Clash of cultures: how interpreters bridged the gap between Britain and China

发布时间 2022-09-29 23:00:06 来源

Hello and welcome to the History Extra Podcast from BBC History Magazine and BBC History Review. I'm Ellie Corthon. Imagine being tasked with a key role in crucial negotiations, a role that could alter the course of global international relations. But on top of that, you're the only person in the room who can communicate between the two opposing sides, both of which know hardly anything about the other's language, culture or motivations.

大家好，欢迎收听BBC历史杂志和BBC历史评论的历史Extra播客。我是艾莉科顿。想象一下，你被赋予了关键谈判中的重要角色，这个角色可能会改变全球国际关系的走向。但除此之外，你是房间里唯一可以在两个对立方之间沟通的人，两个对立方都几乎不了解对方的语言、文化或动机。

Henrietta Harrison's book The Perils of Interpreting looks at two interpreters who found themselves in that exact position, when they were working on negotiations between the British Empire and China in the late 18th and 19th centuries. The book's recently been shortlisted for the Cundle History Prize and we've teamed up with them to bring you conversations with all of the nominated authors, so I spoke to Henrietta to find out more.

Henrietta Harrison的书《口译的危险》研究了两位翻译在18世纪末19世纪期间为英国帝国和中国之间的谈判工作时，发现自己处于正是这种位置的情况。该书最近入围了康德尔历史奖，我们与他们合作，为您带来所有入围作者的对话，因此我与Henrietta交谈，以了解更多。

In your new book The Perils of Interpreting, you follow two interpreters who were at the heart of a pivotal moment in diplomatic relations between China on the one hand and the British Empire on the other at the end of the 18th century. So can you start us off by introducing us to this story and its central players?

在你的新书《口译的危机》中，你跟随着两位口译员，他们是18世纪末中国和大英帝国之间一次关键外交事件的核心人物。那么，你能否向我们介绍一下这个故事及其主要人物呢？

So the two people who are the interpreters are taking part in this big diplomatic embassy and that embassy is being led by Lord McCartney, and he's the big English ambassador. And the embassy is going to the Chen Long Emperor. Chen Long Emperor is in his 80s, he's ruled China for nearly 50 years, he's incredibly powerful, really magnificent emperor. And this is the first time that Britain and China have that formal contact between the court's formal diplomatic contact.

所以这两个人是翻译，他们参加了这个重要的外交使团，使团由麦卡特尼勋爵领导，他是英国大使。使团要前往见陈隆皇帝。陈隆皇帝已经八十高龄，统治了中国将近50年，是一个极其强大、宏伟的皇帝。这是英国和中国两国之间首次进行正式的外交接触。

So before we talk in more detail about these two interpreters who are both fascinating figures. Let's give our listeners a little bit of context here. So what was happening in China and in Britain at this time? So this is the period that the Chinese call one of their great periods of history. The Qing Empire had conquered China, that they were not Chinese people, the man choose, they come down from the north, from the central Asian steps, they conquered China in the 17th century, and then their empire continues to expand outwards. It's a very glorious and magnificent period. However, it's also got the seeds of decline as it's so often the case, there are actually underlying financial problems. But at this stage, they're still not visible to anyone except for the people actually running the state's finances. So that's on the one side. On the other side, we have the British, and obviously we've had the age of exploration, and this is the period of British expansion in India.

所以，在我们更详细地谈论这两位非常引人入胜的口译员之前，让我们为听众提供一点背景信息。那么这个时期在中国和英国发生了什么呢？这是中国人称之为历史上伟大时期之一的时期。清朝征服了中国，他们不是中国人民，而是满族人，他们从北方、中亚草原而来，在17世纪征服了中国，然后他们的帝国继续向外扩张。这是一个非常辉煌、壮丽的时期。然而，像往常一样，它也有衰落的种子，实际上是潜在的财政问题。但在这个阶段，除了实际运行国家财政的人之外，其他人都看不出来。这是一方面。另一方面，我们有英国，显然我们已经经历了探险时代，这是英国在印度扩张的时期。

And one of the things I really wanted to say with my book is that that's important to how Britain and China relate. People have tended to see these too as entirely separate. And indeed, the Chinese were very poorly informed on what was going on in India. They hardly knew the Chinese state about what was happening. But so one of the things I'm really interested in is, why did they not know what they didn't know about India?

我写这本书最想表达的一个观点是，英国和中国之间的关系不可忽视，这一点非常重要。人们往往将这两个国家看作是完全独立的。实际上，中国人对印度的情况了解得非常有限，几乎不知道印度正在发生什么。因此，我非常感兴趣的一个问题是，为什么他们没有了解他们不了解的印度的情况？

So what were some of the key issues on the table in these negotiations? Was it trade, was it war, religion, cultural exchange? So the British wanted to expand trade with China. So Britain is importing huge amounts of tea, vast quantities of tea from China, and they want to have exports to China. And the particular thing they want to export is British woolens. But in order to expand their exports, they want to reduce taxes. And the method of this they would like is for them to have an island off the coast of China. And to have a resident at the court in Ambassador at the Qingkong, who could influence events. And that of course is very much a similar approach to how they approached India. But it's usually been thought of really differently as Britain trying to set up diplomatic relations with a country that Hizatou did not have diplomatic relations with the West.

在这些谈判中，有哪些关键问题被提了出来呢？是贸易吗？还是战争、宗教、文化交流？英国想要扩大与中国的贸易。英国从中国大量进口茶叶，他们也希望向中国出口特别的英国毛织品。但为了扩展出口，他们需要减少关税。他们希望通过拥有中国沿海的一个岛屿并驻扎一个代表团来施压，这个代表团可以影响事件和决策。这与英国在印度采取的方法非常相似。但是通常被认为是英国试图与一个与西方没有外交关系的国家建立外交关系。

So I mean, treat us to the approach of your book, because rather than focusing on the diplomats who were involved in this exchange, you've decided to focus on the interpretive interest. Why did you do that? I originally came across this book because I was in the Vatican in the archives of the propaganda Fide, which is the congregation for the evangelization of the peoples. It's where the Vatican keeps its world archives. And I was reading for another book. And I found about all the Chinese Catholic priests who'd worked in Shenzhen Province, that my main area of research in North China over 200 years.

