The Ruin of Yuanmingyuan

圆明园的毁灭是很可惜的，这是一段令所有国人难忘的历史。作者重新想象的学术文章“恶意在仙境：东方梦想和破坏宫殿的皇帝的中国”由Eric ringmar作为主要，是关于圆明园毁灭的全过程。它谈到了圆明园的历史，作者从这篇文章中挑选了两个部分：“中世纪旅行者的奇迹”和“毁灭奇迹”。在作者看来，这两个部分可以是最合理的圆明园的毁灭，以及它可以一方面描绘历史真相，另一方面它可以令所有的读者理解。

The destruction of the famous palace called Yuanmingyuan is quite a pity and it is as well an unforgettable history for every Chinese. In my translation, I re-imagined the academic article “Malice in Wonderland: Dreams of the Orient and the Destruction of the Palace of the Emperor of China” by Eric Ringmar as is mainly about the whole process of the ruin of Yuanmingyuan. It talked about the history of Yuanmingyuan and I picked two sections from the article— “The Marvel of Medieval Travelers” and “Destroying a Wonder”. In my point of view, these two sections can be best justified for the ruin of Yuanmingyuan so that it can on one hand depict the historical truth and on the other hand it can deliver to all the readers with hidden understanding. 

My translation is a fable which will be suitable for elementary school students. It will educate children not to be arrogant and sluggish, which is also the moral of this fable. In this way, those children will know that they should be modest all the time and they can never be arrogant or sluggish no matter how great and outstanding they have been. Instead, they should all the time keep improving themselves in a way or another so as to always keep an upper hand when compared with others in approaching days. In the opposite, if they do not develop themselves as they think that they have been competent enough, then some day they may be surpassed by others  as when they stop to improve themselves others may be hard-working to strengthen themselves. 

The rationale why I chose to translate this academic article into a fable is mainly because that I have noticed the importance of the historical meaning of the destruction of Yuanmingyuan. The historical meaning of Yuanmingyuan will really matter a lot in that it is a matter that will closely concern all human beings in the whole country China and it may at the same time exert impacts toward the attitude that human beings may keep toward other relics in the domestic. Besides, the elements of palace, emperor and intruders had all help remind me of the castle, king and evils that we can see from the children’ book. What’s more, the specific description of the fabulous palace will catch children’ attention easily, especially girls. Every girl will imagine being a beautiful and noble princess living in a marvelous palace. While for boys, most of them would like to be a powerful king and they own such a huge palace. It can be easily predicted that the description of  Yuanmingyuan into a fable will undoubtedly draw the attention of children kingdom and they may show strong interest in it all the time. They may later read it over and over again. Therefore, the description of Yuanmingyuan will be an excellent beginning which can also arouse children’ dreams. With these concerns, I decided to translate the academic article into a fable suitable for young children in elementary schools.

Being the target audiences of my translation, elementary school students have the characteristics of knowing little about the historical events and they are willing to accept new knowledge. Since children do not have an explicit concept of history until almost the second half of elementary school, telling the destruction of Yuanmingyuan as a story so that it will be more acceptable for them. I set the main characters as the king and robbers, which indicated the emperor of Qing Dynasty and the military of Britain and France. Then the background of this story is a beautiful castle hundreds years ago. The setting of the fable made it easy for children to understand since it was just a metaphor. In this way, I do not need to use sophisticated words to explain jargon that young students may not comprehend. For example, in the beginning of the second paragraph, I compared Yuanmingyuan with the castle in Disney Cartoons. Children must be very familiar with those architectures as they can see in cartoons like Cinderella or Snow White. However, since the old buildings of China had quite a huge difference with they can see nowadays, I can use the castle to help them construct a concept of the wonderful and grand palace where king and queen lived. In addition to the metaphor in the whole article, my diction was quite simple and direct. Elementary students do not have a large vocabulary. If I use difficult or uncommon words, not only will it waste children a lot of time, but also it will make the audiences lose patience and interest in reading this fable. For instance, I tried to use words like “beautiful” to take place of “magnificent” or “marvelous”. Additionally, I simplified and deleted some complex information in the original article. These parts will not have essential influence on the understanding of the whole article. They just gave more historical facts about what Britain and France did. For example, the sentence in Ringmar’s article:  “It was only once their loot was confiscated by French troops that it ended up in the French camp. When it came to the burning of the palace, the French commanders refused all participation.” This sentence will not influence concluding the experience. It relates to further historical study which is not necessary for a elementary student. So I deleted it and it can make the story more concise and direct. With these three traits, I narrated the fable in a straight-forward way, which is also the most direct and ordinary organization. Although flashback will arouse readers’ curiosity, it may have a negative influence on children since they may be confused of the process of the event. The direct narrative sequence will help children to follow the process of the event. Accordingly, all the fable was written by the simplest diction, expression and organization.

After children can well understand the destruction of Yuanmingyuan with the characteristics of writing strategies, they will learn the most critical part in the fable— the lesson children should learn from the ruin. I asked three questions at the beginning of the concluding paragraph. Those questions will lead children to think and review the fable we have talked about. I told the children the end of the story followed by the analysis of it. Giving the conclusion first will lead children to think about the question again with the answer.

However, if I just started the analysis after the question, they will just follow the explanation without thinking about it. For example, if we meet a difficult math problem and there are solutions after the question, one only offers the final answer and the other has the whole solving process. If we only see the answer of the question, we will try to consider the problem again with the key. However, if we follow the solving process, we will just look at the solution and we will be less likely to think of this math problem again. If it happened in this way for a long term, then students may be deprived of their ability to have critical thinking toward all their puzzles and they may form a habit to depend on others to get a specific solution at last. Fables are just written to educate children and lead them to think, to conclude and to learn. The former way of writing the conclusion paragraph will be more beneficial to the development of children. I wrote this fable not mainly because I want children know the history of the end of Qing Dynasty. I want to let children enjoy the way of thinking and finally conclude the moral.  Apart from those children, maybe the children’ parents will as well be the unintended audiences as they would like to teach their own children so that they have to read before them in order for better tutoring afterwards. 

As a matter of fact, to translate an academic article into a fable is really a consuming job and it may require many techniques in that process. To put it more specifically, translating an academic article into a fable is suitable for elementary school students because it requires a simple and straight-forward way of narrating. Metaphor and vivid diction will arouse children’ interest and it can also contribute to comprehension. Suppose that children can not understand the content of the fable at all, how can they later put the essence of this fable in the reality so as to contribute to the their cultivation of pleasant personalities and their rid of bad habits in a way or another. These methods lead children to understand easily and follow the fable fluently, which will lead them finally to learn the moral of the fable. Elementary school students can learn that they should never despise others and keep developing, which will have great significance to their future life. It is hoped that children can learn those personalities and can well apply them into their daily life so as to make their potential to the full play. 

Work Cited
Ringmar Eric, “Malice in Wonderland: Dreams of the Orient and the Destruction of the Palace of the Emperor of China.”
       Journal of World History. Vol. 22 Issue 2, Jun2011, p273-298. 26p.
       Web EBSCO, May 1, 2015



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