Chinese stories

We left Beijing almost two weeks ago to move back to the US. I hadn’t been back home for two years, so I was long overdue for a visit. The move actually wasn’t caused by China’s new visa policies, surprisingly, but rather the incomprehensible US visa policies that essentially forced my wife to immigrate if she wanted to ever be able to visit my family here. (I’ll probably write another post about that soon) We also decided that we want to raise our son in the US, and the choice was pretty easy to make seeing how Beijing’s air is steadily worsening. I don’t care what they say, it is much worse than when I first arrived in Beijing six years ago, and no matter how great Beijing is, I can only imagine the effects the pollution has had on our son. Some days I would ride my bike home from work and once I got to the 5th floor of our apartment building I could not stop wheezing. The baby also had a moderate rash all winter because it was so dry. I really like Beijing, and wouldn’t mind living there at all otherwise … but I feel like China’s still having a lot of growing pains, and while it was fun and all when I was single, I don’t want to stick around for the “interesting times” now that I have other people to worry about.

The move was hectic enough, and paying to have all of our stuff shipped back home made me realize that we had way too much stuff in our little 75 sqm apartment. I read an article about families that gave away all of their stuff and started living on the road, and I kind of envy them now that I realize we don’t really need it all. We’ve been living just fine while waiting for it all to get here.

The last week before we came a friend of mine visited and stayed in a great courtyard hotel (Double Happiness hotel) in Dongsi Sitiao, which I highly recommend.  I’d always wanted to stay in a traditional courtyard, but when I went to book a room at some other of the courtyard hotels around the Dongcheng district the staff were kind of aloof, unlike this one we went to. I also had to change our departure date, because the police told my employer that I had 10 days to leave the country from the date I resigned. “Beijing welcomes you” indeed.

The flight went as well as I could have wished, as the baby slept almost the whole flight. Immigration was a breeze too, as my wife could come with me and our son through the US citizens line, which I noticed was moving much faster and more efficiently than the Visitors line. I was particularly worried about this big ziplock bag of dried dandelion leaves that my mother-in-law had given us (when boiled the water cures the baby’s rash), which looks conspicuously like a big bag of another illegal substance. My wife only had to sign her name, give a fingerprint, and hand over the big packet of materials to the officer, then we put all of our bags through their big scanner machine thing, and I breathed a sigh of relief when they said we could take our things and go.

So now I’m back in southwest Michigan, still doing a bit of translating, and trying to enjoy the summer before winter and reality sets in. This state supposedly has one of the worst economies in the entire country, which is not too encouraging. I drove by the big company in town that had supported the community for decades, and all of the administration buildings had been closed down and were for sale. But a neighbor told me other companies were coming to town, so things aren’t all going downhill here. I’m really enjoying the faster, uninhibited internet, and the comforting thought that people here expect things to work right, not the other way around.

It’s also kind of sad going around seeing that everything in the stores is made in China (not that that is a surprise or anything), and realizing that we enjoy all of these things, but our environment and people don’t really have to pay the price of producing them all. But I also know from giving up all of our crap that we shipped home that we would get along just fine if us Americans had to give up all of our Chinese made things.

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Most people have probably heard of Empress Wu Zetian and the Emrpess Dowager Cixi, both known for their ruthlessness and cunning, but here is a lady fit to join their ranks. Empress Shulü was a Uighur who married Abaoji, the first emperor of the Liao dynasty (later known as Empress Dowager Yingtian). When Abaoji passed away she cut off her hand to show her devotion to him and took the reigns of power, as her sons were still too young to rule. Here is an account of her first days of office:

