OT; Translation: Liu Cixin's Acceptance Speech at the 2001 Chinese Galaxy Awards - where "Wandering Earth" (2000) won a Galaxy Award

很高兴《流浪地球》能够得到广大读者的喜爱。这篇小说是一个设想中的系列中的一篇，这个系列叫未日系列：是以太阳灾变为题材，描写人类用各种方式逃生的过程，以其逃生成功的程度排列：第一部《补天》，描写人类进入太阳内部对其进行修补以延缓其灾变；第二部是《微纪元》，第三部就是《流浪地球》，第四部名为《星船纪元》，描写人类乘飞船逃离太阳系，最后失去了目标，把飞船当成了永久的家园。第五部名叫《游魂》，描写太阳灾变前人类用电波把自己的思维和记忆发向宇宙；最后一部十分阴暗，名叫《在冥王星上我们坐下来哭泣》，题目取自拜伦的诗《在巴比伦河畔我们坐下来哭泣》，描写人类逃生无望，在冥王星王建立人类文明纪念碑的事，更像一篇阴沉的散文。

I am very glad that "Wandering Earth" (2000) has gained the love of readers at large. This short story is part of a series I planned call "The Apocalyptic Series": based on the premise of a solar catastrophe, it describes the process of humanity's attempts at escape by various means; in descending order of the success rate of escape:

The 1st is "Sealing The Sky", describing how humans enter the sun to fix and delay the solar catastrophe from the inside;

The 2nd is "Micro-Age" (Note: published 1998);

The 3rd is "Wandering Earth" (Note: published 2000);

The 4th is "Starship Eras", describing how humans left the solar system on spaceships, lost their targets and came to regard the spaceships as home;

The 5th is "Wandering Souls", describing how humans broadcast their thoughts and memories to the universe before the solar catastrophe; And the last is very dark -- named "On Pluto, we sat down and cried", after Byron's "By the river of Babylon, we sat down and cried" -- it describes how all hope was lost and a monument to humanity was built on Pluto, in what is more of a grim essay.

当你被诊断为癌症时，世界在你的眼中会突然变成另一个样子：天空是红的太阳蓝的；而当你最后得知这是误诊时，当天空又变成蓝 的太阳又变成红的后，这也不是以前的天空和太阳了，世界和生活在你的眼中美了许多，也增加了许多内涵，这种感觉远不是读十年书能 得到的。一个人的未日体验是一种很珍贵的体验，那么全人类的未日体验呢?如果世界经历了这样一次“误诊”，那全人类同样会以一种全 新的眼光看待我们的天空和太阳，更珍惜他们以前视为很平常的一切，人类世界将沿着一条更合理的轨迹运行。而能够带来这种未日体 验的，只有科幻小说，这也是我构思这个未日系列科幻小说的的初衷。

When you are diagnosed with cancer, the world changes in your eyes: the sky is red and the sun is blue; but when you are finally informed that it was a mis-diagnosis, when the sky turns blue and the sun turns red again, they are not the same sky and sun as before -- the world and living becomes more beautiful in your eyes, and maybe even more meaningful; this is not a feeling you can ever get from a decade's worth of books. The apocalyptic experience of an individual is a very valuable one; so what about the apocalyptic experience of all humanity? If the world suffers such a "mis-diagnosis"; then all humanity will look at our sky and sun with new eyes, treasure more greatly all things they regard as normal, and the human world will move along a more reasonable track. Only sci-fi novels can bring about this apocalyptic experience, and this is my initial purpose in planning this apocalyptic series.

科幻小说能够创造一个全新的世界，在这个世界中，作者和读者都能得到现实中不可能得到的体验，这就是我热爱科幻的原因。我是 由一名科幻迷开始写作的，对科幻的理论并没有一个系统的思考。我喜欢文学因素较少、科幻因素较多的科幻作品，一直认为，透视现实 和剖析人性不是科幻小说的任务，更不是它的优势，科幻小说的优势在于创造一个空灵的想像世界。我曾经有过一个自己现在也觉得很偏 激的想法：把科幻从文学剥离出来（水木清华科幻版曾做过这方面的努力，主要体现在编辑虚拟世界百科全书上，但并不是太成功。）这 种提法理所当然地受到了各方面的抨击。我很赞同阿来的话：各个作者应坚持自己偏激的观点，而编辑就对各种观点持一种兼收并蓄的态 度，这才是科幻发展的健康气氛。但另一方面，当科幻由一种爱好变成一种事业时，我发现有许多微妙的平衡需要掌握，这其中包括作品 中科学性与文学性的平衡、思想性与可读性的平衡、做为文学的科幻与做为商品的科幻的平衡，而我现在的作品，正是这些平衡的结果， 它们或多或少地背叛了自己的科幻理念。对于我这样一个在科幻之路上跋涉多年的作者来说，这也是一种成熟的表现。

Sci-fi novels can create a whole new world, where writers and readers can experience what is impossible in reality -- this is why I love sci-fi. I started writing as a sci-fi fan, without any systematic consideration of sci-fi theories. I like sci-fi with less literary elements and more sci-fi elements, and have always thought that penetrating reality and dissecting human nature is neither the mission of sci-fi novels nor its comparative advantage l- the advantage of sci-fi lies in creating an imaginary world. I used to hold a view that even I find extremist now: to tear sci-fi out from the confines of literature itself (the sci-fi bulletin board of Tsinghua University once tried to create an encyclopedia for virtual worlds, without much success). Of course, this proposal was attacked on all fronts.

