在我写我的英文版自传小说“Father Son & Violin”《父子琴》的过程中，碰到许多具有新中国特色的词汇我想知道准确的意思和译法，比如“反右”、“四旧”、“斗私批修”等等。等这次回国，我到上海书城翻遍所有的中文字典词典，却都没找到以上词汇的痕迹。这使得我百思不得其解。想想5、7年打了200万右派，文革初期“破四旧”毁坏了无数的家庭，文革中“斗私批修”整伤整死多少人……而这些我们新中国两代人亲身经历过的事情，这些铭刻在我们心中血淋淋的字迹，在中国的字典词典上却没有它们存在的一席之地；我这次回国做生意正好碰上文革“5、16通知”四十周年纪念日，而祖国的媒体、广播电视报刊杂志没发一个音节没出一个文字。还有许多类似令人啼笑皆非的现象，比如在祖国的任何论坛上发个帖子，“文革”这两个字就变成了“**”，“文化大革命”就变成了“*****”。据说还有许多被打成******的中国词汇，比如 “某某功”什么的。好像这样做，过去的那些荒唐和惨剧就会没有发生过，现在正在发生的事情就会自行消失。更有甚者，在毛泽东缔造的新中国的今天，居然我所到过的任何书店都买不到毛主席语录（那本中国历史上曾经最最畅销的书籍），惟独在上海外文书店找到一本英文版“毛泽东语录”，一看价格吓我一跳，那半个巴掌大一个巴掌厚的小红本本标价居然是75人民币（在机场是95人民币）。一问才知道那是外国人出版外国人印刷，中国人仅仅是为了经济效益才作为货物进口的。

这一切让我意外和惊讶，使我震撼，令我毛骨悚然，不由又想起不少往事，比如怀疑起文革中看到的油画“井冈山林彪会师毛泽东” 、“毛主席去安源”里的那些事情历史上是否真的发生过？还有国家主席刘少奇，为建立和建设新中国辛苦了一辈子，到死却连同自己的名字一起被烧成灰的权利都被剥夺！此外我还试着问了问现在的青年人有关“文化大革命”，即使那些知道一点点的，也“只听说好像是四人帮搞的。” 连我们新中国这两代人自己亲身经历过来的事情，都如此地被捏造、歪曲、隐瞒、无视，让我们如何能不质疑我们小时候所受的一切正面教育，比如台湾人民是如何地生活在水深火热之中；帝国主义是如何地黑暗腐朽；我们又是如何地朋友遍天下；有着三大发明的中华民族是如何地优秀……

无论是过去有意对历史的捏造和歪曲，还是今天选择对历史的隐瞒和无视，都说明“真实”对我们的民族来说，是多么地可怕。

我也害怕，害怕无论我如何努力写作，以及我的作品达到如何的质量，只要有关键人物不喜欢就会像中国发生过的所有事情一样被屏蔽，被无视和忘却。我真实的故事，也和所有中国真实的历史一样，兴许只能用外国人的语言被保留在外国人的data库里。

我猛然想起天安门那水晶玻璃里的存在，悟出那是个何等英明的举动。因为若不那样，不定什么时候将有人怀疑“那‘四个伟大’的主人以及他的时代是否真的存在过”？

我用英文写作的理由，除了别的，也为忘却的纪念。

成丹 九哥

无奈有感于祖国

http://www.danielviolins.com/jg/

（请海外的朋友帮忙把下面的英文版贴到各英文论坛上去，谢谢）

For the Memory of Effacement

Since I started to translate my autobiography “Father Son & Violin” from Chinese into English I encountered quite some New China characterized terms such as “anti-right wings” “breaking the four olds” “anti-individualism and animadverting revisionism” that I would like to double check the accurate meaning and the proper English translation.

For this purpose I exploited a business excuse visiting my motherland where I devoted much of my time to the Shanghai Foreign Language Book Store, which is supposed to be one of the biggest in the vast country. However, to my astonishment and amazement, after my fingers gone through all the Chinese dictionaries that I could find in the bookstore no such terms listed above existed.

That still remains perplexed despite of much thought. Let’s flash back to the year 1957, around 2,000,000 Chinese, with the majority of intellectuals were persecuted both politically and physically during the “anti-right movement”; the same is true that at the beginning of the Chinese Cultural Revolution in 1966, numerous families were ruined by the “break four olds” movement; moreover countless Chinese suffered enormously, many even lost their lives in the most miserable and inhuman ways during the 10-year Cultural Revolution chaos under the slogan “anti-individualism and animadverting revisionism”. The tragedies that we two Chinese generations personally experienced with our soul and flesh, those words carved in our hearts with blood, yet found no room for their existence in any of our modern Chinese dictionaries.

The longer I stayed in my motherland the more awkward things seemed to emerge to me, for instance when I tried to read something on the web, many words such as the “Cultural Revolution” appear on the screen to be “*****”. As if by doing so the “Cultural Revolution” could have not taken place. The oddest thing above all, was in any bookstores I visited in China I found no Mao’s little red bible for sale, which was once the best seller in the Chinese book market history, except, at an international airport I happened to see a hand thick and a half hand sized English version “Mao Zedong’s Quotations” at the price 10 times higher than a normal Chinese book of the same volume. It became quite understandable when the sales girl told me, “It is published and printed in a foreign country, and we imported it only for the need of the market.” I knew she meant “for the need of money.”

There is something furthermore made me more terrified than surprised, or shocked. That was after I heard when the ????er Chinese state-chairman Liu Shaoqi passed away he was cremated under somebody else’s name. We all know Liu devoted all his life to the establishment and construction of the New China, and during Mao’s Cultural Revolution he was politically and physically persecuted for years until his last breath. What a world it would be when people couldn’t even die with one’s own name!

I tested some teenagers about the awareness of the “Cultural Revolution”, to those who know a little remarked, “The gang of four was to blame”, or “Why ask? That part of the history should be forgotten”.

Think that even the iron facts that we two generations experienced personally being so much falsely made up, distorted, or covered up, how could we not to doubt the whole education that we were crammed during our childhood, teaches such as how awful life the people in Taiwan were suffering; how dark and rotten the imperialistic countries were; how our friends were all over the world; and with the three great inventions in the history how outstanding our Chinese nation was among the others…

Suddenly the Mao’s remains in the crystal coffin at Tiananmen square stroke me hard, made me realize how wise and astute the action was chosen, for if the remains had not remained, someday someone might ask whether Mao as a living human had ever actually existed?

Regardless past’s intention of the history being distorted or falsely made up, or today’s choosing of the actualities being covered up or effaced, all tell one and single fact: to our nation, “truth” is a fearful monster.

I am scared too, scared to the result that regardless how much effort I put on my writing, and no matter how high level my humble works might reach, as long as disliked by some key persons in China, like all unpleasant occurrences in the Chinese history, would be shielded, censored, eliminated, and vanished before they given a chance to show their faces. My true stories, also like all the other Chinese true history, perhaps could only be written in a foreign language reserved in a foreign database.

I start to write in Ch-english, besides other reasons, also for the memory of effacement.

Daniel Chenglish

(A Chinese Norwegian writer living in Japan, with Chinese pen name known as Nine Brother)

Written with helpless feeling in Japan

PS: A native English writing partner wanted

http://www.danielviolins.com/jg
jiuge99999@hotmail.com