Winterreise (Winter Journey, 冬之旅) is a set of famous poems written by Wilhelm Muller. Schubert composed a song cycle based on it. The most famous one is Lindenbaum, 菩提樹. It is very popular in Taiwan & Japan. Almost every school kid knows the tune. However, 怪事年年有. Lately someone found that Linden is not 菩提樹, it is 椴樹. There is a famous street Unter den Linden in Berlin, Germany. It is named after the linden trees lining the boulevard. In German folklore, the linden tree is the "tree lovers." Some famous buildings line along the street are Berlin State Opera, German Historical Museum, Humboldt University, Frederick the Great Statue. I heard that 龍應台女士 used to gather some leaves of Linden on this street (while she taught in Germany) and tried to verify whether it is really 菩提樹. She found that they are not the same trees. Their leaves look alike but not identical. Linden has 齒狀邊緣 but 菩提樹 has smooth edge. To people who sing 菩提樹 for so many years, it is like a terrible betrayal. To add to the confusion, Japanese also call it 菩提樹. Perhaps the person just translated this from the Japanese text or some one in China might just goof in translation. The error was made long time ago but should we stick to it? 椴樹 may be ideal for botany, but too bookish or serious for music and literature. I suggest we just change 菩提樹 to 林登樹 per criteria of 信,達,雅. After all, Schubert's Lindenbaum really has nothing to do with 菩提 or Buddhism. The following link shows the pictures of the leaves of 菩提樹 and 林登樹.
http://interp.sow.tw/b6_nature/botany/dicotyledoneae/bot_dicot_peepultree.htm
PS: 龍應台女士曾當過台北文化局局長. She was well known in 1980’s in Taiwan for her 野火集. We may not be familiar with her books since we were so busy in picking cups for our hot chocolate (per AJ’s pps) at that time. Her new book “大江大海, 1949” opens a pandora box & says “以失敗者的下一代為榮”. It sounds like an interesting & moving(emotional & touching) book especially for those whose parents moved to Taiwan from mainland after 1949. 龍女士 was raised & educated in Taiwan (苗栗與台南). Her 祖籍 is 湖南衡山 . She used to think she was 湖南人. Until one day she was in 衡山, nobody there thought she was 湖南人 since she knew so little about 衡山 & 湖南. Now she considers herself a 新台灣人.
5 comments:
Finally, I can write 中文了.
Lindenbaum and 菩提樹 are certainly not the same. The person(s) who translated this might have considered they were close enough. That’s the problem as far as precision is concerned. There are countless plants and animals we have that do not exist in Europe or Americas; and vice versa. Another example of “close enough” is 照崑 mentioned drosophila and 果蠅. Since there is no drosophila in China; the closest Chinese term we have to identify it is 果蠅. Now, if we want to replicate some test on drosophila, can we use 果蠅 instead? Probably not, unless the scientists in that field universally agreed upon the substitution. 人文上, “大慨” or “馬馬乎乎” won’t cause too much trouble; 科學上, 則行不通矣. 考乙組可以馬馬乎乎(瀟灑), 考甲組就得一絲不苟(嚴肅). No discrimination here one way or another.
東邊李花白,西邊桃花紅. Remember these when we were in first grade? I will bet most of us had never seen 李花 or 桃花 then, except those who grew up with their own garden growing them or those in the rural area who could not afford to go to school thus never heard about it. That was some interesting education we had growing up.
I am not sure whether I have seen 菩提樹 physically before since if I have seen one I might not pay attention to it. It was a surprise to see one in Milwaukee this winter. The Mitchell Domes in Milwaukee are three giant nurseries in the city. The third dome is dedicated to the tropical plants. I strolled around inside the dome & saw a real Bo tree first time in details. This is the so-called 菩提樹, a sacred tree in India. The curly pointed leaf with smooth rim is unique & different from linden tree. It is a species of banyan tree without long branches & regarded as sacred by Buddhists. I touched it, smelled it & tried to picture how Buddha sat under it to find the true value of spiritual world. This might be the first time someone sat under a tree that ended up changing the world. The second time was another tree. Newton sat under an apple tree to find the truth of physical world, Gravitation. That truth is just as important as the one Buddha found. Was there any other tree you know that changed the world like 菩提樹 & 蘋果樹?
It is nice to know Wei got a new toy. If you get a 小蒙恬, try two-sides writing. It increases your writing speed. There are some other nice writing aids that I seldom use but find useful sometime. One of them is pointing the mouse to the word you just wrote. It will display several similar words just in case you want to replace the one you just wrote.
