the new issue of Paris Review includes an interview with Ha Jin, a Chinese author who writes in English. in the interview, he explains his reasons for this, and also gives some clues to written Chinese language. here's a passage from the interview:
INTERVIEWER: "What are the main differences between the two languages?"
HA JIN: "English has more flexibility. It’s a very plastic, very shapeable, very expressive language. In that sense it feels quite natural. The Chinese language is less natural. Written Chinese is not supposed to represent natural speech, and there are many different spoken dialects that correspond to the single written language. The written word will be the same in all dialects, but in speech it is a hundred different words. The written language is like Latin in that sense; it doesn’t have a natural rhythm. The way people talk — you can’t represent that. The accents and the nongrammatical units, you can’t do it. You can’t write in dialect, like you can in English, using a character to represent a certain sound, because each character has a fixed meaning."
here some more passages of the interview, online: The Art of Fiction / Ha Jin
reading these interview passages also made me remember Ha Jin's book "In the Pond" - i read it last year in february, in german, thinking that the original book is in chinese. it was only later, when i looked for his biography while reading, that i realized he is bilingual, and writes in english - and that i thus could have read his original work, which i generally prefer. (link)
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China#1: and to follow the national bestseller research, i just browsed pages, doubting that i would come across a chinese book shop - but here's something that at least gives a taste, with the 'Quotations from Chairman Mao' ranking on #1 of the bestseller list: Chinabooks.
and.
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