Shulü was a wise and enduring person. When Abaoji died she sent for the wives of the great generals and said, ‘I am now a widow, so how is it suitable that you all have husbands?’ She then killed the hundred or so generals and said, ‘they can go to their emperor.’ Those attendants who had wronged her were sent to Muye mountain and killed in Abaoji’s mausoleum. She said to them, ‘you can go see your emperor in the underworld.’ The great general Zhao Siwen was originally Chinese, and was greatly loved by Abaoji for his ability and courage. Shulü once became angry with him, and wanted him sent to Muye mountain, but Siwen was not willing to go. Shulü said, ‘you were the trusted follower of the former emperor, how could you not go to see him?’ Siwen replied, ‘I was not as close as the empress, why does she not go herself?’ Shulü said, ‘I originally wanted to follow the emperor to the underworld, but as my sons are still young, and there are many problems facing our nation, I could not go. Therefore I cut off my hand and sent it to him.’ Her attendants remonstrated, so she cut off Siwen’s hand and did not kill him.

述律为人多智而忍。阿保机死，悉召从行大将等妻，谓曰：“我今为寡妇矣，汝等岂宜有夫。”乃杀其大将百余人，曰：“可往从先帝。”左右有过者，多送木叶山，杀于阿保机墓隧中，曰：“为我见先帝于地下。”大将赵思温，本中国人也，以材勇为阿保机所宠，述律后以事怒之，使送木叶山，思温辞不肯行。述律曰：“尔，先帝亲信，安得不往见之？”思温对曰：“亲莫如后，后何不行？”述律曰：“我本欲从先帝于地下，以子幼，国中多故，未能也。然可断吾一臂以送之。”左右切谏之，乃断其一腕，而释思温不杀。

From 《新五代史·四夷附录》

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Well, it’s high time this blog lived up to its title, so, just in time for the national college entrance exams, here’s a story of how they used to cheat back in the old days. Nowadays it seems like this method wouldn’t work very well, although I have heard of people doing it with less stringent exams like the CET. Pretty soon, though, they’ll probably have DNA testing, or retina scanning, or something like that.

Taken from Chapter 19 of The Scholars, or Rulin waishi, this was my favorite episode of the book:

One day Pan the Third came to Kuang Chaoren’s home and said, “My friend, I have not seen you for a long time, how about we go get a drink.”

Kuang locked his gate and went out with Pan into the street. They had only gone a few steps when a messenger from the Pan residence hurried up to them and said, “There are guests at home waiting to talk to Third Master.”

Pan said to Kuang, “Why don’t you come to my home, then?”

So they went together to Pan’s house, and Pan invited Kuang to sit in the seat of honor. Pan met with the visitor outside.

Pan said to him, “Li the Fourth, my brother, long time no see. What have you been up to?”

“I have been at the examination official’s place. There are a couple of things I would like to talk to you about, but I was afraid you wouldn’t be home. I have been worried sick.”

“What mess have you gotten yourself into this time? Whatever it is I don’t expect much out of you—you have always been tight fisted with your money, like someone who cuts vegetables in a spoon without spilling any water.”

“There’s money in it this time.”

“Ok, tell me, what is it?”

“The examination official is currently inspecting Shaoxing. There is this guy Jin Dongya who has been at the local government office for a few years, and who has made a nice pile of money for himself. Now he wants his son to take the examinations. His son is called Jin Yue, and is a complete imbecile. The examinations are coming, and Jin wants to find someone to take the test for his son. This examination official is very strict, so we will have to come up with a new way of pulling it off. This is what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“How much is he willing to pay?”

A Shaoxing graduate is worth at least 1,000 ounces of silver. If he wants to take the easy road it will require 500 ounces. It’s just that now it’s hard to find a replacement for the exam, and even then, how will the replacement get in unnoticed? What will the payment be for the replacement tester? How much should the government office be bribed? And then, how will we split the money?”

“500 ounces total, and you still want to get a piece of it. Enough with this nonsense! You’re cut will be to get some of his thank-you gifts. there’s no need for you to worry about this!”

“Just as you say. Then, how will we do it?”

