"Xu Yuanchong's 100-year-old self-description", by Xu Yuanchong, edition: Chinese Publishing House, April 2021
The author | Xu Yuanchong
Excerpt from | Zhang Jin
In January and February 1996, Wenhui Reading Weekly abstracted and published two chapters of "Remembrance of the Lost Water Years", which has now been published by Beijing Sanlian, but a year or two before the publication of the book, it mentioned that Wang Hao, Zhou Jueliang, Xu Guozhang, Wu Jingrong, and Wang Zuoliang were several seniors, and they all went with the "Lost Water Years", adding the ranks of the ancients. Therefore, for the living teachers or their children, I hurriedly sent the book and added a few inscriptions as a souvenir.
Fortunately, Master Feng had heard about it earlier, and was happy to have a getaway
Mr. Feng Youlan's daughter-in-law Zong Pu went to hong Kong Chinese University to give a lecture, talking about the four realms in Mr. Feng's "New Original People": the realm of nature, the realm of utilitarianism, the realm of morality, and the realm of heaven and earth, citing the discussion of the realm of lianhe university students in "Remembrance" as an example. In my dedication, I wrote:
Fortunately, Master Feng had heard earlier,
Happy getaway.
The so-called same path refers first of all to these four realms. To put it simply, the natural realm refers to the unconscious mental state, the utilitarian realm refers to the state of selfishness, the moral realm refers to the state of justice, and the realm of heaven and earth refers to the state of pure rationality. In connection with translation, translation without understanding, word-by-word hard translation is the natural realm, grabbing translation bestsellers is the utilitarian realm, translating as a task is the moral realm, and the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom is the realm of heaven and earth. The so-called Wen Dao also refers to hearing Mr. Feng talk about "Philosophy and Poetry": "Poetry writes things that can be felt, but it shows things that cannot be felt, even incredible things in it." The more meaning of poetry, the better. Full of paper 'beautiful', it is not beautiful to read, this is the inferior writing 'beauty' also makes people feel beautiful, that is, the middle class does not use the word 'beauty' but makes people feel that beauty is 'superior'. In connection with the translation, "shape- likeness" means "inferior", and "meaning- is "middle-class", "god-like" is "superior". By translating poems according to these principles, you can enter the kingdom of freedom from the kingdom of necessity and wander freely in the realm of heaven and earth. As early as 50 years ago, I heard Mr. Feng preach, but it was not until after the "Cultural Revolution" that theory could be combined with practice.
In 1938, when he graduated from The Second Middle School in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, he took a picture and used it when applying for southwest union university.
Mr. Wu Mi's daughter Xuezhao is sorting out Mr. Wu's diary, and needs to be annotated by the reference of "Remembrance", and I write two sentences:
Fortunately from Wu Shi Juvenile Tour,
Translating poems is amazing.
Mr. Wu said: "The true realm is very different from the real realm, and the one who is higher in the illusion is the true realm." "When applied to translation, I think that the form seems to be the real world, the paraphrasing is close to the illusion, and the god seems to be the highest realm of paraphrasing, close to the true realm. Mr. Wu also wants us to be familiar with English poetry, so that we can enter the "real world" from the "real world" through the "illusionary world", and from mechanical materialism to the ideal realism through romanticism, so that we can translate the wonderful sentence of "getting carried away".
Wu Mi
With me from Wu Shi's young tour were Zhao Ruijun and Yang Zheng, who were the first translators to translate "Red and Black" fifty years ago, and his translation ideas were different from mine, so I wrote two sentences when I sent them "Remembrance":
Fifty years of "The Red and the Black,"
Who is red and who is black and who understands?
In 1995, Wenhui Reading Weekly published his and mine controversies, such as the same French sentence, which he translated as "I like shade", and I translated it as "it is good to cool under the tree"; he was in favor of the mayor's wife "died", and I was in favor of "the soul returning to hate heaven". I think these two translations typically illustrate the difference between "reality" and "reality." "Liking shade" is reality, but if you go through the illusion and imagine why the mayor "likes shade", you will enter the real world, knowing that the mayor likes shade because it is cool under the tree. In the same way, "death" is also a reality, referring to natural death; if you imagine through the illusion: is the mayor's wife also a natural death? The answer is "death with hatred", "death with hatred" can you find a better translation than "the soul returns to hate heaven"? Therefore, "the soul returns to hate heaven" and enters the true realm. When I corresponded with Senior Rui Jiao, he also added a past incident, saying that when Mr. Wu Mi named "Jin Lizhu" in the "History of European Literature", he said a sentence in English, "A beautiful name!" (a beautiful name). Looking back now, the name is also "Reality", through the microscope of memories to see this beautiful female student, the real world should be "a beauty"! The American poet Frost said: "Poetry says one to two", and Mr. Wu is a poet, so he says "name", referring to "people".