所以我希望您介绍一下您的书的方法，因为您决定将注意力集中在解释性的兴趣上，而不是关注参与这次交流的外交官。您为什么这样做？我最初了解到这本书是因为我在梵蒂冈的传教事务总署档案馆里，那是梵蒂冈保存世界档案的地方。当时我在为另一本书做研究，然后发现了在我北方地区主要研究的深圳省工作的所有中国天主教神父在200年内所经历的事情。

And I found this amazing set of letters from this Catholic priest who'd been Chinese Catholic priest, Leads of Bia or Jacobus Lee, who'd been the interpreter for this embassy describing not only what it was like, but also explaining that he'd added an item of his own to the negotiations as the interpreter. And that was really rather remarkable. He put to the Chinese a request for toleration of Catholics, which was not something obviously that the 18th century British state was necessarily going to have supported.

我发现一个神奇的信件集，来自一位中国天主教神父黎士宗或李雅各，他曾经是一名解说员，描述了大使馆的情况，不仅如此，他还解释说他作为翻译员，在谈判中添加了自己的一项请求。这真的很值得注意。他向中国人提出了一个要求，即宽容天主教徒的请求，这显然不是18世纪英国政府肯定会支持的事情。

And I think that's really at the heart of your book, isn't it? It's this role of interpreter, which is beyond just taking one message and relaying it to somebody else. It's so much more complex than that. So what can you tell us about what it was like to be an interpreter at this time when so few people could communicate between two cultures?

我认为这就是你的书的核心所在，不是吗？它是翻译家的角色，不仅仅是将一条信息传递给其他人。它比那更复杂。那么在这个时代当中很少有人能够在两种文化之间沟通的情况下，你可以告诉我们当时做翻译是什么样子的吗？

Yes. And so this is really about not like interpreting in Europe where there'd been multiple people, but about interpreting in Asia where you might have a situation where you were the only person present who actually understood exactly what was going on. And I think we underestimate the fact that interpreters always have power.

是的。因此，这实际上是关于在欧洲进行的多人口译不同，而是关于在亚洲进行的情况下可能存在的你是唯一一个完全理解正在发生的事情的人的口译。我认为我们低估了口译者始终具有的权力。

I teach in a Chinese department. And if you do that, you understand that when you speak something in one language, there's not an exact equivalent. You're always making changes. And of course, if you're an interpreter, you're doing that on the fly. And this is before recording equipment, these people are just listening to something somebody says and then explaining it.

我在一个汉语系上课。如果你也是在这个领域工作，你就会明白当你用一种语言表达某个意思时，这个意思在另一种语言里很可能没有完全相同的表达。因此，你必须进行创新和修正。当然，如果你是一名口译员，更要即兴应变。在录音设备还没有出现之前，这些人必须仅凭听力对他人说的话进行解释。

I wonder if you could give us some examples because you have some in your book of how in the context of China and Britain, these messages could be warped if that's the right way of putting it.

我想知道您是否能给我们举些例子，因为在您的书中有一些例子，说明在中国和英国的情境下，这些信息可能会被曲解，如果这是正确的说法的话。意思是，在中英两国的文化背景下，信息传达可能会出现变形。请尽量使用易读的语言。

Well, I'm not, yes. But quite often people have thought about it in terms of mistakes, but I think that's probably not quite right. I think the more I think about it and the more you understand it, you see that basically you always, you've always got to make choices. So for example, the Chinese had the word for foreigners, and this is the word E, and this term E is a term which has been translated subsequently as barbarian. And when the British found they were being described as barbarian, they were furious.

嗯，我并不是。但是很多时候人们会将它看作是错误，但我认为这可能并不完全正确。越是想得多，了解得多，你就会发现，基本上你总是必须作出选择。比如，中国有一个外国人的词汇，叫做“诶”，这个词术语后来被翻译成了“野蛮人”。当英国人发现他们被描述为“野蛮人”时，他们很生气。

However, that word E is used up in North China for the Mongols, who are very much, and the Mongols are part of the Qing empire, that I want of its major peoples there, that culture is respected, it's widely used. And I think to translate this word E as barbarian is to try and fit a set of ideas from the Roman empire onto China that just don't quite fit.

然而，在华北地区，“E”这个词用来形容蒙古人，他们在那里很多，而蒙古人是清朝的一部分。在那儿，我想“E”这个词更多是用于尊重蒙古文化，被广泛使用。我认为将“E”翻译成“野蛮人”，是试图把罗马帝国的某些观念移植到中国，但这并不完全适用。

And there's a similar issue with tribute. So the Chinese term Gong, which means a gift that is given to someone, usually someone above you. And that got translated into English at the time of the Open Wars as tribute. And the British said they were fused to pay tribute to the Chinese emperor. However, that word does also just mean a gift. And although it has a slight directional tone to it that it's generally a gift upwards, it's not always a gift upwards. It can sometimes be a presentation by someone downwards. So it's really very complex how you choose to translate this.

关于朝贡也有类似的问题。中文的“贡”意思是给某人的礼物，通常是给高于自己的人。在鸦片战争时期，这个词被翻译成英文的“tribute”。英国人说他们不愿向中国皇帝交纳朝贡。然而，“tribute”这个词只是指礼物，虽然它有一点方向性的色彩，通常是上向下的礼物，但它并不总是向上的礼物，它有时也会是一个向下的赠礼。所以，你选择如何翻译这个词是非常复杂的。

You're always going to make choices. You can't not make choices. And when leads a bell translated because he was Chinese and he was what he wanted was a good outcome for the negotiations. He used those relatively positive. So he was translating actually into Latin or Italian. And he used, for example, for E foreigner or barbarian, he used the Latin word externally, which means sort of outsider. He uses quite neutral terms that everybody will be able to accept. Whereas later on as the British empire becomes very active in China when people become quite aggressive, they don't want to use those terms. They use these very strong terms, which are very angering, if they want to motivate the British to engage in warfare, they will use these much stronger terms to translate.

