scruta

[Ferret is getting his beard trimmed at a local barbershop. It’s a quaint affair run by a Husband and Wife team. An Old Woman walks in with a strange request.]

Old Woman

你们是烫头发的，对吧？

You all do perms, right?

Husband

[while maneuvering a buzzer around Ferret‘s face:]

是，烫头发可以的。

Yeah, we do ’em.

Old Woman

假发呢？假发是真发的假发，不是假发的假发。

How about wigs? It’s a real-hair wig, not a fake-hair wig.

[The Husband is confused. Ferret is even more confused. Note: The word in Mandarin for “wig” 假发, jiÇŽfà literally means “fake hair.” All well and good unless you’re talking about wigs made out of fake hair. “Fake hair fake hair?” It’s enough to confuse anyone, including a native speaker.]

Husband

什么假发的假发？

What are you talking about? Wig what?

Old Woman

那个假发是用真头发做的，是上海最有名买假发的店的。质量很好。头发是真的。

The wig uses real-hair. It’s from one of Shanghai’s most famous wig shops. The quality is really good. The hair is real.

Husband

哦，你要烫真头发的假发。真头发的话， 可以的。

Oh, you want to perm a real-hair wig. If the hair’s real, no problem.

[The problem is solved. As to why the Old Woman felt the need to assert the quality and source of said wig is anyone’s guess. The Wife walks in.]

Wife

你好。

Hello.

Old Woman

[to the Wife]

我要烫真发的假发。可以了吗？

I wanna perm a real-hair wig. Can I?

Wife

什么意思？

What?

Husband

真头发的假发，真头发的假发。

Real-hair wig, real-hair wig.

Wife

哦，好的。真头发的，没问题。

Oh. Sure. If it’s real, no problem.

Old Woman

好的，我去拿假发吧。

Okay. I’ll go grab the wig.

[The Husband finishes trimming Ferret‘s beard. Ferret pays and leaves. He ponders the oddities of the Chinese language and one important question: why in the world the Old Woman was so keen on perming her wig?]

I found this simple poem scrawled on the bathroom wall in a local coffee shop. What most impressed me was the usage of the word “了”. The symmetrical repetition of this character worked well to illustrate the author’s desire to put all of these things in the past. I came up with two translations where I tried to maintain the rhythm and repetition of the original.

剪了发

戒了烟

忘了她

Translation #1 (more literal)

Cut my hair

Quit the cigs

Forgot her

Translation #2 (a stretch)

Cut off hair

Stayed off cigs

Swore off her

Two young couples on the beach look at the sea.

They comment on how blue the water is seen from afar,

How clear the sky is, punctuated by clouds of white.

They point out a child playing in the surf.

Inside the waves there’s trash:

Shampoo bottles

Styrofoam computer packaging

Shreds of tarpaulin

Energy drink wrappers

Wooden meat skewers

Neon drawstrings

The top of a toilet plunger

Juice boxes

Chair legs

Paint canisters

Packing beads

The leg of an action figure.

The child picks up the leg and waves it in the air.

The couples begin to describe his movements.

They still aren’t talking about the trash.

Not yet.

It’s all gray, shades of gray.

You eat –

You sleep –

You dream –

You wake –

You love –

You make –

Gray.

All of it gray.

Still, you feel something

Something else in this gray.

A sparkling piece of clay

Molded in this mortal frame,

A connection to something

Fired deep in your consciousness.

You yearn to bring to the surface

To be born again.

[Ferret is having drinks with friends in a super-chic bar, full of Chinese antiques. A woman plays the erhu behind them, weaving her ethereal tunes together with a pumping house beat. Beatnik, Witch, and Ferret are talking.]

Beatnik

Man, I think you’re ready. You’re really ready man.

Ferret

What’s that?

Beatnik

To know about the real shit in China, man. It really all comes down to three things：

天下乌鸦一般黑

天下没有免费午餐

天下没有不散的筵席

Witch

Haha, yeah.

Ferret

Wait. What was that? I got something about a free lunch.

Witch

No, that’s the second one.

Ferret

There’s no such thing as a free lunch.

Witch

Yeah, but the first one is about 乌鸦 (wūyā). A crow, you know?

Ferret

So there are only black crows?

Beatnik

Yeah, like all crows are black, man. Shit is just shit everywhere. Evil people are everywhere. You know, man?

Ferret

I get it. A black crow is a black crow no matter how you look at it.

Witch

Yeah.

Ferret

Yeah, and what’s the last one? Can you write it for me?

Witch

[speaking as she writes the characters in his notebook]

天下没有不散的筵席.

Ferret

[pointing to the end of the phrase written in his book]

Those last two…

Witch

筵席 (yánxí), it’s like a big dinner.

Ferret

Like a feast?

Beatnik

Yeah, man. It’s like – it’s like you can’t just have feast that never ends, man. It’s got to end sometime. Now you know about China, man. That’s what it is: All the crows are black; there’s no such thing as a free lunch-

Ferret

And the feast always comes to an end.

