“I am no one in the academic world. I just happened to enter the world, wander for a long time and became a fixture there,” says Nguyen Ton Nhan, who calls himself Ngu Coc (the dwelling of an ignorant person).
Belying his humility, Nhan has translated and compiled volumes of time-honored Chinese philosophical and literary works into Vietnamese to high acclaim from critics and readers alike.
Considered the country’s foremost researcher, translator and poet of Han (ancient Chinese scripts), Nhan was born in 1947 into a Confucianism-influenced family in northern Hai Duong Province.
One day, believing his father had incorrectly written a Han character, the 20-year-old began poring through books searching for the correct character.
From that day forward, Nhan says, his passion for the ancient text only grew stronger.
While many of his peers were eager to study English and French, Nhan engrossed himself in the Han language and never looked back.
But it was another 20 years before the young wordsmith published his first translated work.
Soon after he began receiving calls for translations of Chinese love novels and adventure stories.
“I initially translated books to relieve my family of financial difficulties,” he said.
The humble translator never signed his name to any of his works and even after 40 publications, chose to remain anonymous.
One of Nhan’s great achievements was a translation of Nho Giao Trung Quoc (China’s Confucianism), which comprises more than 1,600 pages.
Before Nhan, distinguished historian-researcher Tran Trong Kim had published a book titled Nho giao (Confucianism) in the 1930s, which is considered to be Vietnam’s first and highly influential work on Confucianism.
Nhan’s book, however, is more comprehensive and detailed than Kim’s and is considered to be the country’s most massive tome on the subject.
Nhan is also the first person in Vietnam to translate the two-volume Hoai Nam Tu - Huainanzi (The Masters/Philosophers of Huainan), which, he says, “illuminates a thriving period in the history of Chinese philosophy 2000 years ago.”
Huainanzi is a 2nd century BCE Chinese philosophical classic from China’s Han dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) that fuses Taoist, Confucianist, and Legalist concepts including theories such as Yin-Yang and the Five Phases.
It was written under the patronage of Liu An, King of Huainan, a legendary prodigious author.
The text, also known as the Huainan honglie (The great brilliance of huainan), is a collection of essays based on literary and philosophical debates between Liu and guests at his court, in particular the scholars known as the Eight Immortals of Huainan.
“The book is credited with assembling, interpreting and systemizing scattered ideologies and documents in the period prior to the Qin Dynasty (221 BC-206 BC) which unified China,” Nhan said.
The book is also among Nhan’s most revered translations.
He is currently working on Dai Tu Dien Tho Duong (Grand dictionary of poems composed during the Tang Dynasty), which he says will take three years to complete.
When finished, the assemblage will feature 2,000 translated poems and details on the authors’ biographies, works and literary allusions.
According to Nhan, there are nearly 50,000 such poems in China – 1,000 of which have been translated into Vietnamese.
“I try to be as faithful as possible to the originals in styles and tones, which is quite a challenging task,” Nhan said.
“No matter how demanding the job is, I’m happy that I can do what my heart desires, as poetry has also been my greatest passion,” he added.
Despite significant accomplishments in translating and compiling Chinese texts, Nhan always regards himself first as a poet.
“Unlike research and translations which are based on others’ thoughts and ideas, composing my own verse allows me to freely express myself,” he said.
“I research time-honored works, but my poems are innovative in ideas, style and vocabulary,” he said.
Though his house is overwhelmed with Chinese texts, the 61-year-old, who likes to don ba ba (traditional Vietnamese casual clothes), says he is still entirely Vietnamese at heart.
“Besides, there is an intimate connection between Vietnamese culture and its Chinese counterpart; so I study Chinese culture as well and the longer I study, the more I am mesmerized,” he said.
Reported by Hai Mien |
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