武宇林序

斗转星移，中英学者经过三个春秋的跨国合作研究，英文版《丝绸之路上的民间歌谣—花儿》一书终于问世了。作为中文原著《中国花儿通论》作者，回首此书的诞生过程，思绪万千，感触良多。

本书基于笔者中文原著《中国花儿通论》翻译而成，而后者基于日文专著《丝绸之路口传民歌“花儿”研究》，这是笔者在日本广岛大学的博士论文。提及笔者的日本留学，与本书译者之一的英国籍史若兰教授不无关系。我们相识于20多年前的1994年，当时，笔者作为宁夏政府公派的一名海外技术研修员，来到日本岛根县立女子大学进修学习，而若兰教授是该校英文教员。宁夏和岛根县于1993年缔结了友好关系，按照协议，宁夏每年都向岛根派遣研修员，笔者就是其中之一。命运安排我们两人在日本岛根县立女子大学相识，而博大精深的中国文化让我们成为挚友。用若兰教授的话说：“在日本的这所大学里，就我们两个外国人，好多习惯都一样。你是中国人，而我是学中文的英国人，我喜欢中国和中国文化。感谢上帝把你派到我身边！”其实，若兰教授的中文水平相当不错，她1974年毕业于英国伦敦大学亚非学院（SOAS）汉语言文学专业，会讲流畅而标准的汉语普通话。她之所以选择中文，是受了父亲的影响。出生于50年代的她，少年时期跟随油画艺术家的父亲及家人到过很多国家。受那个时代风潮的影响，十分向往东方文化，尤其是向往东方古国—中国。而后之所以对中国“花儿”民歌感兴趣，也可以说是受到了声乐艺术家的母亲的影响。1976年2月，她有幸参加了英方组织的中国参访团，去了北京、上海和杭州等地。同年8月，得到英国文化协会的奖学金资助，在北京语言大学短期留学。其后，来到东方国度之一的日本从事英文教学，并于1983年考入日本广岛大学，攻读中国文学专业的博士前期课程，即硕士课程，研究方向是中国现代作家戴望舒的诗歌研究，可谓是此次“花儿”民歌翻译合作研究的伏笔。其间，她邂逅了一位会汉语的日本男生，后来成为她的丈夫。她说，从英国初到日本的她，还不太会说日语，俩人便用汉语交流与沟通，最终结为伉俪，并有了可爱的一儿一女，她也长期定居日本，一直在大学从事英文及中文教学工作。1994年夏，笔者来到她所在的岛根县立女子大学进修了8个月。其后，在她和一些日本友人的帮助下，笔者于1995年9月再次来到日本，考入岛根大学，攻读教育学（美术教育）硕士学位，开始了10年之久的留学生涯。3年后的1998年秋，若兰教授再次举荐并支持笔者考入其母校日本广岛大学文学研究生院硕博连读，开始了中国“花儿”民歌的研究之路。日本留学期间，我们都在做兼职中文教师。为了有一本得心应手的汉语教材，我们于2000年合作编辑出版了日文版《实用中国语基础课本—石井先生的北京三周》（日本南云堂出版社）的教科书，被岛根大学、京都大学等选作大学教材，也是我们各自首选的汉语教科书，这是我们的第一次学术合作。她在那本书的署名为“狩野キャロライン”，这是她的日本名字。按照日本习俗, 女性婚后和丈夫同姓，后面是自己英文名字的日文音译。据此，笔者为她取了中文名字“若兰”，她十分中意。本书中，使用了该中文名字署名，前面并加上了父亲的姓氏“史密斯”的“史”。

笔者在广岛大学的研究方向为“中国西部口传民歌‘花儿’研究”，其间，每年暑假都回国到甘肃、青海、宁夏和新疆各地，沿古丝绸之路进行“花儿”的田野调查，取得了珍贵的第一手材料。该研究多次得到日本文部省和其他团体的奖学金资助，也享受过“小林节太郎纪念基金会”的博士生研究资金。最终形成的博士论文得到了日本博士生导师及学界的充分肯定，于2004年12月顺利通过答辩，获得文学博士学位。之后，日本导师推荐笔者的日文博士论文《中国西部口传民歌“花儿”研究》在信山社出版。出版社对此评价：这是日本出版界第一本关于中国西部少数民族民歌的书籍，其研究对象有独自性，研究内容有独创性，研究水平有高度性，日语表达有准确性。并建议书名为《丝绸之路口传民歌“花儿”研究》，还给予了出版补贴。2005年8月，这部32万多字的专著在日本公开出版发行。2008年，该著作获宁夏第十次哲学社会科学优秀成果奖著作类“一等奖”。

