Ha Jin on writing in English versus Chinese.
Ha Jin was an English grad student at Brandeis when I was an undergrad there. His advisor was the man who changed my life with poetry, Allen Grossman. Ha Jin is a wonderful writer and I remember him (more than 20 years ago) as a generous and kind man.
(via volcanoes:stuartinwashington)
English has more flexibility. It’s a very plastic, very shapeable, very expressive language. In that sense it feels quite natural. The Chinese language is less natural. Written Chinese is not supposed to represent natural speech, and there are many different spoken dialects that correspond to the single written language. The written word will be the same in all dialects, but in speech it is a hundred different words.
Source: stuartinwashington
