hang Lijun, a Spanish language scholar in the Shanghai International Studies University(SISU), benefited students to learn Latin American language and culture by teaching indigenous language, translating Spanish literature and hosting Spanish poetry forum.

Zhang offers Aztec Civilization and Classical Nahuatl and Mayan Civilization and Yucatan Maya which are both rare language classes in China. He mainly teaches Spanish while Nahuatl and Mayan, indigenous language of Latin America, are also part of his courses. Zhang learned them when he studied and researched in Mexico.

Zhang starts from the origin of the Maritime Silk Road, under the theoretical guidance of the community of human destiny, explains the evolution of the Aztec and Mayan civilization and introduces the Classical Nahuatl and Yucatan Mayan, which leads the students to appreciate the wonderful Latin American language and culture.

Zhang often shared his learning experience in Mexico, which aroused the students' enthusiasm to explore the Latin American language and culture. During the exchange study in Mexico, Zhang didn’t absorb knowledge of the local culture just from classes. He explored 29 states in Mexico, and appreciated many monuments and museums. Later, with the in-depth travel, he gradually came into contact with the indigenous language and culture.

Zhang Lijun cherished the life of studying in Mexico very much, and his sincere attitude toward learning has also infected his students. He lived halfway up a volcano south of Mexico City. Every morning at five or six o 'clock, he had to take a crowded bus to go to the university town. He started classes at 7:10 in the morning, and each class lasted more than three hours.

"Although the courses were heavy, the teachers had a wide range of knowledge. It was a happy and unforgettable time for me to learn what I loved. In addition, chance to learn these knowledge was not easy to get, so I cherished it very much," Zhang said.

Zhang hosted a poetry forum on November 22. He guided students from the School of European and Latin American Studies and the School of Asian and African Studies to share poetry. The students expressed their appreciation of the beauty in poetry during the collision and exchange of Eastern and Western cultures.

Adolfo Fabricio Licoa Campos, an international student from Ecuador, shared the poem Lugar de origen written by Andrade from his country at the forum. All the images in the poem had a strong tropical flavor as flowers, birds and insects are pregnant with magic and fantasy vitality, making everyone deeply feel the charm of Spanish poetry from Latin America.

Zhang focuses on poetry appreciation and translation. He thinks people can imagine all kinds of things when they read a poem, because poetry does not need to have a situation and people can construct the situation contained in it by themselves.

Zhang translated a Spanish poetry collection called Li Bai and Other Poems from José Juan Tablada, a Mexican poet who was very accomplished in the creation of image poems and haiku. The abstract characteristics of image poems increased the difficulty of translation, but Zhang used additional translation, that is, to increase the space of his imagination and fill the vacancy of the content, to deal with the obstacles set by the image poem.

While preserving the original flavor of poetry, he believes that translators should also have their own personalities and reflect personalized content in the translation. In his opinion, translators shouldn’t strip away the main body of the original work according to their understanding of the original work and the poet's own unique way of writing. He has also translated The Mountains of Gold by Argentine poet Leopoldo Antonio Lugones and The Story of the Moby-Dick by Chilean poet Luis Sepúlved.

Zhang offered some advice to students who were interested in translation work. He believes that simultaneous translation requires a lot of training to get the ability to react quickly, a solid foundation and a relatively comprehensive knowledge system. When it comes to literary translation, Zhang admits that it requires students to learn professional courses steadily, accumulate life experience, and cultivate their empathy ability.

In addition to his contributions to Latin American language and culture education, Zhang is the director of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Translation and Communication Center of SISU. Hearing ancient languages like Mayan being spoken while studying in Mexico, he was struck by the vitality of ancient civilizations. Zhang conceived the idea of exploring Chinese intangible cultural heritage and artistic works after returning to China.

Under the leadership of Zhang, the team have produced a research report of 150,000 words, two multi-language documentaries on intangible cultural heritage and five kinds of collaborative cultural and creative products on intangible cultural heritage.