Translating Nuan

The cultural and historical contexts for the film

Page one

  • “你看，又来了不是。” line 17. Here, teacher Cao is trying to let Jinghe know how much he appreciates Jinghe’s coming to help him by urging him to go back to Beijing as soon as possible “还是早点回吧。这大老远的让你跑⼀趟，花钱花得不合适。” By overstating Jinghe’s efforts to help him, teacher Cao lets Jinghe know that he is well aware of the new difference between them in social status: a college teacher from the capital of China and an ordinary duck farmer in a rural village in middle of nowhere. But this only further estranges their relationship that Jinghe, by coming all the way from Beijing, wants to revive or stay as strong as in the past, which is why he says “look, here you go again”, to close the personal space as equals and refuses to be treated as an outsider. To not lose his old identity as teacher Cao’s student, Jinghe brings up the past in which Cao treats him as his son and buys him steamed buns to eat, so as to close the widening gaps between them, in the post-socialist China, between urban and rural, rich and poor, the highly educated and those who only finished compulsory schooling.
  • “曹老师两年多的委屈，你几句话就给摆平了”. Jinghe represents the “nouveau riche” (newly rich) whose power should never be doubted in Nuan’s remark (line 26): “teacher Cao’s grievance over the past two years was put to rest with your few words”. Nuan is still sulking over her break up with Jinghe years ago by deliberately overstating Jinghe’s achievement, also letting him know that she recognizes him for who he is now. Jinghe represents, to borrow the words of Marxist critic Lucien Goldmann (Towards A Sociology of the Novel),  “…. the conscious values of the bourgeoisie: individualism, the thirst for power, money, and eroticism, which triumph over the ancient feudal values of altruism, charity and love”.

Page two

  • Lines 1-10 Jinghe already sounds like a bourgeois individual and urbanite, unable to relate to people even those who used to be intimate with him. His“你好吗?”is a stark contrast with Nuan’s rhetorical question, “我还不知道你是井河”，a straightforward hit in the rib about Jinghe as she knew him in the past. His greeting sounds hollow and hypocritical. Jinghe seems petty (bourgeois) and narcissistic in his “你还恨我吗？” whereas Nuan seems direct, sincere, and authentic in her worldview, “啥叫好？有吃有穿有孩子有丈夫”；she seems completely over Jinghe and outgrown her own adolescence. She is at unity and in harmony with Nature; she is totally free of personal ambition and greed. “恨你？老天爷才可恨呢”, resigned to the Way of the natural universe. Agrarian culture does not seem obsolete compared to the pettiness of the urbanites “屁股大的地方怎么推啊”. How are you going to push your bike in a place no bigger than your butt? Her emotional maturity is also evident in her having borne no grudge against Jinghe and is totally free of greed for material wealth.
  • Mo Yan the author and novelist also glorifies or idealizes the “primitive” by giving originality to Nuan, the one without a college education but most driven by a burning intellectual curiosity, “秋千为什么叫秋千”.

Page three

  • Lines 23-28 are exchanges between the girls in the village (Nuan included) that says the most about the ethos of the 1980s when the city (borough, the root word for bourgeoisie) defines what is good and is synonymous with happiness.
  • Nuan is among those who have never been to town, “if our show wins award, we might all go to the county to perform”; (我们的节目要是可以得奖，说不定都可以去县里演出了). They even never ride on a bus or train before. (是啊，我们坐汽车去县里); (我们还能坐火车到更远的地方比赛呢)