你总是会做出选择。你不能不做出选择。当李约翰担任翻译时，他因为是中国人，所以想要的是谈判的良好结果。他使用了相对积极的语言，实际上是在翻译成拉丁语或意大利语。对于外国人或野蛮人，他使用了拉丁语单词externally来表示局外人。他使用相当中性的词语，让所有人都能接受。然而，随着英帝国在中国变得非常活跃，人们变得非常激进，他们不想使用那些词语。如果他们想激励英国人参加战争，他们会使用更强烈的词汇来翻译，这些词汇会让人非常愤怒。

So these nuances of language are so important, aren't they? These are just crucial. So the Macartney Embassy has always been regarded as a disaster because the British didn't get their island. But that's a bit unfair because the Chinese didn't want to give an island of their territory. You know, you could have regarded it as quite successful and leads a bell. It did regard it as quite successful because by the time everybody left, everybody was at home. It went off quite well. The Embassy was quite satisfactory. The British should decide if they would come back and they thought they would get more than they'd got the previous time. And it looked like that to him, like the start of diplomatic relations.

这些语言细微差别非常重要，对吧？它们至关重要。麦加利使团因为英国没有得到他们想要的岛屿而一直被认为是一场灾难。但这有点不公平，因为中国人并不想让出自己的领土上的岛屿。你知道的，你也可以认为这次使团相当成功，敲响了警钟。实际上，在每个人离开之前，所有人都安全回到家中，这一切都进行得非常顺利。使团非常令人满意。英国人需要决定他们是否会再次返回，而他们认为这次会得到比上次更多的东西。对他来说，这看起来像是外交关系的开始。

So let's talk now in more detail about the two men at the heart of this story. What can you tell us about who Lee and another interpreter, who we haven't mentioned yet, I don't think, called Staunton, who they were and how they became interpreters?

那么现在让我们更详细地谈谈这个故事的核心人物-两个男人。你能告诉我们有关李和另一名尚未提到的翻译斯陶顿的信息吗？他们是谁，是如何成为翻译的？

Okay, so they're amazing people. I'll start with Lee because he's the older one. So Leeds Abial was born in the far northwestern of China up on the Silk Road. So really quite a remote place. But his grandparents probably had converted to the Catholic Church. So there had been Jesuit missionaries very famously going out from Europe in the 17th century and went to China and worked for the Emperor's First of the Ming Dynasty and then of the new Qing Dynasty. And they were out there and people converted to Catholicism and Leeds Abial's family were part of that.

好的，他们是了不起的人。我会先从李开始说，因为他是年长者。李兹·艾比尔出生在中国极西北部的丝绸之路上，是一个非常偏远的地方。但他的祖父母可能已经皈依天主教。17世纪，耶稣会传教士非常著名地从欧洲前往中国，并为明朝第一任皇帝和新的清朝工作。他们在那里传教，人们皈依了天主教，李兹·艾比尔的家人就是其中的一员。

So when he was 12, a Chinese priest came to visit their town and he said, why don't you send your son to study to be a priest? And he sent this 11-year-old off to Naples to where he studied at a special college that the Catholic Church had set up to train Chinese to be Catholic priests and to be missionaries to go back to China. And he spent the next 20 years of his life there. And it was a very, very classy education. It also ran as a kind of posh boarding school for local near-potletan aristocrats. So Leeds best friend was someone called the Duke of Valimetsana.

当他12岁的时候，一位中国牧师到了他们城镇，并说，为什么不送你儿子去学习成为一名神父呢？于是，他送了这个11岁的男孩去拿坡里，在那里他在天主教会成立的一所特殊学院学习，培训成为天主教神父和宣教士，回到中国去传教。他接下来的20年生命里大部分时间都在那里度过。那里的教育非常高档。它也作为当地贵族的高档寄宿学校运行。所以利兹最好的朋友是一个叫Valimetsana公爵的人。

All he said was about to be the Duke Giovanni Maria Borgia. He was going to be the Duke of Valimetsana and then they were really very close and actually was still writing to him 20 years after his return to China saying, oh, remember how entwined our souls were in youth. So I originally started this project because I found Leeds Abial's correspondence and I just thought it was amazing to be hearing about a Chinese priest who was traveling around Europe and writing letters about what it was like. This was just amazing. So I really wanted to write a book about him.

他所说的是关于乔凡尼·玛丽亚·博尔吉亚公爵，他即将成为瓦利梅萨纳公爵，他们之间非常亲近，实际上在他回到中国20年后仍在写信给他，说：“记得我们的灵魂在年少时是多么相互交织。”所以我最初开始这个项目是因为我发现了李德斯·阿比尔的信件，我认为听到一个中国神甫在欧洲旅行并写信谈论那种经历是非常神奇的。这太惊人了，所以我非常想写一本关于他的书。

And then every time I talked about this embassy, the Lord McCartney's embassy, people said, oh, but wasn't there a little boy, an English little boy? And I thought, well, I must actually look at the English little boy too because there was. So Lord McCartney's secretary was a man called George Leonard Staunton who came from an Irish Catholic background. And he was a huge enthusiast for the Enlightenment too.

每次我谈起这个大使馆，麦凯尔大使馆，人们总是问：难道不是还有一个英国小男孩吗？我想，我必须看看这个英国小男孩，因为确实存在。所以麦凯尔大使馆的秘书名叫乔治• 斯坦顿，他来自爱尔兰天主教背景，也是启蒙运动的狂热爱好者。

And he was bringing his child up as a kind of 18th century project poor child. So he was going to be a kind of genius in botany and languages. So he had to be able to recognize lots and lots of different kinds of mosses. But he also was made to speak Latin from age five. So if ever he wanted anything, he had his father made him say, see, to be blacket, please in Latin. And so his father thought that his child was going to be the first to really learn British person to really learn Chinese.

