he was buried in Madrid, resting in the land he loved. Teacher Chen is gone, and the poems he translated have remained forever, conveying Chinese love and love, truth, goodness and beauty to the Spanish-speaking world.
As long as there are people, there will be poems, and the life of Teacher Chen Guojian is not a magnificent poem?
However, not everyone understands this magnificent psalm. As Don Quixote famously said, "When these deeds of Mine are passed on, the Age of Happiness and the Century of Happiness will come." ”
And I am willing to wait for the day that will come with respect and nostalgia for Teacher Chen Guojian.
(Source: Asia Pacific Daily APD News)