WEBVTT

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I will play the translation,
but I'll read the note first.

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Translation, over the
course of this book

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I have taken the
literal meanings

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Dr. Fu-Sheng Wu has
translated for me

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to produce what is the most
likely, if not always accurate

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outcome.

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I know my English titles are
poor renditions of his Chinese,

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at once too strict
and wildly erratic.

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Scholars will disagree
with this translation,

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I do not know Chinese.

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And since so few people
in my family now speak it

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I know that I will never learn.

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My family's loss of language
means my own exclusion

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from their past.

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Does this matter?

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And does it matter I haven't
shared the other poem with you

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here, the second half
of that pair carved

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into the walls of Angel Island?

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I haven't told you what
characters comprise that poem

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and though I know it's been
translated as its own work,

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I don't know whether
the Chinese would

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allow me to read across
both poem's lines

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stitching the two together
so that the sense of one

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bleeds into the other.

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Perhaps the poems are only
complete when read this way,

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perhaps each should stand apart.

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I suspect both.

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Regardless the
subject of both poems

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is the same, the loss,
the striving, the hope,

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the death that is
startling and continuous.

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Perhaps having read one
poem you long to see

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the other, start over, grief
is, but one moment of time.

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The elegy goes on forever.

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And I will play the
translation for you.

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Let me see.

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I'm going to skip to the end.

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[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

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- We cannot count all the dead.

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- This is the sound of a train.

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[INTERPOSING VOICES]

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- This is the sound of a train.

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- This is a sound of a train.

00:02:02.540 --> 00:02:04.220 align:middle line:90%
- This is a sound of a train.

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[INTERPOSING VOICES]

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- This is the sound of a train.

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- We do not ride
on the railroad--

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[INTERPOSING VOICES]

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[END PLAYBACK]

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And I'll stop before we
get into the granters.

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But anyway, I just want to
thank you all for coming out,

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and enjoy.

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[APPLAUSE]

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