他在把自己的孩子抚养成一种18世纪计划中的可怜孩子。因此，他将成为一种植物学和语言方面的天才。因此，他必须能够识别很多不同种类的苔藓。但他从五岁的时候就开始说拉丁语。所以，如果他想要什么，他父亲会让他用拉丁语说"请"。因此，他的父亲认为他的孩子将成为第一个真正学会英国人学习中文的人。

So he had a deep belief in teaching languages by total immersion, which was quite unusual. And he took this little boy on the embassy and he also made, so there were actually four Chinese priests who went on this embassy, Lidzibiao and three others. And the embassy found them in Naples and then took them back to China. George Leonard Staunton, the father of the little boy, made sure that they also taught his son Chinese.

他深信通过完全沉浸式的方式教授语言，这在当时非常不寻常。他带着这个小男孩一起参加了使馆活动，而且还有另外三位中国牧师参加了这次使馆活动。这次使馆活动在那不勒斯找到了他们，并把他们带回了中国。小男孩的父亲乔治·莱纳德·斯通顿还确保他们也教他的儿子中文。

So his son had lessons three hours a day, Chinese lessons all the way around the world on the boat, which was a year of travel. And actually when you were 11, if you have three hours a day of lessons in a language, you can get quite good at it. And various of the adults tried, but they couldn't do it when they got to China. It turned out no one could understand them. But this little boy was really good at languages. He'd been brought up to study very hard all his life. And he plugged away and he took, when he got to China, it turned out people could understand him. And so he then was also there.

他的儿子每天上3个小时的中文课，在旅行了一年的船上，全球都在学习中文。实际上，当你11岁的时候，如果每天用三个小时学习一门语言，你会变得非常擅长它。虽然成年人也尝试过，但当他们到了中国时，却发现没有人能够听懂他们。但这个小男孩非常擅长语言，因为他一生都被教育严谨。他孜孜不倦地学习，当他到了中国时，人们发现他的中文非常好。所以他也在那里待了下来。

But of course, when you were 11, he was between 11 and 12 on this occasion, you're not really going to be a major diplomatic interpreter. So in fact, what happens is leads a bow is that does the diplomatic interpreting for the embassy. And then George Thomas Staunton goes on, I mean, he's present at the meeting with the Chen Long Emperor and it's the kind of big event of his life, but he then goes on to work for the British East India Company in Canton. He becomes their interpreter and he ends up making it fortune and becoming an MP.

当然，当你11岁时，他在这次会议上11到12岁之间，你不太可能成为一个重要的外交口译员。所以实际上，发生的事情是Leadabow代表大使馆进行外交口译。然后乔治·托马斯·斯坦顿参加了与陈隆皇帝的会面，这是他一生中的重大事件，但他随后去了广州为英属东印度公司工作。他成了他们的翻译，最终赚了一大笔钱并成为一名议员。

The status of these interpreters is really interesting because something you discuss in the book is how if you were immersed in two cultures, how you were never entirely trusted by both. Can you speak a little bit about that? Yes, so this is something that people in translation studies talk a lot about.

这些翻译员的身份真的很有趣，因为书中谈到的一个问题是，如果你身处两个文化之中，你就不会被完全信任。您能谈一下这个问题吗？是的，这是翻译研究中经常讨论的问题。

The translator is a traitor. In order to really know a language well enough to interpret, you have to be very deeply immersed and you have to have friends. And the same thing. So I spoke a little about, about, um, leads a beer, aren't you, of Annie Murray, a boy, but when George Thomas Staunton arrives in China with the East India Company, he too ends up making friends with local Chinese people. And that's partly because he's been pushed on the East India Company.

翻译：翻译者是叛徒。为了真正掌握一门语言以进行口译，你必须深入地沉浸其中，并交一些朋友。同样的，我谈了一点关于安妮·默里的《领略啤酒》，当乔治·托马斯·斯坦顿带着东印度公司到中国时，他也结束了与当地中国人交友。这部分是因为他被推荐加入东印度公司。

You really didn't want it. This is a prime job for the directors of the East India Company. They give it to their most incompetent sons because when you've got this job as what they call a writer in the East India, in the Canton factory. So in South China, you're going to make money. You get a cut on the trade. And if you stay there, you will become rich. And then they get this little boy who's been pushed on them on the grounds that he knows Chinese.

你真的不想要这件事。这是东印度公司董事们的一份首选工作。他们会把这份工作交给他们最没有能力的儿子，因为当你在东印度公司，在广州工厂称为作为一名写手，你会赚钱。你可以从贸易中获得利润。如果你留在那里，你会变得富裕。然后他们会拿到这个被逼迫学习中文的小男孩。

And they're like, well, we don't need anyone who knows Chinese. We have a perfectly good system where the Chinese merchant speak pitch in English and we're absolutely fine with that. The last thing we need is some English boy who knows Chinese, but taking this money from our family members. And also he'd had this really weird upbringing where he is his father. His father was really influenced by Russo and never let him speak to another child his own age under the age of 16 without an adult present. He didn't want any influences on his child.

他们说：“我们其实不需要懂中文的人。我们有一个很好的系统，让中国商人用英语发言就可以了。我们对此完全满意。我们最不需要的就是一个会中文的英国男孩拿我们家人的钱。并且他有一个非常奇怪的成长经历，他父亲受Russo的影响非常深，从16岁以下的其他同龄孩子群体中分开他，除非有成人陪伴。他不希望任何人对他的孩子产生影响。”

So of course he'd never been to school. He had this very bizarre education. So he was really bad with people. And when he got to China, not only was he really bad with people poor child, but by this age he's 17, but he's also, everybody really resents him turning up. So what he actually ends up doing is having friends who are among the young Chinese men working in the factory. And he tries to become better and better at speaking and translating Chinese and they help him and he learns from them and he becomes very, very close to them. And those kinds of relationships make people problematic from either side, but you need those kinds of relations to have this quality of language ability.

