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Chinese to English: 愛情神話 General field: Art/Literary Detailed field: Poetry & Literature
Source text - Chinese 台灣張曉風士寫過一篇溫婉動人的"愛情觀"，她說：愛一個人就是滿心滿意要跟他一起過日子，天地鴻蒙荒涼，我們不能妄想把自己擴充為六合八方的空間，只希望以彼此的火燼把屬於兩人的一世時間填滿。
愛一個人原來就只是在冰箱里為他留一隻蘋果，並且等他歸來。
愛一個人就是在寒冷的夜裡不斷地在他的杯子里斟上剛沸的熱水。
愛一個人就是喜歡兩人一起收盡桌上的殘肴，並且聽他在水槽里刷碗的音樂--然後再偷偷把他不曾洗乾淨的地方重洗一遍。
Translation - English A Taiwanese writer Ms. Chang Hsiao-feng once wrote a gentle and touching piece, named “The Conception of Love.” It goes like this:
“To love someone is a whole-hearted willingness to be with him all the time. In the chaos and the wilderness of heaven and earth, we cannot expand ourselves as if we are all around the world, but to fill up all of our lifetime with each other’s fire of love.
To love someone is simply just to save him an apple in the fridge, and wait for his return.
To love someone is to refill his mug with hot water repeatedly on a cold, shivery night.
To love someone is to clean up joyfully all the leftovers on the dining table together; to listen to the melody of how he scrubs the dishes in the sink, then later on, to secretly scrub again the ones that he did not thoroughly cleanse.”
And so on, and so forth.
Ms. Chang’s love story is perfect and sweet that it is so moving and enviable. However, such flawless and blessed love is as rare as the stars at the dawn. It seems like a myth to all of those who have had regretful lives.
For me, to love someone is, while you feel joyful about the beauty of two souls crushing and bursting into each other, you would also pray again and again, for that it is not illusionary, nor momentary. It will be the only exception. It will truly be everlasting.
To love someone is that you could not help but to devote yourself, even if you know that it was illusive and instant. You finally reach out and dedicate your heart and soul, not fearing if your dream will be broken, nor if your soul be torn apart. You just cannot resist that kind of sentiment, which you could not tell if it is present or absent; near or far; alive or dead.
To love someone is, when he looks at you, you feel like losing all your confidence for the very first time in your life. All of the sudden you are drawn back in time 20 years ago, as if you were a little girl again. You only longed for loveliness or more loveliness when you were small, and so do now…
To love someone is that you truly want to be his arms, his eyes, or even his alarm: when the vulgar, ugly reality presses on him with grim jaws, you could warn him by screaming in his heart, so that he could evade dexterously within one stride.
To love someone is that you write poem like this, though you have never did before: I wish to receive your phone call from the other side of horizon; wish to have your greetings along with a bouquet; wish to have your strong arms to support me in a stormy noon; wish to share the dance floor with you in a fresh and graceful night; wish to have us smiling to each other even in our aging and ailing years; wish to have you sent from high above in this despondent and depressing night…
English to Chinese: Strong in the Rain (Part 1) General field: Art/Literary Detailed field: Social Science, Sociology, Ethics, etc.
Source text - English Soma’s fishing cooperative was a solid two-story building that squatted on the edge of the harbor, facing the Pacific. On the first floor was a large open warehouse where the fishermen weighed and laid out their catch every morning. Manager Shoichi Abe sat every day in an open-plan office above it, eyeing the ocean out of his window as he took calls and barked orders. After decades, he knew most of the one thousand fishermen who worked there, including Ichida, who arrived on March 11 in his light pickup van and sprinted toward the water. The engines of perhaps a dozen boats were already running, churning the sea and filling the air with the smell of diesel. Men shouted and threw ropes. In the distance, trawlers raced out into the sea, but Abe knew that many had yet to leave the harbor. The boats moved in a nice, orderly line with no bumping or overtaking. He felt a burst of intense pride and admiration, especially for the first man out—his was the toughest call because he did not know what to expect. Fishermen always help each other out, he thought. Even at time like this, there is a spirit of compromise.
Two days before March 11, the area’s notoriously unstable layers of subterranean faults had churned violently, triggering a strong earthquake and a tsunami alert. Very few people along the Tohoku coast heeded it. Most had heard the warning siren from their local city office of the alert on national radio and TV broadcaster NHK hundreds of times throughout their lives. The area recorded at least three deadly tsunamis in the previous century, including a 1960 wave that killed 142 people. Each time, the dead were buried if they could be retrieved from the sea, higher seawalls were built, houses were moved back from the shore, and life went on.
