Text/Yangcheng Evening News reporter Chen Xiaonan Sun Lei
The famous translator and writer Yang Yi was born in 1919 and died on January 27, 2023 at the age of 104.
"Wuthering Heights" translated by Yang Yi is one of the most popular Chinese translations of the book, and she is also the first translator of this popular Chinese title.
Yu Bin, a professor at Nanjing University, said that in the living room of Yang Yi's house, the most conspicuous large desk is dedicated to her husband, Zhao Ruihong, a famous writer and translator.
She can't speak passionately and freely in public like Zhao Ruihong, but in private space, she is very relaxed and talkative.
When the interest is high, chatting for an hour or two is not a problem.
Recently, "One Hundred Years, Many People, Many Things: Yang Yi's Oral Autobiography" by Yilin Publishing House was compiled and written by Yu Bin in such a long chat, which lasted 10 years.
The life story of a hundred years comes from Yang Yi's "scene memory" in his later years: "One by one, the people and the background are together. Thinking of the people and things in the past is like going to a movie, but it is colored for a while. Yes, it will be black and white for a while."
teenagers don't know how to feel sad
Yang Yi was born in a scholarly family, and grew up with rich clothes and fine food.
Four of my ancestors became Jinshi in the late Qing Dynasty, and ordered Hanlin.
His father, Yang Yuzhang, graduated from Waseda University. After returning to China, he served as director of Shenyang Telephone and Telegraph Bureau and president of Bank of China in Tianjin.
But as soon as he was born, his father Yang Yuzhang died of typhoid fever, and the originally wealthy family gradually went downhill.
Yang Yi's childhood memories are not stained with gloom.
Under the guidance of her mother, the care and company of her elder brother Yang Xianyi and elder sister Yang Minru, and surrounded by nursery rhymes, graffiti and dolls, she lived a full and carefree life.
The "fun" nature and the warm and bright childhood background like candy made her "keep her innocence and become natural" all her life.
In 1927, eight-year-old Yang Yi entered the Chinese and Western Girls' School, a missionary school.
"I have had a very happy ten years in China and the West, and I am more comfortable than at home." From entering school to graduation, Yang Yi "grows up in the sound of singing" and hovers freely with her young classmates "on the wings of singing sound".
She said: "Now it is said that quality education should be advocated. I think that the continuous singing of Chinese and Western songs is the best quality education."
She specifically mentioned the psychology class of the Chinese and Western Girls' School, which is "fresh and fun".
Concepts such as "subconscious mind" and "psychoanalysis" were first tasted in this course. "The reason why I became particularly interested in Wuthering Heights (the English original work of "Wuthering Heights") was all influenced by the psychology class at that time."
At that time, the only worry of young Yang Yi may be that "my brother is too smart, my sister is too hardworking", while she is "stupid and lazy".
She always followed Yang Xianyi, and was ridiculed by her family as a follower.
In 1935, the "December 9th" Movement broke out, and students took to the streets to participate in anti-Japanese and national salvation.
Yang Yi, on the other hand, lives in another world where she is shelved and considers herself a "noble lady", but she does not dare to resist her mother and takes to the streets.
Her closest brother, Yang Xianyi, was also studying in the UK at this time and was not by her side.
In the midst of depression, seventeen-year-old Yang Yi began to write letters to Ba Jin, and she wanted to be Juehui in Ba Jin's works.
"Because what Ba Jin wrote in "Family" is too similar to my family." Ba Jin calmly replied, expressing his disapproval, saying that she is too young, and she should read the book first and be patient.
Yang Yi said: "He understood, sympathized with, and supported our extremely childish and ridiculous thoughts and actions at the time." Through Ba Jin, Yang Yi also met his brother Li Yaolin, and "Mr. Da Li" became a bright spot in her growth. .
Southwest Associated University's support
In 1937, Yang Yi was recommended to the Chinese Department of Nankai University.
But before entering school, the "July 7th Incident" broke out.
Tianjin fell, and the situation in North China took a turn for the worse. Nankai University, Peking University, and Tsinghua University were forced to move westward, and the National Southwest Associated University was established in Kunming.
Kunming is like a clear sky, and Southwest Associated University is even more shining with stars.
It has a cloud of famous teachers and a free style of study, continuing the tradition of "professors governing the school" of Peking University, Tsinghua University, and Nankai University.
At the suggestion of the teacher Shen Congwen, Yang Yi transferred to the Department of Foreign Languages.
Ye Gongchao was the head of the department, Chen Jia taught Shakespeare, Xie Wentong taught English poetry, Feng Zhi taught German, Wu Mi taught the history of European literature... Zhao Ruihong and Xu Yuanchong were classmates who often sat in the same classroom.
"Flowers and fruits are scattered, spiritual roots are self-planting", under the baptism of this liberal spirit, Yang Yi grew up rapidly.
The anecdotes of teachers and students of the United Nations are usually very interesting in Yang Yi's oral recollections—for example, Mr. Wu Mi was often "emotionally moved" in his lectures, "I can still think of his appearance in class: holding a few foreign clothes in his left hand book, with a cane in his right hand, and he walked into the classroom with a beep. He likes to make gestures in class, and he talks about Dante’s "Divine Comedy", comparing heaven and hell. Laughed and laughed".
But the cruel reality still persists. Yang Yi also recalled that when the Japanese planes bombed Kunming—the bombs fell on the school one by one, and the ground shook. "We stood there in a daze, as if in a dream, not knowing what happened At that time, Shi Jianqiao, the "Chivalrous Woman of the Republic of China" who assassinated Sun Chuanfang, was a resident auditor at the United Nations University, and even she was frightened, and wanted to run out with her head in her arms.