所以他从未上过学。他接受了一种非常奇异的教育，所以他与人交往很差。当他到达中国时，这个可怜的孩子不仅与人交往很差，而且到这个年龄他已经17岁了，每个人都非常反感他来了。所以他最终成了那些在工厂工作的年轻中国男子中的朋友。他尽力变得越来越会说汉语和翻译汉语，他的朋友帮助他，他从他们身上学到了知识，他与他们变得非常亲密。这种关系使人们有些麻烦，但你需要这些关系才能拥有良好的语言能力。

Still to come on the history extra podcast. What often the problem was that the central state decision-making body wasn't necessarily as well as informed as it could have been. And one of the reasons for this is that is the fear of those people who are in between.

接下来在历史Extra播客中，经常存在的问题是中央国家决策机构并不像它本可以的那样充分了解情况。这其中原因之一是出于那些处于中间层的人们的害怕。

What were some of the key moments in the careers of Staunton and Lee? Was where perhaps we can unpick their influence or see that they had a significant impact? Well, so obviously with Lee, that key moment is the McCartney Embassy where we can see him smoothing things over with the elegant translations and with a very positive line. And he was very good with people and keeping everybody on side and he applied that to the Embassy. And what the Chinese was concerned about was that the British might start bombarding.

斯旦顿和李的职业生涯中都有哪些关键时刻呢？或许从这些时刻中我们能够剖析他们的影响或看到他们的重大影响。显然，李的关键时刻是麦卡特尼大使馆事件，我们可以看到他通过优美的翻译和积极的态度来平息事态。他与人相处很好，让每个人都站在他这一边，并把这种能力应用到大使馆事件中。而中国人担心的是英国人可能开始轰炸的问题。

They come in big warship and other well-armed ships and they were anxious that the British might actually launch an attack and that didn't happen. I mean, of course, the British said that they weren't going to do that. But equally, as they sailed around the world, they assessed all ports for the possibilities of bombarding them. If we talk about Staunton, the big moments, he has an impact probably in what after he's gone back to China in the early 19th century, he's in China from 1799 through to 1817.

他们带着大型战舰和其他武装精良的船只来到此处，他们担心英国人可能会发动攻击，但实际上并未发生。当然，英国人声称他们不会这么做，但同样地，当他们航行世界各地时，他们评估了所有港口的轰炸可能性。如果我们谈论斯坦顿的重大时刻，他可能在他返回中国前在19世纪早期产生了影响，他在1799年至1817年期间一直在中国。

And in that period, he's learnt interpreting in this same way all about the spoken language and he uses this very smooth style which makes everything acceptable. So when you read Staunton's translations of Chinese officials, they just sound exactly like 18th century English gentleman. They're all in that kind of world of writing. And the other person who turns up with Staunton about that time in China is someone called Robert Morrison.

在那个时期，他学会了以同样的方式解释口语，他使用这种非常流畅的风格，使一切都能被接受。所以当你阅读斯通顿翻译的中国官员的内容时，它们听起来就像18世纪的英国绅士说的话。他们都处于那种写作的世界中。斯通顿一同出现在中国的另一个人是罗伯特·莫里森。

And he's the first British missionary to China. And he's wanting to translate the Bible. And in order to do that, he wants to start off with a dictionary. And he comes from working-class background in Newcastle. His father had been a bootblast make. He's worked in his father's workshop and then he becomes inspired to go and be a missionary. And he goes off on this thing with basically no money. And Staunton is his big patron when he gets that because they're the only two people interested.

他是首位前往中国的英国传教士，希望将圣经翻译成中文。为此，他希望从编写一本字典开始。他来自纽卡斯尔的工人阶级背景，他的父亲是一名靴油工人。他曾在父亲的工作室工作，后来受到启发去成为一名传教士。他没有多少钱，但还是离开去了他想要做的事情。当他开始行动时，斯通顿是他的主要赞助人，因为他们是唯一对此感兴趣的两个人。

But Morrison, because he wants to translate the Bible, he thinks each word, he thinks with the Bible, you've got to say exactly what's in it. You can't go smoothing it out into something that's acceptable. So he's really obsessed with getting each word absolutely correct. And so he produces translations which make the Chinese sound really strange.

莫里森想要翻译《圣经》，因此他非常注重每个词语，也认为在翻译时必须严格按照《圣经》的内容来表达。他不能将其“润色”成更容易接受的内容。因此，他非常迷恋于确保每个词语都准确无误。这样，他翻译的作品中经常出现中文听起来相当奇怪的现象。

Because Chinese, if you translate it into English, does sound odd. It's a different kind of language. And it makes the whole thing sound totally alien because you have to use lots and lots of different words. A very good example is that up till this time, the Chinese way of talking about the English king was usually to say that country's king. And George Thomas Staunton always translated this. His majesty King George III.

中文翻译成英文花里胡哨的，听起来有些奇怪。它是一种独特的语言。使用了很多不同的词汇，整个东西听起来完全陌生。一个很好的例子是，直到现在，中国人谈论英国国王的方式通常是说“那个国家的国王”。而乔治·托马斯·斯通顿总是将它翻译成“他陛下国王乔治三世”。

When Robert Morrison turns up, he does, they go over it. They do go over to that country's king. And of course, that country's king sounds really different. But for the Chinese, it wasn't necessarily disrespectful. And obviously the Chinese letters that Staunton is translating when he translates it is majesty King George. He's tried to get across what the Qing officials and what matters to him is what their intent was, what kind of people were. Are they intending to be aggressive? Or are they intending to be placatory and to give the British what they want? And he's trying to get that across, whereas Morrison is trying to get across each word. And it doesn't matter if the overall effect is that this is a very strange person being rude to the English king.

当罗伯特·莫里森出现时，他们会去谈论此事。他们确实会去拜访那个国家的国王。当然，那个国家的国王听起来非常不同。但对于中国人来说，这并不一定是无礼的。当斯通顿翻译中文信件时，他所翻译的是陛下乔治国王。他试图传达清朝官员和他们意图所关注的内容。他们是否有进攻的意图？还是打算迁就并给英国人想要的东西？他试图传达这一点，而莫里森则试图传达每一个词。如果整体效果是这是一个非常奇怪的人在对英国国王无礼，这并不重要。

That's so interesting, isn't it? In the case of Staunton and Lee, what were some of the key cultural differences when approaching negotiations that they had to kind of move between? Well, I suppose the big event of this is what this emphasis is most famous for, which is the issue of the Kowtow. Kowtow was Chinese curtole means to get down on your knees and bow your head to the floor. And if you did this, and this is a kind of quite normal greeting between people in China, if you would definitely do it for your parents, but actually friends might get down on their knees to each other. Obviously, it was certainly not something people did in Europe. You know, this is the age of the Dutch and shaking hands and a very different kind of etiquette.

