开场白
By Way of Introduction

上文提到，此书原本只是写给儿子的（忆旧笔记兼汉语泛读），后来打算出版。因此我得想想：还有哪些朋友可能会想读、爱读，并从中获益？Initially, this book was intended as a ‘familial memory’. Its secondary function, as an instructive reader for my son, was an afterthought. Now that I've decided to have it published for wider circulation, a question has come up: Who else would be reading it, and could potentially benefit from it? 三思后发觉目标读者群难以框定，亦似无需框定，大致包括学英语学翻译的中国人，也不排除母语为英语、正在学汉语的老外，从事翻译工作或有志于翻译事业的，或许也可以从中找到一些灵感和启发。当然，若有志同道合爱猫爱狗、兼爱飞禽走兽之人，茶余饭后捧读此书觉得有消遣之效，那也算是歪打正着。To set a range of rigid parameters with which to define the book's target readership would be challenging, and perhaps unnecessary. Chinese readers who are studying English may find it ‘useful’. The same goes for foreign students of the Chinese language whose default medium of thinking is English. You are a translator or interpreter? Or training to be one? It may turn a few lights on for you so you can access some overlooked angles. Others may pick it up for leisure reading if the topics appeal to them and/or they find it entertaining to compare notes with another pet owner, although I'd be very surprised, and rather upset, if this book ended up on the pets and vets shelf.

虽说是双语创作，中英文却并非亦步亦趋、机械对应。两种文本就像记忆的钟声，激荡在相向的回音壁上，它们是呼应关系，相辅相成，却不一定如出一辙。This is a bilingual book, but it's not one in which Chinese and English texts track each other in lockstep in perfect symmetry. The parallel texts are resonant chimes from the bell toll of my memory bouncing off opposite walls: They do not so much mirror and mimic as echo and complement each other. 说实话，权威翻译教科书汗牛充栋，我凭疏才浅学，试图挤进人才济济的学术殿堂，无异于以一粟投沧海、以一苇渡浩波。Let's face it: There is already a plethora of how-to's - instructive works of authoritative standing - in this profession. I am honoured to bask in reflected glory through my association with some of their authors, but I would not hesitate to call myself an impostor if I presumed to be part of that glory, for I am neither equipped nor ready to do so. 故而本书绝非汉译英实例汇编，其标新立异之处，恰恰在于笔者创作时，不是先用某一种语言构思、笔录，再转译成另一种语言，而是用两种语言分别独立构思、独立笔录，相向而行，所谓“一事两说”也。It is therefore not my intention for this to be a conventional textbook, to show how I translate between two languages, which would entail mentally formulating the story in either of the two languages first, writing it down in that language and subsequently converting the writing to the other language. Rather, this book differentiates itself by attempting to tell one story in two languages, with the author putting on the Chinese hat and the English hat alternately. Yes, a bilingual storyteller - that's me. 这样既可以避免程式化翻译的僵硬，还能潜移默化，帮助学生养成用外语思考的习惯，摆脱母语的干扰，达事半功倍之效。笔者希望借助此书，读者能更加自如地适用两种语言中的任何一种去思考并表达，不再需要先用母语思考，然后在脑海中翻译成英语再说出来。This format, I believe, lends itself to greater fluidity, so it reads better in both languages. An added bonus that comes with this style is its potential to help students develop the habit of thinking directly in their non-native language, independently of their mother tongue. Hopefully, reading this book can help ease you into this dual-track mode where you can formulate what you wish to say in the language that you are going to say it in, obviating the need for mental translation. 为此，笔者思绪行云流水，中英文意群交替，随想随录，一气呵成，事后不作次序调整，以保留口述轶事之流畅感。不过，为了避免版面过于凌乱，一律中文先行，英文随后，尽管最先闯进脑海的语言可能是英文，不一定是中文。To that end, you will be reading the passages in the same order as I wrote them: one or more sentences in Chinese followed by one or more in English. This order, where Chinese sits in front of English on the tandem bike, so to speak, is in the interest of readability, but the language in which a thought was first formulated could have been either of them. To maintain the flow of the narrative that characterises verbal storytelling, continuity of thought was prioritised and faithfully reproduced, with no post hoc reordering whatsoever. 当然，所谓“独立”表述，也不是绝对的，如果回忆的画面在脑海里先以汉语化为文字，那么下一个瞬间的英语复述，难免不受到汉语的影响，如“影”随“形”，反之亦然，因此翻译成分不可谓无。Be that as it may, that each story is related in two languages separately does not preclude an element of translation in its conventional sense, owing to sequentiality: The first language, be it Chinese or English, in which a certain graphical memory is converted into a lexical representation in my head is comparable to a boat that sets sail first; the other language, in which the same story is retold in the next instant, is another boat trailing along in the first boat's wake.

既然笔者的初衷是写一本话题轻松的轶事集，不是严格意义上的教科书，那么在遣词造句方面，也就没有刻意雕琢出教科书的范儿。Since this is more a storybook marked by levity than a strait-laced, straight-faced textbook per se, I have not strived, much less contrived, to craft the language in a way that imparts a pedagogical halo to my writing. 不过，话说回来，对于学语言的学生而言，这本书不能噱头有余，干货不足，所以我特意注入一些养分，埋下一些彩蛋，譬如针对汉语成语、英语句型和同义词的使用，本书将大量实例有机地融入故事的叙述中，达到不解而解、无师自通的目的，却又避免舍本逐末、一味堆砌。That said, I would hate to hear language students complaining about my book being all show and no substance in an academic sense. I have seen to it that this book does serve up an abundance of linguistic goodies. These Easter Bunny treats include, among others, a generous helping of examples to illustrate how to use, in context, etymologically interesting canned phrases in Chinese（chengyu）and how the English language's highly serviceable syntactic malleability and deliciously rich synonymity can be exploited, not to dress up the narrative to the nines, but to liven it up.

鉴于本书的两类读者（学英语的中国人和英语国家学汉语的学生）需求不同，本书中文和英文的“语域”似乎不合拍，中文部分以平铺直叙为主，英文部分时不时会来点文绉绉的描述或抒怀。In view of the disparate needs of the two segments of the book's potential readership（namely, Chinese-speaking students of English and English-speaking students of Chinese）, there is an observable ‘incongruity’- for want of a better word - between the registers of the Chinese text and of the corresponding English text, the former tending towards linear oral narration and the latter frequently peppered with rhetorical devices, i.e. anomalous spikes on an otherwise nuanced curve of discourse. 但这种文体的差异并非刻意为之，而是“原生态”的，完全符合笔者用这两种语言讲故事的一贯风格。But this doesn't mean I have had to bend or twist my preferred style of storytelling. In fact, this apparent disparity in register is native to my habit as a bilingual raconteur.

开场白多啰嗦几句，为的是让读者了解我的良苦用心。好了，话痨季就此打住，请诸君听故事吧。Okay, enough of my preambular spiel, which I deem to be a necessary evil. I don't know about you, but I, for one, am glad it's over. Phew! This is where the story begins.