A Speck of Dust on a Vast Earth
Table of Contents
- 0. Preface
- 1. Dust Among Dust
- 2. My Family Tree's Roots
- 3. Grandpa's Dreams
- 4. Remembering my Older Brother
- 4.1. 80 Memory Lane: A Life of Three Blessings
- 4.2. The Award of Exceptional Merit
- 4.3. Media Coverage
- 4.4. Yunze's Reflection
- 5. Remembering Three of my Cousins
- 6. My Cousin Xiao Qiai
- 7. Remembering my Cousin Qiling — The Miss Lin that Fell from the Sky
- 8. A Youngster that Left Home
- 9. A Life of Wind and Rain
- 9.1. The Golden Age of My Career
- 9.2. Revolutionary Wind and Rain
Translator’s Note
My grandfather (well, one of them), Liu Zhonghe Chinese: 刘中和, pinyin: líu zhōng hé. , was a Chinese physicist. At the time of writing, he’s 92 years old, and he retired from his academic career over thirty years ago. Since then, he’s written a collection of 3 memoirs of his life: 《雪地征鸿》 Pinyin: xüé dì zhēng hóng. The term 征鸿 evades direct translation. It seems to be a poetic term referring to a far-flying bird, though the connotation varies from “free and majestic” to “desperate”, depending on the context. , 《野草闲云》 Pinyin: yé cǎo xián yún. This title does admit a direct translation: Wildgrass and Carefree Clouds. The back of the print edition contains two poems, one discussing the resilience of the wildgrass that regrows after the hottest fires, and one describing the carefree serenity of clouds. , and 《大地微尘》.
The last book, whose title is (approximately) A Speck of Dust on a Vast Earth, was written in 2020 over the course of three years or so. It’s the book I aim to translate here.
I actually wasn’t able to visit my grandfather between 2019 and 2023 due to the pandemic; when I finally did visit him, he gifted me a (signed!) copy of this book. He asked me if I could read it, and I told him that I could recognised and understand about 85% of the characters. He was overjoyed — between all of his grandchildren, I am the only one that’s capable of understanding his writing. Hence, I thought I should take on this translation project, not just for my cousins, but for the other people in my life that don’t read Chinese, yet may be interested in an element of my family history nonetheless.
More than that, I felt a strange type of spiritual connection with my grandfather while reading this book. A lot of the thoughts and ideas he had felt strangely familiar — at one point, he laments that his life is so small relative to the scale of the universe, and this is something that I know I’ve pondered more than just a few times. We share an oft-frustrating level of indecision, and we both independently chose to pursue academia. I wonder if my appreciation of music comes from him, too. I never realised how similar the two of us are, despite the vast cultural, geographical, and temporal distance between us.
So, over the next however many months or years, I’ll be slowly translating this memoir, in part because of a made-up obligation to preserve and spread my own family history, and in part because I think I’ll learn a lot about myself in the process.
I hope my translation does my grandfather’s writing justice.