I very much agree with what A-Lai (Note: an earlier speaker) said: every writer should persist in their extremist views, while editors should hold an all-encompassing attitude towards all kinds of view; this is the only healthy environment for the development of sci-fi. But on the other hand, when sci-fi changed from a hobby into a career, I've found the need to manage many balancing acts -- this includes balancing the works for their scientific vs literary nature, profundity vs readability, sci-fi as literature vs commodities -- so my current works are a result of these ; which are more or less a betrayal of my own ideals for sci-fi. For a writer like me who has spent years trekking on the roads of sci-fi, this is also a sign of maturity.

说到成熟，有这样一件事：为了参加这次会议我请了两天假，但是以一个别的理由请的假。早在两年前我发表第一篇科幻小说时，一 位朋友就劝我在单位把写作活动保持在地下状态，他说：“在这样的基层工业部门，工作中的失误和错误都可以被容忍，但幼稚是不可容 忍的，你要千万避免给人一种幼稚的感觉，否则你的前途就完了。”这位朋友的想法一般会被看作社会对科幻的误解，但另一方面， 也反映出我们的科幻确实幼稚。例如：直到今天，我们的科幻小说也没能真正创造出一个自己的想像世界，我们只是在人家创造出的多个 想像世界中演绎自己的故事。

Speaking of maturity, this happened: I took 2 day's leave to attend these Awards, but applied for it under a different reason. 2 years ago when I published my first sci-fi story, a friend advised me to keep my writing activities "underground" in the unit (I worked at); he said,

"In such a basic engineering department, mistakes and errors at work are tolerable, but not immaturity -- you must never let others feel that you are immature, or else your prospects are gone."

This friend might be thought of as having misunderstood sci-fi, just as the society at large has; but in a way this reflects how immature our sci-fi is. For example: till now, our sci-fi stories have not created a milieu of their own -- we are just writing our own stories in the many milieu created by others.

但从另一方面看，科幻文学从本质上说是幼稚的，它所要表现的，是童年时代的人类，面对广漠深邃的宇宙所产生的好奇和恐惧，以及 探索的冲动。在这样的一个宇宙面前，人类的科学和哲学都很幼稚，科幻做表现这两者的唯一一个文学形式，浸透着稚气也就不奇怪了。 未来人类的科学发展到极致，宇宙的一切毫发毕现之日，也就是科幻消亡之时。

But to look at it in another way, sci-fi literature is by its very nature immature -- because it shows humanity in its childhood, filled with curiosity and fear for the vast and profund universe, as well as the urge to explore it. In the face of such a universe, human science and philosophy are very immature, and sci-fi is the only literary form available to express our scientific and philosophical immaturities; so it's no surprise that sci-fi is filled with immaturity. When human science is developed to the furthest extent and everything in the universe is discovered down to its minutia, that will be the day sci-fi dies.

目前在国内科幻界，面对中国科幻的幼稚，大家都羡幕美国科幻的成人读者群，并把这看做是科幻文学成熟的标志之一。但要知道， 成人之后就是老年，老年之后就是死亡。当今美国科幻的繁荣，很大程度上是影视的繁荣，这些科幻影视仍在延续黄金时代的风格。而当 今美国的科幻文学已露出了深深的暮气，作品用复杂的技巧表现晦涩的隐喻，全无黄金时代的朝气与活力，近年来许多顶峰之作已透出了 死亡的气息。现在，美国25 岁以下的人已基本上不读科幻小说了。我实在看不出这种局面有什么可羡幕的。

Presently -- faced with the immaturity of Chinese sci-fi -- everyone in our sci-fi community is envious of the adult sci-fi readership in the US, and see it as a sign of maturity in sci-fi literature. But one must know that senility comes after maturity, and death comes after senility. The prosperity of US sci-fi is largely a result of the prosperity of its movie and TV industries, and these sci-fi movies and TV shows are but a stylistic extension of the "golden age" (sci-fi). Contemporary sci-fi literature itself in US is already deep in twilight -- full of works applying complex techniques to express dense metaphors, completely devoid of the youthful energy of the "golden age" (sci-fi); and many magnum opuses in recent years already have an air of death about them. Americans under 25 these days basically don't read sci-fi; I don't see what's to be envied about that.

我们最应该羡幕的自己，现在，国内的科幻读者都是八九点钟的太阳，甚至是六七点钟的太阳，中国科幻面对的是一个充满青春与希 望的市场，这正是我们这些科幻人信心和力量的源泉。相比之下，幼稚真算不了什么。

We should be most envious of ourselves: our current sci-fi readership are the 8 or 9 o'clock sun, or even the 6 or 7 o'çlock sun. Chinese sci-fi a market full of youth and hope, and this is what gives sci-fi writers like us confidence and strength -- compared to this, a little immaturiy is really nothing.

有研究表明很多动物有语言，有推理能力，某些动物会制造工具，少数动物甚至有文字，但还没有任何证据表明动物会幻想，所以，幻 想是人类与动物区别的唯一标志，而我们今天到会的科幻迷们，就是这种标志最生动的体现。

Some research show that many animals have language and deductive abilities, some of whom can make tools, and even a minority who has writing; but no evidence shows that animals can imagine (what does not exist), so imagination is the only difference between humanity and animals -- and our sci-fi fans here today are the most vibrant expression of that.

谢谢大家！

Thank you, everybody!

N.B. All mis-transcriptions and mis-translations are entirely mine, of course.

P.S. Now I know why I resent Cheng Xin so much -- given that "balancing your needs and betraying your ideals is a sign of maturity", Cheng Xin is an overgrown baby; and so is everyone who didn't catch/ call Cheng Xin out on that.... But thumbs up for Liu daring to express/ expose our scientific and philosophical immaturities!