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Around the tail end of the last century, my friend Tom Moran suggested that I look up his friend Liu Kexiang during my impending visit to Taiwan. One of my mentors in birding, Tom spoke highly of Liu’s enthusiasm for the sport and his ability to hone in on whatever particular species we amateur foreign naturalists were hoping to spot while on the island. Not long after my arrival in Taipei I was eager to get out into the wild, so I decided to call Liu. Since he is the literary editor at a major newspaper and a writer of some fame, I felt a bit out of line asking him to take me, a total stranger, birding. I had barely introduced myself and briefly hinted at my interest in Taiwan birds when he promptly suggested: “I’ll pick you up at 6 a.m. tomorrow, what do you like for breakfast?—I’ll get us a couple of rice balls (fàntuán) to eat on the trail, okay?”
Early the following morning found us atop Seven Star Mountain in Yang-Ming National Park, eating rice balls. Between mouthfuls, we chatted about poetry, favorite books, coffee shops, etc. Such fleeting moments I’ve come to treasure with Liu Kexiang, for he seems most relaxed and talkative during pauses in the middle of a trek through the mountains. As we finished eating, Liu glanced at his watch, frowned, and regretted that it was too early in the day for thermals to have formed, so he couldn’t show me any soaring Crested Serpent Eagles (dàguānjiū, Spilornis cheela). Then he informed me that he was in the process of writing an historical guide to the lost trails of northern Taiwan (i.e., mountain footpaths unused for generations). He neglected to mention that we were about to go searching for one of these trails—one which had long since been reclaimed by the subtropical forest. The search proved to be brutal. We soon veered off the park trail system and spent the next several hours winding through bug-infested muddy creek beds, over abrasive boulders, and bushwhacking through vast stretches of razor-sharp six-foot high elephant grass (xiàngcǎo). Nature, I discovered, is a merciless, recalcitrant archive when it comes to yielding data to the historical geographer.
Wearing only shorts and a tee-shirt, I was bruised, cut, bitten, and stung by the time we got back to the car. But I was exhilarated. During our descent, Liu Kexiang had pointed out numerous dragonflies, beetles, butterflies and lizards; he had taught me the names of various trees and their uses for animals and humans; and we had spotted a Bamboo Partridge (zhújī, Bambusicola thoracica) and several other less-common species. On the ride home that afternoon, he handed me copies of his recent books and asked me if I wanted to go out the following week, in search of the Fairy Pitta (bāsèniǎo, Pitta nympha). I agreed, and we have been friends from that moment.
I have since translated dozens of Liu Kexiang’s poems and, together with Tom Moran, I am currently translating a volume of his nature writing (zìrán xiězuò). I try to capture the complexities of his personality and the experience of being with him whenever I translate his work. He is at once enigmatic, energetic, shy, introspective, loquacious, sensitive, righteous, opinionated, generous, scholarly, philosophical, creative, and, above all, considerate. Each poem he writes, especially those based on his relationship to nature, embodies some (contradictory) combination of these character traits, albeit usually in imagistic form (such as the final line in “Formosa,” the final two stanzas of “Guandu Life,” or the entire poem “Black-faced Spoonbill”).
About six weeks ago (late June, 2005), I met Liu Kexiang for lunch at a western-style restaurant. As I sat down, I handed him a folder containing my translations of Choice and Formosa, which I had completed the night before. I put the folder in his hands and cockily asserted “一字千金” (yízì qiānjīn, an ancient aphorism implying that one’s writing is so good that anyone who can improve it by so much as a single word deserves a thousand pieces of gold). Liu Kexiang smiled modestly, as if to thank me, shoved the folder in his backpack, and returned to his menu. His acknowledgment of my labor was, I assume, some kind of kōan—he said: “Don’t order the steak, they’ve discovered another mad cow—this time in Texas”7.
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