[Repost] Xiao Jinlong’s questions about the book “Fish is Fish” and the translator’s response

Orig­i­nal address:Xiao Jin­long’s ques­tions about the book “Fish is Fish” and the trans­la­tor’s responseauthor:-Mud life-

[Mud Life] Spe­cial Issue (Issue 74)

 Text/Haiyan
Ajia …

 

Li Ling:

 

When I was telling Jin­long about the book “Fish is Fish” trans­lat­ed by Mr. Ajia, my son told me after the third read­ing:

 

“Mom, this book is wrong.” It’s right there on the page where the frog hap­pened to be catch­ing a but­ter­fly near­by, and it pushed it back into the riv­er. My son said, “Mom, you see, it’s car­ry­ing the fish back into the pond. That’s how it’s pic­tured in the book. And if the frog pushed the fish, would­n’t it have been hurt? Its stom­ach would have burst.” I was at a loss for words, not know­ing how to respond. I could only say, “Son, if I ever get the chance to meet Mr. Jia, the teacher who trans­lat­ed this book, I’ll tell him your exact words.”

 

My son usu­al­ly nit­picks about words in his books, but I some­times men­tion it, and often I write it down and tell the teacher if I can see him. But this time, I’m hop­ing Li Ling can tell Teacher Ajia for me. I don’t know how to answer my child’s ques­tion. Thank you!

 

Gold­en Drag­on Moth­er
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Teacher Ajia,

 

This is a sto­ry about Haiyan from Dong­ba Com­mu­ni­ty (she is one of the first fam­i­lies in our project and also par­tic­i­pat­ed in last year’s Seed Sto­ry­teller train­ing) and her son Jin­long read­ing togeth­er.

 

She saw me yes­ter­day morn­ing and asked me to tell you.

 

Haha, I’m curi­ous, what is your answer?

 

Li Ling
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Hel­lo, Haiyan!

 

I’m so glad Jin­long asked such a good ques­tion! They say “chil­dren are the best crit­ics,” and it seems to make sense. Per­haps few peo­ple have noticed such a sub­tle point, and I haven’t noticed it myself either.

 

I care­ful­ly checked the orig­i­nal text of the book, and here is the orig­i­nal Eng­lish text: “… with all his strength pushed him back
into the pond.”
Lit­er­al­ly trans­lat­ed, the frog uses all its strength to push the fish back into the pond. The word “push” here is the orig­i­nal mean­ing of the author, Lionel Leonid, and the trans­la­tor must respect his mean­ing.

 

But what exact­ly does Lioni mean here? Could he have made a mis­take? Chil­dren should be taught that every­one makes mis­takes, includ­ing mas­ters like Lioni. But Lioni may have had a spe­cif­ic idea in mind. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, he’s been dead for many years, so we can’t ask him per­son­al­ly. We can only spec­u­late.

 

I sus­pect that Lionel Mes­si empha­sizes the phrase “exert­ing all his strength” here. It’s incred­i­bly dif­fi­cult for the frog to get the fish into the pond, as a frog would­n’t nor­mal­ly be able to move a fish on land. But the fish is the frog’s best friend, so the frog des­per­ate­ly tries to get the fish back into the pond. It’s dif­fi­cult, but nec­es­sary. If the frog had sim­ply car­ried the fish back into the pond, like an adult car­ry­ing a child, that would have been emo­tion­al­ly weak. There­fore, I think Lionel Mes­si’s use of the word “push” is inten­tion­al.

 

Look­ing at the pic­ture, let us imag­ine a series of actions: the fish is lying on the grass a few steps away from the edge of the pond. The frog wants to get the fish back into the water, so he prob­a­bly has to push the fish’s head, then push the fish’s tail, and final­ly get to the water’s edge. He then lifts the fish up and puts it into the water. Although the pic­ture book only has two con­sec­u­tive pic­tures, this is also a com­plete process, and the pic­ture book only cap­tures two of the pic­tures.

