From Kundera to Dostoyevsk_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

From Kundera to Dostoyevsk

A culture is like a universe all its own - a person can live in only one culture at any given time. But with the rapid pace of globalization, we need people who can hop between two universes and find parallels so that people from both sides can penetrate the glass partition of differences and communicate in meaningful ways.

"Meaningful" communication suggests more than the surface meanings of words being uttered. I remember a speech President Clinton gave during one of his trips to China. It sounded great in English, but once rendered verbatim into Chinese, it was basically a jumble of gibberish.

A translator for diplomatic occasions does not have the leeway to change Kundera into Dostoyevsky. And I'm not implying formal speeches given by Chinese leaders are easily accessible to a Western ear either.

When we speak or act, we invariably take a position that conforms to our own culture. It takes an expert like Ang Lee, who straddles both cultures and knows the strengths of each, to communicate in a meaningful way. When you read the English subtitles of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", for example, you're actually not reading a word-for-word translation of the original Chinese, but what the characters might say if their native language were English.

Now, I must add that we don't even have enough good translators who are able to convert Kundera's works into Chinese. Our "proctology hospital" shows up as "anus hospital", and "spring chicken", a popular item in Chinese restaurants overseas, is decoded into "chicken without sexual life".