2005年初笔者回国，来到北方民族大学工作以来，继续开展“花儿”研究。翌年，赴中亚吉尔吉斯斯坦调研境外古丝绸之路的“花儿”民歌，以及西北各地“花儿”新动态，进一步补充完善了日文版的“花儿”专著，于2008年在宁夏人民出版社出版《中国花儿通论》。这部约40万字的中文专著，系统地阐述了我国非遗之一的“花儿”民歌的历史渊源、流派、分类、形式、内容、修辞、民族特色和文化传承等内容。全书梳理、引用了780多首原生态“花儿”，展示了中国西部的回、汉、撒拉、东乡、保安、土、藏、裕固、蒙古族，以及中亚东干族“花儿”的奇特艺术魅力。并附有笔者在田野调查中拍摄的宁夏、甘肃、青海、新疆和吉尔吉斯斯坦东干族“花儿”现状的数十幅照片，图文并茂、全方位地展示了中国“花儿”的全貌。国内专家予以高度评价：“该书填补了我国长期以来‘花儿’研究的空白”。该著作于2009年获中国民间文艺第九届“山花奖”。同年，西北四省区联合申报的“花儿”，入选“联合国人类非物质文化遗产代表作”，成为我国为数不多的世界级非遗项目。

正是这部获得国家级奖励的《中国花儿通论》，几年前引起了北方民族大学外国语学院的有识之士杨晓丽、王静和张晓瑾三位女老师的关注，她们都是年轻有为的英语教师，酝酿着要将该著作中的“花儿”民歌尝试翻译成英文。十分巧合的是，她们的想法竟和若兰教授的计划不谋而合。那是2013年，笔者邀请若兰教授来到北方民族大学再次进行“花儿”英文翻译的学术合作。之前，笔者和若兰教授还有过第二次合作。那是笔者回国不久，接受了学校安排的一项艰巨的科研任务：发挥在日本留过学、懂日语的优势，完成日本藏西夏文文献的收集整理研究及出版。于是，笔者请若兰教授帮助寻找日方西夏学合作者。真是机缘巧合，那时，她正好从岛根县立女子大学调任东京外国语大学任英文教师，而该校就有西夏学研究机构。在她的牵线引荐下，笔者和该校日本著名西夏学家西田龙雄先生的弟子荒川慎太郎博士取得了联系，并达成了合作意向。其后，笔者作为项目主持人，成功地申报并获批2007年度国家社科基金重点项目“日本藏西夏文文献收集整理研究出版”。不仅是荒川博士，若兰教授也成为了合作者之一：她应邀承担了该项目研究成果《日本藏西夏文文献》著作中笔者撰写的中文前言的英文翻译工作，曾于2009年来到北方民族大学进行共同研究。在中日英学者的精诚合作下，2010年底，《日本藏西夏文文献》二册大型图书在中华书局正式出版，很快被日本、俄罗斯等世界各国西夏学研究机构收藏。该著作获2011年度全国优秀古籍图书二等奖，我们也为之欣慰。