The following is a translation of a poem by the 20th century Chinese poet, Xu Zhimo. What intrigued me most about this poem is its representation of the descent into nihilist despair that extreme pessimism induces. It’s a descent that inevitably goes so deep that it destroys itself or it destroys the pessimist… It’s the speaker’s interjection at the end, 休！休！Stop! Stop! (or perhaps, Rest! Rest!), which brilliantly illustrates this eventuality.

《悲观》

徐志摩 作

一

青草地，

牛吃草，

摇头掉尾，

天上的青云白云，

卷来卷去。

二

登山头，

望城里，

只见黑沉沉的屋顶，

鳞次栉比，

街道上尘烟里，生灵挤挤。

三

教堂前，

钟声里，

白衣的牧师，

和黑裙黑披的老妇女，

聚复散，散复聚。

å››

歌舞场，

繁华地，

白的红的，黑的绿的，

高冠长裙，笑语依稀。

五

庙堂中，

柴堆里，

几块破烂的木头，

当年受香烟礼拜的的偶像，

面目未朽，未朽！

å…­

战场上，

壕沟里，

枪炮倒在败草间，

到处残破的房间，

肢体，血痕缕缕。

七

天灾国，

饥荒地，

草木尽稀，

小儿不啼，

黑灰色的空气。

å…«

心死国，

人荒境，

有影无行，

有声无气，

深谷里的规子，见月不啼。

九

噫！

噫！

十

幻想破，

上帝死，

半夜梦醒睡以尽，

但这黑昏昏，阴森森，

鬼棱棱。

十一

这心头，

压着全世界的重量，咳！全宇宙

这精神的宇宙，

这宇宙的宇宙，

都是空，空，空……

十二

休！

休！

----------

Pessimism

By Xu Zhimo

1

A field of fresh green grass,

A cow eats the grass,

It shakes its head and swishes its tail,

Clear white clouds in the sky

Spool together and fall away.

2

Climb to the top of a mountain,

Look at the city below,

All you can see is the sinking black of roofs

Row upon row of them,

On the streets and in the dust and smoke

Souls are squeezed tight.

3

Before a church,

At the ringing of a bell

Priests in white frocks

And old women in black skirts, black shawls

Come then go again, go then come again.

4

The ampitheaters,

The areas of great prosperty,

White and red, black and green,

Tall hats and long skirts, vague smiles and speech.

5

Inside a temple,

In the piles of incense,

Several pieces glow as they burn,

This year receives idols worshiped by incense,

Faces that shall not be forgotten, not forgotten!

6

On the fields of battle,

In the soggy ditches,

Guns and artillery lay on the fields of defeat,

In the crumbled wrecks of buildings,

Limbs, covered in bloody scars.

7

Kingdom of calamity,

Land of famine,

Grass gathering around the thinning trees,

Little children who do not cry,

The air of soot.

8

Kingdom where the soul dies,

Land of ruined men,

Shadows without form,

Sounds without breath,

The cuckoos in the deep valleys,

Do not call at the moon.

9

Oh!

Oh!

10

Phantom destroyer,

God of death,

Being awoken from midnight dreams is enough,

But this persistent dim, this forest of darkness

Demons sharpened on demons…

11

This heart

Pressed by the weight of the entire world, ack! The entire universe

This spirit of the universe

This universe of universes

Are nothing, nothing, nothing…

12

Stop!

Stop!

I do not speak.

I breathe in deeply and exhale slowly

Like it’s the middle of winter

Watching my breath dissipate into the air

Lit with the glow of a million fireworks

Taking to the heavens in unison

Banging on the dome of the sky

With the hopes of a million people

Shuffling through the streets of vermillion

Kicking up the ash and empty mortars with their toes.

Did I see it there?

Did I see the future of China

At the empty Expo site

Going over the Lupu Bridge

In the bright morning sun?

The pavilions of pleasantries were exhausted.

All commercial viability had been extracted from the shells

Of buildings, now crumbling like exoskeletons

Shed off in the promise of something new.

In a vacant lot beside the remains,

I saw mechanized infantries parading through parking lots.

The future was coming, rolling in with the morning sun.

I saw China on the face of an old woman eating with her son:

She suddenly glared at me while chewing on sauteed spinach,

Her visage a wrinkled whorl of pointed disdain;

She gave her son a radiant smile as she looked away,

Her teeth comforting, bright as new-fallen snow.

I’ve decided to start translating Chinese poetry. I’m not trained in this, so I have no idea about the traditions/shades of meaning in these words. I’m planning to learn as I go. Criticism is warmly welcomed. For my first attempt, I’ve started with a poem that I’ve been told is easy – “one you learn when you’re 10 years old.” Let’s see how it goes…

回乡偶书

（贺知章）

少小离家老大回，

乡音无改鬓毛衰。

儿童相见不相识，

笑问客从何处来。

+++

“A Homecoming, Some Thoughts”

(He Zhizhang)

I was young when I left home

Old when I returned again.

The way I spoke didn’t change,

Not like this hair behind my ears.

Children saw me

But they didn’t know who I was.

Smiling, they asked me like a stranger,

Where are you from?