Instead of putting ink on my upcoming research paper I am again wasting valuable time by writing nonsense. Last week, I think it was on a Sunday, on a mild weather afternoon, while loitering inside the majestic Pasadena Public Library, I came upon a book that is all too familiar yet at the same time seemed alien. The book is Eileen Chang's Written on Water, or 流言 in traditional Chinese, of which I have read over and again. To see the actual copy of Chang's work in translated English (by translator other than herself) is like meeting an old lover in a foreign country. This analogy does not make any sense but I am sticking to it. Without a second thought I grabbed the only copy and scanned the library card. Records showed I am the second person to have borrowed this book.

My initial reaction to the English title is that it does not match the Chinese title, which translates as "Gossip." But by separating the word 流 and 言, they somehow do resemble the sentence "Written on Water", as in "stream of word." Moreover, the title "Gossip" does not resemble the theme of the book. This is typical of me, reading without thinking; taking everything for their face value. But to my defense, I am not the only dimwit to think this way. Look at Amazon.

Nevertheless my trepidation in opening the book was not appeased by Andrew F. Jones' (the translator) thoughtfulness in the title. After all this is the first Eileen Chang in English that I come across besides the ones she translated herself, which I thought were not as incisive as those in Chinese. I put aside my newfound fascination for Somerset Maugham briefly and flipped through the pages of Chang and have discovered that, as two worlds apart as the English and the Chinese languages, the translator did a superb job in conveying the subtlety and nuances and color of Chang into English. In the few short stories I read so far the resonance of the original version was there, like rediscovering one's old lover's good and bad habits in bed in a foreign hotel. (My friend N. says I should do away with this nonsensical analogy, but I am sticking to it!)

I tried to convey this new discovery to another Taiwanese friend of mine, only to be poured cold water over my enthusiasm. "Eileen Chang in English? How is that possible? They will butcher her writing, and you will never get the true essence." She said this quite confidently before even reading or touching the book. supposedly, if I were a native English speaker not knowing Chinese, should I abandon all attempts and efforts to read Chang even if I do wish so, because I will never achieve the native essence and wisdom? In that case we shall live in a world without Franz Kafka, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Milan Kundera, Haruki Murakami and Marcel Proust. Wake up, mandarin Chinese speaker, you cannot monopolize the language.

Tags: 張愛玲, Eileen Chang, Ailing Zhang, 流言, Written on Water,