MCLC: Abortion poem by Li Dian'er

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Abortion poem by Li Dian’er
What is the other side of all the little emperors and empresses? What is behind all the statistics on birth control? Abortion, of course. Yi Sha's NPC - New Century Poetry Canon - is not designed to react to daily politics. I don't know if Yi Sha knew that the One-Child-Policy was going to be abolished one day before he was going to promote this poem in his daily series. Probably not. Enforced birth control has not been abolished, only modified. When you only think of the little emperors and empresses, or when you mainly think about economics, it is all too easy to forget what this means. Forced abortions have not been abolished altogether, just because every couple can have two children. This is a very painful text. I am not sure if I have found a good way to translate it. Chinese literature has no shortage of works like this. They are very important. Art highlights reality. Socialism has always pointed that out. But how do you know if the text is as good as it can be? Who is going to talk about the translation, or about some particular verse or phrase of the poem, aside from the pain? Anyway, please take a look. You can find the original on my blog: http://banianerguotoukeyihe.com/2015/11/03/sister-in-law-zhang-hongping-%E6%9D%8E%E7%82%B9%E5%84%BF/
or http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_68d111990102w8vt.html.
SISTER-IN-LAW ZHANG HONGPING
By Li Dian’er
Zhang Hongping from Nanchenzan village,
from the family of Wu Zhanlei,
when she was pregnant the second time,
the time period between the two pregnancies
did not meet national regulations.
After the late-term abortion,
they threw that ball of flesh
into a dirty plastic bucket.
Her mom prodded one or two times into the bucket with fire tongs,
That piece of flesh twitched one or two times without a sound
Her mom’s fingers shook one or two times.
”It’s a girl,“
said her mom.
Every time she talks about it,
Zhang Hongping makes a pause at this moment.
“After that,” she says,
“‘cause it was a girl I cried not so hard.”
Tr. MW, November 2015
Best,
Martin Winter <dujuan99 at gmail.com>
by denton.2 at osu.edu on November 3, 2015
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