Ni Hao, Blinky Bill!

By Chitralekha Basu (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-11-10 14:48

Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, the cutesy gumnut babies, imagined in the form of tender Eucalyptus (gum tree) kernels, will soon invade Chinese nurseries.

The red kangaroo who befriended the little lost girl Dot looking for her pet rabbit in the woods is already there. And so is Blinky Bill, the mischievous koala and his extended family of other animals Splodge, the kangaroo, Flap, the platypus and Mr Wombat or Wombo.

Thanks to the dedicated efforts of the Australia-China Council, the University of Western Sydney, and the People's Literature Publishing House in China, stories that have brought immense joy and wisdom to Australian children for close to 100 years, can now be shared by children in China.

The first five titles of Australian children's literature in Chinese translation - Blinky Bill by Dorothy Wall, Dot and the Kangaroo by Ethel Pedley, Rain May and Captain Daniel and Being Bee by Catherine Bateson and Seven Little Australians by Ethel Turner - are already on the shelves.

And the kids who have read some of these, or been read to, don't seem to have got enough of the adventures of a naughty koala and his marsupial friends.

Professor Li Yao, the series editor, feels the translations will help introduce Chinese children to the unique history, landscapes and lifestyles of Australia. Li has undertaken the task of introducing Australian literature, history and cultural studies to a Chinese-speaking audience over the past 31 years. He is easily the translator of the largest body of Australian texts into Chinese.

The professor feels equally strongly about translating for children. "This is a chance for Chinese children and young readers to know more about Australia early in their lives."

He sees this as a building of bridges between the two nations. "I believe more and more people will work hard toward this goal, so that we can turn this wish into reality," says the ever-affable Li.

Li's first major translation was the voluminous and difficult text, Patrick White's Tree of Man, followed by other seminal and highly culture-specific texts, such as True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey, The Touch by Colleen McCullough, and Gould's Book of Fish by Richard Flanagan.

Translating Dot and the Kangaroo or Snugglepot and Cuddlepie by May Gibbs posed a different sort of challenge. "I had to remind myself that the language needed to be kept simple and lucid," says Li. "For instance, Dot and the Kangaroo is meant for children between 10 and 12. I had to think of how best to connect with that age group."

Stories, such as Being Bee and Seven Little Australian, introduce young readers to potentially complicated situations that arise when children try to adjust to and make sense of adult behavior.

In Being Bee, young Beatrice goes through emotional turmoil when her father brings home a girlfriend. In Seven Little Australians, young Esther is suddenly saddled with seven children, some of them not much younger than herself, after her marriage to an authoritarian army captain.

Deft and sensitive handling of these themes have turned them into stories that are "funny, touching, and tender", says Li, who has made every effort to preserve the cultural nuances and the mellow tenor in the translations.

Li is very optimistic about the forthcoming title Who am I? by Anita Hessie, who is of aboriginal descent and writes about the experiences of a stolen child (several generations of aboriginal children were taken away from their parents by government agencies and church missions between 1869 and 1969 in a bid to foster racial purity).

"Reading her is a great way to learn about the history of Australia," Li says, in spite of its not-so-pleasant elements.