1.Central Question
Q: What was Su Tungpo's impression of Hainan?
A: Hainan was an island then under the Chinese empire, but inhabited choefly by the Loi aborigines, with a sprinkling of Chinese settlers on the northern coast. The island was all but uninhabitable from the Chinese point of view. The climate was very damp, oppressive in summer and foggy in winter. During the autumn rains everything grew moldy. The unhealthy climate provoked reflections on prolong life. But, later he realized that it had nothing to do with the climate, and that is the good attitide to life. The natives did not know any writing but were simple, honest souls, and they were lazy at farming and depended on hunting for food. As in some parts of Szechuen and Fukien, it was the women who did the work while the men stayed indoors to look after the babies. The people were highly superstitious, and a medicine man looked after the disease instead of a doctor. Su contracted the habit of going about the countryside picking medicinal herbs and identifying the different varieties. He identified with great satisfaction a certain herb which was referred to in the ancient histories by another name, and which nobody else had been able to find. Although there was no food here, there was no salt, but he could still enjoy himself. This was related to his optimistic and open-minded attitude.
2. Sentences
（1）There was no telling how long his exole was going to be, and the chances were against his returning to China alive.
到底以后他還流放在外多久，頗難預(yù)卜，生還內(nèi)地之望，甚為渺茫。
（2）But his indomitable spirit and his philosophy of life hardly permitted him to lose his joy of living.
indomitable? adj.不屈服的，不可戰(zhàn)勝的
此話表明，蘇東坡雖屢次被貶，但仍沒有失去對生活的熱愛，從而襯托出蘇東坡的樂觀與豁達(dá)之心態(tài)。
（3）Su Tungpo wrote three or four allegories, but imaginative writing by Chinese scholar did not really develop until the thirteenth century, and, like the allegories written by other writers in Tang and Sung times, Su's stories were hardly more than thinly covered inventions for an all too obvious moral.
蘇東坡寫了三四個(gè)寓言故事，但是中國文人寫的想象故事，直到十三世紀(jì)才有真發(fā)展。蘇東坡寫的也和唐宋寓言作家一樣，都是明顯的道德教條加上微薄的一點(diǎn)想象而已。
allegories? n.寓言
