Road to Heaven

第一章 隐士的天堂 “我们是在四月的最后一天到的”后，漏译如下： a few days after students in the city had launched their campaign to end political corruption and social oppression. “江青住过的那套寓所里”后，漏译如下： Mao Tse-tung’s widow and leader of the decade-long Cultural Revolution, which had supposedly rid China of its burdensome past, including its hermits. After spending a night with Chiang Ch’ing’s ghost, “开始沿着东长安街，挤出一条路来”后，漏译如下： The police were standing in groups well away from the area, and no vehicles were being allowed anywhere near Tienanmen Square or the train station. The demonstration must have included at least a hundred thousand students. But it was so orderly and festive it seemed more like a holiday parade than a political protest. Students in Tienanmen Square had organized themselves into units according to their academic department and school and were waling down Changan East Road holding up banners and chanting slogans. As they passed the train station and approached the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, huge banners calling for democratic reforms were unfurled by people in the building. The students cheered. It was a lovely day. Over the sound of chants, applause, and occasional firecrackers, “我们沿着山路继续往下走，来到山脚下的一个村庄里”后，漏译如下： The whole village was in an uproar. As soon as they saw us, they told us that the army had massacred thousands of protestors the previous night at Tienanmen Square. But they kept asking us what had really happened. No one believed what the government was telling them, and they thought that foreigners must know more than they did. Those who had radios were keeping them tuned to the Chinese-language broadcasts of Voice of America or the BBC. “于是我们又换了一辆公共汽车，最后到了福州”后，漏译如下： In our hotel room, we watched the government replay of events that dominated every television newscast. I thought back to a day we had spent in Wuhan. It was May 18, and our train must have been one of the last to arrive before students shut down the railway by blocking the Yangtze River Bridge. There are always so many people in Chinese cities, the crowds didn’t strike us as unusual. We lined up to buy boat tickets to go down the river the next day and then went to find a hotel. “在旅馆里登完记，我们冲了个澡，洗了衣服，像往常一样出去闲逛，找冰镇啤酒”后，漏译如下： We followed the flow of the crowd. Suddenly we were in the city square. A student passing a hat in front of us was collecting money to send fellow students to join their comrades at Tienanmen. I reached into my shirt pocket, intending to contribute 10 RMB, about two bucks. By mistake, I pulled out a hundred. It was too late to put the bill back. Stunned that anyone would give them so much money, the students carried me through the crowd and onto the steps of a monument where the demonstration leaders were addressing a crowd of several thousand people. They asked me to talk about democracy. I said a few words, certainly nothing memorable. They were so enthused by what they were doing they would have welcomed anyone, especially a foreigner, who agreed with their cause and could tell them so in Chinese. As I was stepping down to find Steve, I turned and wished them luck. One of them, who couldn’t have been more than twenty, said, “We don’t need luck. We’re prepared to die.” Sitting in Fuchou while the tanks rolled through Tienanmen, I wondered how many one-way tickets to Peking that 100 RMB had bought. 第四章 访道 “交多少钱取决于哪些证件出了问题”后，漏译如下： and how much is needed to meet the monthly quota that guarantees policemen their elite life-style. “解放前，这里曾经有500多道士和道姑”后，漏译如下： as the Communists like to call their 1949 takeover. 第五章 鹤之声 “这大概就是它躲过红卫兵这一劫的原因吧”后，漏译如下： But no temple, however imposing, can ever compare with a mountain like Huashan. On our first trip to China, we saw a picture of Huashan in a flight magazine. It was so dreamlike, we couldn’t imagine actually being in such a place. But that was before we discovered hermits in the Chungnan Mountains and realized Huashan was at their eastern end. On our second trip, Steve and I decided it was time to climb P’an-ku’s feet. 谢：“就像我刚才说过的，至少要有三年的体能训练，你的心才会变得足够宁静，才能够理解道”后，漏译如下： Q: In the last twenty or thirty years, the political situation in China has been difficult. What effect has this had on Taosim? Hsieh: I’d rather not talk about this. Q: Were Taoist monks and nuns able to continue their practice here at Huashan? Hsieh: Please, I’d rather not talk about this. “谢道长突然变得严肃起来，说这不方便”后，漏译如下： I felt the forty-year shadow of Liberation. “谢道长与我们在我们的旅馆房间里共进了一顿简朴的晚餐”后，漏译如下： He excused himself for not being able to talk freely in the temple. The walls, he said, had ears. “而是越来越糟”后，漏译如下： Religion was being resurrected by the government for the purpose of promoting tourism. He said that Taoism was just about dead, 第六章 登天之道 “经过高冠谷”原文为：just past the munitions plant in Kaokuan Gorge “除非新一代出家人很精进，否则这个宗教就什么也没有了”后，漏译如下： Even though we have religious freedom now, every year things get worse. Conditions were better ten years ago when restrictions on religion were first lifted. Since then, it’s become clear that the government wants to turn temples into tourist centers. “把丰德寺、卧佛寺和净业寺合并成一个主要的修行中心”后，漏译如下： To discourage tourism, and to refuse any assistance from the government, including electricity. K’ai-lung said that once the temple accepted such assistance, the government would begin demanding that certain things be done or not be done. The government, according to all the monks and nuns I talked to, was not interested in supporting religious practice, only tourism. 第八章 朱雀山 “除了那个管理人员之外，这个地方一片荒凉”后，漏译如下： It had recently been built on what remained of the summer residence of Liu Lan-t’ao. Before the Cultural Revolution branded him as a Capitalist Roader, Liu was the Communist Party’s secretary-general for the country’s five northwest provinces and one of the most powerful men in the country. I congratulated Liu on his choice of scenery. 第十章 暮星之家 “这就是太白山”后，漏译如下： a mountain so big even a hundred atomic bombs couldn’t wear it down. This, I imagine, is what Chinese military leaders were thinking when they chose it as the perfect place for surviving a nuclear attack. Airmen stationed at Taipaishan are blindfolded and taken on a three-hour jeep through a series of switchbacks and tunnels before reaching a network of caverns cut deep inside the mountain. The underground complex was apparently constructed shortly after the Chinese joined the nuclear club and intended as a command center in the event of nuclear war. “我婉言谢绝了这两个建议”后，漏译如下： preferring to avoid a possible run-in with the mountain’s most dangerous species—the Chinese military authorities. 第十二章 大道入尘 “并把护照还给了我们”后，漏译如下： they warned us that conducting interviews was grounds for deportation. They were somewhat concerned that the purpose of our trip was to talk with people over whom they had no control, no matter that they were harmless hermits. “他说他太笨了，当不了方丈”后，漏译如下： Then he explained that wolung Temple refused to have an official abbot. He said, “If we choose an abbot, he has to be approved by the government. We prefer to be alone. That’s why we don’t fix up the temple. The end