Page four

  • Lines 1-4 further elaborates the magnitude of the social change (urbanization) taking place then, when China was ready to model itself and its success on Western open societies such as the U.S. and Taiwan.
  • “要是真能选上，美上天了” if chosen, we would be overjoyed/ we’d be in the heavens; “说不定，就成了邓丽君了”; (I might even become Teresa Deng) Teresa Deng was a famous Taiwanese singer of popular songs. Chinese memory of the 1980s is always associated with people on the mainland listening to her (bourgeois) songs after decades of open hostility towards Taiwan as a renegade state and friend to the U.S. There was this popular saying at the time that people loved to listen to the young Deng not the Old Deng (Xiaoping) “爱听小邓，不爱听老邓”. Now Teresa Deng, Taiwan and by extension the West, became synonymous with success on mainland China. This is a national allegory, namely, the girls represent the Chinese dream to become like Taiwan overnight, no matter how unlikely that was at the time; “得了吧，别做梦了” Give it a rest, stop dreaming.
  • Line 21, “你没听说过，弯刀对着瓢切菜，合适着呢” is perhaps the hardest phrase to translate; something like “Cutting a gourd with a bended knife–a perfect fit”. I am sure you may have far better translation than this one. This is an example of 歇后语(xie hoù yǔ, which can be translated as “enigmatic folk similes,” “quiz-cracks”, or “a two-part allegorical saying, of which the first part, always stated, is descriptive, while the second part, sometimes unstated, carries the message”.); Examples are as follows:
    • 瞎子点灯–白费蜡。 It is as useless as a blind man lighting a candle.
    • 黄鼠狼给鸡拜年–不怀好意。 A weasel wishing Happy New Year to a chicken—harboring no good intention.
    • 肉包子打狗–有去无回。 Chasing a dog by throwing meat dumplings at it—gone, never to return.
    • 竹篮打水–一场空。 Like ladling water with a wicker basket—all is empty (left with nothing).
    • 隔着门缝看人–把人瞧扁了。 If you peer at a person through a crack—he looks flat.
    • 兔子尾巴长不了。 The tail of a rabbit–cannot be long;
  • Lines 27-29 is Nuan giving a recount of her brief relation with a shop assistant as her potential mate; she thought they were compatible or got along well, 谈得来; but she was too proud to date with someone who was embarrassed to be seen in public with a cripple 可她就是从来不和我一块出门; she therefore decides to terminate their relationship, not for her sake but for his dignity (altruism), 咱不能委屈了人家, “咱” zan refers to herself while in conversation with people who share a set of common values, like the royal “we”. She did not want to oblige someone to tolerate her

Page five

  • Lines 1-6 is exchanges between Jinghe and Nuan, one concerned with freedom of (personal) choice and the other preoccupied with matters of necessity. As a city person, Jinghe wonders if Nuan still sings or considers buying a TV set but as a down-to-earth peasant and woman, Nuan is burdened with house chores and taking care of her husband and daughter. 整天忙家里忙家外的，哪还有这心思啊。
  • Line 18 pertains to the scene in which Yaba tries to force Jinghe into a drinking match out of his machismo; Nuan is aware of this pissing match and asks Jinghe to let Yaba win to keep his self-pride or whatever is left of it when he now has little to show for himself as a man (by 1980s standard): with no education, no money, no competence, no future to work and live in the city. 你不要这么拼命，你不是他的对手。让他站上风就是了. Don’t compete with him; you are no match for him. Let him prevail.

Page six

  • Lines 1-2 is exchanges between Jinghe and Nuan when Nuan spreads piping hot soup on her hand trying to avoid Jinghe coming to help her. It is a tender moment in striking contrast with the earlier scene where Yaba forces a candy that he has tasted down her throat, with no gentleness of a loving husband that Jinghe would have been if he had wanted.
  • Line 9 is spoken by Jinghe promising Yaya that he will take her on a train ride.
  • Lines 13-18 is exchanges between Nuan and martial art performer 小武生, when Nuan is greatly amused by what she sees in the mirror, totally transformed by the makeup he did for her. 你条件真好 is compliment he pays to her, “you are gifted” or “you are born to perform”; 条件 literarily means condition, circumstance, terms of a deal or negotiation, or a given; e.g. 自然条件 natural conditions; 你的条件我们不能接受 we cannot accept your terms/conditions
  • Line 26 is by Nuan’s father to the manager of the opera troupe 不用领工资，管饭就行 on behalf of Nuan wanting to be enrolled; there is no need to pay her salary; just board (and room) will do.

Page seven

  • Lines 1-12 is a conversation between Nuan and Jinghe reminiscing their past together in one encounter in which they play in the snow (very rarely in southern China) and Jinghe burns a hole in one of Nuan’s shoes wet with snow; he lets Nuan wear one of his which she finds stinky. 祠堂的天井 the ancestral hall 祠堂 is a family quadrangle courtyard with an area in the middle open to the sky 天井 (sky well)
  • Lines 17-29 is dialogism among a group of youth (young girls mostly) talking about their dreams of finding mates as a way to move into the city; silkworm 蚕 are making cocoons 茧 which the farmers then could sell to silk factories; the money can then be used as the girls’ dowry; when the city people validate their urban existence with acquisition of material wealth such as TV set and appreciate things for their exchange value ($), the rural folk still live by barter system for trade and cherish things for their use value. 找对象 is the term for finding mate or dating. The last few lines are about Nuan 她 who is talked about as someone dating an actor from the provincial capital and already going beyond the first base with him

