Bob Chen's Chit-Chat #1

On Translating Chinese Poems into English I believe both Peter Tong and I are good enough in catching Tony Kwok's main themes in English; however, a good translator should preserve the accuracy of the words in their original language (Chinese, written and spoken). None of us caught the actual words used in the title. It should be "Sun-deck" instead of porch, balcony, veranda ... Then again both Peter and I realized that Sun and night sort of not quite matching, so porch/balcony seems to be OK. To be exact, and taking Cantonese and Mandarin/Shanghainese into consideration, Sun-deck becomes "riding building" which sounds and reads funny!

On The Excerpt from "Book and Sword..." S.S. is very observant in pointing the excerpt from Kam Yung, owner of Ming Po, Basic-law committee member, and what not. Although Kam Yung qualifies to be MCP (i.e., male chauvinist pig) number one, his words are better than D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover,or Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer. I agree that the write-ups leading to the basic-laws might contain lots of dirty jokes or more salty and wet stuffs.