The student in Mr. Wu's (History of European Literature) class was the poet Du Yunxie, who was one of the poets of the Nine Leaves Collection, and the inscription I gave him changed Qu Yuan's "Lady Xiang":
Autumn wind,
Dianchi Lake Wave Xi Nine Leaves.
Among the graduate students under mr. Wu's guidance at tsinghua research institutes, there is a female lyricist Mao Yumei. Yu Mei is the daughter-in-law of Mr. Mao Yisheng and the wife of Xu Xuan, a classmate of the United Nations General Assembly. As early as the 1940s, she published the "Night Pearl Words" and "Haibei Words", and Mr. Feng Zhi said that she was a contemporary Li Qingzhao. She and Brother Xuan had heard with me about the "Great One National Text" by Yi Duo and Zhu Ziqing. My inscription is to change He Zhu's "Qingyu Case" to:
Jinsehua nian once spent together,
Listen to my reminiscences about the spring knowledge.
Among Mr. Wu's graduate students is He Zhaowu, a graduate of the Department of History, who published the English monograph "History of the Development of Chinese Thought", which contributed to the cultural exchange between China and the West. He is one of the few alumni of the United Nations University who has done research work at Tsinghua University, and the inscription I sent him is:
Spring City Dream Butterfly,
Today Tsinghua listens to the cuckoo.
Wang Zengqi (deceased) of the Chinese Department of the United Nations General Assembly, Zhao Quanzhang (deceased) of the Department of Foreign Languages, and Yuan Kejia (poet of the "Nine Leaves Collection") were all interested in Shi Songqing, a female classmate of the Department of Foreign Languages, and I saw a photo of the four of them in front of the laurel tree. Later, Shi became Madame Wang, and the inscription I gave them was:
The same is the United Nations,
Each folded moon palace laurel.
Tsinghua graduate student Duan Muzheng and I went to Europe in the same boat, and I also observed his defense meeting for his doctorate in international law from the University of Paris. After returning to China, he became a professor at Sun Yat-sen University, participated in the drafting of the Hong Kong Basic Law, and served as the vice president of the Supreme Court. I wrote two sentences to him:
The return of Hong Kong this year,
The basic regulations are Xiao Cao.
Wu Guanzhong, a classmate who studied in France, gave me a copy of "Tan Yi Lu", which said on page 9: "Abandoning the unnecessarily passive and restrained depiction of objects today... Playing and creating the city of Beauty is a leap in the development of painting. I think that if this is applied to translation, it can be said that abandoning the depiction of "shape-likeness" and creatively giving play to the advantages of translation is a leap in the art of translation. Therefore, in my inscription to him, I say:
Poetry is the quality of abstraction,
Painting is specific poetry.
In 1949, the alumni of the United Nations General Assembly studied in France at the University of Paris
Students studying in France gathered at Peking University
Zhu Guangya, a classmate of the Physics Department of the United Nations University, and I taught at Kunming Tianxiang Middle School ("Tianxia No. 1 Middle School" in "Remembrance"), and we went to Yang zonghai to spend vacations together, played bridge together, whether he called cards or played cards, the calculations were very accurate, and it is no wonder that he later made important contributions to China's nuclear cause. I gave him an inscription saying:
At that time, the bridge battled Yang Zonghai,
Today's nuclear bomb is on the sky.
Shen Panwen of the Department of Chemistry of Nankai University teaches at Tianxiang, has also been to Yang Zonghai, and is now an academician of the Department of Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The inscription I gave him was:
Translation is also chemistry,
Translate the original zhang into a translation.
Wang Xiji, a classmate of the School of Engineering of the United Nations University, and his wife Nie Xiufang are Tianxiang alumni, so we have a dual relationship. Wang Xiji is the chief designer of China's recycling satellites, and the recycling safety rate has reached 100%, surpassing the United States and the former Soviet Union. My inscription is:
The satellite is the poetry of the heavens,
Poetry is the star of the world.
Xu Caidong, a classmate who studied in France, was a classmate of my middle school, and after he returned to China with a doctorate in France, he published many steelmaking papers. In the 1950s, China proposed that steel production should catch up with the United States and britain, and now it has leapt to the first place in the world, and he has his credit. He is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a former vice governor of Guizhou Province, and is now the first vice chairman of the Central Committee of the Jiusan Society. I wrote him a couplet:
100 million tons of steel centennial dream,
Qimei chased the sun and rode the east wind.
