"Talking about the Heart- Eighteen Years with Lin Qingxia" No. 9: Miss Yang Xianyi
Text/Jin Shenghua
Everyone's life, whether it goes well or not, will inevitably bring some big and small regrets, perhaps, just missed a grand event, a good book, a good play, a chance encounter... However, after a long time, it will still be grumpy, hanging in the heart, and every time it is mentioned, it will be regretted!
Do you want to know Qingxia's regrets? If you ask, what is the most memorable regret in the process of interacting with the academic and cultural circles? She would immediately shake her head and sigh, "Don't mention it! Don't mention it! Obviously, the gifts are ready, alas! She was talking about the past of Yang Xianyi, who missed a meeting in Beijing in October 2007.
Famous movie star Lin Qingxia and the author of this article Jin Shenghua (left)
That time, we went to watch Bai Xianyong's performance of "Youth Version Peony Pavilion" in the Grand Theater, which had been planned in advance, and when we arrived in Beijing, we watched three nights of drama in a row, and during the day we went to visit Ji Xianlin, Yang Xianyi, and Yang Daisan. Ji Lao's visit proceeded as scheduled, and the next day, he was scheduled to visit Yang Xianyi, who knew that a phone call passed, and Qingxia temporarily canceled the trip. At that time, I did not know the reason, and it was several years before I learned the truth. It turned out that in the afternoon, the girlfriend who was traveling with Qingxia objected, muttering in her ear, "When I came to Beijing, why did I soak every day to see the old man's home, you already saw one yesterday, do you want to see it again today?" As a result, Qingxia was soft-hearted for a while, afraid of her friend's loneliness, so she had to change her itinerary and accompany her to see Hu Jun, and the camel Kaisimi scarf that had been brought by thousands of miles was also changed to a handsome man as the master.
In fact, this matter also blames me for not communicating well with Qingxia beforehand. I recommended the works of Ji Lao and Yang Dai to her early in the morning, which impressed her, but I did not carefully introduce the outstanding achievements and legendary background of the translator Yang Xianyi. As the saying goes, interlacing is like a mountain, not to mention the translation world that is not very accessible to ordinary people. Where did she know that this master-level master was a very funny and cute character who could not be missed!
Yang Xianyi and his wife Dai Naidi collaborated on countless English translations of Chinese classics, with a total of more than 30 million words, including "Selected Poems", "Chu Ci", "Selected History", "Old Remnant Travels", "Ru Lin Wai Shi", etc., and of course, the famous book "Dream of the Red Chamber". Nevertheless, since I met him in 1985, Yang Laoke has never put on a moral and dignified appearance of an old predecessor, and later became acquainted, and he even asked me to call him "Xiao Yang". In 1994, at my invitation, he and his wife visited New Asia College at Chinese University for a month in Hong Kong, where they took the opportunity to conduct a detailed interview with him and learned many of his unknown anecdotes.
This son of a family born in Tianjin, who was originally exposed to Western things since he was a child, poured the fine brandy in his father's wine cabinet into the fish tank when he was four years old, and drunk a pool of goldfish alive! When he was a child, because he was the only boy in the family, he was particularly favored, and the family invited a teacher to teach the Four Books and Five Classics, which was boring and gave him four consecutive runs! When I went to middle school, I asked a female teacher to tutor English, but I ended up making a love affair between teachers and students. After graduating from high school, he went to study in The United Kingdom, only studied Greek and Latin for five months, was admitted to Oxford, and then went to the Mediterranean to travel around, and only officially enrolled after a year of leisure. When he was in Oxford, according to his own description, he did not read anything, but often chatted with his British classmates in bars. At that time, there was a "Chinese Society" in Oxford, and he was elected to be the president, and it was in the meeting that he met his lifelong lover and translation partner Dai Naidi. Such a pair of immortal dependents, who worked tirelessly all their lives and shouldered the heavy responsibility of translating and introducing Chinese culture, were tragically imprisoned during the "Cultural Revolution", and the two were imprisoned for four years each, asking him how his career was in the window? He said, "It's fun to go to jail," and he taught young people to memorize Tang poems in English, and they taught him strange pickpocket techniques. Out of prison, how to live? He said, "Originally, there were three or four nests of rats living in the family, and when I came back, I was very unhappy to slip away, and it was quite funny", it turned out that this translator from a wealthy background, because of his open-minded temperament, was indifferent and self-satisfied, although he had experienced adversity and lows in his life, he also felt that everything was "fun".
