Zhang Peiji, a 100 year old translator, passed away and served as evidence for the Tokyo trial

Zhang Peiji, a translator and retired professor of the University of international business and economics, died in Beijing on the morning of June 27 at the age of 100. He has long been a consultant to English world, which published an obituary today.

Zhang Peiji was born in Fuzhou, Fujian Province in 1921, and later moved to Shanghai. Since he was a child, he had a close relationship with English. In 1945, he successfully graduated from the Department of English literature of St. John's University in Shanghai. In the same year, he served as a reporter of Shanghai liberty West, a special writer of China review weekly and a deputy editor in chief of China Yearbook (1944-1945).

In 1946, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East was established. As the working languages of the Tribunal at that time were English and Japanese, a large amount of evidence provided by China needed to be translated into English first. Recommended by GUI Zhongzhong, editor in chief of China review weekly, Zhang Peiji and Xiang zhejun, then Chinese prosecutor, met for the first time at Huamao hotel in Shanghai. After a brief exchange, they immediately took out a newspaper to the prosecutor and randomly selected a report from it as a temporary translation test. Zhang Peiji, who is good at English and has experience in journalism in the media, soon finished his translation. After reading it to the prosecutor, he immediately said, "we want you!" In this way, at the age of 25, Zhang Peiji, as an English translator, witnessed the world-famous Tokyo grand trial. Together with him, Zhou Xiqing, Gao Wenbin, Liu Jisheng and Zheng Luda were employed.

After two and a half years, the trial ended with seven class a war criminals including Hideki Tojo being hanged. "This is a very incomplete trial," Zhang Peiji said in an interview with the media The trial process has experienced many difficulties and twists. The whole procedure of Far East Court is seriously affected by the common law system, which emphasizes the importance of evidence. However, the process of Chinese prosecutors collecting evidence at home was not smooth, "because many materials were secretly destroyed after Japan announced its surrender. In the end, a lot of strong evidence was found in the archives of the Japanese army province. " Zhang Peiji recalled.

Photo source: English world

After the trial, Zhang Peiji went to the Graduate School of English literature at Indiana University to further his studies. After the founding of new China in 1949, he decided to go back to China to take part in the construction. Soon he joined the PLA Foreign Language Institute as a teacher. It took 25 years for him to stand on the three feet platform. He doesn't want others to "publicize" himself. In the face of media interviews, he always says modestly, "he is just an ordinary teacher, and has nothing to introduce."

As a matter of fact, Zhang Peiji's translations and monographs have exerted extensive and lasting influence in the field of translation studies《 He scrutinized and approved a large number of English Manuscripts of foreign publications, such as tempest, Ashima, spring silkworm collection, Great Dictionary of Chinese names and Confucius. In addition, readers are familiar with Chinese classics, such as Fang Zhimin's posthumous work poverty, Zhu Ziqing's back, Xu Dishan's life of falling flowers, Li Dazhao's difficult national fortune and vigorous citizens, Ba Jin's General Preface to torrent, Bing Xin's smile, Hu Shi's biography of Mr. almost, Mao Dun's praise of Baiyang, and so on Zhang Peiji's translation of Lao She's "thinking of Peking" has spread in the English world.

As a teacher with many years of teaching experience, Zhang Peiji attaches great importance to the combination of translation theory and translation practice, and emphasizes that we should face up to the actual level of students and teach them in accordance with their aptitude. His English Chinese translation course has been selected as a textbook for English Majors by many colleges and universities, and English translation of modern Chinese prose has become a classic teaching bibliography.

As a translator across China and the west, he also put forward many ideas about Chinese and Chinese characters, such as "Chinese is the language of wisdom", "Chinese characters are the peak of characters", "Chinese characters are the fifth great invention of China" and so on. He attaches great importance to mother tongue learning and advocates that mother tongue should not be regarded as a "tool" but as a "knowledge". He has also repeatedly stressed that taking a foreign language as a profession but not paying attention to mother tongue is a "short-term behavior" and will suffer great losses.

Besides the field of literary translation, Zhang Peiji also pays attention to the expression of translation in daily life. Zhu Manhua, a professor and translator of Capital University of economics and trade, once talked about this topic with him. Zhang Peiji casually gave an example to illustrate that it is not right to give the honorary title of "good health" to the units praised by the municipal government. Here, the underlying meaning should be hygienic premises or clean premises“ The language mistakes in the society, from one side, reflect the social chronic disease that people are not serious, careless and deal with. At the same time, it also reflects that many people don't attach importance to language learning, don't understand its difficulty, don't work hard, and are bold and lack of literacy when applying it. "