 

How­ev­er, Lit­tle Gold­en Drag­on’s oth­er con­cern is also com­mend­able: he’s wor­ried about dam­ag­ing the fish’s bel­ly by push­ing it into the water. This is a good con­cern, and it demon­strates his kind­ness. I’m sure Frog would have con­sid­ered this for his friend. We can rest assured, Lit­tle Gold­en Drag­on, that a fish’s bel­ly gen­er­al­ly takes up very lit­tle space. When a fish lies on the ground, it’s on its side, per­haps what you might call its back. Aside from the bel­ly, the fish’s body is cov­ered in scales, which pro­vide excel­lent pro­tec­tion.

 

If you are slid­ing on the grass, the fish scales can not only pre­vent the body from being hurt, but also play a cer­tain role in assist­ing slid­ing. In this regard, it is com­plete­ly pos­si­ble to take your lit­tle gold­en drag­on to do an exper­i­ment. When you buy a fish, let him expe­ri­ence the body struc­ture of the fish.

 

Pic­ture books as a medi­um are often close­ly relat­ed to life expe­ri­ence. We can bring chil­dren into books, or we can bring them out­side of books. Both are read­ing.

 

The above opin­ions are for your and Xiao Jin­long’s ref­er­ence:)

 

Ajia …

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Hel­lo, Teacher Ajia!

 

I would like to thank Mr. Ajia for his reply. Not to men­tion your ded­i­ca­tion as a read­ing pro­mot­er, but also your respect for the trans­la­tor. Receiv­ing your reply also shows your respect for every read­er.

 

I’m excit­ed. I’ll take a clos­er look at your email about your under­stand­ing of Mr. Lion­ni’s book. I’ll retell Jin­long the sto­ry this evening so I can explain his ques­tions. And your last sen­tence remind­ed me of some­thing I’d for­got­ten to relate to in real life. A few days ago, my hus­band told him the sto­ry of the crow and the drinker, and men­tioned that he and his son were doing an exper­i­ment with a bot­tle dur­ing the day. But I got busy and for­got about it.

 

Pic­ture books have strength­ened my rela­tion­ship with my son, and I’ve tru­ly fall­en in love with them. We still enjoy read­ing and shar­ing books every night. I have to share that since my son was three years old and first encoun­tered Li Ling and her friends, both he and I have fall­en in love with pic­ture books.

 

One night, my son had a high fever and insist­ed I tell him a sto­ry. He was three weeks and two months old at the time. We were read­ing “Rain­bow Flower.” I said, “Okay, let’s turn on the lights.” He refused, so I told him the sto­ry from mem­o­ry. When he closed his eyes, I paused. He said, “Mom, keep going.” I told him the sto­ry four times before he fell asleep. In the past, nei­ther of us had any bet­ter way to deal with him; he would just keep cry­ing when he was uncom­fort­able.

 

When he became obsessed with “The Growth Sto­ry of Frog the Frog,” he even wrote a sto­ry called “Frog Goes to Hualian Super­mar­ket,” which he asked me to record for you. He also drew sev­er­al pic­tures of the growth process of seeds, and the flow­ers he drew were all col­or­ful. All of this is thanks to par­ent-child read­ing.

 

I’m also still find­ing my way in par­ent-child read­ing with my son. So many sto­ries have hap­pened between us thanks to pic­ture books. They say rela­tion­ships are the foun­da­tion of all com­mu­ni­ca­tion and author­i­ty. I think I’ve achieved that now, and I’ll con­tin­ue to work hard.

 

Thank you again, Teacher Ajia and Li Ling. I’m doing my best to work with you and I’m will­ing to share my sto­ry with every­one. I also want to encour­age chil­dren to grow from read­ers to cre­ators, as Li Ling said.

 

Gold­en Drag­on Moth­er Haiyan wish­es you all the best!

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