Shen Congwen teased her because of this, saying "women are also afraid".
Yang Yi recalled that running the alarm was always accompanied by anger and cursing at the intruder.
Seeing the enemy's plane falling down with black smoke, the students always screamed and jumped for joy.
Later, she wrote a poem "The Broken Iron Bird", which was published in "Battle Song", a publication of the Yunnan Literature and Art Anti-Enemy Association.
But Mr. Shen Congwen taught her not to be satisfied with "slogan poems", brought a lot of world famous books, and asked her to make reading notes.
At one time, Yang Yi lived next to the place where Shen Congwen and Zhu Ziqing edited textbooks.
In the dead of night, she sat by a small oil lamp and worked hard. When she wanted to be lazy, she turned her head and looked at the houses in the back row—behind the paper-pasted windows, there were green lights and yellow scrolls. Mr. Shen Congwen and others were often still at their desks, reminding her Don't slack off.
Many years later, Yang Yi often recalled Shen Congwen urging her with a strong Hunan accent: "Work hard! I'm going to bed, so you can rest. Don't be lazy and playful!"
Build "Wuthering Heights" with inspiration and tenacity
Chen Jia, a teacher of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures of the United Nations University, also supported Yang Yi's growth.
After studying at Southwest Associated University for two years and experiencing marriage and childbirth, Yang Yi entered the Foreign Languages Department of Central University as a student.
At that time, Chen Jia also transferred to the school to teach.
Among the many teachers, Yang Yi had the most contact with Mr. Chen Jia, and often asked him for advice on the poems he had translated.
In fact, Chen Jia did not approve of the translation of poetry, saying that a poor translation would be a "persecution" of literature, but he still affirmed Yang Yi's translation level.
As a college student again, a translated poem by Yang Yi was published in the magazine "Modern Literature and Art", and she was paid for the manuscript to make up for her hard life, which stimulated her enthusiasm for translation.
It was in the school library at that time that Yang Yi read the English novel "Wuthering Heights" (the original English version of "Wuthering Heights") for the first time, and was deeply moved.
Until 1953, when Zhao Ruihong went to Germany to study and study, Yang Yi took the children alone to bear the hardships of life, and this work once again broke into her spiritual world.
"One night, there was a storm outside the window, gusts of wind whizzed past, and the raindrops fell on the glass window, as if Catherine was crying outside the window and asked me to open the window. The house where I lived was originally a desolate garden, and at this time I almost Felt like I was also in that old house near the Yorkshire Moors. I was saying Wuthering Heights unconsciously... struggling to figure out how to translate it exactly and get close to it basically The pronunciation. Suddenly inspiration came from the sky, and I excitedly wrote the four characters of 'Wuthering Heights'!" Yang Yi recalled the process of "birth" of the four-character title in this way in the book.
She relied on a dictionary to translate carefully, keeping in mind the teacher's instructions, and carefully hiding herself behind the translation.
In 1955, under Yang Yi's translation, Emily Bronte's only novel in her life entered the Chinese public's field of vision under the translated title of "Wuthering Heights".
"To live is to win"
"Ba Jin said that longevity is punishment. I said that living is victory!" Yang Yi said.
After living past a hundred years, she achieved a kind of "victory".
Yang Yi still likes to collect dolls, including princesses in wavy dresses, little boys in hats, and cherubs carved in plaster.
There is also a cabinet of porcelain owl puppets in various shapes. In her eyes, they are symbols of wisdom.
Translator Huang Hong said that the century-old vicissitudes that Yang Yi has experienced have never erased the innocence that has always existed in her.
Yu Bin recalled that at the end of 2018, Yang Yi developed gallstones and was admitted to the hospital.
Her family and the hospital were very conflicted about whether to have an operation or not, but Yang Yi didn't care. She just asked the doctor, "Can I live another year?"
In the hospital, many people regarded her as a legendary centenarian, but the medical staff and patients who had seen her all sighed: "Is she really going to be a centenarian? Is she lying?" Finally, the operation She was also "hidden" by Yang Yi.
A year later, Yang Yi passed the hurdle of being a hundred years old.
She practices memory in her own way and "competes" with forgetting.
"At least ten years ago, when she woke up in the morning, she would recall the dream she had just had, and salvage all the details in the dream; she would silently write the poems she had memorized, and sing the lyrics she had sung...all of this was written by hand A clipboard with a stack of letter papers, around the people and things she has experienced, and write down whatever comes to mind." This kind of "mental gymnastics" may have been implanted from the association training she did at the Chinese and Western Girls' School. mind.
Another way to resist forgetting may be to "grasp the small and zoom in", which nourishes her mastery and happiness, and "it is not without an attitude of observing people and the world".
"What I remember are often funny things, just like what you call 'gossip' now." Yang Yi said.
Many people who have walked in her life have left ordinary and vivid marks in the long narration and records.
Yu Bin believes that compared with the grand narrative, Yang Yi's individual trivial narrative avoids "historical facts", but constitutes her "facts in memory".
"Ms. Yang has lived for a whole century, experienced the ups and downs of her family's fate, the ups and downs of her personal life, and the impact of political movements. However, in the turbulent twentieth century China, her experience is not full of joy and sorrow. Dramatic. That is to say, her life is ordinary and ordinary. However, because of its ordinary side, it may resonate with readers and convey the "echo of universal life"." Yu Bin wrote.
A hundred years later, the Sri Lankan has passed away.
Before she was alive, there was a couplet written by Mr. Lu Xun on the wall of the living room: "Is there any pride like the old days, when flowers bloom and fall?"
("Yangcheng Evening News" February 12, 2023 Edition: A07)