Newsletter No. 362

No. 362, 4.9.2010 3 ‘I came across this small book last spring. In the twilight I flipped through it. When I opened the book, I felt that I was not reading. It felt like I was away from the hustle and bustle of the city and was going on a journey to a haven where brooks babbled, leaves rustled, clouds swirled and shafts of sunlight sparkled…. Early the following morning, under the crystal blue sky, I spread out sheets of paper, opened the book, and began to translate it.’ This translator’s postscript was written in 1953. The small book mentioned was The Universe and Dr. Einstein and the translator was Chen Chih-fan. At that time, Chen, a graduate of the Department of Electrical Engineering of Peiyang University and former engineer of an alkali factory in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, worked for the National Institute for Compilation and Translation in Taipei. The book was one of his translated works. In addition to works on natural science, the young Professor Chen took up the challenge of translating the most difficult literary genre—poetry. With his free translation style, his Chinese translations of the English poems are more creations in their own rights than replicas of the English originals. He describes it as his old malaise. ‘I let the pen flow as if a horse is galloping with a free rein. It was like I wrote the poem myself instead of having translated it.’ He says, ‘When it comes to literary creation, it is writers who get the greatest enjoyment. I based my translations of English poems on the interpretation of Patrick Lafcadio Hearn (aka Koizumi Yakumo). At that time, I translated poetry for the purpose of learning English. I shared the joy of creation felt by Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Blake and William Wordsworth. I also shared the joy of Lafcadio Hearn in appreciating their poems. I was itching to be a poet myself and wrote poems with the same topics. After I wrote those poems and read them, they were like translations. And of course they had nothing to do with the profession that I was trained in.’ Launching CUHK’s First Doctoral Programme Trained as an electronic engineer, Professor Chen left Taiwan to study in the US in 1955 and received his MS degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1957 and his PhD from the University of Cambridge in 1971. In 1977 when he was a visiting scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he saw a recruitment advertisement from the Department of Electronics of CUHK. He responded to the ad and came to CUHK to serve as Professor of Electronics and chairman of the department for over seven years. At that time, with the foundation laid by Prof. Charles K. Kao, the Electronics Department was well established. But CUHK did not have any PhD programmes. As soon as he came to Hong Kong, Professor Chen prepared to launch a PhD programme in electronics for the department. He was anxious because while at MIT, he noticed that the best students from Hong Kong went to the US. He said, ‘The students from the Electronics Department of CUHK published papers in prestigious journals before they graduated. As soon as they graduated, these students with research talent were recruited by American universities.’ So, he was eager to devise ways to keep them in Hong Kong. Recollecting the days when he was preparing the doctoral programme, he says, ‘I don’t have any unforgettable experiences because I didn’t encounter many difficulties. But I did meet an unforgettable person. He was the then dean of the Graduate School—Prof. Hsing Mo-huan. He exuded the air of a modest and genteel Confucian scholar, particularly in deliberating on programme matters. Professor Hsing believed that as our university was named the Chinese University, it would be more desirable to launch a PhD programme in Chinese studies first. And the Electronics Department could wait. Professor Chen differed with him on this: ‘In the field of electronics, the slowest time constant is one second…. The time constant for the Chinese Department may be around 5,000 years. We don’t operate at the same time constant.’ Professor Hsing responded, ‘Professors from the US like to joke. Can we finish our business first before joking?’ After a dozen rounds of discussion and argument, CUHK finally launched its first PhD programmes in Chinese studies and electronics in the same year—1980. Literary Laurels Professor Chen is a scientist who has published over 100 scientific papers. But he is best known for his prose writing. His essays, which have been collected in Chinese textbooks in Hong Kong and Taiwan, have inspired generations of Hong Kong and Taiwan readers. Recently his essays were also collected in Chinese textbooks in China. Professor Chen says his writing was influenced by several persons: ‘For Chinese, it’s Liu Zongyuan. For Westerners, it’s Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein. I also like the poems of Du Fu and Liu Yuxi, and Winston Churchill’s essays.’ After 17 years Professor Chen returned to Hong Kong, a city that he described as a place ‘where you don’t want to go before you actually visit it, and where you don’t want to leave after you have been there’. From 2002 onwards, he served as an honorary professor of the Department of Electronic Engineering, the successor of the former Department of Electronics. After settling down in the city, Professor Chen has continued to put pen on paper, talking about history, culture, science and life with unabated creativity. New collections of his essays have been published one after another. Professor Chen is a scientist travelling the realm of literature and is an essayist roaming the world of science. As he told Prof. Hsing Mo-huan, science and literature belong to two different dimensions of time. Since the young engineer walked out from the alkali factory in Kaohsiung and wandered into the hall of the Muses 60 years ago, he has shone in both fields. To See a World in a Grain of Sand and a Heaven in an Essay — Prof. Chen Chih-fan In the past, it was commonplace to see Prof. Chen Chih-fan, honorary professor of the Department of Electronic Engineering, strolling around the CUHK campus. You might bump into him when he was walking uphill to the New Asia campus to meet his wife Prof. Tung Yuan-fan at the Department of Translation for lunch. Or you might see the couple walking downhill together to the University Station. But since Professor Chen fell ill two years ago, he has not come to the University as much as before. In February this year when former CUHK Vice-Chancellor Prof. Charles K. Kao returned to the University after receiving the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics, the Faculty of Engineering threw a homecoming banquet for him and invited many old friends of his to join the event. Professor Chen was among the guests. With the help of Professor Tung, the CUHK Newsletter interviewed Professor Chen. 1977年的陳之藩教授 Prof. Chen Chih-fan in 1977