Category Archives: literature

Happy International Women’s Day

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国际妇女节快乐！

What does International Women’s Day mean to you? Different people may have different focuses. At Queen’s, the campaign theme for this year is #EmbraceEquity

Imagine a gender equal world. A world free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination. A world that’s diverse, equitable, and inclusive. A world where difference is valued and celebrated. Together we can forge women’s equality. Collectively we can all #EmbraceEquity

Queen’s gender initiative

Today, we are pleased to introduce WANG Xinxin, a Queen’s School of Law student (LLM candidate in International Commercial & Business Law) to share her feel of being a departing daughter from her family, a female international student with great passion for her study and intercultural life in Belfast and elsewhere, through quoting the lines from one of her favourite ancient poems, the Ballad of Mulan.

We also thank WANG Xinxin for kindly sharing her Instagram account with us, which includes a video clip of greeting messages to her family and to all, in Chinese. If you have difficulties in understanding Mandarin, just click this Instagram post to read the English lines she added in the comment area.

We would like to invite all to come join in this is a special day of greeting and a call for celebration. Tell us how you celebrate this special day in the reply box below. We would love to hear more stories from you, too.

We also look forward to welcoming you to participate in the upcoming ‘Sound of Language’ – QUB Multilingual Poetry and Music Festival on Thursday 23 March, with Xinxin and many others.

More cultural events updated

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The first half of the CNY celebrations went on extremely well, featuring the student-led Interactive Chinese Culture Displays and Demos, the CNY2023 Launch Event, and the art exhibitions both online and in-person. We would like to send our ‘thank-you’ to all of you who have contributed, participated in and helped with promotion. We hope that you have enjoyed yourselves.

In Pictures of the Launch Event

In the following part of the CNY Programme, we continue to warmly welcome you to attend a series of culture talks, a fun time table tennis event and a guzheng introductory workshop. All QUB students and staff members are welcome!

More information and registration

Click below for registration and viewing the full programme

CCP2023 Homepage

Chinese course enrolment and call for volunteers

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With the approaching of the new semester we are pleased to announce that the Language Centre course enrolment starts at 00:30 on Thursday 1st September. We offer over 80 classes in 14 different languages, including Chinese, that have both online and in person teaching. All classes will commence week beginning Monday 10 Oct 2022.

Online registration will be closed on Thursday 6 Oct and we welcome all to make an early registration as courses are extremely popular and fill up quickly.

Class schedule and registration links are accessible via Language Centre website.

Chinese language courses are offered from level 1 to level 5.

Course details and registration

Call for volunteers

We are looking for talented students and staff members to volunteer for our Chinese language and cultural events at Queen’s. It could be in the form of a variety of cultural performances, or language/culture-related topics and skills, and is open to both Chinese-speaking and non-Chinese speaking volunteers.

We look forward to working with you in our future events.

Volunteering

Read the Chinese version here.

Mid-Autumn Festival Celebrations

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Happy September and happy Mid-Autumn Festival which arrives early, falling on Saturday 10th September this year. 中秋节快乐 (Zhōngqiūjié kuàilè)!

Following the successful rolling out of the iRise Social and Wellbeing Event – A Taste of Chinese Tea with Guzheng Music in July, we would like to invite you to join our Mid-Autumn Festival celebration with a cultural talk on its history and social impact, with a taste of mooncakes (赏月 shǎng yuè) and MIDI keyboard performance (赏乐 shǎng yuè) –

MIDI Keyboard with Roses
  • Organised by The Language Centre and BAME & International Staff Network, QUB
  • Presented by Dr Liang Wang, The Language Centre
  • Contributed by Kehan (可瀚), BSc candidate in Music and Audio Production, School of Arts, English and Languages

Date: Friday 23rd September 2022
Time: 15:30 – 17:00 
Venue: The Auditorium, McClay Library

Please note: Due to rescheduling we may have some limited spaces available. For colleagues who signed up for the event and still can attend, you don’t need to do it again. However, if you are no longer able to attend in-person, please email liang.wang[at]qub.ac.uk so that places can be made to others. Please register by 4.00pm on Thursday 22nd September.

Registration

Translating Friel: ‘The Widowhood System’ (1964) as a Chinese audiobook

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布莱恩.弗里尔的中国式重现——《咕家寡人》剧本朗读与研讨

  • Date: Friday 4th March 2022
  • Time: 18:30 – 19:45 GMT
  • Venue: Brian Friel Theatre, 20 University Square, Queen’s University, Belfast BT7 1NN
  • Language: English/Chinese
  • Booking: Eventbrite (free, but advanced booking essential)

Join us for an audio journey that brings together 1960s Northern Ireland and 21st Century China. Alongside excerpts from the original English version, Chinese Students from the Centre for Translating and Interpreting (CTI) at Queen’s University will narrate a new translated adaptation of Brian Friel’s short story ‘The Widowhood System’. 

