Poetry Translations by Ching-wen Kao
Translations from Mandarin Chinese
Yuli Mountain
by Ka-shiang Liu
A bag of salt, a sack of rice
The ancestral mountain stood ahead magnificently
Thin wisps of smoke rose from the foothill village
In the peaceful singing of the fortune-telling bird. Soon after I set out,
My journey with the shotgun was fulfilled
玉里山 劉克襄
一包鹽，一袋米
家山在前方龐大著
部落在山腳升起二三炊煙
平靜的鳥占聲中。才出發
我和獵槍的旅程已經充實了
Four Colors of Beans
by Wen-yu Chiang
The elder grandson said that Grandma could conjure green mung beans with magic:
Shrink the size of watermelon 30,000 times
Increase the hardness of loofah and shrink it 2,000 times
Peel a kiwifruit, increase its hardness and shrink it 100 times
Each of the green mung beans was Grandma’s Earth
The elder granddaughter said that Grandma could conjure red mung beans with magic:
Flatten a peeled watermelon until it is 4,000 times smaller
Chop off the beards of a dragon fruit and dehydrate it until it is 500 times smaller
Soak a grape in red wine, drain and compress it until it is 50 times smaller
Each of the red beans was Grandma’s heart
The younger grandson said that Grandma could conjure yellow soybeans with magic:
Peel a mango 3,000 times
Juice an orange 200 times
Deform a banana 100 times
Each of the yellow soybeans was Grandma’s tear
The younger granddaughter could not tell how Grandma conjured black soybeans
She said that each of the black soybeans was Grandma’s magic-performing
Eye
四色豆 江文瑜
大孫子說阿媽會以魔法變綠豆：
將西瓜縮小三萬倍
將菜瓜增加硬度再縮小兩千倍
將奇異果剝皮增加硬度再縮小一百倍
每一顆綠豆都是阿媽的地球
大孫女說阿媽會以魔法變紅豆：
剝皮的西瓜壓扁四千倍
火龍果切去鬍鬚後再縮水五百倍
葡萄浸在紅葡萄酒中瀝乾壓縮五十倍
每一顆紅豆都是阿媽的心臟
小孫子說阿媽會以魔法變黃豆：
把芒果剝皮三千次
把柳丁壓汁縮水兩百次
把香蕉扭曲變形一百次
每一顆黃豆都是阿媽的目屎
小孫女看不出阿媽怎麼變出黑豆
她說每一顆黑豆都是阿媽會變魔法的
眼珠
Ka-shiang Liu (1957- ) is a Taiwanese poet, essayist, novelist, nature observer and environmentalist. Liu dedicates most of his literary career to the domain of natural history and is dubbed “Birdman” because of his passion for bird watching. Using his critical eyes and poetic mind to write about nature, Liu has authored around sixty books to date, including eight poetry collections. Some of his works have been translated into English, German, Korean and Czech.
Wen-yu Chiang (1961- ) is a Taiwanese poet, writer, and linguistics professor at National Taiwan University. Active in public affairs, Chiang co-founded She-Whale Poetry Society to promote feminist poetry, and during her term as the chairperson of the Taipei Association for the Promotion of Women’s Rights, she initiated a series of creative writing projects to encourage the general public to write about woman. Chiang has published five poetry collections, two of them have won important literature prizes in Taiwan and one of them has been translated into Japanese.
Ching-wen Kao is an English-Chinese interpreter residing in Israel and has been providing language services to the high tech industry. She is an MA student in Literary Translation at Bar Ilan University.