He's chief editor of the largest English Chinese Dictionary
(ECD), arguably the most renowned professor of English in China and
an expert on Shakespearean studies at the country's leading
university of Fudan, but Lu Gusun has never identified with the
so-called "elite" and calls himself "grassroots".
He made "Grassroots Lu" a Web ID on the ECD BBS on the publisher's
website
www.yiwen.com.cn and
discussed English usage and the dictionary with netizens.
Actually, the BBS was founded upon his request, aimed at
receiving complaints about the ECD's second edition, which was
published in this April. "We'll be punchbags when the dictionary
comes out," Lu used to tell the editors.
Now, Lu uses his real name on the web, and invites all to find
mistakes and printing errors, and gladly accepts feedback.
"Don't be annoyed by criticism," he told Zhang Ying, an editor
with the Shanghai Translation Publishing House, which published the
dictionary. "Like little grass, we grow inch by inch, learning
about our mistakes and correcting them."
His grand vision is to make ECD an interactive online dictionary
where all users can contribute their findings.
The 67-year-old professor lives alone in a ground-floor
apartment near Fudan University. Ever since he graduated from Fudan
in 1965, he never left. Now, he still gives four classes every
week, instructing freshmen classes as well as post-graduate
students, and also supervises two doctorial students on
lexicography.
"I have enjoyed teaching and have been popular with students,
probably because I am quite open to criticism," Lu says. "If
someone points out my mistake, I'd correct it in the next
class."
This approach has won him a large group of fans, online and
offline. "Netizens made a rule that, after 10 pm, no matter what
Professor Lu says on the Web, they will not post any replies, so
that he can have enough sleep," Zhang, the editor, says.
An editor of the Oxford Dictionary of English used to say that
Lu was "the only dictionary maker made by a revolution".
In 1970, the "cultural revolutionaries" decided he was not
qualified to teach students recruited among farmers, workers and
soldiers, so they sent him to make an English-Chinese
dictionary.
The authorities of the time wanted a "revolutionary" dictionary,
rejecting such sentences as "We need a Lincoln". Lu and his
colleagues were assigned 20 pages each, finding such "improper"
usages and changing them into acceptable phrases of about the same
length, such as "we need a Lei Feng".
But Lu managed to "smuggle" words into the dictionary, such as
some "four-letter words", Yiddish expressions and up-to-date words
about the Watergate scandal. "We saved the book in a devious way so
that it sold 10 million copies, and was viable for many years," he
says.
Nowadays, when writing the ECD's definitions for historical
figures and places, Lu insists on not passing judgment. "Just say
who did what, otherwise, it won't sell in two years' time," he
says.
Lu is also working on a Chinese-English dictionary.
Lu was born in Shanghai in 1940. His father Lu Dacheng worked in
a foreign trade company alongside Tung Chao-Yung, later known as a
shipping magnate and father of the former Hong Kong SAR chief
executive Tung Chee-hwa.
When Japanese invaders bombed Shanghai between 1942 and 1943,
Lu's father decided to move his family to his hometown in Yuyao,
Zhejiang Province, where Lu spent most of his childhood, until
moving back to Shanghai in 1950.
He enjoyed the serene country life, watching leaves floating on
the river and used to imagine he was D'Artagnan, Aramis and Porthos
from Three Musketeers, which his father read him.
Lu's mother died when he was only 8. His father has remained his
most important role model. "He was never much attached to material
things, never liked the luxurious life or the colonial culture of
Hong Kong," Lu recalls.
When Tung invited him to move to Hong Kong and take care of his
business there, Lu Dacheng declined.
In 1981, when Lu Gusun made his first visit to the United
States, he gave a lecture in Georgetown University in Washington,
and Tung came to meet the old friend's son.
It was a time when Chinese lived on little, and Tung asked what
he could get for him. Lu asked for nothing but an old essay his
father wrote about the history of China's shipping industry.
"Tung said that 'Dacheng's family tradition has remained the
same'. This made me quite proud," Lu recalls.
Although Lu doesn't criticize the material pursuits of the
younger generations of scholars, he never agrees with them. "Why
would I want a larger apartment? I have an apartment to live in,
and that's good enough."
Actually, in the early 1980s, he did most of the editing work
for ECD on the dining table of a 38-square-meter apartment.
"I made a promise to my father that when I finished my graduate
studies I would start learning French from him," Lu says.
Unfortunately, his father died in the year of his graduation.
Many who taught at Fudan University in the 1950s also had an
important influence on Lu - not only academically, but also
morally. Lu recalls how his favorite professor Lin Tongji stayed in
China after 1949, when most of his family migrated to the United
States.
In 1986, when Lin was about to go abroad for an international
conference, the national leader Hu Yaobang met with him and asked
him whether he would come back to China. Lin replied that, of
course he would come back, because China was still poor, and the
people needed to be enlightened.
"I was greatly moved by Chinese contemporary writer Yang Jiang's
words that 'we are the unyielding Chinese'," Lu says. "Such simple
complex for the motherland. They hate to speak about patriotism,
but we are the unyielding Chinese. We can't leave the Chinese
culture behind."
Lu's wife and daughter have moved to the United States and
become citizens, but Lu doesn't want to have a green card. He'd
rather wait in line at the American consulate to get his visa when
he visits his family.
(China Daily September 6, 2007)
