My father's book in Chinese is called Suo Na Yan Chen. Suo Na is a Chinese instrument. Wikipedia refers to it as a Chinese oboe. Yan Chen is the dust kicked up by your feet when you walk. These are references to my great-grandmother's wedding day, which I'll talk more about another time, when I actually start getting into the chapters.
The book is set up like this: every 5th chapter is about Nai Nai as a teenager. The chapters in between are about her parents, my great-grandparents. At first, I didn't know how interested I would be in the chapters about my great-grandparents. But so far, I've enjoyed those the most!
Here's what I already knew about Nai Nai before I started the book. Her favorite book was Tess of the D'Urbervilles. She was the oldest of 7 children and the only girl. Her father, my great-grandfather, worked as an adviser to Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the Nationalist Party in China during the early 20th century. Because of my family's ties with the Kuomingtang, they were forced to escape to Taiwan when Mao Zedong led the Chinese Communist revolution. My grandmother, though, chose to stay in mainland China for my grandfather. At one point, my grandmother was accepted to a university in England, but she did not go. I'm not too clear as to the reason why. Finally, my grandmother was a great moving force in my father's life, both in her life and in her death.
That's not very much and I'm unsure of a lot of the details. In fact, I don't even know how many of those details are actually true and how many have gotten lost in my brain over time. It's too bad I didn't listen more carefully as I was growing up. (My dad is reading this blog so maybe he can add some insight.)
So far, I've translated 8 chapters. Some of them easier than others. My father included a lot of historical events. Everything in the book is true. In addition, my father wrote his book to appeal to the Chinese reader, who wants to read about historical facts rather than develop emotional attachments to compelling people and stories. And since the Tao family is relatively well-known in Chinese history, my father made sure he wrote this book using the highest level of classical Chinese, so there are a lot of terms I don't understand. But even through all that, he has this amazing ability to create characters that I'm really bonding with. I like to think it's not just because my father is a brilliant storyteller, but more because these people aren't merely characters...they're my ancestors, my family, my blood.
Yesterday, after starting this blog, I asked my dad to email me some photos of my grandmother. I feel like to see her is to know her.
I'll start with a photo that features my two inspirations for this great personal journey:
Yes, I know...I thought the exact same thing when I saw this picture for the first time. My father was such a cute little baby and Nai Nai was absolutely beautiful!
I'm just so glad I'm old enough now to appreciate how lucky I am to have such a rich family history. And one that has been captured so well through words passed down through the generations. I only hope to continue this tradition in my own way.
No comments:
Post a Comment