Local News in Brief : Gaining in the Translation

Henry Y. Hwang, chairman of the Far East National Bank, said he remembered well the photographs of legions of Chinese raising the “little red book” of quotations from Chairman Mao in salute.

“I thought it would be better if people raised this book,” Hwang said.

And so he did, showing a group of Chinese businessmen, school leaders and reporters the first Chinese translation of the U.S. Constitution.

The translation is being distributed by the Glendale-based California Bicentennial Foundation for the U.S. Constitution, which also is publishing Constitutions in Korean, Japanese, Russian and Armenian.

Far East National Bank underwrote the typesetting and has pledged to pay for the first 10,000 of the 3 1/2-by-6 1/2-inch, 35-page Chinese editions, which cost 15 cents each.