“When the large-eared man comes while you sleep to turn your toilet roll the wrong way, that is an annoying time.” So runs a Chinese proverb in the translation by H J Arbuthnot, one of the leading figures in the translation of Chinese proverbs into English. Although he has had his lapses, to be honest. As a precocious adolescent he translated the original proverb “A book is like a garden carried in the pocket” into “A book is like cannabis”.
Also, his translation of the proverb “Dig the well before you are thirsty” to “Go for it!” was an aberration that he later put down to drinking Tia Maria for five hours without his sunhat on. But his translation of the proverb that inspires Dalian Transcendence’s crest made his name in Europe and he still dines out on it and also receives royalty cheques whenever the proverb is translated (except when it is translated on Radio 1 programmes such as The Adele Roberts Show). Cameron Carter