“Don’t you worry about that, I will find the replacement, and I will bribe the local office. You just tell him to get 500 ounces ready for me to keep in my shop as a deposit, and give me another 30 ounces to cover expenses. I will deliver him his graduate. If I don’t, I will not touch a penny of his 500 ounces. How about that?”

“Excellent.”

As the matter was settled, they agreed upon a date for the silver to be delivered.

Pan saw Li out. He came back in and said to Kuang, “I have something I could use your help with.”

“I heard you just now. The only thing I would be good for is to be the replacement. But will I be taking the exam on the outside and have it sent in, or actually go inside to take it? If you want me to go in, I’m afraid I don’t have the courage to do it.”

“Don’t worry, you can count on me! How could I let any harm come to you? You just go home and wait for the silver to arrive, and when the time comes, I will most certainly go to Shaoxing with you.”

That night Kuang left and returned home.

After a few days, Pan really did come with his luggage, ready to go. They passed the Qiantang river, and travelled all the way to Shaoxing prefecture. They found a place to stay down a secluded ally near the entrance to the examination official’s place. The next day Li the Fourth brought the boy in to meet them. Pan learned of the time of the exam, and early that morning he took Kuang to the examination hall, where he brought out a tall black cap, blue cloth gown, and a red belt. He had Kuang take off his clothes and put these on. He quietly reassured Kuang that if he did just as he told him to do, there wouldn’t be any trouble. He left Kuang at the gate to the hall, taking his clothes with him.

After five drumbeats and three cannon shots, the examination official entered the hall. Holding a stick, Kuang was called along with the other monitors inside to stand guard by the second gate. The examination official called out the candidates’ names, and when he got to the boy, Jin Yue, Kuang gave him a look. The boy knew the plan, and snuck off into the shadows. Kuang took a few steps backwards, and went to go find the boy. He crouched behind him, taking off his hat and gown, which he exchanged with the boy. The boy stood there holding his stick. Kuang took his test papers as assigned, and started writing the essays. He did not turn the papers in until the third or fourth beat of the clappers. He left, and not a soul knew of the switch. When the results were posted, Jin Yue passed with flying colors.

Pan accompanied Kuang back home, and gave him 200 ounces of silver as payment. Pan said, “Kuang, now don’t go and waste all of this ill-gotten money. Use it for something good.”

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My mother-in-law is staying with us for a few weeks, which means lots of good home cooking. It also means I can have home cooking for lunch, using a Chinese lunchbox:

It has three layers–the bottom is where the rice goes, and the top two are for different dishes. They can also hold soup. Even though there’s no place for a thermos, like in American lunchboxes, the food stays warm for a long time, and the soup can kind of substitute for a drink anyway.

And my wife brings it to me every day at work! She’s the best wife ever!

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For various reasons, the other day I set about trying to find a Nintendo DS in Beijing. Apparently it is officially sold in China as the iQue DS, and the official website lists places that are authorized to sell them, as well as a few of the games available in Chinese. I figured I might as well go to an official reseller so that I can be assured of getting good quality. Yea, right. First I stopped by Zhongguancun, because I was in the neighborhood, and wanted to check out what was available. On the second floor of the big electronics market there I found a “SONY” store that was also selling Nintendo Wiis and DSs. I asked about the DS, and they said “You just get the system and this little card, and we will show you how to download all of the games you want off the internet.” While the DS looked legit, there were not official games in sight, only the card.

The next day I went to the “official” reseller in Wangfujing, because it was near my work: the 4th floor of the Xin Zhongguo Toy Store. They had a tiny glass case full of game boys and what not, and a salesperson. I got the same story as in Zhongguancun—“Just get this card and the system, and we have a list of games you can choose from, and we’ll put them on the card for you.” I also found that I had to haggle at this place, and once I went low enough they had to get on the phone to who knows where to authorize allowing a certain price. Again, there were no official game cartridges for sale. Finally, after going there twice, they agreed on a price, and went to get the system for me. The salesperson disappeared for a good 10 minutes and came back with a “new” system. I turned it on and immediately noticed there were obvious scratches on the screen. “What are these scratches here?” “I don’t see any scratches.” “Here.” “Oh, that’s on the protective film.” “Well, if it’s protective film, it can be removed, right?” “No.” Give me a break. “Do you have any others?” “Let me check.” Disappears for another 10 minutes. “No.”