This time was different. Through the windows of his office, Abe saw the water starting to crest and foam at the walled entrance to the harbor. The water seemed to be coming from several directions at once, but the largest wave was in the east. In the distance, he saw another wave and it looked like the sea was churning against a cliff. It was huge.
The destruction of Soma, like so many of the horrific moments from March 11, is captured on amateur video. From the safety of a hilltop overlooking the jetty, two friends filmed the arrival of the tsunami, inadvertently recording their own reaction, from jokey male bravado to disbelief. The video shows a man talking nonchalantly toward the ocean even as the first wave looms in the distance. “That guy must want to die,” laughs the camera operator. “The direction of the wave is weird; I can’t figure out where it’s coming from,” says his friend. The inundation arrives in stages and seems to block out the daylight, with the worst coming last. As the water reaches the roof of the cooperative, about 45 feet above the ground, the stick-like figure of Abe can be seen running for his life to the top of the building, where he survives by clinging by his fingertips to a skylight. The deluge shatters the windows of his office and carries off his chair and table along with cars, houses, and people. For the last minute of the video clip, the two men are almost silent, unable to take in what they’re seeing.
And Ichida made the open sea. “I could feel the first tsunami arriving and the boat bouncing on top of it,” he recalls. He crested two more waves, at least 45 feet high. It was like being on a fast elevator and he instantly felt nauseous. And almost as suddenly, the sea became as eerily flat as a mirror. Behind him, men chugged for the sea before the waves broke. Fishermen all along Japan’s coast know that the only way to save their boats from a powerful tsunami is to disobey the instinct to flee and drive into the waves before they hit shallow depths and crest. Once in the harbor, the latent energy stored up in the tsunami wreaks havoc on anything or anybody in its way. About one hundred of his colleagues forgot that lesson and were not so lucky.
From his boat, Ichida could see the spray from waves crashing ashore. It rose high into the air. When he would return to port later, he would be astonished to see the devastation. The third tsunami, the most powerful, traveled over two miles inland, and the port of Soma was washed away. The water tossed boats aside like toys. The destruction included his house and the community where he lived. But the disaster was only beginning: 27 miles away, three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant were already overheating. Eventually the radioactive poison spilling out would seep into the sea, and from there into fish, plankton, and seaweed. The fishermen of Fukushima have worked the seas for centuries, before electricity, before the Meiji Restoration, perhaps before the emperor existed. What would happen now?
English to Chinese: Strong in the Rain (Part 2) General field: Social Sciences Detailed field: Social Science, Sociology, Ethics, etc.
Source text - English Keep running! Keep running! --Setsuko Uwabe
“”Tsunami is coming!” shouted an official as he ran into the school gymnasium. Beneath his safety helmet, the man’s face was etched with panic. David Chumreonlert was astonished to hear the news. The quake had been exceptionally strong, but should they really fear a tsunami? The elementary school was nearly two miles from the ocean, and the gym had been recently rebuilt as a tsunami-safe community evacuation site.
David stood near the gymnasium entrance doors, watching the one hundred or so children flee to safety toward the stage at the back end of the gym or crowd up the narrow stairwell to the second-floor balcony. With about 25 teachers and 20 parents who had come to pick up their children, they were able to help the elderly who had evacuated from a nearby nursing home. About 50 in total, some were strapped into wheelchairs.
After the power cut that followed the quake, the gym had become a cavernous trap. Panic whirled behind him, but David felt a strange calmness. He stared forward through the tightly closed glass doors with equal fascination and fear. What in God’s name is coming? he thought as he glanced at his watch. It was 3:10 P.M.
A strange sound emerged. It was a low rumbling, like a fast-moving train cutting through the air, growing louder and alarmingly close. Suddenly, through the glass doors, he saw a massive mound of water outside rolling up fast between the gym and school building. Like a black monster, matted with debris, it was engulfing everything in its path. Cars in an adjacent parking lot were being swallowed or tossed like dice. “Oh Lord Jesus,” he whispered as the water began to seep in from underneath the doors.
As he turned to run toward the elevated stage, a car thrust by a wave crashed into the doors. The impact broke the glass and left a gaping hole. Water gushed across the wooden floor and quickly converted the space into a rising, sucking pool. Chairs neatly lined up for the next day’s graduation were washed to the sidewalls. Soon, wooden platforms and desks were bobbing in the rolling water.
David’s pounding heart deafened the terrified screams of the children as the water reached the stage. The scene before him transformed into a slow-motion nightmare. Washing across, the waves hit the back wall and began dragging everyone off of the stage toward the sides of the gym, deep into the growing, freezing mass.