这个很有趣，不是吗？在斯陶顿和李的案例中，谈判时他们必须面对哪些文化差异？我认为，最重要的事件是“磕头”这个问题。磕头是中国的一种敬礼方式，就是跪下来低头向地面鞠躬。在中国，这是一种非常常见的方式来问候别人，人们会给父母磕头，甚至朋友之间也会这样。但在欧洲，这绝对是罕见的做法。在那个年代，欧洲流行的是荷兰式的握手与非常不同的礼仪。

The Chinese were famous for requiring ambassadors to do this. So when you met the Chinese emperor, you were supposed to, you got down on your knees and you bowed your head to the ground nine times. So you did three times down, then you kneeled up, and then you get another three times, and then you kneel up, and then you do another three times. It's a very major ceremony. My historians have said for many years, and this started straight after the embassy that Lord McCartney didn't get an island, didn't get what the British wanted, because he refused to do this to the Chinese. And actually, this was a big issue before the embassy ever went off.

中国人因要求大使这样做而著名。所以当你见到中国皇帝时，你应该跪下，头顶着地，向地面鞠躬九次。所以你要下跪三次，然后起身，再下跪三次，再起身，再下跪三次。这是一个非常重要的仪式。我的历史学家们已经说了很多年，这开始于麦考特尼勋爵的大使团之后，因为他拒绝向中国人这样做，所以没有得到他们想要的岛屿或英国想要的东西。实际上，在使馆出发之前，这是个大问题。

The British knew that there were cartoons, gill-rated cartoons of McCartney on his knees in front of the Chinese embassy, before the embassy ever said off. So they were all really worked up about this. And the Chinese reports always said that McCartney did do it. And for many years, the historians' line was, English sources are bound to be accurate, and English people didn't tell lies. Therefore McCartney correctly said that he didn't count out. Therefore, the Chinese are inclined to lie, so we don't believe their sources. But that's a ridiculous attitude, because diplomats do lie. It's part of the whole game of diplomatic negotiation.

英国人知道有关于麦卡特尼跪在中国大使馆前的卡通漫画，比大使馆公开宣称的更早，所以他们都对此非常激动。而中国方面的报道一直都说麦卡特尼做了这件事。许多年来，历史学家的说法一直是，英国的信息一定是准确的，英国人不会撒谎。因此，麦卡特尼正确地说他没有点头认罪。所以，中国人被认为倾向于说谎，我们不相信他们提供的信息。但这种态度是荒谬的，因为外交官员确实会撒谎，这是外交谈判游戏的一部分。

One of the things I realized when I was doing this research was that the Chinese emperor didn't actually see these people in Beijing. He saw them at his summer palace, and of course he's not Chinese. He is a manchew from these step-people, so when he's at his summer palace, which is up in the mountains where he goes hunting in the summer, to keep get away from the heat of Beijing, he can use different kinds of etiquette. And in fact, the manchews have an etiquette where they go down on one knee and put a hand on the ground. And that, of course, is much closer to what the British did. So Lord McCartney only took very close relatives to the actual moment where he might be seen to do this. And his nephew was there, and his nephew has a letter that McCartney's asked him to lie about something, and he feels uncomfortable about it. So that suggests that McCartney actually did something that he didn't want people back in Britain to know about.

当我进行这项研究时，我意识到的一件事是中国的皇帝实际上并没有在北京看到这些人，而是在他的夏宫看到的。当然，他不是中国人，而是属于这些草原民族的满族人。当他在夏宫时（夏宫在山上，他在那里打猎以避免北京的高温天气），他可以使用不同的礼仪。事实上，满族人有一种礼仪是单膝跪地，一手放在地上。而这跟英国人所做的更接近。因此，麦考特只带了非常亲近的亲戚参加了他可能会被看到的仪式。他的侄子在场，他的侄子有一封麦考特要求他撒谎的信件，他觉得很不舒服。这表明麦考特实际上做了一些他不想让英国人知道的事情。

And if you look at George Thomas Stauntons, diary, and he's an 11-year-old, he wrote, we knelt down and performed the ceremony, and then he crossed it out. So it looks like in his diary, his father was telling him how to describe what they had done. So those have been very big issues, and they had to be negotiated.

如果你看乔治·托马斯·斯坦顿的日记，他是一个11岁的孩子，他写道，我们跪下来举行了仪式，然后他划了个线。所以看起来在他的日记里，他的父亲告诉他如何描述他们所做的事情。因此，这些问题很重大，必须加以协商。

And leads about, obviously, when he was there, they managed a kind of compromised situation. But when the next British embassy comes back in 1816, and George Thomas is interpreting he's in a really different situation, because George Thomas, his friends, have been getting into trouble.

当领导不在时，他们显然通过某种妥协的方式处理了局面。但当下一批英国大使在1816年回来时，乔治·托马斯在翻译时面临着完全不同的情况，因为乔治·托马斯的朋友们已经遇到麻烦了。

So the British are sending naval ships to the south coast of China to attack freight shipping, this is it, during the Napoleonic Wars, and the ships coming out with tea from the port of Canton or Guangzhou are very, very valuable prizes.

因此，英国人正在派海军舰艇前往中国南海岸攻击货运，这种情况发生在拿破仑战争期间，从广州港口或广州出发的运茶船是非常非常有价值的战利品。

So all these British naval ships are skulking off the coast trying to attack French ships. And obviously the Chinese state does not like this. I mean, they wouldn't like it now, and they don't like it then. And one of the things that they try to do is to control the people who are dealing too closely, they feel, with the British.

