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What does "Travel" means to Chinese? The Department of Applied Chinese held a speech in the afternoon of November 17. Prof. Liao Ping Hui, professor of the University of California at San Diego, gave a lecture titled "Transnational Discretional and Cultural Translation: Modern Chinese Travel Literature", attracting more than 100 teachers and students. 

Professor Liao received his Ph.D. degree in Comparative Literature from the Literature Department, UCSD. He has taught in NTU, NTHU, Princeton University, Harvard-Yenching Institute of Harvard University and Columbia University. Liao is an internationally recognized authority in Taiwan Studies, specializing in Taiwan cultural history (from the Japanese colonial period to the current era of globalization), East-West comparative literature, inter-arts studies (fiction, film, poetry, painting, and opera), popular culture, and critical theory (poststructuralism, postmodernism, postcolonialism).

Professor Liao's speech is divided into three main points. He used works from Zhang Taiyan, Eileen Chang and Gao Xingjian to explain his ideas. What Hollywood brings Eileen Chang and the French words merged into Gao’s articles. “Many people think that Eileen Chang's life in the United States is a failure. In fact, she had gained creative inspiration from Hollywood, combined with the sad feelings of her previous experience and turned it into female revenge in her drama, which even influenced Hong Kong films and Ang Lee's works.

"There’s politics and economics in traveling" concluded Professor Liao. He encourages students to travel and expand their horizons. One should be open to new things and see not only the surface. We should also learn from people of other countries, how they face and solve problems. "Do not feel content in small happiness but cause big trouble."

Students have learned a lot from Prof. Liao’s speech. One student said that she takes oversea Chinese Literature course this semester, and the speech was really helpful to her understanding of the course. One exchange student, Chen, from the Dept. Chinese said that after this speech, she wanted to know more about the culture when traveling.