我们的第三次合作开始于2013年秋，笔者带着从日本东京来我校学术访问的若兰教授，走进本校外国语学院，和院长闫丽君教授谈起她的“花儿”翻译计划。闫院长告知：杨晓丽等几位英语教师也正尝试翻译“花儿”民歌呢！团队中也正好需要英语是母语的成员呢！就这样，2013年9月9日上午，在外国语学院小巧而温暖的资料室里，若兰教授、闫丽君院长、杨晓丽、王静、张晓瑾三位老师及笔者组成的“花儿”翻译团队开始了第一次合作研究。大家一拍即合，决定依据笔者专著《中国花儿通论》，从中精选有代表性的200首左右民歌及相关篇章，翻译为英文，向英语世界介绍这一联合国人类非物质文化遗产代表作。并确定了挑选及翻译“花儿”的基本原则：健康向上、通俗易懂。还进行了分工，由3位英语教师和若兰教授人均分担约50首的英文翻译，最后由若兰教授订正。良好的开端，是成功的一半。接下来的两年里，若兰教授每年都拨冗来华，和几位翻译团队成员及笔者共同研究。然而，她作为一名英国人，对于中国“花儿”歌词中提及的宁夏“六盘山”等西北风土人情毕竟生疏费解。于是，2013年9月13日，笔者等陪她一起乘坐朋友的私家车，往返七百多公里，专程前往宁夏南部山区的泾源县、原州区和海原县考察数日，游览了雄伟壮丽的六盘山，体验了当地的饮食等民俗，使她对“花儿”的歌唱环境有了直观感受，进而促进了对“花儿”英文的准确把握。

“花儿”英译的过程是艰辛的。要将充满乡土气息的“花儿”民歌翻译成英文，远比想象的困难。不仅是若兰教授，对于几位初次接触“花儿”民歌的年轻英语教师来说也是不小的挑战。首先面临的困难是，很难准确解读“花儿”歌词的中文意思。因为，“花儿”都是西北各民族群众用方言俚语即兴创作的，虽然非常生动有趣、含蓄有味，但基本上都是随心所欲的口语，几乎无语法规则而言。如果不懂方言，很可能曲解歌词本意，更谈不上将它们翻译成贴切优美的英文。然而，她们并没有知难而退，而是集思广益、群策群力、共同攻关。实在不明白之处，就虚心和笔者商讨，直到弄清歌词原意。而远在日本单兵作战的若兰教授，则反复阅读笔者的日文和中文原著中的歌词说明，揣摩含意。实在不解，就一次次通过电子邮件，列出“花儿”中的一个个单词或句子，让笔者用日语或中文再次解释。就这样，反反复复，书中的每一首“花儿”都几易其稿，倾注了几位翻译者的心血和智慧。

“花儿”英译的过程也是快乐而难忘的。几位中英译者都是大学一线的英语教师，担当着繁重的教学任务。为了静心翻译研究，大家相约利用寒暑假开学前的一段时间进行集体研究。于是，若兰教授应邀于2014年暑假和2015年寒假频频来华赴宁“会战”。由于大学尚未开学，不能入住校宾馆，她们就为若兰教授预订银川市内的宾馆，几个人挤在一个标准间里，围着笔记本和电脑，从早到晚，热烈地展开翻译讨论。两年前，王静老师考入上海外国语大学就读博士，但并未因此影响她的翻译任务。当团队成员们需要见面商讨时，便上网通过电脑视频，与远在上海的王静老师进行面对面对话交流。现代化的航空交通及视频音讯手段，让远在东京及上海的团队成员召之即来、近在咫尺。为了让远道而来的若兰教授在宁夏过得舒心而快乐，团队成员们不时为她带来回族面点“油香”和“馓子”、各种时令水果，偶尔也带她去中山公园观赏踢毽子、广场舞、探戈舞，感受银川人的活力，让她在宁夏翻译“花儿”的日子格外开心。

正是靠着中英学者的凝心聚力、锲而不舍，一部英文版的《丝绸之路上的民间歌谣—花儿》著作终于付梓了。在此之前，有美国等其他国家学者的“花儿”英文论著，但中国学者和英国学者合作完成的英文“花儿”著作尚属首部。毫无疑问，它是一部具有创新意义的“花儿”著作，标志着我国“花儿”研究步入新阶段与新形式，也填补了我国“花儿”研究的空白，它将载入中国“花儿”理论研究的史册。该著作的研究成果，将向英文世界打开一扇窗户，把充满艺术魅力和泥土芬芳的“花儿”，以优美而精准的英文，展献给世界各国的人们。这对于传播、传承和保护联合国人类非物质文化遗产代表作“花儿”势必有着重要的意义。作为中文原著的作者深感欣慰，也衷心期望中外英语读者欣赏和喜欢中国“花儿”民歌。也衷心祝愿该著作的几位英文译者再接再厉，在中国民歌的英文翻译领域开疆辟土，再创辉煌！