The Widowhood System是一个由布莱恩.弗里尔写于二十世纪六十年代的爱尔兰故事。三个嗜酒如命的中年单身汉，为了追逐埋藏于心多年的赛鸽梦，开始了一场堂吉诃德式的养鸽之旅。殊不知，赛鸽的命运和他们的人生产生了奇妙的重合……

大半个世纪后，一群来到贝尔法斯特的中国留学生在故纸堆里发现了这个故事，他们决定用自己的方式把它讲述出来，于是便有了《咕家寡人》。

About this event

What effect does translation have in transporting a story across time and space? When the page is adapted for the stage, what role does a translator play? What happens when a translator, often considered as the one doing the paperwork, leaves their desk to work as a theatre practitioner?

In this script reading and discussion event, co-organized by CTI, Friel Reimagined, and the Brian Friel Theatre, the translator, Chuchu, the music producer, Kehan and the actors will present the original text, the translated work and the procedure of the adaptation— a Chinese audiobook based on the story ‘The Widowhood System’ by the great Irish playwright Brian Friel. With the original text in English, the Chinese voice actors reading the translated version, and the translator sharing the background of the translation and adaptation process, this event aims to provide a unique insight into how a translated play is produced and presented.

活动简介 

翻译，改编，排演，录制一出广播剧是一种怎样的体验？让一群21世纪的中国年轻人讲述一个1960年代的爱尔兰故事，会碰撞出什么奇妙的火花？

此次剧本朗读会，将由音乐制作人可瀚带领来自女王大学口笔译中心，以及计算机学院的中国演员们，呈现《咕家寡人》的部分内容。以舞台表演与原创音效相配合，给大家带来一场跨越时空的听觉盛宴。朗读结束后，译者楚楚将带领大家走进戏剧翻译的台前与幕后，揭秘《咕家寡人》的制作过程。大家也可以畅所欲言，和主创团队分享自己对于故事的感受，提出宝贵建议。

一起来听故事吧！说不定，你能在这个故事里，看到你自己。

Translator Profile 译者简介 

Shurui Yang, aka Chuchu, is a PhD in translation from Center of Translation and Interpreting. Supervised by Prof. David Johnston and Dr. Kathleen Kaess, she mainly focuses on translating Brian Friel’s work from English into Chinese.

杨姝睿（楚楚），女王大学口笔译中心翻译博士在读。师从戏剧翻译家David Johnston教授与Kathleen Kaess博士。主要研究方向为布莱恩·弗里尔的戏剧翻译。

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Spring Festival Couplets

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Writing Spring Festival Couplets (春联 chūnlián) and characters such as Fu (福 fú, fortune) and the character of the due zodiac sign, is one of the most common and important customs when celebrating Chinese New Year among Chinese households both home and abroad.

We are grateful to our guest calligrapher, Mr Xiaodong Huang, Director of Tian Yingzhang Calligaphy Academy (Shenzhen), to demonstrate his calligraphy with the greeting message through Spring Festival Couplets and hope you enjoy it.

For audience from mainland China, you can click this link to watch the video.

[Script] A Spring Festival greeting from Shenzhen, China.
[Sound] On the arrival of the New Year, I wish you all a year of power and forth, and that all your hopes become true.

0:17 [script] The arrival of the New Year brings the fortune to us. The character Fu means fortune and it’s coming.

0:37 [script] There are many ways of writing the character Fu (福 fú, fortune).

1:08 [script] The regular script of writing the character of Hu (虎 hǔ, tiger).

1:48 [script] The semi-cursive script of writing the character of Hu (虎 hǔ, tiger)

2:14 [script] The cursive script of writing the character of Hu (虎 hǔ, tiger)

2:27 [script] There is no Spring Festival without spring couplet. The first half reads ‘The golden tiger brings its power to powder the spring’ in meaning.

4:32 [script] The second half reads ‘The great fortune blesses peace at the transition between the old and new years’.

5:30 [sound] A Chinese folk song starts

6:30 [script] The title of spring couplet reads ‘Awe-inspiring grandeur remains forever’.

CCF11 July Talk

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CCF11 – Whose Play Is It? Translating and Performing Chinese Drama for the Global Stage

Speaker:
Dr Yangyang LONG 龙杨杨, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University

Dr Yangyang LONG is Assistant Professor in Translation and Interpreting. She was awarded PhD by Queen’s University Belfast in 2019. Her works have been published on journals such as The Translator, Asia Pacific Translation and Intercultural Studies, Atlantic Studies: Global Currents and Coup De Théâtre. She is currently working with Routledge on a monograph entitled “The Works of Lin Yutang: Translation and Recognition”, which will be published with the series “Routledge Studies in Chinese Translation”.

Outline:
Who owns a translated foreign-language play? The translator? The author? The playwright? The director? The dramaturg? The actors/actresses? The audiences? The critics? The theatre company? The (mass) media? What makes a Chinese play – in this case a classic of its national literature – worth translating and performing in a new environment, that is, the here and now of the 21st-century English-speaking world? This talk aims to explore the translation and performance of 2017 “Snow in Midsummer” (窦娥冤, The Injustice to Dou E That Moved Heaven and Earth by Guan Hanqing), a new stage production by the Royal Shakespeare Company for its “Chinese Classics Translation Project” (2013-2023).

Registration closed

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