MCLC: suggestive juxtapositions

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: A. E. Clark <aec at raggedbanner.com>
Subject: suggestive juxtapositions
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The latest set of articles shared via the MCLC list includes a suggestive
juxtaposition:

1) On a foggy night on Whidbey Island in Washington State in 2004, Zhou
and her friends were driving and chatting through a densely wooded area.
Suddenly, a frightened deer jumped on the road and was hit by the car.
"That's when I learned the word roadkill in sorrow." [China Daily on Zhou
Wei, author of _How to See Deer_]

2) “What we need most of all nowadays is to awaken an intense sense of
humiliation, so that we never forget the humiliation of our country and
military . . . Corruption and defeat are twin brothers. Corruption breeds
fear of dying.” [General Chu Yimin, referring to the war of 120 years ago]

3) "We have lots of difficulties in accurately translating our culture
into other languages . . . We are trying our best to provide a cultural
angel for foreign readers..." [Wang Xuedian, chief editor of the _Journal
for Chinese Humanities_]

It is telling that the first article emphasizes what Zhou learned from
North American nature writers, while the editor in the third attributes
his translation difficulties to Western culture’s lack of many Chinese
concepts. But the most striking contrast is between the first article and
the second.

A pity General Chu was not invited to comment on the incident with the
deer. <sarc>Its eagerness to cross the road shows the deer had been
corrupted by foreign values. Or worse, it belonged to a cult, a splittist
cult! A suicide bomber – without, fortunately, a bomb. But what a
humiliation that this foreign animal managed to hurt the fenders of the
Chinese people!  At home, a golden shield and a golden fence would have
prevented this . . . No, the deer was incorrupt! That is why it was not
afraid to die! We must emulate the deer! This is why the Army must be
purified, so that more can die!</sarc>

If our world is constructed in our minds, the nature writer and the
general are not living in the same world. This phenomenon is by no means
unique to China, but in China powerful forces are amplifying and
implementing the general’s view to the exclusion of others, and they seem
bent on creating the general’s world.

Inspired by the editor’s malapropism (or the paper's typo), one can wish
for a cultural “angel” – make that an archangel, even! – to take matters
in hand and bridge the gulf, but I fear the angel will need to overcome
much more than difficulties of translation.

A. E. Clark