The water was turning David numb as he desperately clung onto the stage wall. He is not a strong swimmer and had to fight off the pulling current that had twisted him around. No longer facing the entrance doors, he could now clearly see the stage area and all those flailing in the water near him. The elderly from the nursing home were desperately trying to stay afloat and clinging to any object they could find.
An older man, with a woman clinging onto him, grabbed David’s shoulder as the floated by, forming a human chain. With the extra weight, David’s fingers began to slip. He grabbed onto the stage curtain nearby, while the twosome let go.
Fearing the curtain might come unhinged, and desperately wanting to help others, he jumped onto a set of wooden stairs floating by. He was pulled out to the center of the swirling water. By this time, the water had reached the level of the basketball hoop and was just inches below the second-level balcony. Another jump, some dog paddling, and he managed to grab onto the bottom of the balcony railing.
The balcony’s narrow walkway was now the only safe refuge. As he tried to pull himself up out of the water, his foot slipped and landed on something hard. In the dark muddy water, he could not see the object jutting out from the wall, but it became his lifesaver. Holding onto the balcony railing with one hand and feet steady on the hard object, he could now stand about thigh-deep in the water. This gave him just enough height to survey the surrounding area nearby. He was relieved to see that most of the kids had made it to the balcony or were swimming that way, thanks to the school’s rigorous swim classes. Some teachers were paddling atop floating gym mats, dragging kids and adults to safety.
Suddenly, coming toward him was one of his junior high school students treading water hard but barely managing to keep afloat. David reached out, grabbed the boy’s school sweater, and pulled him safely toward the railing. A group standing on the balcony helped drag the boy from a watery death. As he turned around, David saw a woman frantically bobbing up and down, desperately clinging to her baby. As she floated by, he held her tight and was able to pull both to safety.
Frantic pleas for help reverberated above the din. “David sensei! David sensei! Help us! Help us!” It was four of his elementary school students along with one woman, all precariously clinging to a large floating desk that could capsize at any moment. “Hold on!” he shouted back, but the desk was too far to reach. “Please help us!” they cried. “Please help us!” It seemed an eternity before the desk was within reach. Finally, David was able to catch the edge with his foot and drag them to the balcony. The small drifters shimmied across the desk as the woman followed. David joined them as they crawled over the railing, collapsing into an exhausted heap, out of danger.
There was no time to rest. Out of the corner of his eye, David spotted someone trying to crawl over the far end of the balcony from the stage stairs. When he approached, he realized it was Kasahara sensei, frozen to the bone. Across from him, separated by water, were several older, terrified women desperate to reach the stairs to safety. David realized a bridge made out of the school’s hollow wooden steps might enable them to get across. But each hollow step would need to be filled with water to keep it submerged and stackable.
Using hands and feet, David began the laborious, painful project. His finger quickly turned red and raw. But just as the escape route emerged, one panicked woman jumped onto the structure, toppling it over. They were thrown into the numbing water, flailing and gasping for breath. Kasahara sensei managed to pull the woman onto the stairs as David crawled out after. He shivered uncontrollably, his wet freezing clothes clinging to him like icicles.
The water began to recede, answering his prayers for the ordeal to end. But the longest night of his life was about to begin, as he stood huddling for warmth and bracing against the quake’s aftershocks among 50 other survivors in a cramped, bitter cold storage room.
The sun had been shining and the smell of spring in the air after the long Tohoku winter when David headed out from his apartment that early morning in Higashi-Matsushima. He did a quick mental check as he stepped into his car. Friday. Right. Today is Nobiru Elementary School. He was feeling kind of excited. It was the last day of the school year. He made sure not to forget his camera. The next day was school graduation, and he really wanted to get a few shots of the kids practicing for their big day. Like all school in Japan, the academic year ended in March and began at the start of April.
Although the day’s schedule would be a bit different from usual, he would still be with the fifth and sixth graders. They were his favorites among the four schools where he had been teaching English these past two years. The kids were smart, outgoing, and fun. It was probably a combination of good teachers. David was working with two who were equally enthusiastic about the English lessons. There was a lot of good synergy between them, and the results showed. The kids were not shy about making mistakes, like so many others kids he had taught. In fact, they were so animated and engaged that the class period would always fly by.
