Wuneng Wang

Ah Fo Gets A Job: A Soochow Farce Wuneng Wang

This is a farce originally titled "Three-point Decree", written by Wang Wuneng(1892-1933), a monodrama dramatist and actor born in Soochow, China. The story tells about Ah Fandi and his daughter and nephew Ah Fo, who fight against the tricky landlord, Xu. Lord Xu the old fox devises a trap to make the three of them violate the "three-point decree", thus deducting their wages. Ah Fandi and his nephew Ah Fo then taking advantage of the scheme, set up their own "three-point decree", then Lord Xu falls into the scheme before returning the deducted money. The whole play is full of punchlines, exaggerated performance and funny dialogue. The translation was primarily finished in 2006 by Brent Yan who at that time majored in Translation at Soochow University, where he learnt from Wang Rongpei, a famous translator of Chinese classical works. This rendition is not modified before publication in order to memorize Wang for his endeavor to lead Brent onto the journey of literature translation.