There is also a middle school classmate Zhang Xie, the middle school mathematics competition is the first in the province; after entering the United Nations University, it is also the champion of the School of Engineering. When taking the differential equation, many people failed, but he only used half an hour to turn in the first paper, and got a full score, which is really brilliant. After graduation, he and Yang Zhenning of the College of Science were admitted to the United States at public expense, and after returning to China, he taught at Yunnan University. When Yang Zhenning won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1957, Zhang Xie somehow became a rightist, so that his superior intelligence could not be exerted, which was really a loss to the country. His wife Huang Qingling is also an alumnus of Intertek, and the inscription I gave him is:
Nanchang Spring, Kunming Autumn,
Looking back on the past, it is a blank slate.
The dream of Tsinghua Tianxiang in that year has changed the heavens and the earth today
All of the above are my contemporaries. As for the new generation, I wrote a sentence in French for Professor Xu Jun of Nanjing University:
Creating is the only joy worthy of man.
This means that only the joy of creation is worth pursuing. In terms of translation, Xu Jun and I have three major differences: first, in terms of epistemology, he believes that translation is science, and I think it is art; second, in terms of methodology, he emphasizes "reproducing the original style" and I emphasize "giving full play to the advantages of translation"; third, in terms of teleology, he believes that the purpose of translation is to exchange culture, but I think that the purpose of communication is to improve both sides.
Yang Zhenning, Xu Yuanchong and Zhu Guangya (from right to left)
After being selected in the Tsinghua Alumni Series, the Alumni Journal of the United Nations General Assembly, and the China Times in Taipei, Yang Zhenning wrote from the United States on March 6, 1997, saying: "Brother Yuanchong: I haven't seen you for many years, but when I came in, I came in and saw two paragraphs in your "Remembrance of the Lost Water Years" and one of your "Memoirs" manuscripts, and I would like to see the full text. I will come to Tsinghua University for a few days at the beginning of June this year, and if you are in Beijing at that time, I hope to meet. Immediately after receiving the letter, I sent the book and wrote two sentences:
Old classmates of the thirties,
Twentieth century ahead of its time.
"Ahead of the times" means that his achievements are beyond those of his predecessors, and it can be said that his "field theory" is ahead of the times. Two sentences were also written in English:
Science is one in many,
Art is one thing to see.
"Many" refers to phenomena, and "one" refers to essence or law. That is to say, science summarizes simple and clear laws from ever-changing phenomena, while art uses ever-changing phenomena to explain the simple and clear nature. After Zhenning got the book, he wrote back:
Received your "Remembrance of the Lost Water" and a letter dated March 16th. Seeing your bibliography in recent years, I was pleasantly surprised by your achievements... Neizi Du Zhili and I will go to Hong Kong on May 20 to live in Chinese University dormitory; we will go to Beijing on May 28 to stay at Tsinghua University, and we will call you. When you meet, you can talk freely.
Zhenning April 2, 1997
The situation after the meeting, as already mentioned. Zhenning gave a lecture on "Beauty and Physics" at Peking University, and I said that he communicated science and art. His appreciation of modernist art is far above mine. After the Publication of the English edition of The Lost Years, I sent him and Zhili two copies, and wrote a sentence from the German philosopher Schopenhauer in English:
Art is greater than science ; science can get along with talents, but art requires genius.
(Art is higher than science; talent can achieve scientific achievement, but art needs genius.) ）
Lin Tongduan, a female classmate in "The Lost Years", is married to Li Yaozi, an academician of the National Academy of Engineering. When I sent her the book, I wrote in English a Strauss waltz that we sang together:
Do you remember one day when were young?
(Do you remember when we were younger?) ）
After receiving the book I had sent, Mr. Yaozi wrote on March 14, 1997, saying: "Tongduan has lost his memory in recent months and his writing is trembling, so he asked me to ghostwrite it. Years of old classmates, bear your thoughts... It so happened that this month, the Greater Boston Area Chinese Cultural Association published a short article about our lives, including a passage from the Kunming years, mentioning Yang Zonghai, so I cut it out and sent it to you as a souvenir. When you went to yangzonghai summer camp, I heard about it from all sides. First, my parents boasted of the same ,...... Speaking of which, only the most poetic thing you write is a poet. ”
In 1944, he sent a farewell to the students who joined the united universities and was photographed in the Daguanlou Lake
We were at the Yangzonghai Summer Camp that time, and there was a male classmate who made a bet with his peers. He placed four playing cards on the table, saying that he was outside the door, and he could guess which one he wanted to move. The same end did not believe, when he went out, she touched the first card, so someone called the classmates outside the door: "Come!" "As soon as the male classmates came back, they said that it was the first one and went out again. Touching the second one at the same end, the man shouted, "Come and see!" The male classmate guessed correctly again. The same end touched the third one, and the man shouted, "Guess what! "The result was a good guess. Finally touching the fourth one, the man shouted, "Come on!" "I guessed correctly four times, so I conceded defeat and was punished for singing a song at the party." She did not know that the two male classmates were in partnership to tease her, and "come", "see", "guess", and "fast" were the codes of one, two, three, and four. At the party, she found two of the best female classmates to sing together: one was Li Zongruo, and the other was He Shen.