这些英国的海军舰艇潜伏在海岸线附近，试图攻击法国的船只。显然，中国政府不喜欢此事。无论现在还是过去，他们都不喜欢。他们试图控制那些与英国关系过于密切的人。

And George Thomas Staunton's friends, who are also people who are in that intermediary interpreter role, they get into really big trouble. And one of his friends is put in a kind of stocks, a kind of Chinese version of the stocks, outside the factories. So that's the building where the British have their offices for a prolonged period.

乔治·托马斯·斯坦顿的朋友们也是那些中介翻译角色的人，他们遭遇了巨大的麻烦。他的一个朋友被关进了一种股票的形式，在工厂外边，这是一种中国版本的股票。这就是英国在那个地方长期拥有办公室的建筑物。

And then he gets sent into exile in Xinjiang, up in China's far west, really terrifying outcome. And then another friend of Staunton's gets imprisoned and sent into exile. So a young man, very much the same age as him, who's one of his really close friends.

然后他被流放到中国西部的新疆，这是一个非常可怕的结局。另外，斯登顿的另一个朋友被监禁并被流放。这是一个与他年龄相仿的年轻人，是他非常亲密的朋友之一。

And we've got all the young Chinese man's letters from prison still surviving the foreign office archive, just amazing telling Staunton what to say, how to negotiate his case. But the Chinese emperor, by this time we're on the Jiaqing Emperor, the son of Chen Long, he becomes aware that Staunton's involved.

我们从外交部档案中找到了所有那个中国年轻男子在监狱里写的信件，这些信件非常惊人，详细指导斯托顿说什么，如何谈判他的案件。但此时的中国皇帝已经是嘉庆皇帝，即乾隆的儿子，他发现斯托顿参与了这件事。

And he actually sends out a edict, so a proper imperial statement condemning Staunton. And saying that if he puts a foot wrong, he should be sent into exile. He should not be sent back to his own country.

他实际发出了一道法令，一个合适的皇家声明谴责斯托顿。并说如果他再犯错误，应该被流放。他不应该被送回自己的国家。

And it happens just before that next embassy to China and Staunton goes on it. And the ambassador at that stage is Lord Amherst and Amherst doesn't know about this. They don't, Staunton doesn't tell him, but all the Qing officials they need are trying to use this fact to release Staunton into making sure that Amherst does Kowtow and perform these rituals.

在前往中国和斯托尔顿的下一次大使馆之前，这件事情发生了。当时的大使是安赫斯特勋爵，安赫斯特并不知道这件事。斯托尔顿没有告诉他，但是所有他们需要的清朝官员都试图利用这个事实，迫使斯托尔顿确保安赫斯特行跪拜之礼和执行这些仪式。

They basically it becomes a very huge issue. And Staunton feels that if he were to Kowtow or to promote that Kowtow, would look like he was a total coward. And eventually he has to tell Amherst both that McCartney actually did this maneuver.

基本上，这成为了一个非常大的问题。斯坦顿认为，如果他屈服或推动这种屈服，就会像一个彻底的懦夫。最终，他必须告诉阿姆赫斯特，麦卡特尼实际上做了这个动作。

Or at least what he says is McCartney went down on one knee and bowed his head to the ground nine times. But actually, I mean, there's very little you can tell if you're wearing long ropes between down on one knee and down on two knees, what's your value ahead to the ground nine times.

或者至少他所说的是麦卡特尼单膝跪地，头朝地弯腰鞠躬了九次。但实际上，如果你穿着长袍，你很难分辨单膝跪地和双膝跪地，以及头朝地弯腰九次的真实价值。

And Lord Amherst thinks that's just basically the same thing. And he thinks he's willing to do it. He thinks who cares what the Chinese is? Is this ridiculous, uncivilized peoples with uncivilized trade by the stage.

安赫斯特勋爵认为这基本上是同一回事，他认为他愿意这样做。他认为谁在乎中国人的感受呢？他觉得这些荒谬的、不文明的人民正在使用不文明的贸易方式。

Their attitude, the British attitude towards the Chinese declines massively in this period when they take control of India and they start thinking of Asians and Asiatics in very strongly negative light. Whereas in the late 18th century, they're still seeing them very much in the eyes of the Jesuits who've been there as missionaries who promoted China as a kind of model for Europe with this wonderful benevolent monarchy and ruled by philosopher kings.

在英国接管印度并开始强烈地对亚洲人和亚洲人持负面看法的时期，他们对中国人的态度大幅下降。但到了18世纪末，他们仍然从耶稣会传教士的眼中看到他们，这些传教士宣传中国是一个有着仁慈君主和由哲学家国王统治的模范欧洲的国家。

And there's this whole sort of positive attitude. And that really collapses around the turn of the 19th century as you go into the 19th century. So Amherst doesn't care. He's prepared to counter who cares. But Staunton says absolutely no. That would be awful. We really mustn't do that. And that embassy collapses.

有这种积极的态度存在。但随着进入19世纪，这种态度完全崩溃了。阿姆赫斯特并不在意，他准备采取反制措施，谁在乎呢。但斯托顿却坚决反对。那将是可怕的。我们绝不能这样做。因此那个大使团彻底瓦解了。

They get taken to the court where the British said they're looked at, treated like animals in a zoo. Everyone comes and looks at them and kind of pokes them and they're not treated respectfully at all. And at that point Amherst refuses to meet the emperor because he feels disrespected. They get sent immediately back to the coast.

他们被带到法庭，英国人说他们就像动物一样被看待，像在动物园里。每个人都来看他们，戳戳捏捏，丝毫没有受到尊重的待遇。在那个时候，阿默斯特拒绝见皇帝，因为他感到被不尊重了。他们被立即送回海岸。

And what can you tell us about the afterlife as it were of Lee because he also got into hot water, didn't they? So after the embassy, Lee goes off to be a missionary and she profits a home in a rural area. But mostly he lives in quite comfortable life. He's, when you say his missionary, he's basically a priest of a huge area.

