"rickshaw Boy" Ivan Gold By Evan King, An English Translation

Lao She's famous novel "Camel Xiangzi" had been translated from Chinese into English by Evan King(伊万·金) for the first time in 1945.This version, which named Rickshaw boy, had made such a success that it caused a tremendous impact on the United States. However, because of the translator made a lot of changes on the plot in his version, and his attitude to the author was arrogant and impolite, many Chinese critics (including Laoshe himself) expressed their dissatisfactory to this version."Loyalty"was considered to be the most important criteria for translation in the past. But the dilemma was how did we evaluate a dishonesty version, which may distort the original plot, but still be welcomed by the target language readers?Translation is not generated in vacuum; those changes in the version were not accidental phenomenon. There are deeper social and historical reasons behind those changes. The World War II was just ended when Evan King translated Camel Xiangzi. United States was just recovered from the war time and entered in the"Golden Age"in which there was a rapid rise in America economic and human right. The association between China and America during the wartime made many Americans became interested about China. Besides, America was in the sexual revolution at that time. All these factors had influences on Evan King's translation and directly led to the enormous change in his version.One of the fiercest criticisms against Evan King's version was his"resistance"in his translation. When he translated Chinese proverb, dialects, or Chinese names into English, he never took the easiest way as choose similar words that already exist in English to express the meaning, but try his best to reserve Chinese cultural image and emotional tendency. Although these translation had caused a lot of misinterpretation, and sometimes the reader even can't understand the meaning, this kind of translation did introduce the foreign culture to the readers. Evan King made an attempt to attract westerners by using Chinese culture. However, from an objective perspective, his translation managed to show the difference between Chinese culture and English culture, and played the"bridge"role at the same time. This version did worth to be research by today's translators.