2022 Interview by Lou Kang
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Interview
1 在翻译一部本土化气息特别浓的小说前，是否会到当地进行走访呢？
Do you visit the local area before translating a novel that is particularly localized?
Yes, I think this is very important. I have also heard from a lot of Chinese colleagues, who study foreign authors, that they visit the places of their works and their graves to get an impression of the atmosphere. A lot of actors dive into the life of the historical characters they are acting.
I personally have spent as much time as I could on the traces of Cao Xueqin since I was a student at Peking University. Very helpful were the Red Chamber Research Institute, the Cao Xueqin home museum at the foot of the Xiangshan, I have visted the reconstructed Daguanyuan, and the Gugong, have eaten some of the dishes presented in the novel and spent some time time in Nanking. The most I have learned from the diverse research literature in China and abroad and from attending Redology conferences in China, where the newest research results were presented by colleagues. I have read more about the times of Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong. However, the main task is to take the readers at the hand and entführen them 250 years back in time and to make the bustling life of that time become alive again. To bring the novel into today's world, I also participated in a project to recreate the novel in the form of a D Book, which is a pocket size book adding songs and video clips to the novel text with QR codes, visible on smart devices and also on Google glasses, one of the most successful items at the Frankfurt book fair. In this way, we could also win younger readers in Germany to read this Chinese classic.
I have done so similarly with Mian Mian's novel Panda Sex, I visited her in Shanghai and she showed me all the places who appear in the novel, only to me to find out that the novel was actually a recording of her life. Similarly, I met Wang Meng in 1991 and several times later in Germany and at Harvard University, I spoke with Han Han on the phone, when I translated three of his novels. I met Jia Pingwa in Xi'an and he showed me his home full of regional artefacts and explained the regional cultural roots to me. I met Mo Yan in Frankfurt a year# before he was awarded the Nobel Prize and was a small mosaic part of his promotion to be awarded the prize. I met Yu Hua in Beijing.
2 能否拿《红楼梦》举例，在翻译中国古代作品的时候，如何尽可能的避免翻译里面带来的文化空白问题？
Can you take the example of the Dream of the Red Chamber: How to avoid cultural gaps in the translation of ancient Chinese works?
3 在翻译中遇到的最麻烦的翻译问题会是哪一类？是由于什么方面的文化差异造成的呢？
What are the most troublesome translation problems encountered in translation? What are the cultural differences that cause them?
4 为什么会关注中国的近现代文学？
Why do you care about modern Chinese literature?
5 如果讲广受欢迎的中国近代文学是一部中国近代史的话，你认为中国当代文学作品有什么特点？
If the popular modern Chinese literature is a history of modern China, what do you think are the characteristics of contemporary Chinese literature?
6 当代作品没有像过去那样吸引到海外观众，在您看来原因是什么呢？它们是否和中国的古典文学有差距？
In your opinion, what are the reasons why contemporary works do not attract overseas audiences as much as they did in the past? Is there a gap between them and the classical Chinese literature?
The main difference between contemporary and modern Chinese authors is, that the contemporary ones do not read foreign literature on a daily basis, also because they don't know foreign languages any more. Mo Yan, who won the Nobel Prize, has done so, although he read other works which have won the Nobel Prize of literature in Chinese translation.
The main difference between classical authors and contemporary authors is, that contemporary authors are not trained all their life in letters. They do not work hard for several years to pass the Keju. Instead, they are silenced by the banalities of the everyday, they think about buying a flat etc. And of course they cannot be such free thinkers as their counterparts in ancient times, because they live in an extremely regulated, maybe even overregulated and short-living society. They also have less common ground, because the filter bubbles of different countries differ and even the filter bubbles within China.
The best of ancient Chinese literature, especially Tang poetry, is of timeless value, their authors have earned a place in eternity. The artistic transformation process was extremely long in ancient times, today authors may record their half-cooked thoughts by voice recorder and publish them online before they have finished their stumblings.
7 除去鲁迅、余秋雨等人的知名作品，你在挑选近现代翻译作品的时候有什么标准吗？
Apart from the well-known works of Lu Xun and Yu Qiuyu, do you have any criteria for selecting modern works for translation?
The most important reason to me is, if a story grabs me, and may also grab the readers of my target culture. #Examples
8 像你提到，一部翻译作品的“异域感”是吸引外国读者阅读的原因之一，除此之外还有别的原因吗？（比如一部小说的历史性背景是否也是原因之一？）
As you mentioned, the "exoticism" of a translated work is one of the reasons that attracts foreign readers to read it. Which other reasons are there? (For example, is the historical context of a novel also a reason?)
9 在做了这么多年的对比研究后，你认为中西方文学的关注点差异和共通点都有哪些？
After so many years of comparative research, what do you think are the differences and commonalities between the concerns of Chinese and Western literature?
10 文学是文化交流中很重要的一点，是否可以通过文学翻译打破东西方的认知偏见？
Literature is an important point of cultural exchange. Is it possible to break down the perceived bias between East and West through literary translation?
10 文学是文化交流中很重要的一点，是否可以通过文学翻译打破东西方的认知偏见？
Literature is an important point of cultural exchange. Is it possible to break down the perceived bias between East and West through literary translation?
Literature is also an important point of exchange of lives. When you dive deep into a piece of Chinese literature, you even switch lifes with a Chinese protagonist. What is a better way to overcome prejudices than to be a part of another society and culture?
Not everybody has the means and time to travel to understand different cultures. Especially during the pandemic, we can instead watch a documentary or take a book.
In Europe, we have discovered that when there are no borders between countries who have fought each other as enemies in the second world war, that French people are almost totally like Germans etc. If no education tells you that you are different, you start from the common things. From the space, the earth seems one, with no borders. According to statistics, Chinese people are the most intelligent people on earth. From concepts of harmony, datong and the Chinese 56 ethnicities all united in the Chinese citizens, Chinese deeply feel, that Tibetans, Uighurs, people from Hong Kong, Taiwan and even oversea's Chinese in Singapore and the United States all are equal and earn dignity. And in this, they are equal with the ethnicities along the Belt and Road initiative and with all the different ethnicities around the world. Many people in the world expect China to be the new leader of the world. The world's eyes are on China now, how China treats its ethnicities and how it realizes the concepts of "he er bu tong".
I don't think that ordinary people have prejudices from the very beginning. When children grow up, they don't differentiate, classify and stigmatize. You can see that with the gender roles. If you dress a girl as a boy, people will play with her as with a boy, play soccer and give her car toys to play. If you explain to them that it was a girl, they apologize.