Xu Yuanchong was drafted into the army when he was a senior and participated in the translation work in the Flying Tigers' Confidential Secretary's Office. Later, principal Mei Yiqi told him that after his service period was over, he would have to go back to school to study for one year. To graduate. Southwest Associated University pays attention to democracy, advocates academic independence, free education, and advocates professors' governance. It once used the slogan "Establish the scale of academic freedom internally and the title of the fortress of democracy externally", which is praised by the world. However, when it comes to important matters such as admission and graduation, the school can be said to be "strict in and out" and is absolutely unambiguous.

Southwestern Associated University inherited Cai Yuanpei’s spiritual tradition of “freedom of thought and inclusiveness”, allowing all kinds of ideas to flourish. In subsequent academic research and social practice, the achievements of many Associated University students have greatly exceeded teacher. Xu Yuanchong also shows a strong sense of catching up and surpassing. He will carefully compare his translations with those of his classmates and seniors. He said, "If I try to translate something that someone else has translated, I will surpass him. If I don't surpass him, what's the point of trying to translate it again?"

Principal Mei Yiqi said "taciturn" Known as a "gentleman", he usually doesn't like to talk much, but the book also records one of his humorous moments. That was in 1949, when Xu Yuanchong was studying in Paris. President Mei went to Paris to attend a UNESCO meeting, and alumni of the United Nations University in Paris accompanied him on the tour. During dinner, Principal Mei slowly told a joke, saying that some people talked about being afraid of their wives. One person said: "Those who are afraid of their wives should sit on the right, and those who are not afraid should stay on the left." As a result, everyone moved to the right. Sit, only one person doesn't move. Everyone asked him why he was not afraid of his wife? He replied: "My wife told me not to go to crowded places." You see, such a vivid record allows us to see another side of this famous educator that few people know.

What Xu Yuanchong did was mainly translation between Chinese, English and French. In fact, it is not difficult to translate between English and French. What is difficult is the translation between Chinese and English and Chinese and French. Why? Because equivalent words can be found in about 90% of Western languages ??such as English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. That is to say, each word can have a corresponding translation. They all belong to the Latin or Germanic language family. However, there are far fewer equivalences between Chinese and these Western languages. Only about 40% of them can be found, which means that when translating between Chinese and Western languages, it is impossible to use the same method as when translating between Western languages. etc. principles, a lot of free translation must be used.

If no equivalent word can be found, it cannot be completely faithful to the original text. In this case, the translated content is either not as good as the original text, or is worse than the original text, and literary translation should try to use expressions that are worse than the original text. This is the "optimized translation theory" advocated by Xu Yuanchong.

Xu Yuanchong agrees with Mr. Qian’s conclusion that there is a dilemma between beauty and truth, but he holds the opposite view on how to choose. He believes that poetry is the ontology, which comes first; translation is the method, which comes second. Poetry requires beauty, while translation requires truth. Translating a beautiful poem into something less than beautiful cannot be regarded as preserving the truth. The principle of poetry translation is to strive for beauty as much as possible without distortion. Therefore, seeking truth has a low standard, a necessary condition, and a negative requirement; while seeking beauty has a high standard, a sufficient condition, and a positive requirement.

Bian Zhilin translated "The boundless forest sheds its leaves shower by shower", and Xu Yuanchong translated "The endless river rolls its waves hour after hour". ". Comparing them carefully, you will find that these two translations not only have beautiful artistic conception and contrasting sentence patterns, but also rhyme and are catchy, truly achieving the beauty of meaning, sound and form.

There is no doubt that this kind of translation allows foreign readers to feel the beautiful artistic conception of ancient Chinese poetry. All of Xu Yuanchong's translations, whether Chinese or foreign, are carefully crafted in this way.

Summary: Such an exquisite and elegant translation requires both solid language skills and sudden inspiration. Yang Zhenning, an old classmate of Southwest Associated University and a famous physicist, once joked with Xu Yuanchong, "You almost have an inspiration every day, but I only have one in many years."

Xu Yuanchong has devoted his whole life to literary translation. He was so mesmerized that translation was a job of discovering and creating beauty. He said, "If the beauty created by one country can be transformed into the beauty of the whole world, wouldn't that be the highest good and the highest pleasure?!"

In 1999, Peking University, Nanjing University, etc. Ten professors from universities jointly nominated Xu Yuanchong as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. After reading "Three Hundred Ancient Chinese Poems" translated by Xu Yuanchong, a judge of the Nobel Prize Committee wrote a letter to him, calling his translation "a sample of great traditional Chinese literature."

Xu Yuanchong’s enthusiasm for the translation career originated from the Southwest Associated University, which stood majestically in the war. The Southwest Associated University was the place where his dream began. When he recalled teachers from Lianda University such as Wen Yiduo, Wu Mi, Qian Zhongshu, and Feng Youlan, he always thought of their various insights on literature, beauty, translation, and life. Southwest Associated University created a miracle, and Xu Yuanchong was also part of this miracle. His memoir allows us to see what education should be like.