Tu An: Portrait of a poet and translator

By Li Xiao, Chen Boyuan
0 Comment(s)Print E-mail China.org.cn, May 31, 2017

On April 19, 2017, the 94-year-old Mr. Tu An talks with a journalist from China.org.cn in his apartment. [Photo by Chen Boyuan / China.org.cn ]


Tu studied English from sixth grade. Back in middle school, he even went to a night school in Shanghai just to enlarge his command of the English language. The headmistress/teacher of that Oxford English school was an elderly British lady whose pet hate was an American accent. She insisted on teaching her students to learn to speak like a true member of the London elite. Thanks to the good teacher, Tu does indeed still sound like an English aristocrat. Many years later when he visited Glasgow, Scotland, he was asked to recite a poem by Robert Burns, a famous Scottish poet. His authentic pronunciations surprised the locals.

In college, Tu read widely in the public library at the municipal council offices in the old "Shanghai concession". Most of the books there were in English, encompassing classics from ancient times to modern days. He applied for a membership there and enjoyed his time amid an ocean of books. He talked about his gains, saying "don't do the grammar first. Instead, the first thing you should do is to read. You should be able to speak that language first and then the grammar will follow before you know it. Know first why a book is particularly brilliant, what are its profound meanings, how the rhyme is constructed [in poetry] and what emotions they create when you read it aloud. Grammar is but a secondary thing. Just let it go. Even if you don't understand it, it doesn't matter. If you actually spend time in learning the grammar, the process will be reversed."

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