Li Zongruo was originally a student in the Department of Foreign Languages and later transferred to the Department of Psychology. "Wu Mi's Diary" recorded on May 6, 1942: "Li Zongruo is a fourth-grade girl in the Department of Psychology, who looks like Zhou Jueliang's wife Fang Miao, and is cute. Zong Ruo has her own opinion, and unlike the teacher, the teacher gave her 59.5 points. She would rather not get a diploma than change her perspective. After she and my old classmate Cheng Yingjun of Nanchang No. 2 Middle School got married, the two had a good relationship. When we played bridge, Ying Wei played the wrong card to blame her, and she never argued, which was completely different from the United Nations General Assembly. I sent her a book in which I wrote in conjunction with the past:
Zong Ruo remember no: Yangzong smoke and rain, goose pond moon color, willow silk is difficult to fish ten thousand points of sorrow!
She wrote back: "When I read the masterpiece, one is to admire your memory and insight, and the other is to be touched by that true feeling, as if the life at that time is back in front of you." The younger son, Nian Qi, read it and said, "Why haven't I been able to live in such a school and such an academic atmosphere?" ’...... I have also studied and lived in the United Nations General Assembly, how can I not write such an article? ”
Mr. and Mrs. Zong Ruo and I both taught at Kunming Tianxiang Middle School, and later at Shanghai Normal University. Ru Ping in "Reminiscing about the Lost Water Years" was originally a student of Intertek Middle School, and now she is also in Shanghai. I asked Zong Ruo to inquire on her behalf, and sent a book for her to hand over, which wrote a poem by Su Dongpo: "Things are like spring dreams without a trace." Zong Rui sent a reply to me: "She (Ru Ping) called and said that I did not have to go to her house and did not give you an answer." Because she 'wants to be calm' and says I must understand the mood and the situation. I 'uh-huh', but I don't understand. I said that the old friendship is now in old age, and as a friendship, this is very valuable. She said no, the book didn't have to be sent, and when 'maybe' would come to me to pick it up, but she said not necessarily. So they said 'goodbye' to each other and hung up the phone. Alas, my poor old China! 'Be calm,' she said three times. My little daughter said that Uncle Xu must have been very happy to hear it, but I didn't think so. How nice it would be to build a friendship in two family rooms! That's a delight! The past of more than fifty years ago will still break her calm! Is it peace of mind, or peace of family?
1945 Kunming Tianxiang Middle School senior high school graduation photo
Xie Guangdao, who used to teach at Tianxiang Middle School, admired Ruping and Xiaofen the most, saying that they were Feiyan and Yuhuan among the female students. We talked about: If all the lovers have become dependents and can develop Tianxiang Middle School into a university like Tsinghua, then you can end up in Sixiang. Later, he became deputy director of the Meteorological Research Institute of the Chinese Air Force, and I wrote in the book I gave him:
At that time, Tsinghua Tianxiang Dream,
Today is a different day.
Tianxiang's lovers became dependents of Peng Guotao and Lisa, and I changed the words of the Lord after the love saint Li to give them:
Spring flowers and autumn moon are timeless,
How much do you know about the past!
Brother Peng was the president of the Tianxiang Alumni Association, and his successor was Yang Yubin, a seventh-grade alumnus and professor of Chinese literature at Yunnan University, and I wrote two sentences to her:
Once drank Kunming water,
Unforgettable day details.
Grade 8 alumnus Chen Ruolan won the first place in the overall score of Tianxiang Middle School, and my words to her were:
The waters of Yunnan are endless,
Always the home.
Photographed in front of Nelson Square in London in 1950
I also left Elliot's English inscription to the young professors of luoyang foreign Chinese College:
The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice to what is more valuable.
(The artist's journey is constantly self-sacrificing for higher value.) ）
For Gu Zhengkun, a young professor at Peking University, my inscription is two other sentences in English:
Art never improves,but the material of art is never quite the same. (T.S.Eliot)
(Art never improves, but the material of art never stays the same.) --Elliot)
No man is equal to his books into which go the best products of his mental activity and where they are separated from the mass of inferior products with which they are mingled in his daily life. (Will Durant)
(No one compares to his own book, the essence of man is in the book, but daily life seeps a lot of shit.) - Durant)
This is the aftermath of my passing years.
Author | Xu Yuanchong
Excerpts | Zhang Jin
Edit | Shen Chan
Proofreading | Chen Diyan