原著《中国花儿通论》作者 武宇林

2015年11月30日

Preface by Wu Yulin

More than three springs and autumns of joint research by Chinese and British scholars have come round, and the English version of Zhongguo Hua’er Tonglun （A Study of Chinese Hua’er）, entitled Hua’er—Songs from the Silk Road, is now being published. When, as the author of the original Zhongguo Hua’er Tonglun, I look back on its creation, countless happy and moving episodes come to mind.

While the present English work is based on Zhongguo Hua’er Tong-lun, this work itself was in fact based on the academic work Hua’er no Kenkyu—Shirukurodo no Kosho Minyo （Research on Hua’er—Orally Transmitted Folk Songs from the Silk Road）, written in Japanese, which was in turn based on the PhD thesis which I wrote in completion of my studies at Hiroshima University in Japan. Indeed, in referring to the time I spent studying in Japan, I cannot but also mention the British translator who has participated in the present work, Professor Shi Ruolan （Caroline Kano）. We first met more than twenty years ago, in 1994. At the time, I had been sponsored by Ningxia regional government to conduct a period of professional training at Shimane Prefectural Women’s College in Japan, and Ruolan was a member of the English teaching staff at the same college. In 1993, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and Shimane Prefecture had just established a “twin region” friendship agreement, whereby every year Ningxia would send a group of professional trainees to Shimane, and I was amongst those participating in the second group. Fortune brought the two of us together at Shimane Prefectural Women’s College, and the greatness of Chinese culture caused us to become close friends. I still recall Ruolan saying to me, “You and I are the only non-Japanese at the college, and we have many things in common. You are Chinese, and, although I am British, I am studying Chinese. I love China and Chinese culture, and I am so grateful to God for sending you here to me!”

In fact, Ruolan’s Chinese was not bad at all. She had graduated in 1974 in Chinese from the School of Oriental and African Studies （SOAS）, University of London, and spoke very correct standard Chinese. In first choosing to study Chinese, she had no doubt been influenced by her parents, who had always taken her with them to many countries abroad, her artist father painting the landscape wherever they went. Then, growing up as she did in the London of the sixties, when the atmosphere of the times was one of looking to the East, she became fascinated by oriental culture and, in particular, by the culture of ancient China. Her later great interest in Chinese Hua’er folk songs could well be said to have resulted from the influence of her singer mother. In February of 1976, she had the opportunity to participate for the first time in a study tour of China organized by the Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding, and in August of the same year, she received a British Council Scholarship to study Chinese at Beijing Languages Institute （now Beijing Language and Culture University）.

A few years later, Ruolan moved to another country of the Far East, Japan, to teach English. In 1983, she had the opportunity to enter Hiroshima University, to pursue postgraduate studies in Chinese literature, focusing on the poetry of the contemporary Chinese poet, Dai Wangshu. This research could well be said to have been a prelude to this present Hua’er folk song research and translation project. In the meantime, it was through Chinese yet again that she had another chance encounter, this time with a Japanese man who could also speak Chinese, and who subsequently became her husband. Apparently, when she first arrived in Japan, she could not yet really speak Japanese, so that the two of them communicated by means of Chinese. After their marriage, Ruolan moved with her husband to Shimane Prefecture, and settled permanently in Japan. She subsequently had two children, and took up a full-time career teaching English at Shimane Women’s College, later also teaching Chinese part-time at Shimane University. The former was, of course, where we met in the summer of 1994.

Shortly after I went back to China at the end of my eight-month period of study at Shimane Women’s College, with the help of Ruolan and several Japanese friends, I was able to return once more to Japan, and this time entered Shimane University to study for an MA in Art Education. This was the start of a ten-year period of study in Japan. Three years later, in the autumn of 1998, Ruolan once again helped me to enter Hiroshima University, where she had studied, to read for a joint MA and PhD degree in Chinese literature, and I thus set off on my journey of research into the folk song genre of Hua’er, folk songs from the Silk Road.

