I make time to follow quality programmes, including Sharon Cheung’s programme. Malaysian and Taiwanese friends might not be familiar with Sharon Cheung. She was a journalist when Hongkongers were unhappy about the performance of their first Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa. She asked the then chairman of PRC Jiang Zemin if he was to appoint Tung for a second-term. Mr Jiang could not hold back his anger and described her as ‘too simple, sometimes naive’. Which then becomes the name of her YouTube channel.
During this episode, she introduced a book titled Do Not Be Complacent when It Is Time to Move Forward, which was written by Taiwanese writer Lao Yang’s Owl. The stories that can be developed from this theme are somehow predictable and I did not buy the book. I was interested in Sharon’s viewpoints instead. I see eye to eye with her on the points that she elaborated about avoid lending money to friends.
I have one point to add to her ideas though: do not try to rescue the poor with cold cash. Money helps a lot in urgent circumstances, but you must not rescue the poor with cash money, as Stephen Siew Senior said in his programme. If you have very strong symphathy and try to rescue the poor with money, you will need to encounter a situation whereby your beneficiaries start hating you when you try to walk away and have your own life. A bucket of rice cultivates gratitude, loads of rice cause hatred, as the Chinese saying goes.
Sharon also advised her listeners to never bet on their luck to hope for today’s slack to lead to a better life tomorrow. Quite a good advice in the always-changing Internet world, as well as my industry of translation and copywriting.
A simple rationale is this. If human lifespan is to be extended, most of us would have longer years to contribute to our fields. To remain competitive to earn a living in the coming decades, we must always improve our capabilities. Thankfully, I always force myself to always try working on new topics in translation and copywriting. If I need to work on engineering documents for the language pair of Chinese to English tomorrow, I think I can manage them, for I translated similar documents ten years ago. Requests for such projects reduced a lot in recent years though.
Observing Sharon’s viewpoints, we can tell that her mother taught her well and she learnt that every person should earn his or her own living, for nobody should be responsible for someone else’s living. And I am always saying that it is much better to teach others to catch fish than to giving them fish.
I also appreciate her ideas about the personal strength to take action and execute ideas so as to reach our own goals. I am always thinking about work and find life to be aimless and meaningless if we do not need to work. My lopsided idea is that, if you want to achieve something in life, it is better to be childless: you need to give up a lot when you need to feed your children and give them a better life.
We shall talk about this huge topic when the chance comes by. For now, I have another new topic to be researched into for the language pair of Chinese to English. That’s why I say translator’s life is one of limitless game-set without time to slack, for it is demanding when I always have to put the newly-acquired knowledge and language skills into my work all the time.
我常常安排時間收聽優質節目，其中一個是張寶華的節目。大馬和臺灣的朋友可能不熟悉張寶華，其實她大有來頭：當年董建華的表現讓港人覺得不滿，她追問時任中華人民共和國國家主席江澤民有關中央是否會欽點董特首連任，結果老江沉不住氣，說她是 too simple, sometimes naive。因此這成為她的優管頻道名稱。
這一集的節目她介紹老楊的貓頭鷹寫的《不要在該奮鬥時選擇安逸》。這個主題可以開展的論述，其實我大概猜得到，因此不會想要買書看，反而是對張寶華的看法很有興趣。她說的幾點，其實我都很認同。有關於不要借錢給朋友的看法，我想補充的就是：千萬不要拿錢去解救窮人。蕭若元曾經說過：「錢是拿來救急，不是拿來救窮。」因為同情心而拿金錢去救窮人，你就必須面對一旦你抽身之後，受到解救的人反而怨恨你。慢慢思考「斗米養恩，擔米養仇」的道理，大概就會有領悟。
張寶華也勸諭大家不要有僥倖之心，以為今天偷懶明天依然可以過得很好。套用在今天瞬息萬變的網路世界，或套用在翻譯和文案創作的行業，都是受用無窮。
很簡單一個道理就是，若人類壽命一直延長，大家在工作領域可以貢獻的時間就延長了，唯有不斷提升自己的能力，才能確保自己在未來數十年有競爭力找生活。慶幸的是，我時時逼迫自己在翻譯和文案創作的領域上嘗試新題材，若明天要全天候投入工程文件中譯英工作，我大概也有辦法處理，因為十年前就翻譯過了，祇是後來比較少接到這類的案子了。
從張寶華的看法來看，確實張媽媽調教有方，讓她從小就學會了必須靠自己找生活，世界上沒有任何一個人必須完全負責另一個人的生計。所以我還是那句話，教人如何釣魚更實際。
她說的行動力、執行力，如何努力追求達到自己的目標，我都非常欣賞。我也是時刻都想著工作，而且常常覺得人沒有工作、沒了目標就完全失去了意義。祇是，我常常覺得人生若要奮鬥，最好是沒有後代，因為你若為了讓孩子有飯吃、生活過得好一些，很多時候你都必須讓步很多。
這個當然是另一個很大的話題，以後有機會再慢慢寫慢慢想，現在又要研究新領域的中譯英案子。所以說譯者的人生都是無限賽局，根本沒有閒暇安逸下來，因為看書習得的知識與語文功力最後都是用在工作上。