Every morning in the Tian'anmen area of Beijing, an old man of average
height can often be seen taking his daily walk westward along the
quiet Dongjiao- minxiang lane. He saunters across Tian'anmen Square,
then disappears into the woods of ancient giant cypresses in Zhongshan
Park.
Cheng Zhenqiu, an expert
on Chinese-English translation, feels that he deserves leisure time
and is free to do more exercise now. He returned to retirement two
years ago after the mammoth task of compiling the "New Age Chinese-English
Dictionary" was completed.
On January 3 this year,
the Commercial Press held a formal birthday feast to celebrate Cheng's
85th birthday in the Songhe Restaurant (whose name means "pine and
crane" - both symbols of longevity in China) in the Jianguo Hotel.
Yang Deyan, the Commercial
Press chief executive, expressed his deep gratitude to the senior
expert for his commitment to the dictionary, which was published
in August 2000 by the Beijing-based publishing house.
The dictionary that he
helped compile, however, is only one of Cheng's works of the past
decades. He worked on the translation of innumerable important documents,
including those from the Communist Party's national congresses;
documents of National People's Congress sessions; and the Basic
Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. At the same
time, he became a close-up witness of many crucial historic events
that have happened in China over the past decades.
Teacher to translator
When Cheng finished his
studies abroad - funded by the indemnity for the 1900 war (known
as the Boxer indemnity in the West) - and returned to China in 1949,
he had no idea that he would assume a lifelong career as a translator
in the field of international affairs. What he studied at Oxford
University's Corpus Christi College was British political theory.
However, with his learning
set in a Western theoretical framework, he found it hard to find
a job in China related to his major. As a result, instead of pursuing
the career of a statesman or diplomat, Cheng started his professional
life by joining the Foreign Affairs School (now the Beijing Foreign
Studies University) as an English teacher.
"The decision wasn't
hard for me to make at that time," Cheng said. "Every young man
was eager to contribute to the construction of the New China with
whatever he could do."
During his first three
years at the Foreign Affairs School, Cheng was often asked to serve
as an interpreter for various Chinese delegations of young people,
students and athletes. He travelled to a lot of European countries
many times. "Those occasions gave me great opportunities to temper
myself, and improve my translating ability," said Cheng.
As his reputation as
a good interpreter rose, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs began to
ask him to do some written translations of diplomatic documents
and letters. That was the beginning of his switch from an interpreter
to a translator.
"A qualified interpreter
could be produced after a four-year undergraduate education. But
it takes 10 more years to make a qualified translator," he asserted.
Before his late retirement
at the age of 72, Cheng had worked in the field of Chinese-English
translation for about 30 years.
Unforgettable translation
Perhaps the most unforgettable
experience in his career was the translation of the selected works
of Mao Zedong. The task of translating it was taken very seriously.
A group of expert translators
would sit around a table, each with a copy of the original Chinese
text in their hand. One of them would slow read out a translation
sentence by sentence. Anyone could interrupt the reading if he thought
there was a problem. "In this way, we were able to be strictly faithful
to the original text, and accumulated many experiences during those
five years," Cheng said.
In his late 70s, Cheng
accepted an assignment from the Commercial Press to continue to
supervise the compilation of the "New Age Chinese-English Dictionary,"
which started in 1989 but was then in abeyance due to the death
of its former chief compiler Wu Jingrong in 1995.
"It seems only natural
for a language expert to compile in his mellow years a dictionary,
which is both a consummation and a ready fruit of his lifelong study
and practice," Cheng said.
However, the compilation
of a dictionary is by no means an easy task to accomplish, especially
when for a comprehensive dictionary.
"One of our emphases
during the compilation was to make the dictionary encyclopedic.
The entries should reflect the overall features of contemporary
Chinese society," Cheng said.
The dictionary was completed
and published in August 2000. It was applauded for the comprehensiveness
of its 120,000 entries. The number of entries was almost 80 per
cent more than its predecessor, the "Chinese-English Dictionary"
- the first ever Commercial Press Chinese-English dictionary, which
was published in 1979 with Wu Jingrong as chief compiler.
It took Cheng five years
to go over the more than 9 million characters and 2,000 pages of
the dictionary. The onerous undertaking of compiling the dictionary
could have put his health under strain. But Cheng just laughed off
any concern as he recollected that period of his life.
"I was kind of a sportsman
in my youth, playing football and tennis most of the time. So, when
I started the work, I was confident that I could count on the energy
and strength accumulated over the years. But, of course, I have
to exercise again and pay a lot of attention to my health now,"
he said.
Cultural bridge builders
While being interviewed,
the senior translation expert expressed his deep concern that the
profession of Chinese-English translation is not popular among the
young people because the translation jobs are largely under-paid
nowadays.
"A translator needs much
more time to become qualified than an interpreter. And, having become
qualified, he has to work behind the scenes," Cheng said.
Good translators are
playing a more and more important role in an age when China is eager
to be known by the outside world, while the hieroglyphic-like Chinese
characters remain a huge obstacle for the dissemination of Chinese
voices.
"Literature is what suffers
most from this obstacle," said Cheng. Due to overseas translators'
unfamiliarity with the cultural context, one crucial reason for
the relatively faint voice of Chinese writers in the international
literary world is that their works rarely have a chance to be translated
into foreign languages or be translated without much of their original
charm being lost.
According to Cheng, things
are beginning to change in the field of international relations
at least and translators are receiving more recognition than before.
But much remains to be done. "It is our hope that Chinese-English
translators will attract more young professionals in the years to
come," Cheng said.