Iron and Silk Read Free Page B

the third floor was occupied by the Political and Moral Education Department. Students used to joke that it was hard to determine who slept more soundly in that building—the bodies, or the students on the third floor. I groped up the unlit staircase and found Teacher Wu in her office, surrounded by piles of paper that turned out to be the draft of an application for a World Bank loan that the college had given her to translate into English. She pointed to a seat next to her and asked if I would go over the translation with her to check for mistakes. She handed me two piles: the Chinese version, and a copy of her translation—all handwritten, since the college had only one copying machine and the only authorized operator was on vacation.
    Nearly seventy years old, Teacher Wu was short and plump, with heavy eyelids above and below her eyes that made her look tired. I had heard that both she and her husband had received advanced degrees from an American university in the 1940’s. When they finished they returned to China, determined to serve their country whatever the outcome of the civil war. Like most Chinese with intellectual backgrounds,they were to suffer despite their patriotism. Teacher Wu’s husband came under attack during the Anti-Rightist Campaign in the late 1950’s; to protect his family, he apologized to the State for his “crimes against Socialism,” then took his own life. During the Cultural Revolution Teacher Wu became a target and had to endure not only her own public denouncement and humiliation but those of her son, who was “sent down” to the countryside for nearly a decade.
    I sat down next to her and began to look over the English version of the text:
    “III. GOALS
    1. The money lent by the World Bank would be used to improve the general quality of teaching and treatment at Hunan Medical College in order to bring about the realization of the goal of realizing the Four Modernizations by the year 2000.
    2. These funds would aid in the enrichment of our programs here at Hunan Medical College in the fields of education and health, so that we may better serve our Motherland.
    3. With the purchase of new classroom materials and laboratory equipment, we could improve the overall quality of the curriculum at Hunan Medical College.
    “IV. CONCLUSIONS
    1. That the acquisition of new and vital tools, such as microscopes, earphones, spectrographs, etc., is a necessary step toward the realization of the goal of realizing the Four Modernizations by the year 2000 according to the directives of the Party as set forth in the New Constitution of the Twelfth Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party.”
    And so on.
    I looked at her and didn’t know what to say. Could she really think that this was appropriate wording for an application to an international lending group? I finally asked her as much. She did not look up from her work. “Mm. Is there something wrong with the grammar?” I said no, the grammar seemed fine, but the content seemed a bit weak, perhaps. Her expression did not change at all. “But this is a translation of the text written by the officials of our college. This is the Chinese way of writing this sort of thing. I am only an English teacher, I cannot presume to change it.” I told her that perhaps from a Chinese point of view this kind of language was acceptable, but that from a Western point of view it seemed repetitive, and since they were applying to an institution run according to Western principles, they might want to draft a more Western-sounding text. She sighed, still without looking at me, and said nothing. I got the impression that she was quietly hoping I wouldn’t press the issue, so I didn’t, and pointed out a misspelling.
    We corrected misspellings for about an hour, then took a break for tea. “Have you met the Middle-Aged English Teachers yet?” she asked. I said I hadn’t. “Mm. They are a special group. Originally they were Russian teachers, but then, because