关于李的来世，你对我们能说些什么呢？因为他也曾惹上麻烦，对吧？所以在使馆事件之后，李去成为一个传教士，他在一个乡村地区建立了一个家庭，并过着相当舒适的生活。当你说到他是一名传教士时，他基本上是一个大区的牧师。

The area he was priest of is about the size of Norway. So with about 300 small congregations and he was the only clergy person there. So put some British clergy who complain about large parishes in perspective. But as the jarring emperor becomes more hostile to the Europeans and also because there been religious rebellions in China set off by Buddhist sectarian groups, the Chinese state becomes very concerned on cracking down on religious groups.

他所管理的教区面积大约相当于挪威的大小。他有大约300个小型教会，而他是唯一的牧师。这让那些抱怨教区规模过大的英国牧师们更明白了。但是随着中国皇帝变得越来越敌视欧洲人，以及中国发生了由佛教教派团体引发的宗教叛乱，中国政府开始极力打压宗教团体。

They feel that there were danger and that includes Catholics who to them look just basically like the Buddhist sectarians. They don't distinguish very firmly. And so Lee is living in this world and he ends up having to go into hiding. So he's got this amazing education but he actually ends up living his life, the end of his life in hiding in this tiny, tiny little village. And that village remains as an entirely Catholic village. But it's way up in the mountains and the Chinese had all this amazing knowledge.

他们感觉存在危险，其中包括天主教徒，对他们来说，天主教徒就与佛教教派没什么区别，他们并不十分明确区分。因此李在这个世界上生活，最终不得不藏身。因此，他接受了非凡的教育，但他最终的生活却是藏身在一个微小的村庄，而这个村庄却是一个完全由天主教徒组成的村庄。但是这个村庄位于山区，而中国人拥有所有这些惊人的知识。

And he was very loyal to the Chinese government. He was actually very moved by his relationship with the Chen Long emperor. He never criticises the Chinese government in his letters. Even when they're persecuting Christians and sending his flock into exile in Xinjiang, he never criticises them. But they're wasting all this knowledge.

他非常忠诚于中国政府。他与陈隆皇帝的关系让他深感感动。他从未在信中批评过中国政府，即使当他们在迫害基督徒并将他的教众流放到新疆时，他也从未批评过他们。但他们浪费了这么多知识。

So there's all this knowledge about the West because China at that point is fantastically ill-informed. And at the point of when they're about to go to war with Britain, they're actually writing, you know, the British aren't, weren't be good at fighting on land because their knees don't bend properly. And that's just an insane sort of mistake to be making after 200 years of having the British president. You must have known that their knees bend. But the formal state apparatus is really poorly informed and part, one of the things I want to show people in this book is how part of the reason for that is that the people who know this stuff, people like Leeds of the Year, people like George Thomas Staunton's and his friends, his Chinese friends, really don't dare to speak out.

在那个时候，中国对西方的了解非常匮乏，因此有很多关于西方的知识。当他们即将与英国开战时，他们甚至写道，英国人在陆地战斗中不擅长，因为他们的膝盖弯曲得不正确。经过两百年的接触，这样的错误简直令人难以置信。但正式的国家机构知识非常匮乏，我想在这本书中向人们展示的一部分原因是，那些知道这些事情的人，像利茲和乔治·托马斯·斯汤顿及其中国朋友这样的人，真的不敢说出来。

Finally, what do you think that looking at these two interpreters can tell us about the changing relationship between China and Britain over this period that you look at? So for a long time, we had an idea that China was isolated from the West and didn't know about it because Chinese people despised Westerners and their learning and that the open war was the result of China's refusal to engage in diplomacy with the West after the McCartney Embassy.

最后，您认为观察这两位传译员能告诉我们什么关于您所研究的这个时期中英关系的变化呢？很长一段时间以来，我们一直认为中国与西方隔绝，因为中国人鄙视西方人和他们的学问，而且中国对西方的外交拒绝最终导致了开放战争。

However, I think when we look at the interpreters, we see that there's actually much more contact than we realised. One of the most fun people I discovered when this project was a chap called John Ho Chi. And John Ho Chi was originally a Chinese guy called Ho Chi who had to flee from China in the 1810s and he settled in Sussex where he became a gentleman farmer.

但是，我认为当我们看看翻译员时，我们会发现实际上有比我们意识到的更多的联系。这个项目中我发现最有趣的一个人是John Ho Chi。John Ho Chi原本是一个叫做Ho Chi的中国人，在1810年代不得不逃离中国，他在萨塞克斯定居并成为一名农民绅士。

Married an English woman, Charlotte Mole, her homestead is sent to Edinburgh University to study medicine, his daughter's mostly married doctors and there were some Ho Chi arms houses still exist in Sussex, donated by his wife after she was called Charlotte Mole after his death. And I think that whole world of interconnections has been much downplayed and I think one of the things we need to think about as Chinese relations is that China wasn't totally isolated but quite often the problem was that the central state decision making body wasn't necessarily as well as informed as it could have been and one of the reasons for this is the fear of those people who are in between.

他娶了一个英国女人夏洛特·莫尔，她的家园被送到爱丁堡大学学习医学，他的女儿大多嫁给了医生，苏塞克斯还有一些胡志民屋仍然存在，这是他的妻子在他去世后受到叫做夏洛特·莫尔的名字捐赠的。我认为这整个相互联系的世界被低估了，作为中华关系，我们需要思考的一件事是中国并没有完全孤立，但问题往往是中央决策机构并不像它本应该了解的那样充分，而其中一个原因就是那些处于中间位置的人的恐惧。

That was Henrietta Harrison, her book The Perils of Interpreting is published by Princeton and has recently been shortlisted for the Kundal History Prize.

那是亨利埃塔·哈里森，她的书《口译的危险》已由普林斯顿大学出版，并最近获得了库恩达尔历史奖的入围提名。

We'll be speaking to all of the shortlisted authors in the next few weeks so you can look forward to finding those episodes in your podcast feeds. And you can find out more about the Kundal History Prize at kundalprice.com. That's C-U-N-D-I-L-L.

在接下来的几周里，我们将与所有入围作者进行对话，您可以期待在播客中找到这些节目。您可以在kundalprice.com了解更多关于Kundal历史奖的信息。这是C-U-N-D-I-L-L。

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