Renditions
Nos. 53 & 54 (Spring & Autumn 2000) Chinese Impressions of the West
By Zhang Deyi
Translated by D.E. Pollard
TONGZHI 8th year 2nd month 6th day [18 March 1869, Paris].
To end these excerpts on a happy note, Zhang Deyi wrote this after a convivial conversation over drinks with a dozen men and women of several nationalities:
I reflected that the five continents in the world have populations of countless millions who are separated by distances of thousands of miles. If you listen to their speech, it mostly grates on the ears. As to their tastes, invariably they differ like flesh from fowl. The tropics and the ice-caps experience the extremes of heat and cold; steam trains and iron bridges extend to where carriages and boats cannot reach. Some differences are such as the mind could not have imagined. Yet though people's clothes may differ eccentrically, what makes one person glad makes another glad, what makes one person sorrow makes another sorrow: feelings do not vary. Though customs are not the same, what is good everyone thinks is good, what is evil everyone thinks is evil: human nature is the same. From the point of view of high heaven, far and near are indeed one whole, all the world is one family. On my missions I have now travelled widely overseas, seen what I had not seen before; I can say already that my voyages have not been in vain. Furthermore, in my study of foreign ways I have also had them explained to me by good friends, and my eyes and ears have been opened. As just now when we met to converse together, the talk was genial and the mood was of trust and familiarity. Surely there is no joy so great! Surely there is no joy so great! It is because I was so pleased that I have made this note.
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Research Centre for Translation, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.