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On deathbed , Sun Yat-Sen, in fragile voice, stated his will. He stated it not in Chinese but in English. It may seem strange to you that Sun Yat-Sen was a Chinese, but he, in a very fluent English, stated his will. Yeah, he was too weak to hold a pen to jot down the will in written Chinese. In fact , he would have made use of his fluent English but not beaten Chinese even if he had written down his will. The fact, to some readers nowadays, may be unreasonable and unbelievable but it is true that he did it this way. The reason is like this: he didn’t trust the Chinese language since he didn’t expect to cause some misunderstandings among his will readers, thus avoiding bringing out some unnecessary conflicts. Actually, Sun Yat-Sen’s English was much better than his Chinese, and he himself trusted the language of English more than the Chinese language. As Sun Yat-Sen did trust the language of English but not the language of Chinese, Francis Bacon trust Latin but not the language of English. Sun Yat- Sen didn’t trust the traditional Chinese medicine as well. It’s safe to say he didn’t trust old China, so he set down to struggle to found a new China, which was his goal of his revolutionary actions. The author of Imperfect Understanding, Wen Yuan-Ning was a Chinese. But it’s hard for you to believe that he could only speak English. And he spoke English so beautifully that you may think you are listening to a native of English-speaking country speaking English if you close your eyes. Of course, his Imperfect Understanding has become a classical book for students of English major. I’m sure many students of English major dream to speak English as well as Wen Yuan-Ning, and write English articles so idiomatically and humorously as in Imperfect Understanding. The first step is to read this book. I assure you that you will never feel disappointed to read it. You may hear the brilliant name Jiang Meng-lin as president of Beijing University, but what you didn’t know is that he wrote a then popular now classical book titled Tides From The West in English in which he described in life-like English the events that determined the direction of the process of westernizing China from his own experiences in a unique perception. You can’t believe a Chinese could write a style of the English language so brilliantly. Every word in this book glows in thoughts and sincerity. When talking Chinese whose English is better than Chinese, one who has to be mentioned is Gu Hong-Ming who has ever been an English secretary for Zhang Zhi-Dong among some natives of English. But other English secretary from English-speaking countries more often than not asked him for the usage of this or that English word. He, who despised foreigners because he believed that Chinese culture was more excellent than western culture since Zhang Zhi-Dong taught him Chinese literature, would throw a big dictionary to the foreign secretary and gave a cold shoulder to the man.In fact, Gu’s English was too much better than his Chinese. A figure who made great achievements in introducing Chinese culture to the West is Lin Yu-Tang whose English was ever praise and admired by American professors who dreamt to write beautiful English as Lin. What’s gone is gone. How hard it is to find a chinese whose English is better than his Chinese! What’s important is, to tell Chinese stories to the West is a way for china to integrate into the international world, but if the stories are told in bad English, it will surely destroy the strage. Hope one day there appears a master like any one of them who are mentioned above. |
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