What's in a name?

If it's not obvious by now, I've been struggling lately with what this blog should be about.

I've got my other blog for showcasing my Chinese swordplay translations, and with the time I've been putting into that, I simply haven't had much energy left for other writing activities.

The original intent, of course, was to share my experiences as I progressed along the path towards a deeper understanding of Chinese language and culture. Sadly, the longer I live in China, the less interesting it seems to be to blog about the stuff of daily life. Even the most exotic country can seem ordinary after a while.

If I am to find a purpose for this blog, I think it is wise to revisit my choice of title, "Rehearsing for the big square world." The line comes from the XTC song Playground. The song develops the metaphor of the schoolyard playground as microcosm of all of the interactions that will happen later in adult life. You skin your knees coming off the slide, but climb up again for another go; the bully's run the show; and that sweet girl you were playing house with "runs off with a boy whose bike she'll ride." (Ouch). Thus, all of that playing on the big square playground is a form of rehearsal for life in the the "big square world" of adults.

I've always liked the song, and one day it occurred to me that the Chinese have always envisioned the world as square, or rather, that the earth is square, and heaven is round. Thus, I saw that my study of the Chinese language was indeed a form of "rehearsing for the big square world," or preparing myself to be a participant in the world of China. Perhaps the fact that I am now participating as a professional in that world makes the notion of rehearsing seem moot.

On the other hand, any activity, whether pursuing your career, your hobbies, or some hare-brained project, always seems to involve some element of learning the "rules" of that domain. For example, I've been trying to learn bluegrass guitar lately, and I'm discovering it is mostly about training your hands to obey a complex system of contextual rules in real time. I know many music fans will revolt at the notion that music is anything but an unrestrained creative outburst on the part of their revered idols, but I can assure you, your idols have a head full of rules, too, they're just better at bending, breaking and recombining them is meaningful ways.

Same goes for finding ways to drum up new translation business. There are rules about the way that people in a given industry operate. Novel ideas will get you noticed, but to be effective, you must understand the background rules that are operating so you know exactly what queues and signifiers your ideas will exploit. That's how you figure out what sorts of things will get you noticed in a positive way, as opposed to, say, attaching my business cards to bricks and throwing them through the windows of prospective clients (which would certainly be novel and get my name out there, but might not get me work).

Finally, I think that the phrase "rehearsing for the big square world" sums up one more meaningful insight for me: the persistent sense that I'm always preparing for that day that I will arrive. This used to be disturbing to me because it meant I was always behind the game, toiling away at stuff that would only yield rewards later on down the road. Lately, however, the idea of preparing for arrival has changed its significance. It's merely a metaphor for constant learning and growth. Now, it's the notion of actually arriving that scares me. I prefer the constant stream of new challenges, because that is where life is really lived. Thus, I hope I keep on "rehearsing" for many years to come, as opposed to achieving some kind of stagnant state of mastery.

Keeping all of this in mind, I'm considering making this blog a sort of clearing house for all of the strange challenges I am taking on, and the insights I have as a rehearse my way forward with them. In that spirit, let me share something I have been working on recently: my first attempt at translating fiction that I believe is actually publishable!

The book is called Rock Soldier, and it is written by Chinese author and underground folk musician Liu Jian. Liu has had the perhaps singular experience of being a soldier in the People's Liberation Army while also working as a punk/folk musician at a time when the word "punk" hadn't even entered the Chinese language. As such, he was a punk before he knew what punk was, and he did it in the context of the decidedly un-punk PLA. Go Liu!

As far as "rehearsing" goes, I've found that while my Chinese could always stand some improvement, the real challenge here has been pushing myself to be a better English stylist. I am constantly re-editing my work, and you can see one stage in the development of this translation in Adam Minter's lovely China blog, Shanghai Scrap. Minter was kind enough to publish this small excerpt in support of getting Liu Jian's work more widely known in English.

Take a look, and expand your notions of what modern China is all about.

Wuxia fiction update

Just letting everyone know that my translation is moving to a blog of its own. To continue reading the next installment of Swallow and Dragon please check out: http://swallowanddragon.blogspot.com/2011/04/chapter-1-girl-in-white-2.html

Thanks!

