Ruan Xiang's gruelling task of compiling the world's first
Hebrew/Chinese dictionary nearly ended in the trashcan.
In fact, if Ruan hadn't made backup copies of his work, he's
convinced he would have given the whole project away.
Thankfully, Ruan persevered and his dictionary now sits on
bookstore shelves.
Ruan, a 23-year-old university graduate, finished his project in
September.
Limited resources for reference pushed the young man to the edge
of giving up many times over the past three years.
"I saved many copies of my work on computer disks, flash memory
sticks and mail boxes - just to prevent myself from dumping it all
on impulse some day," Ruan said.
"The job was so tough that I frequently found myself on the
verge of quitting. But, every time, I pulled myself together to
continue - finally, I made it."
Graduating from one of the city's top-ranking high schools, Ruan
went to Beijing University in 2003 to study foreign languages with
relatively small speaking populations in China, such as Arabic,
Vietnamese and Hebrew.
Hebrew, the ancient biblical language with a mysterious history,
aroused the interest of Ruan, who said he didn't give a second
thought before picking the language as a major.
Beijing University was the first Chinese university to set up a
Hebrew language department in early 1980s, which will have an
intake of no more than 10 students every four years.
"It is natural to have a difficult start in foreign language
learning," Ruan said. "But my headache is that I can hardly find
anywhere to use and practice Hebrew in daily life."
In the first half year, Ruan said that he frequently found
himself down in the dumps, as his major seemed to be of no value in
the face of the modern, highly competitive job market.
But his parents encouraged him to delve deeper into academic
research.
Previously, there was no Hebrew-Chinese dictionary in either
China or Israel where Hebrew has been the official language for
decades.
Ruan, a sophomore then, started by setting his eyes on a
Hebrew-Chinese dictionary that could facilitate Chinese people's
Hebrew studies.
(Shanghai Daily November 19, 2007)