During my time in Japan, in addition to my studies, I also taught Chinese, as did Ruolan. Since we had both been looking for an easy-to-use and effective Chinese textbook for our respective classes, we decided to write one ourselves. This was our first joint research project together, and, in 2000, our Jitsuyo Chugokugo Kiso Tekisuto—Ishii-kun no Pekin 3 Shukan （A Practical Textbook of Basic Chinese—Ishii-kun’s Three Weeks in Beijing）, for Japanese students of Chinese, was published by Nan’undo, Japan. In the case of this textbook, Ruolan wrote under the name of Caroline Kano, with her Japanese surname written first in Kanji （as according to Japanese custom, unlike Chinese custom, women after marriage assume the surname of their husband） and then her English given name written as it is pronounced in Japanese, in the Hiragana script. Afterwards, however, I felt that she deserved to have a Chinese name, and so I chose for her the name Shi Ruolan, with which she seemed to be thrilled. The pronunciation of Ruolan （which means “like an orchid”） sounds somewhat similar to the latter two syllables of her English name, Caroline. The Chinese surname Shi （which means “history”） is also the first character of the Chinese rendering of her English maiden name, Smith （Shimisi）, and a natural Chinese surname in its own right. It thus seemed very appropriate for her to include her Chinese name in the pre-sent publication.

During the period when I was studying at Hiroshima University and doing research on Hua’er, it became necessary for me to conduct actual fieldwork in China. Accordingly, whenever time permitted in the summer holidays, I visited the Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia and Xinjiang regions of the northwest of China, located along the ancient Silk Road, and home of Hua’er, to collect important material. I was most fortunate to be awarded a grant for my research by the Japanese Ministry of Education, together with other funding, including that from the Setsutaro Kobayashi Memorial Fund for postgraduate research, for which I am ever grateful. Eventually, thanks to all the kind support I received, I completed my thesis, which was approved for a PhD. Not long afterwards, my thesis was recommended by the university to Shinzansha, with a view to publication in book form, and, in August of 2005, it was published under the Japanese title Hua’er no Kenkyu—Shirukurodo no Kosho Minyo （Research on Hua’er—Orally Transmitted Folk Songs from the Silk Road）. The book received a gratifying review for its originality and specialized content, and as the first work on the folk songs of the ethnic groups of Northwest China to be published in Japan. In 2008, it was selected for first prize in the Publications Category of the Tenth Ningxia Award for Outstanding Achievements in the Fields of Philosophy and Social Science.

In 2005, I returned permanently to China, and began to teach at Beifang University of Nationalities, in Yinchuan, Ningxia, while continuing my research on Hua’er. In 2006, I visited Kyrgyzstan, one of the Central Asian countries along the ancient Silk Road, to conduct fieldwork, and also many parts of Northwest China, to explore the development of Hua’er there. On the basis of my new findings, I subsequently improved further on my Japanese publication, and, in 2008, my Zhongguo Hua’er Tonglun （A Study of Chinese Hua’er） was published by Ningxia Publishing House. In this work, I described the historical origins, genres, classifications, structure, content, rhetorical imagery, ethnic characteristics and cultural traditions of Hua’er, which are now recognized as one of China’s intangible cultural assets. This Chinese work introduced more than 780 examples of Hua’er, illustrating their unique artistic charm, and representing the Hui, Han, Salar, Dongxiang, Bao’an, Tu, Tibetan and Mongolian ethnic groups in the northwest of China, and the Central Asia Dungan ethnic group. Together with many pictures which I had taken during my fieldwork in Ningxia, Gansu, Qinghai, Xingjiang, and Kyrgyzstan, the work therefore presented a comprehensive survey of every aspect of Hua’er. The work was highly rated by experts within China, as having “filled a long blank in research on Hua’er in China”. In 2009, it was awarded the Ninth Shanhua Jiang National Award for Folk Literature. The same year, the four provinces of the northwest of China submitted a joint application to UNESCO, requesting that Hua’er be considered for inclusion in the list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The application was accepted, and Hua’er became one of China’s as yet few internationally recognized intangible cultural assets.

