West Meets East

By Igor A. Bagrov and Huichun Chen

West Meets East presents an ambitious and creative celebration of how two cultures intersect at the junction of words, concepts, and language. Featuring both poetic and prose pieces chosen to showcase both the similarities and differences between the two basic cultures of the West and the Orient, these translations provide exciting new insight into modern literature. Using side-by-side comparisons, this collection illustrates how people in these two cultures perceive the same images, psychological issues, emotions, concrete behaviour, and themes.

Presented in full text in both English and Chinese, these selections also offer an exciting and practical way to study and learn both languages. Instead of being forced to resort to a dictionary, readers need only look to the facing page to see the full equivalent of the text in the other language.

Filled with poignant, emotional imagery, these poems and essays explore the timeless themes of love, longing, and the search for meaning in life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Apr 2, 2014
• ISBN: 9781482890952

Igor A. Bagrov

Mr. HuiChun Chen, a successful businessman, proud father, and happy husband, finds fulfilment in writing poetry. Mr. Stan Xiao is a talented English-speaking Chinese translator who lives in Taiwan. Mr. Alyosha Chen applied his many skills—translator, editor, and designer—to this project. Dr. Igor A. Bagrov, an ambitious American educator in Taiwan, is currently working on his Bilingual Books Library (BBL).

Book preview

WEST

MEETS

EAST

HUICHUN CHEN & IGOR A. BAGROV

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Copyright © 2014 by Huichun Chen & Igor A. Bagrov.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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Contents

A LETTER TO THE SON

給兒子的一封信

ALWAYS AND FOREVER…

愛，永不停歇

MY DEAR WRINKLED HANDS…

我最思念的那雙手

From 16 to Eternity

拾陸歲的永恆

The Happy Hour of Dawn

清晨時光

My Merry-Go-Round

旋轉木馬 轉 轉 轉

WHAT’S WRONG?

交叉線

A LETTER TO THE SON

My dear turtling,

Today you are turning thirty, and I wish so much I had been with you on this day and not overseas, thousands miles and light years away. Alas, I haven’t been invited… You will say I am growing sentimental, and, perhaps, I am. But I am afraid you have always mistaken true love for sentimentality. Though, the distinction is simple: the latter never goes beyond sweet (and most often, trite and hollow) words, the former is all deeds and care, real sacrificial and selfness.

Of course, the tradition of sticking to certain dates in the calendar and commemorating events of the past may ring hollow to you, and I agree in part: if those events do not carry any special, life-changing significance for you, they are just rubbish to be discarded and forgotten; but if they were (and still are) the most important landmarks in your history, you will never let them fade away from your mind and, especially, heart. And you are the most important landmark in my history, and you know it.

When you appeared in my life, you awakened the feelings dormant (even non-existent altogether, as I thought) in my careless and confident that the world was just obliged to pour love on me in the quantity and quality sufficient to quench my thirst (or,