Yang Xianyi dai is a newlywed photo of the couple in the 1940s
Such a character who has learned both Chinese and Western and is free and humorous, if he can meet and talk with Qingxia, who treats the elderly well without losing humor, what kind of heart-warming scene will it be? Not to mention that one is the translator of "Dream of the Red Chamber" and the other is the interpreter of "Dream of the Red Chamber"? Although the scope of translation and acting is different, both of them are artists who face the classics, work tirelessly, and present the essence and style of the original as much as possible!
I remember that October day, although there was no Qingxia companion, I still went to visit Yang Xianyi as usual. When I approached the Yang Mansion in the Small Golden Silk Hutong in Shichahai, I couldn't help but feel a little lost in my heart. Over the years, I have visited Yang Lao's mansions in different areas, including the earliest Million Zhuang Foreign Bureau dormitories, and later the Western Suburbs Friendship Hotel, but this renovated small bungalow located in the winding little Jinsi Hutong, close to Shichahai (actually the lake, Beijingers call the lake the sea), the most unique flavor, if Qingxia comes with you, you will definitely appreciate this elegant with some sense of the times.
I remember reading an essay by the essayist Zhang Xiaofeng, "A Mountain of Ephemeral Flowers", which recorded that she missed the mood of the mountain flowers blooming, she said: "When I imagined the thousands of flowers competing late at night last week, I don't know how to bustle and lively situation", now missing the flowering period, empty to a mountain of stumps, although she feels sorry, but allows her to have infinite imagination space: "Whoever has no luck in seeing with his eyes has to use imagination to track and speculate." Whoever has no nose to sniff has to use imagination to fill in the speculation. Where there is no contact between the fingers, they have to use imagination to make up for the hypothesis." Here, let me use my imagination to describe the scene where Lin Qingxia and Yang Xianyi may have met!
The portrait of Yang Xianyi in the famous cartoonist Ding Cong
Elder Yang is the most understanding of life, the most understanding of beauty of the dancing prince, the family collection of many famous paintings and antiques and beautiful stones. I remember the first time I visited him with colleagues from the Hong Kong Translation Society, he asked the guests to choose the jade in his cabinet as a greeting gift. Qingxia's family has collected many large and small strange stones, and when the two meet, they will definitely involve a lot of related topics. On that day in October, as soon as I walked into Yang Lao's living room and saw that his spirit was better than in the past, although Mrs. Nedi had passed away, there were still wedding photos of them on the coffee table, so I deliberately teased him: "Xiao Yang, in fact, you don't look very good?" How did you catch up with The Danay of Miro Ingrid Bergman? When he heard this, he replied unconvincingly, "She was attracted to me back then." Then, he playfully asked me to squeeze into his red single sofa for a group photo, and even more, "Will your husband be jealous when he sees it?" "If Qingxia is present, he will definitely invite the beauty to take a photo and leave a shadow, and what kind of humorous tone will he use to joke with her?" I can't drink, and Qingxia can drink, the light wine fairy meets Yi Hong Gongzi, will he come to a toast to drink, talk about the Red Chamber?
After many years, Qingxia's reading range became wider and wider, and when she dabbled in many reports about Yang Xianyi and Dai Naidi, she remembered that she missed the opportunity to meet in Beijing, and she always regretted it, and she even told me that every time she walked into the bookstore and saw the works or biographies of Yang's couple, she did not dare to read them, for fear of touching them, touching the regret in her heart, and it was difficult to restrain herself! I've never seen her look so annoyed when she misses any of her beloved dresses or jewelry.
For Qingxia, Qiao Gong (Qiao Zhigao), who "loves beauty" thousands of miles apart, actually met in the air; Xiao Yang (Yang Xianyi), who was "fun" who was close at hand, regrettably missed it, as Xiaofeng said, "In this world, what is it called possession"?
□ Jin Shenghua is a Hong Kong scholar and former president of the Hong Kong Translation Society