This is why I hate Wangfujing. I can recall another time going there into a prominently placed cell phone shop asking for a protective film for my phone. “Hold on, let us go get it.” 5 minutes later “that will be 50 yuan please.” 50 yuan?!? I got the one I have for 6 yuan in Haidian! If I wanted this kind of treatment I would go to the Silk Market.

A co-worker tipped me off about Gulou Dong Dajie. East of the Drum Tower in Beijing, it’s full of these little electronics and toy shops. The first one I went in only had little figurines. “Any DSs?” “No, keep going that way.” The next one was a gaming store painted all black inside with the Chinese equivalent of the Comic Book Guy: “Any DSs?” “No.” (keeps playing his video games on his computer) “Any in the shops nearby?” “Dunno.” Finally I found a little mom and pop shop called 酷玩e代  that also has a Taobao outlet. They immediately quoted me the price it took me 15 minutes to get to in Wangfujing. The lady kept chatting with online customers, while the husband got us the goods, no scratches, and the assistant expertly applied the protective covering to the screen. Finally a place with decent service, and that wasn’t trying to obscenely rip me off. I also noticed that they system they gave me was not the iQue, but the US version.

Now I know Nintendo is trying hard to fight piracy, as it says on its website, and have asked the US government to help address piracy problems. From the link:

REDMOND, Wash., Feb. 14, 2008 – Nintendo of America Inc. has asked the U.S. Trade Representative to encourage specific governments around the world to take a more aggressive stance to combat piracy of Nintendo video games and systems. Nintendo filed its comments under a “Special 301” process, in which the U.S. Trade Representative solicits input from the public to underscore specific areas of concern.

While China remains the primary source of manufacturing pirated Nintendo DS and Wii games, Korea has emerged as the leader in distributing illegal game files via the Internet. Despite aggressive anti-piracy actions taken by Nintendo, Brazil and Mexico remain saturated with counterfeit Nintendo software. Meanwhile, Paraguay and Hong Kong continue to serve as major transshipment points for global distribution of illegal goods.
…

Below is a summary of Nintendo’s filing:

OVERALL: Nintendo recommends stronger laws in all countries against the circumvention of technological security measures. Video game pirates have developed DS game-copying devices and modification chips to target the security found in Nintendo’s hardware systems and allow the play of counterfeit software or games illegally downloaded via the Internet.

CHINA: China must pursue criminal prosecutions against people involved in large-scale piracy operations. Nintendo works with Chinese authorities, who seized more than 1 million fake Nintendo products in China during the past year. But not one counterfeiter has been prosecuted.

Apparently Nintendo entered the China market in 2003 selling the Gamecube in cooperation with iQue. But now it has been 5 years, and I still can’t buy official games and systems even in Wangfujing? For me if the legit things were available I would buy them, rather than trying to navigate the ROM websites which are likely to give my computer a virus, and when I don’t even know if they will work properly on my system. So I can sympathize with Nintendo for wanting to fight piracy, but I have to question their strategy: Asking the US to apply pressure and waiting around? Howabout making the real thing widely available and seeing if people will buy it? Not everyone is computer savvy enough to download the ROMs, install the programs, and whatnot, but if that’s the only option available, then people will learn real quick.