A Taste of Wuxia in Translation

I've been experimenting over the last few years with doing translations of Chinese martial-arts fiction into English. Just for kicks, I will start sharing some of the results of my experiments here. This first sample is from the novel Fei Yan Jing Long by Wo Longsheng. It is a fairly well-known example of the Chinese popular fiction genre known as wuxia. For those unfamiliar with the term, just think of the movie Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and you're basically on the right track. This sample is pretty short... enjoy!

In Northern Hunan province, between the towns Yuanling and Taoyuan, there is a piece of paradise on earth. If you take a boat up the Yuan River, from Dongting Lake past the towns of Changde and Taoyuan, past the bend in the river known as the Zhang Family Crook all the way to Shuixi, then leave your boat and climb up the bank, you’ll arrive at a large Daoist temple standing out from a background of mountains clad in peach trees. This is the Temple of the Unseen City, founded by the monk Hou Shixiu.

One spring day, when peach blooms blanketed the land between the river and temple with hues as exquisite as rich brocade, a young woman dressed in white appeared from the depths of the grove. Holding a branch of peach blossoms in her left hand, and the hem of her light silk gown in her right, she picked her steps carefully, circling around places where the trees were dense, slowly making her way to the bank.

Her face was naturally pretty, but when paired with the elegant simplicity of her gown, it acquired an otherworldly quality. With the added effect of the light filtering through the blossoms, which marked her face with soft glowing pearls, she was transformed into a beauty to surpass all others, an innocent nymph freshly emerged from the water.

She strode to the bank and fixed her gaze upon the rapidly flowing water, a delicate smile of satisfaction upon her lips. She abruptly plucked a few blossoms from the branch in her hand and threw them into the heart of the river where they rose and fell with the rapids as they were swiftly carried away. Exhaling softly, her smile faded and a hint of wistful sorrow arose in its place.

At the same moment, a small fishing boat appeared upstream and sped towards her on the rapid current like an arrow in flight. In no time a figure was visible standing at the prow, a monk with a kindly face, about 60 years old, dressed in grey robes. Upon seeing the monk, the delicate smile immediately returned to the girl’s face and she cried out in her charming voice, “Master!” She threw the peach branch to the center of the river, and with a light thrust of her dainty feet her delicately wrought frame sailed across the rapids, white silk trailing in the wind. Both feet lightly touched upon the peach branch where it floated on the water’s surface, and spreading her arms, she leapt again, flying directly to the side of the monk on the boat.

The old monk let out a hearty laugh and spoke, “How is it that at 17 years of age, and young lady can remain so mischievous?”

As he spoke his right hand grabbed hold of the boat’s anchor and he hurled it mightily to the riverbank. Then the monk himself took flight as if loosed from a crossbow. The voluminous sleeves of his robe spread wide as he sailed 25 feet across the river’s surface. Turning his head back from his new position on the bank he watched the girl in white as she also leapt for shore. She appeared to reach the limit of her powers midway and dropped as if about to plunge into the river. The old monk observed her closely as she thrust both arms upwards and again rose to a height of eight or nine feet. Her gown billowed outward in a circle the size of a wagon wheel as she came down beside him, a charming smile on her lips.

“Master, wouldn’t you say my Swallow Piercing the Clouds gongfu has reached a new level of achievement?” she asked.

The old monk nodded, smiling, “You’ve improved, but your internal cultivation is still lacking. Should you need to escape an encirclement you won’t be able to take your attention from your foes in order to leap, and you certainly won’t be able to flap your arms around like that!”

Upon hearing that not only was she not being praised, but that her internal cultivation was being targeted for criticism, the girl in white became silent and scrunched her face into a sullen pout.

The old monk tensed his brow, allowing his annoyance to show upon his otherwise kindly visage. It would not do to go on indulging her as he had in the past. It was better to take this opportunity, he thought, to scold her, thereby checking her impetuous nature. From now on he would have to be more strict when training her. He gazed at her standing amongst the blossoms fingering the end of her plait, her displeasure showing as a reddening beneath the powder on her cheeks. In her posture and expression, she was the very picture of impulsive innocence, and so reminiscent of her long dead mother that 30 years dissolved before the monk’s eyes, like a dream upon waking. Heartache long buried welled up within his heart. How could he scold her? Before he could restrain himself he called to her in a low voice.

“Xialin, come here.”

His voice brought her out of her self-reproach, and turning her head she was surprised to see him trembling ever so slightly, light glinting from his teary eyes. Crying out she rushed to him and knelt, clutching herself to his knees. She begged, “Master, don’t be angry. I’ll never do anything again to disappoint you, my dear Master, I swear.”