David, 29, was the only foreign teacher in all four schools. The number of children in the region was shrinking fast, a result of Japan’s aging and declining population, especially in rural areas. Only a few native English teachers were needed. Not only was he a novelty, he was Mr. Popular. His warm personality, quick smile, and friendly demeanor put everyone at ease. Students would often ask him if he was “half,” the term for half Japanese and half foreign. “No, not quite,” he would answer with a wry smile, and then explain that he is American and his parents are from Thailand. They went to the United States for college and met in Texas. David and his younger brother and sister were all born in Houston. “But what’s Texas? What’s Houston?” they would ask. He would then ask them if they knew about NASA where they design spaceships, and surprisingly even the youngest would know, their imagination soaring as he explained further. Texas wasn’t just a spot on the map of the world. It had a friendly, warm face called David sensei.
David never imagined that Japan would be his home away from home, much less a small seaside town like Higashi-Matsushima along the country’s northeastern coast. Nearby is famed Matsushima, a town considered one of Japan’s three most scenic places and a favorite tourist destination. The bay is wide and dotted with hundreds of tiny islands topped with wind-swept pine trees. The islands, as it turned out, act as a natural barrier against the tsunami and were largely responsible for saving most of the town.
David had applied for a job in Japan as an ALT (assistant language teacher) on a whim, at his friend’s suggestion. It just seemed like a good idea to keep his options open, so he applied on the company website, not thinking all that much about it.
He had graduate from the University of Texas, Austin, in 2008 with a major in hydrogeology and had several job interviews lined up. He was expecting to work in Texas or a dry region, someplace where water is as precious as gold. But nothing came through. At the same time, the interviews with the English teaching company were going well. They wanted to expand into the Tohoku region, so they offered him a spot. Never did he imagine the water he would find.
At first, he didn’t know a thing about the area, particularly about its harsh snowy winters and frequent earthquakes. He didn’t mind living far from Houston. His one requirement was to have Christmas church nearby like the one he attended in Austin that was affiliated with the nondenominational Local Churches movement, also known as the Lord’s Recovery. He had learned from church members that there was one in the city of Sendai about an hour away by car from Higashi-Matsushima. For David, the church is the backbone of his spirituality. It is this spirituality that kept him strong and calm throughout those harrowing tsunami moments when death perched so close at hand.
When Setsuko Uwabe looked out the nursery school window, it was mainly out of curiosity. She wondered what the townspeople of Rikuzentakata were doing after that long, frightening earthquake. In all of her 53 years living in this quake-prone region, she had never experienced such powerful, lengthy shaking. During the most violent shock waves, the nursery school’s old one-story wooden building felt like it would crack open like a walnut and topple over. The heavy red slate roof was especially vulnerable.
The teachers practically crawled across the floors and tatami mats to gather up the one hundred or so children. Ranging from one to five years, the littlest ones couldn’t yet walk, and the toddlers were unsteady on their feet. As the aftershocks continued, it was a struggle to change them out of their naptime pajamas into regular clothes. Mothers and relatives, faces pinched with worry and fear, soon began arriving to pick them up. The remaining children and 23 teachers huddled under protective futon padding.
A tsunami warning was being broadcast on the radio, but they had heard many similar warnings before. They could not imagine that a tsunami would reach the nursery school. It was nearly a mile from the ocean—a 15- to 20-minute walk away. Setsuko took a quick look at her watch: 3:10 P.M. The sky had turned gray and ominous, so different from the blue sky that had greeted her that morning.
As cook for the public Takada Hoikusho (Takada Nursery School), she had to prepare lunch and snacks for about 135. Today, there would be handmade dumplings, requiring lots of preparation and time. It had been 31 years since she started work as a cook with the city government, and her skills were widely admired. She was first hired to make school lunches for student at elementary and junior high schools in the area. It was 1980, the same year she had married Takuya.
Setsuko was unusual in that way. Marriage for women in Japan usually meant quitting work for like as a housewife. But still only 23 at the time, she wanted to keep active. Takuya agreed that the extra income would not hurt, as he was also working in the city government. As a career employee, he had many different jobs over the years. With their combined pay, they could eventually buy a nice house in one of Rikuzentakata’s better neighborhoods. They could afford to have several kids.
At home, she could whip up delicious combinations at a moment’s notice. But Takuya didn’t have a big appetite, although he was very busy with work and community activities. In fact, he was quite fussy about his food. That morning for breakfast she had fixed him the usual fermented beans, grilled fish, miso soup, and rice. And like most mornings, they ate together, casually watching a TV drama on the national NHK station. Setsuko always left for work at 8:00 A.M., while her husband followed at 8:15. “Take care!” he had said as she headed out the door.
After 31 years of marriage, it was a familiar phrase often shared between them. Like most long marriages, they had had their ups and downs. But now with their son and daughter grown and living elsewhere, the couple was enjoying each other’s company more and more. They had recently traveled to Hawaii and Seoul, just the two of them. “See you later,” she answered warmly, never imagining what was to unfold, and how that day would forever change her life.
