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Han's musings on the impossibility of universalizing or normalizing language and truth reveal a deeply Chinese, unmistakably Daoist strain of thought. "The Way that can be spoken is not the constant Way," pronounced Laozi, the great Daoist philosopher, and Han constantly draws attention to the confusion, comedy, and calamity that result from the uses and abuses of language, from the failure to accept the insufficiency of language. Yet neither, as A.C. Graham tells us, do Daoists reject language as useless.
Taoists are trying to communicate a knack, an aptitude, a way of living… [They] do not think in terms of discovering Truth or Reality. They merely have the good sense to remind us of the limitations of the language which they use to guide us towards that altered perspective on the world and that knack of living. To point the direction they use stories, verses, aphorisms, any verbal means which come to hand. Far from having no need for words, they require all available resources of literary art.
Equally, how could Han, in undertaking the daunting task of compiling a dictionary, deny his esteem for language? Instead, his range of writing styles, subjects, and discussion reveal a truly Daoist ope
In tune with this Daoist receptiveness to ideas and influences, the book is as international and universal as it is local and particular. Han places himself within a broad cha
A note about the translation
When I first wrote to Han Shaogong asking for his permission to translate A Dictionary ofMaqiao, I received a friendly but slightly bemused response. "I am very happy that you wish to translate the book, but I'm afraid it will be terribly difficult." He probably thought I was mad even to have suggested translating a book written in Chinese, about the language of one tiny corner of southern China, into English.
I plunged on regardless and, for the most part, I have translated the novel in its entirety, from the 1997 Shanghai wenyi chubanshe edition. There are, however, five entries from the novel that I deemed to be so heavily dependent in the Chinese original on puns between dialect and Mandarin Chinese as to make extensive and distracting linguistic explanations necessary in English. I therefore decided, with the author's permission, to omit from my translation the following entries: "Bayuan"; "Lian xiang"; "Liu shi"; "Po nao"; "Xian"; and the final paragraph of the entry "Reincarnation."
On the theme of dictionaries, the reader will find an alphabetically arranged glossary at the end of the book to explain any possibly unfamiliar terms that occur in the text. I have included also a list of principal characters and a guide to pronunciation of Chinese words.
– Julia Lovell
Guide to Pronunciation of Transliterated Chinese
According to the pinyin system, transliterated Chinese is pronounced as in English, except for the following:
a (as the only letter following a consonant): a as in after
ai: I (or eye)
ao: ow as in how
e: uh
ei: ay as in say
en: on as in lemon
eng: ung as in sung
i (as the only letter following most consonants): e as in me
i (when following c, ch, s, sh, zh, z): er as in driver
ia: yah
ian: yen
ie: yeah
iu: yo as in yo-yo
o: o as in fork
ong: oong
ou: o as in no
u (when following most consonants): oo as in food
u (when following j, q, x, y): u as the German (i
ua: wah
uai: why
uan: wu-an
uang: wu-ang
ui: way
uo: u-who
yan: yen
yi: ee as in feed
c: ts as in its
g: g as in good
q: ch as in chat
x: sh as in she
z: ds as in folds
zh: j as in job
Editorial Note [2]
Producing the dictionary of a village has been a somewhat experimental undertaking for us.
We received this offering from the dictionary's compiler, Han Shaogong, a renowned gentleman of letters whose oeuvre includes "Homecoming," "Dadada," "Womanwomanwoman," and a host of other hugely influential works, and whose mighty skills in penmanship extend to both fiction and essays; not, however, to dictionaries. But having considered the specialized content of this dictionary, as well as the opportunity that a lexicon affords for exploration and discussion, we encouraged his brave experiment and permitted him to retain his own distinctive literary style within the work.
To clarify for the reader:
1. The compiler originally arranged the entries in alphabetical order. In order to make it easier for readers to grasp the narrative thread and to increase the readability of the novel, the entries were rearranged into their present order. The original index of headings (presented in the "List of Entries" which follows this section), however, was retained to make the book easier to consult.
2. Each word has a certain geographical range. If the symbol *' appears before an entry, it means use of the word is not limited to Maqiao. Conversely, if the symbol * appears before an entry, it means that use of the word is limited to Maqiao, or even that it is used only by one individual in Maqiao.
3. For ease of reading, the author has used as little dialect as possible in the definitions. However, this should not prevent interested readers from using the knowledge of dialect this book provides by mentally replacing corresponding words in definitions with dialect as they read. In so doing, a reader can get even closer to the original feel of life in Maqiao.
[2] This Editorial Note was included in the original Chinese edition.