Please Help! Chinese Translation?
I’m working on a Modern World History assignment, where I have to write a letter from a Chinese man(who is working of the transcontinental railroad in 1868) back to his family in China. I’m taking Chinese this year in school but my Chinese isn’t all that good yet, But I thought that I’d impress both my World History teacher and my Chinese teacher. So could someone translate this into Mandarin Chinese please.. Thanks in advance.
1869
Dear Family,
The last five years have been tough, but I have managed so far. There is fifteen in my labor group. We got our groups because we are all from China. One the first night each crew set up tents, in which we live. Our group has a head man, someone who organizes the work and keeps discipline, a cook, and of course the workers. Our cook usually cooks us dried oysters, abalone, bamboo shoots, bean sprouts, crackers, noodles, Chinese bacon and pork, poultry and tea, so even though the work is tough we still have something to look forward to at the end of the day, and that reminds us of home.
The men from other countries, as well as natives to America, are so different from our culture. The barely ever shower, we shower after our meal each night. Charles Crocker, the man we worked for worked alongside of us, which was very nice. If there was ever a reason why I would not like Mr. Crocker it would be because of a man he hired, James Harvey Strobridge. James style was to use intimidation to get up to work harder and faster to meet deadlines, and when this didn’t work he would result to physical beating, of which i only got one, but don’t worry about that.
I can honestly say that the hardest part I, and my crew had to endure was cutting through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. To do this seemingly impossible job, we gathered reeds from the San Fransisco Bay Area and made knee length baskets, that we used to hoist one of us down to use our pick to hammer out enough room to place explosive powder. Then the other men would pull us back up, so they could detonate the explosives, when I was very dangerous, due to the rocks that fell away from this area. The explosion would create a ledge so that we could go back down and pick our way through the mountains.
In the winter of 1865-66 there was as much as eight feet of snow in the ground, so to get done what we had to many of the crews made ventilation and tunnel systems so we could live an d work underground. This was very hard work also, it was very cold and many of us didn’t have the proper clothing the allow us to survive. In that winter alone nearly five-hundred men were killed because of avalanches and falling from ice.
On the morning of 10 May 1869, I was so filled with joy when they laid the last spike. I went to the ceremony on the Construction Train, riding on the rails that we had all laid. When that ceremony was over I was so happy I nearly cried, because i knew that I was finally able to come home to you all. I love you all so much. I’ll See you and talk to you soon.
Sincerely Yours,
Dad
Tagged with: bamboo shoots • bean sprouts • chinese man • chinese teacher • dear family • head man • history assignment • impossible job • james harvey • knee length • labor group • mandarin chinese • modern world history • san fransisco bay • sierra nevada • sierra nevada mountains • strobridge • thanks in advance • transcontinental railroad • world history teacher
Filed under: misc
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!
if you write it in chinese your history teacher won’t understand it. how about, you translate a couple terms in the letter and provide the translation as a note or footer. that would be way cooler and not soo show off-y.
(like 舊金山 for San Francisco, 麵 for noodles, 火藥 for gunpowder)
Bu. Qing yuan liang.