Pages 209-217
A reading route prepared by Can, Ge (FLAC only)
Image Credit: View of the entrance to Tamsui Harbour
无主之地，无缘之岛。
A land with no master; an island with no chance encounter.
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你用瓦片切它、用砖头砸它、用牙齿啃它，急欲知道它珍藏着什么 — 也不能不有海枣、台湾海枣，否则三百多年前那些汉子们如何得以遥望着长满台湾海枣的海岸而喊出：“Ilha Formosa!” 虽然据说这是他们东行以来所命名的第十二个美丽之岛。
婆娑之洋，美丽之岛。
……so solid you cut them with a broken tile, smashed them with a brick, even gnawed them with your teeth, eager to know what treasure was hidden inside. There also had to be ocean dates, Taiwanese ocean dates, or else how could those men 300 years ago gaze upon a coastline teeming with Taiwanese ocan dates and shout, “Ilha Formosa!”? It didn’t matter that this was said to be the twelfth “beautiful island” they’d so named on their eastbound voyage.
A shimmering ocean; a beautiful island.
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这是哪里？… …你放声大哭。
… …
婆娑之洋，美丽之岛, 我先王先民之景命，实式凭之。
What is this place? …..You began to wail.
A shimmering ocean, a beautiful island, the essential site of our sage kings and wise elders’ destiny.
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可憎的绿，湿滑的城，总督垂垂老矣，有着远古的双眼。
—-D.H. 劳伦斯
In the disgusting green and slippery damp city, the aging Governor and ancient eyes.
—-D.H. Lawrence
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你只得循山腰小径往记忆中的清山岩去，江面被正午太阳照得迷离难直视。“长崎の情调，鹿儿岛の风光”，日人如此描述过你眼前的古城，那应该是岩石政男少年时代吧。
You were forced to follow the little path that stuck in your memory toward Qingshui yan, Clear Water Cliff. The noonday sun shone down on the river, the glare so bright you had to look away. “The ambience of Nagasaki, the scenery of Kagoshima,” is how the Japanese described the ancient city before you, which must have been during Iwasato Masao’s youth.
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Quotation Analysis
“无主之地，无缘之岛” . “A land with no master; an island with no chance encounter”. “之“ is the classic Chinese and it can be simplified as “的” which means “of” or “with” in English. We agree that the English translation is direct and neat. It captures the basic meaning of this sentence. However, the English text uses “chance encounter” to explain “缘“, where the original meaning is “fate” or “karma”. It is also noteworthy that even though “无主之地，无缘之岛“, in direct translation, means the places (地, 岛) that we are unable to reach, in the original text, the author uses the sentence to refer to the lost youth (like age of sixteen, seventeen), and good times that we can never return to.
Here we find some variations of “无主之地，无缘之岛”. They all have similarities or discrepancy on format or meanings of “无主之地，无缘之岛”.
Variation One Analysis
婆娑之洋，美丽之岛. “A shimmering ocean; a beautiful island”. This is the most obvious variation that has the exactly same format as “无主之地，无缘之岛”. The author actually mentions the sentence twice in the book, and here we are going to talk about the first time it appears in the text.
The tone of “婆娑之洋，美丽之岛” is relatively positive. It praises the beauty and fertility of the island (Taiwan). Although the English translation gets the basic idea, it does not show the “movement” indicated in the original text: “婆娑”, in Chinese, creates a sense of movement – like dancing, whirling. The original Chinese format and the word choice (eg. “婆娑”, “洋”) also delivers a dreamy and romantic feeling that the English translation does not quite deliver.
Variation Two Analysis
The second “婆娑之洋，美丽之岛” is the last sentence of the book. It has the same meaning as the previous one but indicates different things because of the different context. The previous one refer to an real existing island – Taiwan. But here, it refers to an imaginary island. It form a sharp contrast with “floating corpse”, “belched dark smoke”, “wild dog”, “high-pitched sounds of a funeral song” and so on which are indicating in the previous paragraph. The imagination is beautiful, but the reality is cruel.
Variation Three Analysis
“可憎的绿，湿滑的城” has the similar format as the “无主之地，无缘之岛” ( XX’s XX). However, “可憎的绿，湿滑的城” gives a gloomy and clammy feeling, while the tone of “无主之地，无缘之岛” is relatively neutral. Like the other variations, the English translation is direct and simple (simply translating every single word); the word choice (“digesting”, “slippery damp”) does well convey both the meaning and feeling of the original text.
Variation Four Analysis
The meaning of “长崎の情调，鹿儿岛の风光” is the ambience of Nagasaki, the scenery of Kagoshima. We can see that the format of this sentence is same as “无主之地，无缘之岛”, which is also like XX的XX. “の” is a Japanese word also means “的“ in Chinese and “of ” in english. Unlike “可憎的绿，湿滑的城”, the tone of “长崎の情调，鹿儿岛の风光” is more positive. The words “情调” and “风光” give the senses of delightfulness and easiness. However, the English translation is quite mediocre and dull that does not capture the positive feelings of the original text.