Happy New Year to all! Thanks to old friends for their continued support, and a warm welcome to new friends : )
News of the reading club: we hold a monthly reading club that mainly focuses on Taiwan literature. Anyone interested is welcome to join us. The next meeting will be held online at 9:00 am (Taipei Time) on March 17 for Family Catastrophe by Wang Wen-Hsing. If you are interested, feel free to leave a comment, reply to this e-mail message or write to me at transcreation@substack.com to register by March 10.
《翻譯鳥事一籮筐》是中英文雙語電子報。如果只想收到中文版,請到網站右上角的「My Account」內進行操作。有任何問題都歡迎來信聯絡,請直接回覆這封 E-mail 或寫信到 transcreation@substack.com。再次感謝你的訂閱支持!
這篇文章的中文版在這裡。
2023 is over! The other day a friend asked me what I was doing on New Year’s Eve. As I was no longer interested in joining the countdown crowd, I of course stayed at home on New Year’s Eve and was actually … working on my translation. The good news was that I finally finished translating a book that I had been procrastinating for so long, and it must have been a relief for my editor to finally receive the translation. The book is an interdisciplinary study of archeology and anthropology, spanning all five continents from the end of the last Ice Age to the present day — indeed a challenge, but well worth the effort. I look forward to sharing it with you soon.
After finishing that book, I immediately started to work on the next (already overdue) task... Having said that, I did not spend all the 2023 on work though. At the end of the year, Kuang-wei and I flew to Japan, for the first time in nearly 4 years. We visited Kanazawa and the Noto Peninsula, where the locals were really friendly and the food very delicious. We missed the place as soon as we landed on Taiwan.
The beginning of 2024 seems to be quite a shock. A major earthquake hit the Noto Peninsula on New Year’s Day, and many people are still forced to live in shelters. The place I had just visited was suddenly devastated overnight. Shocked as I was, all I could do was to make a little donation to help the recovery of the disaster-stricken areas. The Ministry of Health and Welfare’s donation project is open until this Friday (January 19): https://www.mohw.gov.tw/cp-6672-77124-1.html. Let’s make a donation!
At the end of December 2023, Kuang-wei and I took a five-day trip to Kanazawa and the Noto Peninsula, which were filled with happy memories and wonderful encounters. Affectionately known as Little Kyoto, Kanazawa is dotted with beautiful historic sites such as the Kenrokuen Garden and the Higashi Chaya Street, and the Omicho Market is a must-see for all its vitality and life. The food in Kanazawa was also amazing: all the restaurants we walked in without a prior reservation served great food. But what impressed me most was in fact the generosity and kindness of the people there.
The expression that “the most beautiful scenery of Taiwan is its people” used to sound a bit pretentious to me, and I would think, with much cynicism, if it is a euphemism for Taiwan’s lack of beautiful scenery. But in fact, what makes a trip memorable, in addition to the beautiful scenery and delicious food, are probably the nice people we meet along the way (perhaps adorable birds can also be added to the list).
Kanazawa is a mid-sized city with some foreign tourists. In the later part of our trip as we drove to the Noto Peninsula, we could clearly sense that there were fewer foreign tourists (not many Japanese tourists either). But whether we were in Kanazawa or the Noto Peninsula, the locals were all happy and welcoming when they learned that we had come all the way from Taiwan, and they felt proud to share the best part of their hometown with us. It showed me the bright side of tourism, which could be more than a consumption experience, and the possibility to be met with sincere hospitality (with all its ancient roots) still exists.
I hope all the people we met along the way are well.
By the way, probably because it was winter, I saw a lot of ducks everywhere during this trip. The cold wind was nothing with so many good birds around me. Here is my eBird trip report for those who are interested!