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Thoughts of Qiu Xiaolong
September 19, 2010, Sunday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
ON writing in two languages:
I started writing in English in 1989 and I do not write as much in Chinese now. (One reason is that) I speak with a strong Shanghai accent, and my command of pinyin is not that reliable. With "g" or "h" improperly missing, I often have a hard time finding the character, and when I finally find it with a dictionary, the original flow of thoughts is gone. But I have been trying to write bilingually °?--°? or possibly eventually combine the sensibilities of two different languages. For instance, proverbs in one language, usually cliches because of overuse, when translated literally and transparently, could bring in a fresh breath of sensibility into another language. In the last analysis, language involves ways of thinking. My friend Ha Jin noticed my attempt in the present collection, questioning whether I may have gone too far. I don't have an easy answer, but I still believe it's worthwhile to try.
On the meaning of writing:
You may say writing points to 'what might have been' for me. An attempt, however quixotic, to redeem what has been lost. In 1988, I had never dreamed of such a career for myself -- in another country, in another language. Sometimes I cannot help imagining what I might have done had I stayed in China. Of course, I have never been a cop. Needless to say, writing means so much more. The meaning of the world for one person may be nothing to another. It's too individual. And according to Freud and Jung, a writer does not understand what writing really means, so let me skip the long list of possible meanings.
On Shanghai food:
One reason I write a lot about food is because of my craving in St Louis for authentic Shanghai food ... Writing about it gives me a sort of compensation, psychologically ... In my childhood, with only a limited number of restaurants, dining out could sometimes be seen negatively as bourgeois indulgence. And each restaurant specialized in only one particular cuisine ... Today's restaurants embrace fusion or Shanghai fusion -- not the old Shanghai cuisine like in Laofandian near Yu Garden ... I'm constantly flabbergasted by the extravagance and exorbitance of these new places, like Granny Liu lost in the Grand Mansion.
On Expo Shanghai:
I was back in Shanghai in May with my family to see the Expo. The city has been changing so dramatically and I was overwhelmed in new impressions and discoveries. The Expo turned out to be so grand and magnificent. I would never have dreamed of it when I left Shanghai in 1988 ... And I'm glad that a translation of mine, "A Hundred Classic Chinese Poems," has been "officially selected" as one of the books for the World Expo, though I failed to find a bookstore on the site.
I started writing in English in 1989 and I do not write as much in Chinese now. (One reason is that) I speak with a strong Shanghai accent, and my command of pinyin is not that reliable. With "g" or "h" improperly missing, I often have a hard time finding the character, and when I finally find it with a dictionary, the original flow of thoughts is gone. But I have been trying to write bilingually °?--°? or possibly eventually combine the sensibilities of two different languages. For instance, proverbs in one language, usually cliches because of overuse, when translated literally and transparently, could bring in a fresh breath of sensibility into another language. In the last analysis, language involves ways of thinking. My friend Ha Jin noticed my attempt in the present collection, questioning whether I may have gone too far. I don't have an easy answer, but I still believe it's worthwhile to try.
On the meaning of writing:
You may say writing points to 'what might have been' for me. An attempt, however quixotic, to redeem what has been lost. In 1988, I had never dreamed of such a career for myself -- in another country, in another language. Sometimes I cannot help imagining what I might have done had I stayed in China. Of course, I have never been a cop. Needless to say, writing means so much more. The meaning of the world for one person may be nothing to another. It's too individual. And according to Freud and Jung, a writer does not understand what writing really means, so let me skip the long list of possible meanings.
On Shanghai food:
One reason I write a lot about food is because of my craving in St Louis for authentic Shanghai food ... Writing about it gives me a sort of compensation, psychologically ... In my childhood, with only a limited number of restaurants, dining out could sometimes be seen negatively as bourgeois indulgence. And each restaurant specialized in only one particular cuisine ... Today's restaurants embrace fusion or Shanghai fusion -- not the old Shanghai cuisine like in Laofandian near Yu Garden ... I'm constantly flabbergasted by the extravagance and exorbitance of these new places, like Granny Liu lost in the Grand Mansion.
On Expo Shanghai:
I was back in Shanghai in May with my family to see the Expo. The city has been changing so dramatically and I was overwhelmed in new impressions and discoveries. The Expo turned out to be so grand and magnificent. I would never have dreamed of it when I left Shanghai in 1988 ... And I'm glad that a translation of mine, "A Hundred Classic Chinese Poems," has been "officially selected" as one of the books for the World Expo, though I failed to find a bookstore on the site.
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