wing taste, and in January 1941 Chairman
Mao wrote famously: “Effectively implement
the Latin movement, the more widespread,
the better!” The full weight of Chairman’s
inscription has kept its deep impact on the
mind of the Chinese intelligentsia until in
the 1980’s, the era of Reform and Openness.
The poem I present below may give an
explanation why Romanization could better
stay an idea:
Traditional Chinese
《施氏食獅史》
石室詩士施氏，嗜獅，誓食十獅。
氏時時適市視獅。
十時，適十獅適市。
是時，適施氏適市。
氏視是十獅，恃矢勢，使是十獅逝
世。
氏拾是十獅屍，適石室。
石室濕，氏使侍拭石室。
石室拭，氏始試食是十獅。
食時，始識是十獅屍，實十石獅屍。
試釋是事。
He saw those ten lions, and using his trusty
arrows, caused the ten lions to die.
He brought the corpses of the ten lions to
the stone den.
The stone den was damp. He asked his
servants to wipe it.
After the stone den was wiped, he tried to
eat those ten lions.
When he ate, he realized that these ten lions
were in fact ten stone lion corpses.
Try to explain this matter.
...sporty Chinese
netizens avoid the
state censorship:
by substituting the
censored character with
another of the same
sound.
Translation
« Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den »
In a stone den was a poet with the family
name Shi, who was a lion addict, and had
resolved to eat ten lions.
He often went to the market to look for
lions.
At ten o’clock, ten lions had just arrived at
the market.
At that time, Shi had just arrived at the
market.
| BANZA
| BANZA
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