Page eight

  • Line 5 has the word 指标 quota, which the a feature of socialist planning economy where everything is planned out by the government; no free competition existed until later; the state decides how many people will be recruited and put on government payroll.
  • Line 12 他能看得上咱们 is a rhetorical question referring to the martial artist; Jinghe is telling Nuan to stop waiting for him to return for her; Jinghe’s remark reflects the attitude of many urbanites towards the peasants, looking down upon them as inferior; this is also a sign of Jinghe’s low self-esteem as someone from a poor farmer’s family; “would he take a fancy of/look up to us?”
  • Lines 14-25 is the dialog of Nuan and Jinghe on the swing, when he presents a red scarf to her as a token of love, purchased by his brother for his mother.
  • Lines 27-28 is from the scene of a village wedding when the bride and groom invite the guests to have a toast and eat
  • Lines 30-34 is again exchange between Nuan and Jinghe at the wedding; he tries to cheer her up; he wants to talk her out of her misery by convincing her that the martial artist is never going to come back for her

Page nine

  • Line 4 “你就是倒贴上两百斤猪肉，人家也不会要你” is by Jinghe to remind Nuan that, as a rural person, she did not stand a chance of winning the heart of someone from the city even if she were to compensate that discrepancy in social status by 200 pounds of pork, which was something peasants would allow themselves to eat each year at the Chinese New Year (Spring Festival); in socialist planning economy, pig farmers had to satisfy a state quota (for the city dwellers) before they could keep the pigs they raised; the Chinese word for family is 家, which evolves from the pictograph of a roof and the ideogram 豕 pronounced shǐ, meaning pig.
  • Line 10 is by Nuan on hearing Jinghe say that he would not take her even if she would marry him provided that the martial artist was not coming back for her. Nuan is proud to a fault and beginning to take Jinghe for granted when she makes him the promise. When Jinghe says I don’t want it 我不要, Nuan is quick to tell him it is a slight on her, the most popular and talented girl within hundred miles radius of here. He would have to be delirious (running a high fever of self-conceit) to not want her 烧的你不轻
  • line 22, 有了一个交代 refers to the feeling Jinghe has the moment he receives the college admission’s notice, that now he can settle the unsettling and uncertain relation with Nuan, giving it a brief and final account 交代 by making their relation public

Page ten

  • line 10 by Nuan’s father on hearing Jinghe’s promise that he would come back for Nuan; 尽说傻话 “all foolish talk” (Don’t talk nonsense) is a tactic to protect or not to burden Jinghe; he humbly declines or dismisses Jinghe’s promise (as if he is already someone very different from the crowd of villagers to send him off) and tries to make light of such an heavy subject as if Nuan does not deserve Jinghe. Such attitude or humility turns out to be very wise, considering the fact that Jinghe never comes back for ten years.
  • Line 22 is by Jinghe getting ready to leave at the end of his visit to Nuan; his remark 别让他再这么对你 is a reference to the brutish behavior of her husband when Jinghe sees him jam a candy into her mouth

Page eleven

  • line 4 你没有；你越不回来就越忘不了 is by Nuan to Jinghe apologizing for having forgotten her; a mother and wife, Nuan is by now a different person than who she was ten years ago. “The longer you are not coming back, the harder it is for you to forget us” because she understands the power of sense of guilt and because she has a strong faith in what they had before. For both Jinghe and her, what was and is no more is nonetheless meaningful and deserves a place in their memory. Perhaps none of them can ever find in their current life what they had in the past in which their identity is rooted. This could also be author Mo Yan’s attitude towards China’s agrarian past quickly fading away to make room for the industrial civilization (urbanization modernization); Nuan offers a warm home for the now homeless in the city; the longer modern man forgets his roots, the stronger his identity with his primitive past that perhaps never was.
  • Lines 11-13 are spoken by teacher Cao and Jinghe feeling remorse and regret that he broke his promise to Nuan; teacher Cao speaks as Jinghe as his mentor and puts Jinghe’s obsession with his old flame into the perspective of socio-historical change, 就说你当年回来接她走，那现在怎么样也说不定; even if you had come back to take her away, it was hard to tell how things would have turned out.
  • Lines 21-22 come from the scene in which Nuan just discovers from her husband, remorse-smitten, that he had torn up the letters to her from Jinghe a long time ago