第五届全国大学生“海伦·斯诺翻译奖”参考译文

汉译英

Helen and Her Mother

Each of us owes special debts of gratitude to our mothers for nurturing us and shaping the adults we become. A mother’s influence is often so pervasive and subtle that we are not aware of its effects on our attitude and behavior.

Helen Foster Snow was deeply influenced by her mother. Indeed, it is impossible to understand Helen’s approach to challenges and her relentless drive and desire to accomplish great works unless the effect of Helen’s mother is considered. Helen braved new and dangerous experiences in the service of good causes drawing on her early observations of her mother as a role model. Helen’s mother, Hannah Davis Foster, lived a life of service and dedication. She was an activist and a pioneer who worked to better the lives of women and children; she was a teacher, a business woman, and a community leader. Helen’s mother had unbounded energy and creativity and with Helen at her side she was always engaged in some good cause in her community. She tirelessly worked for social improvement.

Helen’s mother was a leader among women and accomplished tasks normally reserved for men in her day, such as building her own home. Throughout Helen’s formative years, until she was 15 years old, she accompanied her mother and learned from her. In these early years, Helen absorbed her mother’s desire to accomplish worthwhile goals and to be of service to others. Helen’s mother, Hannah Davis Foster, worked long hard hours throughout her life to see that children had parks, playgrounds and supervision that would enable them to grow up healthy, strong values, good attitudes and behavior.

Helen’s mother thought teaching values and helping others were important and she inculcated these beliefs in Helen. Helen’s emphasis on good moral values was an example of her mother’s influence. In comparing Hannah’s life with Helen’s experience, there is much that is parallel.

Hannah rode on the woman’s suffrage float in a Fourth of July parade in Chicago in 1910, representing Utah as one of the first four states to give women the right to vote. Helen was one of the very first women foreign correspondents.

Hanna was active in seeking rights women and children. Helen worked to help women and children in China. Hannah was president of the Relief Society, a woman’s organization that seeks to help women develop, and her church’s Primary organization, the focus of which was to teach children values and service to their community. Helen founded the Gung Ho Cooperative movement to help the Chinese survive in World War II, helped young women activists and artists, and wrote about women’s plight.  Both women were accomplished writers and interested in their family history. Both women lived lives of service with compassion and concern for others down to their very last days.

Hannah Davis Foster was an accomplished woman with many talents and skills, including writing and photography. She taught Helen how to take professional photographs, how to write and also how to fish. When Helen went to China, she took her mother’s camera and snapped many of her well-known pictures. Hannah worked with her daughter when she was learning to write, teaching her important tips of the trade from her own experience as an accomplished writer.

Because they lived in a conservative traditional society, Helen’s mother was never able to fully utilize her talents. This is perhaps one reason why Helen, who saw herself as a “Modern Woman”, never talked publicly about her mother. Yet on her deathbed, perhaps the most fitting tribute Helen gave to her mother was to repeatedly call her name. During the last two weeks of her life, her caregiver, Nancy Farnan, reports that Helen frequently called to and talked with her mother as if she were in the room.

Her mother meant a great deal to Helen and early on modeled a set of behaviors and attitudes that enabled Helen to be successful in China.

(660 words)