𝐒𝐞𝐞𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐕𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐀𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐝: 𝐀 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫’𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐇𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐊𝐨𝐧𝐠 (1 of 4)

When I first arrived, I felt that Hong Kong was a city constantly growing upwards. The slender buildings pierced the sky like blades, each floor packed with perhaps ten units and each unit further subdivided into multiple studios.

I often wonder: do those who come here from afar all harbor the dream of a sharp, upward ascent—a swift rise to the top?

I once spent a year in my Chinese major at National Taiwan Normal University, immersed in the Four Books and Five Classics and other canonical historical and philosophical texts. In truth, the most rigorous academic work I undertook then was analyzing the Three Heroes of the early Han Dynasty for a final exam—or perhaps tracing Sima Qian’s values through the structural variations in the Records of the Shiji. Those experiences cultivated in me a habit of scrutinizing linguistic details—a character's radical, the subtle weight of a tone—each a minute clue quietly revealing an author’s worldview and thought process.

During my time in the English Department, I encountered translation theory for the first time and began to focus on how language reflects culture. I came to realize that a translator’s choices are often an expression of a cultural stance.

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