It then came about that my Zhongguo Hua’er Tonglun aroused the interest of three young and promising scholars and teachers of English at Beifang University of Nationalities, Yang Xiaoli, Wang Jing and Zhang Xiaojin, who were very enthusiastic about the idea of trying to translate the Hua’er contained in the work into English. Extraordinarily, and most fortunately, their idea coincided with a similar desire previously expressed by Ruolan. It therefore came about that, in 2013, I invited Ruolan to pay a second visit to Beifang University of Nationalities, this time to begin what was to be our third joint research project.

It was indeed a second visit as I had already invited Ruolan to the university once before, in connection with our second joint research project. This was not long after I returned to China and started to teach at Beifang University of Nationalities. Since I had the experience of studying in Japan, and could understand Japanese, I received a request from the university to undertake an important task to complete the cataloguing of research data and publications on the ancient civilisation of Xixia, or Western Xia （located in Northwest China with its capital in present-day Ningxia）, in Japan. Accordingly, I asked Ruolan to try to help me find a Japanese scholar in the field of Xixia culture. Miraculously, Ruolan had just transferred from Shimane Women’s College to take up new English teaching duties at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies （TUFS）, and the Research Institute for the Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa affiliated with the university just happened to be conducting a research project related to Xixia studies. Thanks to Ruolan’s assistance, I was able to make contact with a Xixia scholar at the Research Institute, Dr Arakawa Shintaro, a former student of the Xixia expert, Dr Nishida Tatsuo, who expressed willingness to participate in a joint project. As a result, I was able to successfully collect data and publish the work, Ribencang Xixiawen Wenxian Shouji Zhengli Yanjiu Chuban （Collating, Cataloguing, Research and Publications Related to Xixia Documents in Japan） in 2007. The publication of the work was supported by a grant from the National Planning Office of Philosophy and Social Science, being specially selected for the rare category of “Key Project”. Ruolan also became a member of the project, by agreeing to my request for her to translate my Chinese foreword to Ribencang Xixiawen Wenxian （Xixia Documents Collected in Japan） into English. As a result of this collaboration, at the end of 2010, Ribencang Xixiawen Wenxian, by Wu Yulin and Arakawa Shintaro, was published in two large volumes by Zhonghua Book Company Beijing, and soon entered the collections of research institutes in Japan, Russia and many other countries. In 2011, the work was awarded the prestigious National Prize for Outstanding Publications on Ancient Books.

Subsequently then, the third joint project with Ruolan began in the autumn of 2013, when I took her to see the Head of the School of Foreign Languages and Cultures at my university, Professor Yan Lijun, to discuss her desire to translate Hua’er into English. Professor Yan then announced, “It just so happens that Yang Xiaoli and two other English teachers also want to try to translate Hua’er into English, and they are in need of a native speaker of English to join their team!” Thus it came about that, on the morning of the 9th September, 2013, in the small, comfortable reference room of the School of Foreign Languages and Cultures, Ruolan, Professor Yan Lijun, Yang Xiaoli, Wang Jing, Zhang Xiaojun and I held the first meeting of the Hua’er Translation Project Team. It was agreed that the translation would be based on my work, Zhongguo Hua’er Tonglun, and that approximately 200 representative Hua’er, together with their respective explanatory texts, would be selected to translate into English, with the purpose of introducing this example of Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage recognized by UNESCO, to the world. In choosing which examples of Hua’er to translate, it was decided to concentrate on those which would be most appealing and easy to understand. They also decided that the four members of the team would each translate approximately 50 Hua’er, with further final revision by Ruolan in consultation with the team as a whole.

As the saying goes, a good start is already halfway on the way to success. During the course of the following two years, Ruolan visited us two or three more times, to conduct meetings with the other three members of the team and myself. Moreover, as she expressed the wish to see for herself more of the landscape of Northwest China, such as Ningxia’s Mount Liupan, which features greatly in Hua’er. In September of 2013, I accompanied her in a friend’s car on a four-day trip, covering a distance of more than 700 kilometres, to Jingyuan County, Guyuan County and Haiyuan County in the mountainous southern part of Ningxia. I certainly wanted her to see with her own eyes the magnificent sight of Mount Liupan, and experience something of the local food and customs of the region, and have a taste of the environment in which Hua’er were composed, in order to deepen her understanding of the content and facilitate translation.