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Before I graduated my Chinese teacher told me that to really learn to speak Chinese I had to go live in China. So I decided to move there after graduation, and take whatever job I could find so that I could improve my Chinese. My current Chinese father-in-law says I came to China looking for love, but at the time I was just looking to get a better handle on the language. I had a friend in the Guangzhou symphony at the time, and I was a so-so horn player, so I sent them a tape, because they had some openings. That didn’t work out, so I scoured the internet for English teaching jobs. Eventually I found one in Beijing, which I decided was where I wanted to be, because it was known for its rich culture and having lots of good universities. This was a legit job with a real university, so the deal was that they would send me an invitation letter, which would get me a visa, and I would fly there and begin work.

So I packed my bags and flew off on my own for my second trip to China. This time there was actually someone to pick me up at the airport in a nice school-owned car. They took me to my apartment on campus so that I could get settled in. I didn’t have to start teaching for another week or so, and during that time I didn’t venture much further than the restaurant across from me or the school cafeteria. I think this was due to a combination of not being used to the stares and shouts of ‘hello’ from people, and not having anywhere to go.

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I came across this the other day and thought it was interesting. Beijingers will recognize the names of Huairou and Miyun counties that fall within Beijing municipality. It looks like their history is longer than Beijing’s from this little excerpt:

“梁灭，阿保机帅兵直抵涿州。时幽州、安次、潞、三河、漁阳、怀柔、密云等县皆为所陷，俘其民而归，置州县以居之，不改中国州县之名。”

“The Liang died out and Abaoji led his army directly to Zhuo prefecture. At the time You prefecture and Anci, Lu, Sanhe, Yuyang, Huairou, and Miyun counties were captured and he took their people and returned. He established prefectures and counties for them to reside in, and did not change the Chinese place names.”

Abaoji was the founder of the Liao dynasty (907-1125). Excerpt from 赵至忠《阴山杂录》.

Also, apparently the area that is is now Beijing was called Nanjing during the Liao dynasty.

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While this is of course not as important as supporting the earthquake victims, it’s important for anyone who is a student of East Asian languages. UC Berkeley’s EALC has been hit with a 25% budget cut for next year, which means hundreds of students won’t get a chance to study those languages. (A friend told me about it, I don’t have any affiliation with the school.) Unfortunately colleges think it’s ok to cripple area studies programs when faced with budget difficulties. But as someone who just took Chinese for fun in college, and discovered that he liked it, I think we should afford others the same chance. So go sign the petition!

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I spent about 2 years teaching English in China from 2002 to 2004. I have nothing against the profession, it takes a lot of work to be good at it, and I don’t think I would mind doing it again someday, despite the poo pooing it gets from the expat community. While I think I made a lot of improvements in my teaching, I never got to where I wanted to be. Perhaps its an unattainable goal anyway.

I first spent two months in Qingdao during the summer of 2001 at the Qingdao International School. I got the job through a professor in NY who matches teachers up with reputable schools (a necessity to avoid nightmare scenarios). For some reason I chose not to fly from Beijing to Qingdao and have them pick me up at the airport. So I arrived in China with just 3 years of college Chinese and tried to do it on my own. Looking back it probably was a dumb idea. After learning how the Chinese wait in line at Beijing station and getting a ticket, I made my way to Qingdao. Oh yea, and I had no idea how to get to the school, or what it was really called. So I started wandering around for a while, then I remembered the name of the school was written on some paperwork I had with me. Soon after that a girl came up to me on the street and offered to help me get to where I was going. I started to get skeptical after she took me first to some scenic spots to take my picture and then to a pearl market. She then suggested we go to Lao shan to have some fun. I agreed, having no idea that Lao shan was basically in the next county. Once we got there I was pretty fed up, so I had her turn our taxi around and take me to my school. When we finally got there I think the meter was at around 100 yuan, and I started pretending I couldn’t understand her protests that she had no way of getting back into town (the school is way out of town). Too bad for me it was the wrong school, and I had to get another taxi driver to take me to the right place.

