Oct, 2020
When rumors about banning WeChat in the USA came out, my daughter setup this web site, http://puddleofgold.org, which is hosted in USA for me. She suggested that I move the Chinese stories I posted on WeChat to the website, in order to prevent my stories from being lost.
After I retired in 2016, when I met my previous coworkers, some asked me: “Jean, what are you doing after you retired?”
I often replied: “I write little stories in Chinese. Sorry, you’re not able to read them.”
Now, I am planning to translate some of my favorite Chinese stories into English, with the hopes of sharing these snippets of life’s joy that I have experienced with others.
While translating my own Chinese stories into English, I experienced the ease of using Chinese, my mother tongue language, and the clumsiness of using English.
Though I didn’t write in Chinese for more than 20 years because I had no chance to while studying and working in USA since 1989, I didn’t feel like my Chinese was rusty when I started writing Chinese stories in 2016. Even unused for more than 20 years my Chinese is still not rusty, this made me realize that youth is the best time to absorb knowledge and expand one’s language spectrum, as I learnt and used Chinese before 1989.
Because English is their mother tongue language, my daughter and my son are reviewing and revising my English stories now.
Reading the English stories that were revised by my children, I thoroughly saw how my English had poor vocabulary and silly expressions. I also found the happiness of seeing that my children are smarter than me now.
I have translated more than 30 Chinese stories into English now.
Comparing my poor English writing to my son’s revised version shows the challenges I faced, as a untrained foreigner, trying to use a foreign language accurately and beautifully.
Mine:
“Sharing remedies across culture boundary may bring sparkle spots often. ”
My son revised version:
“Sharing remedies across culture boundary may bring pleasant surprises often. ”
Snippets of Life’s Joy
