Title Translations

I have some continuing translation work for the photography book I mentioned before. Right now I'm helping to translate titles of some photographic works.  Most of them are pretty straightforward, but I am showing those below in order to get help. The photographs are all beautiful and an interesting window to Chinese photography in the 1930's-40's; I'm excited to see the book in it's final form!

吴中行 Wu Zhongxing, 恨晨光只熹微  Depressing Dim Light of Dawn, or Regretting the Light of Dawn  . Perhaps he feels a regret (hatred?) of the passage of time?

 司徒怀（沙飞）Situ Huai (Sha Fei),绿波留恋浣纱人 Green Waves Yearning for the Washerwomen. Or, less poetic, Green Waves surround the Washerwomen

留恋, Liu2lian4: reluctant to leave

 

 冯四知 Feng Sizhi, 仙山在何处   Celestial Mountains or,  In the Mountain of the Immortals or, Heavenly Mountains

 

 

吴中行 Wu Zhongxing, 杏花雨欲湿牛衣   Wet Cows and Clothing from Springtime Rain (Apricot Blossom Rain?)

 欲? as in 欲望? Or it is just a literary "for"
and is 杏花雨  poetic for Spring rain?

Translation

The last three weeks, I've been working on a translation of an article about Jin Shisheng, a Chinese photographer who passed away in 2000.  The article was written by Wu Hung (if you know who he is... well, you know how big of a deal this is), and I was both honored and terrified to get this opportunity.  The article is going into the bilingual version of a book about the photographer, and will be published by Tongji University Press. After much stress and lots and lots of work I finally turned it in on Friday afternoon. Wu Hung is going to look at the article (he speaks English but wrote it in Chinese) and so I'll be a little nervous until I hear his response!

After I finally emailed it in I was exhausted, but really squirrely.  So what to do?  Have a dance party, of course!

Theora writes about Public Art

During the Fall semester and the month of January, I've been writing essays for my Chinese class and East Asian Studies capstone project. The essays are in Chinese (of course) and are about contemporary Public Art in the US and China. I am currently posting these essays on a Chinese blogging site; I am hoping that some Chinese people might find it and learn a little about art they might not otherwise have access to. I have toyed with the idea of posting these essays here, too, but there are very few people who read this blog, and even fewer that can read Chinese. If you are interested in taking a look at the blog, click here.

Theora in Action

Look at that! That's me speaking Chinese- what I came to Beijng to do! I was probably making a "chu" or "xu" sound.

Last weekend I went out to dinner with two family friends, Bill and Sue, who were in Beijing for the weekend. We went to a wonderful Beijing Duck restaurant- it was delicious and glamorous. Because Bill and Sue don't speak Chinese, I spoke English with them (it's an exception to the language pledge, and oh man it was great to speak English) and then translated with the waitresses and cab drivers which was great fun.

On the topic of things to eat, this is a Mangosteen. Delicious.

The skin is very thick; the outer layer is tough, but the inside layer is very deep red and crumbly. The fruit is very small, white, and has sections like an orange. It is very sweet and mild, the texture is a little like a peach. The last week or so there have been many people selling them on the street off of their motorized bike carts.