The process of translating Hua’er folk songs, which are filled with the atmosphere and life of the region where they were created, proved to be more difficult than imagined. This was not only the case for Ruolan, it was also somewhat of a challenge for the three young English teachers who were translating Hua’er for the first time. The first difficulty was to correctly understand the content of the Chinese itself. This is because the words of Hua’er are composed in a spontaneous way, using the dialects and slang of the northwest. Although they are all full of poetic vibrance and subtle meaning, they are fundamentally extemporized, with little attention paid to strict grammatical rules. Without a good understanding of the dialect, it is very easy to misinterpret the real meaning, and thus it is even more difficult to translate them into suitable and effective Eng-lish. Nevertheless, the translators by no means wanted to give up, but constantly and tirelessly discussed their different ideas and interpretations until they came to a consensus. When they really came up against expressions they did not understand, they asked for my assistance （until they were really clear about the meaning）. Ruolan, who “battled”a lot of the time on her own far away in Japan, repeatedly referred to my Japanese translations and explanations of the Hua’er in my earlier Hua’er no Kenkyu—Shirukurodo no Kosho Minyu, comparing them with the original Chinese. If she still had any questions, she contacted me by email, asking me to explain further in Japanese or Chinese. In this way, as a result of the great devotion to the task and effort on the part of the translators, the translation of each Hua’er gradually took shape.

All four members of the translation team are university teachers, responsible for numerous teaching and other duties. In order to be able to concentrate on their translating, they mutually agreed to use the brief periods of their winter and summer holidays to work intensively. Consequently, we invited Ruolan to Ningxia during these periods, in order that they might “pitch into their work together”. As the university was then officially on holiday, it was not possible for her always to stay in the accommodation on campus. The three Chinese members of the team therefore arranged for her to stay at a hotel in the city, where the four of them got together with their notebooks and computer, from morning to night, enthusiastically discussing their translation. Two years previously, Wang Jing had been accepted to study for a PhD at Shanghai International Studies University, but this in no way affected the progress of her translation. When she was in Shanghai, and the other members of the team needed to discuss the translation work with her, they did so online, conducting video meetings. Modern-day means of air travel and Internet communication thus enabled members in faraway Tokyo and Shanghai to come together.

In order to give Ruolan a worthwhile and happy time in Ningxia, the Chinese members of the team specially made her youxiang and sanzi （deep fried bread specialities of the Hui ethnic group）, and brought her many kinds of local fruit, the names of which frequently appear in Hua’er. They also took her early on a Sunday morning to Yinchuan’s Zhongshan Park, to experience tijianzi （shuttlecock kicking） and other traditional sports and games, as well as Tango and various other kinds of dance, such as are a part of the present-day life of Yinchuan, in order that she might enjoy to the full her time of translating Hua’er in Ningxia.

Thanks to the untiring determination of the Chinese and British translators, this English translation, “Hua’er—Folk Songs from the Silk Road”, has finally appeared in print. Although there have previously been scholars from America and other countries who have published research on Hua’er in English, our joint Chinese and British research project is the first of its kind. Without a doubt, this work is significant in its originality, constituting a new stage in, and approach to, research on Hua’er, and will have a place in the history of research on Hua’er in China. Thanks to this fine translation of the fruits of my own research, Hua’er folk songs, with their abundant artistic appeal and “local” flavour, can now enter into the English speaking world, and be presented to people everywhere. This is undoubtedly of great significance from the point of view of promoting knowledge of, and protecting, this UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage asset, Hua’er. As the author of the original Chinese work, I feel both exceedingly happy and heartened, and truly hope that English speakers outside China will appreciate and love Hua’er. I also sincerely hope that the translators of my book will continue their work in the as yet little-trodden territory of Chinese Hua’er folk songs, and produce many more excellent publications.

Wu Yulin

Author of Zhongguo Hua’er Tonglun

30th November, 2015