A Challenge?

Today the head of department offered a chance of opening a course on Taiwan literature. Only one course for one semester in the following three years is in need from me. Not a real burden, to tell the truth. Yet the challenging part is that the course has to be taught in English as it is part of the program for international students in our graduate school. I know my spoken English is not so poor as being incapable of handling the situation. Yet my concern is that my expertise is never on the field of specifically Taiwan literature despite my being an avid reader of the literary works here for a long time.

Cannot help wandering in what way will be my thoughts on the literary texts written in Chinese conveyed in English to others? Yet I have to admit this is a chance for me to focus on, for example, a few poets whose works have for long been my favorite and a chance for me to start working on some poetic studies. From a perspective of vocational advancement, this may also be a chance to wade into a study that may grow into a promising field for international recognition. At the same time, my own ideas of and attunement to that which is literary pure and simple can be put into a test on works in Chinese, my own mother tongue.

I don't know. A challenge indeed, in terms not only of the demand for language skills, but also of a requirement of professional disciplinary training. Need time to think it over. Might take the challenge. Life needs to keep going, going over boundaries to break a new ground, to sail into terra incognita for self-test as well as self-transcendence. A self that needs and has to open to the immortal, the infinite.