Looks like snow, she thought standing at the nursery school window, her eyes lowering toward the distant horizon. She gazed across the familiar rooftops toward the town’s central district near the ocean. But something strange had emerged. “Is that smoke?” asked a teacher beside her. They both stared intently toward a mysterious, dusty cloud in the distance. Setsuko had never seen anything quite like it. Maybe wisps from a burning building, toppled by the earthquake, she thought. No—this had and elongated shape with enormous height. And it was quickly moving toward them.
Suddenly, like a bolt of lightning running down her spine, it became shockingly clear. “Tsunami!” she said with a gasp. “It must be a tsunami!”
Chinese to English: 電影《傷春》故事大綱 The Plot Summary from the Movie "When the Leaves Fall in Spring." General field: Art/Literary Detailed field: Cinema, Film, TV, Drama
Source text - Chinese 注重階級觀念、經常一臉嚴肅的樊父也隨之改變。他從一個家庭司機，融為樊氏家中的一份子，久違的家庭溫暖，為他的人生帶來轉變。
Translation - English Can someone ever step out of his lifelong shadow? People often say “live in the moment,” but it is nothing more than a city dweller’s excuse to cope with the frustrating social changes. It is never easy to bid farewell of one’s shadow or stop yearning for the past glory days.
Beside the beach at dusk, Kei, a freedom-loving, witty young driver, sat in his stylish red taxi cabin, where a melody of 90’s British rock flowed. Outwardly, Kei seems to be an optimistic and indulging person, but what hidden behind him was a traumatic childhood.
Kei used to live in an old public housing estate, where he spent his carefree childhood with neighbor playmates, but the joyful days were terminated by the sudden death of his mother when he was 10. Kei’s father, a taxi driver, had to bring him up alone. Rapid changes in their lives had pushed their relationships into coldness. After numerous failures of dissuading his father’s decisions, Kei’s fruitless resistances turned silent. At last, his family collapsed as his father went missing.
A turning point was brought in by Yue, a girl newly moved to Hong Kong from Mainland. They met each other coincidentally where Kei gave the newcomer a taxi ride. Through their interactions, Yue lighted up his gloomy, lonely days, while Kei’s indulgence also brought vitality into Yue’s family, especially to her staid, solemn father. He soon got himself assimilated in Yue’s family, and the warmth changed his life.
Later on, when Yue’s family decided to pull their business back to Mainland, Kei chose to stay in Hong Kong alone instead of leaving with Yue. The fear of losing stopped him from longing for anything. As he begun to draw back to his former life, Yue brought him the whereabouts of his missing father. On the road of tracking, Kei gradually revealed the depressions hidden deep in his heart, which would lead him either to liberation or to deeper despair.
Chinese to English: 電影《傷春》導演闡述 Director's word from the Movie "When the Leaves Fall in Spring." General field: Art/Literary Detailed field: Cinema, Film, TV, Drama
Spent over twenty years living in those old public housings, though I had no own rooms to build my own world, I still found it fortunate for those chances to get immersed in my neighbors’ daily lives, either by peeping through the videotape-sized mail slot on the wooden door, or by eavesdropping in the small, caged balcony.
The long corridor used to be filled with the scents of eating and washing spread from households aside, now replaced by unfamiliar Mainland accents instead. Neighbors are living close, while staying far from others. These escalating impressions not only reflected the portrayals of what Hongkongers have undergone, but also founded of the keynote of When The Leaves Fall in Spring.
Living in this monetary based society, people could no longer feed themselves on dream and romance like the others did in the 60s. Unless someone keeps them company with food and supplies, otherwise the reality would starve them within one or two days. In the story, Kei even considers himself as a “wingless bird”: one cannot soar and can only feed on people’s alms. Kei spent all of his adolescence days on searching his origin, and meanwhile he missed the young passion he should have. Was Kei really born flightless, or just forgot his instinct for being caged too long?
At its curtain fall, When The Leaves Fall in Spring presents a melancholic atmosphere, which is derived from the lighthearted interaction between Kei and Yue in the first half of the movie. By losing what he had found, Kei was trapped in a down spiral with fears of owning anything again. The spiral continues on repeating itself unless he can break through it. The motivations of making When The Leaves Fall in Spring is to create a catharsis for youths who also grown up in colonial Hong Kong like Kei, and to record the feelings that had experienced.
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Bachelor's degree - The Open University of Hong Kong
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Years of experience: 4. Registered at ProZ.com: Apr 2016.
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