The old monk lifted her to her feet. Smiling, he spoke, “Yi Yang Zi is the name of the abbot of the Temple of the Unseen City. He is also one of the three leaders of the Kunlun Mountain sect. Their Spectral Light sword method is unmatched. For the sake of your continued training I have asked that the abbot agree to an exchange of disciples. He will teach you the Spectral Light method, and I will teach his disciple my 18 Arahats palm method. My hope is that you will learn it well, and then, for the sake of your parents, you can…” He stopped, his brow knitted in sorrow. His consciousness was submerged beneath images of the past and in this stricken state, he spoke no more.

Seeing her master’s mournful expression, Xialin became greatly concerned. Grabbing his hand, she pleaded, “Master, don’t be upset, I told you I won’t ever do anything again to anger you.”

Before she finished speaking it occurred to her that the monk was on the verge of saying something important, something she wanted to know.

“Master, just now you mentioned my parents. It’s been weighing on me for many years that I know so little about them, but you have never been willing to tell me anything. It’s a pity that I don’t even know what they looked like. Please, tell me more, or I’ll die from the pain of it.”

By the time she finished speaking, tears were rolling one after the other down her powdered cheeks.

The World Remade (but still Big and Square).

This blog has been neglected for a while. Three years, in fact.

Initially the cause for neglect was the fact that the Chinese government shut down access to blogger from within China. This happened following the 2009 Xinjiang riots when Twitter, Facebook and Youtube all got gfw'd (that is, stuck behind the Great FireWall in local parlance). I was a poor student at the time, and not so eager to pay monthly fees for a VPN connection to lay siege to the wall, so that was the end of it.

Thereafter followed a very busy and stressful two years in my life. As my scholarship money went dry I was simultaneously struggling to finish my MA thesis and find work so I could continue my life in Beijing. It took some hard work, and a lot of hand shaking, but eventually I was working at a large Chinese internet company, managing teams of translators and producing English versions of their Chinese online games. The hours were long, and I was still squeezing in time on the weekends to finish my thesis, but things really seemed to be coming together.

The next crisis came in the form of some tragic family emergencies which coincided with the final deadline for my thesis (hey, if they give you two years, why not use them, right?). I went on leave from work, and drained my bank account while living the US and dealing with all of the above. For those of you who are avid blog readers, interested in medieval literature, or just plain stalking me and my relations, may I suggest that you read the blog of my late cousin, Laurel Amtower. It's also hosted here on Blogger under the name critbritlit. Her death in the summer of 2010 was a devastating blow to the family. I don't like to blog about personal emotional stuff, but I can't pass over the events of that summer without letting you all know that someone very special passed from our midst. Her blog extends back a few years, and chronicles her always original observations on life, teaching, literature, and finally, cancer, the disease that took her life.

I returned to China in the fall of 2010 to find that my previous job no longer existed as such, and I began scrambling for freelance work to replenish the coffers. A few months of no work and abundant worries finally broke late in the year, and suddenly I was living the life I had been dreaming about for years: I was an independent professional translator in a fun and creative industry: computer games!

It is only now that I feel I can look back over the past few years and make sense of what I have been doing during this time, and where I am headed. Furthermore, I feel that a certain amount of leisure and levity has returned to my life, and for me, writing always requires these ingredients to get the juices flowing. This isn't my usual sort of blog entry. I promise not to be so introspective in the future. I just wanted to provide us all, myself included, a segue into the return of my blog: Rehearsing for the big square world!

And now, the big reveal: What is with the name of my blog, anyhow? The line comes from an XTC song called "Playground". It struck me as a good fit for my blog since the Chinese have always conceptualized the world as being square, and I was literally "rehearsing", (read: practicing my Chinese) so I could participate in that big, square world. My blog will probably begin to stray from that original intention. For example, I am currently on vacation in Indonesia, and in response to the encouragement of fellow travelers I have met here, I will probably start blogging about my experiences in Indonesia in addition to those in China. I don't plan to change the name of the blog, however, because I still see it as applicable in other ways. I won't reveal exactly how at the current moment. You'll have to wait for the next major shift in content for that explanation.

Thanks to all those who have tuned in (Made Bayak and Ng Yi Lian mostly!) and given me the encouragement to take this up again!