Guyuans' Inviting Areola

Over the last week I’ve been getting my feet wet with some translation work.

I’ve been tasked with helping two fellow teachers translate documents from official State texts into English for a book that will be published on the many benefits of living in and visiting Ningxia.

No small task.

The texts are written by an unknown government official and they read like it. Any chance to flourish words, expound great virtues and dally on details is taken. Forget taken - it’s relished.

“The great Emperor Chengjisihan stationed troops of great, spent wonderful summer and died on this greatest mountain, contributing his illustratious name to the most high mountains’ greatness.”

Emperor Chengjisihan died hundreds of years ago and his treatment includes four uses of “great,” an “illustrious” (I can assume - spelling errors abound), a “wonderful” and a “most high” in one damn sentence.

You should read the section on Chairman Mao.

Slogging through these paragraphs requires a certain amount of adjectival fortitude.

My favorite so far has been a sentence on Guyuans’ history. Be forewarned, this is a sentence, not a paragraph.

“Guyuan is a beautiful city with a long history and in this lovely land, historical and cultural relics spread all over this area with the ruins of the Qin Dynasty Great Wall; Xiaoguan ,one of the four famous passes in Han Dynasty; the ruins of Kublakahn’s son’s mansion - An’xi Mansion in Yuan Dynasty and the rock caves in Mount Xumi; Guyuan Museum, one of the national important museums, making a concentrate and reappearance of Guyuan’s history and culture among thousands of years, is famous for its collection and study of the treasure of Yuanzhou; Xiji Ancient Coins Museum is the only county museum of ancient coins in the country, which was given a name “The first country of Ancient Coins in Huaxia”; all of these give Guyuan a very mysterious, interesting and inviting areola.”

Phew. Take a breath. Just to reiterate, that was a sentence.

And yes, that says “areola.”