我提到龍應台的新書 “大江大海,一九四九". 前天在網上看到書的片段介紹, 居然看到翁通逢的往事. In our blog, May 2009, Chronicle II, 6/24/6 (1961), I mentioned him because of his treatment of my kidney problem in 1961. He is the younger brother of our good old professor 翁通楹. I don’t have the book at the moment, I just copy the paragraph from the Internet to share the information among us in the following:
翁通逢是嘉义人，东京东洋医学院毕业。吴平城搭上神靖丸的时候，东京已经被美軍炸得尸横遍野，满目疮痍，翁通逢决定赶快离开岌岌可危的日本，到满洲国去。
他没有听见十五日天皇的广播。早在八月九日凌晨的黑夜里，新京的空袭警报突然尖声响起，惊醒了本来就忐忑不安的市民。新京，就是长春。炮火和坦克车很快就进了城，苏联的红軍打进来了。很多台湾人这才赫然发现，讯息灵通的日本人，早已疏散到城外，讲日本话、穿日本服的殖民地台湾人，没人通知，后知后觉地还留在城里头。害怕红軍的暴行，也恐惧满洲人的复仇，台湾人聚集起来自力救济，存粮、雇车、找路，开始个别逃难。
翁通逢一群人带着两袋米、一包豆子、一袋盐，就上路了。长春市东区伊通河畔有桥，通往二道河，是出城必经之路；在日本人的统治下生活了十四年的满洲人，这时守在二道河的桥栏上，专门“堵”日本人，见到就杀，“以致于溪水一两日都是红色的。”
日軍在战时鼓励大约数十万的日本平民来满洲“开拓”，大多数是本来就贫苦的农民。八月十五日以后，这些人突然成为没有人管的难民。翁通逢认识一些开拓民，听说有些人流离到了长春，他赶到长春的“日人在满救济协会”去看望，却发现，一起从北满南下的人，死了三分之一。
在一间八个榻榻米大的房间里，睡了将近十个人，其中好几个已经是尸体，躺在活人中间；活人没有力气站起来，把身边朋友和亲人的尸体抬走。
台湾人在东北小心地活着；苏联兵四处强暴妇女，穿着軍服当街行抢。苏联兵走了，八路軍来了；八路軍走了，国軍来了，国軍走了，共産党又来了。满洲人称日本人为日本鬼，称台湾人为第二日本鬼。在每一个关卡，台湾人都要努力证明自己不是日本人，会说一点蹩脚国语的，就大胆地说自己是“上海人”。会说客家话的人，这时发现，用客家话大声喊，“我是台湾人”，成了保命的语言。
翁通逢医师决定离开东北逃回台湾是在一九四五年的冬天，那是一个冰冷的劫后余生的冬天：
那时是十一月，看到一群从北满疏开（疏散）来的年轻人，大约有一百人左右，都是二十来岁。本来年轻人应该很勇、有气魄，可是他们的衣服竟被扒光，身上只用稻草当衣服遮着，在零下二十度里，走路垂头丧气。
我看他们走路不大稳，心想这群人大概活不了多久了。我尾随在后，想看看他们住在哪里？他们住进一个日本人的小学校，里面也没什么东西，光是冷就冷得厉害了。经过三个星期我再去看，学校运动场像个坟墓。
我想到了夏天那个死人坑会流出死人水，流行病可能就发生，看来不离开东北不行了。
I never know that the Japanese immigrants were so miserable in Manchuria. I read a report by 梅濟民 「五千公里雪山大逃亡」描寫關東軍在日本投降後逃離東北的慘況。
This is human, when they are winners they make other people suffer and when they lose, they are as pity as they can be.
關東軍在滿州的暴行可說是「磬竹難書」。I watched many WWII documentaries. The Russians at the end of war and the Germans in the beginning of the war were both cruel and inhumane. The Japanese were not better. Neither the Chinese, nor the Greeks under Alexandria, nor the Mongols under Genghis Khan.
「天地不仁，以萬物為芻狗」。This is how nature makes fast evolution. Only through such a unmerciful elimination, the living organism can reach human intelligence in 3 billion years. Think it this way, "only one in a thousand can survive in one generation" is equivalent to "the best is found after a thousand simultaneous trials."
War was inevitable when human population cannot be controlled. There is no nice way to kill. When birth control pill is invented, things began to change. Nature never thought this could happen. Without selection, human race will deteriorate. This will be the bigger problem of humanity in the next thousand years.
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