I was helping teach the ’summer school’ classes, and was assigned the k-2 kids. The number of students varied from week to week from 3 to 10. I had 2 full-time assistants and several volunteer assistants as well. Sometimes there were more assistants than kids in class. There were a lot of languages spoken, some Korean, some Japanese, a little half-German boy, and a few Chinese kids thrown in the mix. Most of our days we would spend on field trips. We went swimming at a nearby hotel, golfing at a driving range (not so fun for my kids), bowling (a nightmare without bumpers… “Jimmy, stop running down the lane! Stop playing with the ball return!), to the beach (um, where’s Tyler??), and we also visited a couple of factories. I soon learned I was basically a foreign babysitter for these kids during their summer months. I remember one smart mouthed girl’s daddy was the manager at the Shangri-la. 

I got suckered into a few English corners on the weekend, but tried to get away to travel around Shandong when I could. One day I was given Friday off in exchange for staying with one of the other foreign teachers who was in the hospital. This guy was one of the long-term teachers, and had gotten sick a while back with a cough. He didn’t get it checked out right away, and eventually got so bad that he had to have surgery and couldn’t go back home. They found he had cancer, and his lungs kept filling up with water, so he was in a pretty bad way. The school set him up with the best care in Qingdao, but the nurses were afraid to be in the same room as him. They thought they would catch it from him. So some of the teachers had to stay with him, as he was getting worse by the day. Eventually the poor guy died. I guess that’s a lesson to not let things get too bad before its too late to fly back home.

The next year I came to Beijing to teach at a university…

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I can’t but help feeling a little confused over the latest dustup between the translation of Wolf Totem. You mean to tell me that the author had serious issues with the translation that he only found out about after he had the final printed copy in his hands!? Now, I’ll admit that I don’t have any experience in professional literary translation, but surely this can’t be the best system?

I have had the opportunity to work on academic translation project, and that experience I felt appropriately allowed the authors to have their final say. Money was discussed up front, but after that I found that the Chinese scholars did not find it appropriate to be bothered with all the financial details until all was said and done (not the best arrangement, I’ll admit). The project was a collection of papers that had been published in different Chinese journals and that were to appear as one volume in English. The way we did it was I first provided them with drafts of the five articles I did (the rest were done by others), and the main editor of the volume went over them once. The authors themselves also provided comments, and I went back to take all of these comments into consideration. Finally, all of the articles were edited once more to keep things consistent.

Now I admit that this would not be a healthy model for literary translators to follow. I think the professors probably had a better grasp of English than ordinary writers of Chinese literature would, and the snail pace of the academic world allows for the luxury of such reviewing by multiple parties. But at least the authors had a chance to have their say about the work that would have their name attached to it before it went to press. As Wolf Totem will undoubtedly reach many more readers than this academic volume will, isn’t it fair that Jiang Rong can get his say?

The argument against this would be that the translators would be overwhelmed by nitpicky little issues and waste valuable time trying to convince the authors that their choices were the best ones. I agree completely, but from the accounts of the dispute there was both nitpicking and major issue taking with the translation of the word ‘Han.’ I agree that the arguments for choosing ‘the Chinese’ as a translation are good ones, but look folks, Jiang Rong is the author–its his name that’s biggest on the front cover, not Goldblatt’s–and he should be able to have his way with something he feels so passionately about. I don’t care how bad a literary decision it may be in English. I know that the literary translators are artists and need to be left to do their work in peace, but I don’t think we can place their judgement above the author’s wishes.  It also seems to me that this whole thing should have taken place behind closed doors before decisions were set in stone.

The case of Jiang Rong is probably an anomoly, and in most cases the author probably cannot be consulted or doesn’t care. There would be no way for J.K. Rowling to get involved with the huge process of translating her Harry Potter books into dozens of languages in just a few months. But I would like to hope that even the best translator (and most prestigious publisher) wouldn’t be above listening to feedback before the final draft is made, and accomodating the author’s most heartfelt wishes no matter how ‘ignorant of novellistic nuances’ they may be, otherwise we risk raising the status of the translator above that of the author.

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