Jian Ping's column
Lost in translation
Lost in translation
By Jian Ping
I used to work as a translator at China Film when I was in Beijing in the mid 1980s. Together with a
group of Chinese editors (who simplified the dialogues on the screen to shorter sentences) and
translators (who specialized in English, French, Spanish and Arabic), we pounded on electronic
typewriters day after day. As if that was not enough, in my spare time in the evenings and weekends, I
also worked on translation of short stories and other literary works from English into Chinese. Most of
the feature films we worked on at the time were still full of political jargons and propaganda. I remember
sharing an office with my colleague Ni and frequently, one of us would throw the Chinese script onto the
floor. “That’s retarded,” one or the other would gasp. “No Westerner would make sense of these words!”
Many political statements typical of the “proletarian revolutionaries” that sounded familiar in Chinese
would not fare well in English at all.
“ ,” a buzz phrase during the Cultural Revolution, can only be rendered something like
“smash ruthlessly any selfish thoughts at their onset.”
“ ,” which referred to steer clear of any association with those who have political
problems, was roughly translated as “cutting a line of demarcation.”
I used to work as a translator at China Film when I was in Beijing in the mid 1980s. Together with a
group of Chinese editors (who simplified the dialogues on the screen to shorter sentences) and
translators (who specialized in English, French, Spanish and Arabic), we pounded on electronic
typewriters day after day. As if that was not enough, in my spare time in the evenings and weekends, I
also worked on translation of short stories and other literary works from English into Chinese. Most of
the feature films we worked on at the time were still full of political jargons and propaganda. I remember
sharing an office with my colleague Ni and frequently, one of us would throw the Chinese script onto the
floor. “That’s retarded,” one or the other would gasp. “No Westerner would make sense of these words!”
Many political statements typical of the “proletarian revolutionaries” that sounded familiar in Chinese
would not fare well in English at all.
“ ,” a buzz phrase during the Cultural Revolution, can only be rendered something like
“smash ruthlessly any selfish thoughts at their onset.”
“ ,” which referred to steer clear of any association with those who have political
problems, was roughly translated as “cutting a line of demarcation.”
It was not any easier from English into Chinese. I remember working on the translation of a book on Sartre and his existentialism. I had
such a difficult time finding the right words in Chinese to convey his meaning, which was hard for me to grasp to start with.
Years later in the U.S. when I watched the film “Lost in Translation,” I laughed with comprehension when the commercial director shouted
explosively at the actor performed by Bill Murray for several minutes and the translator gave a one sentence, non-emotional translation.
Not to mention so many layers of built-in nuances, rhythms of pronunciation unique to the original language, and puns are lost in translation.
It’s been years since I did serious literary translation work. Recently, Martha of Living Earth Television, asked me to help supervise the
translation of a Chinese documentary film she has imported from China. I watched the film title “Kindergarten,” a very well made film on a
boarding kindergarten school for children aged two to seven in today’s China. The words used by the children are quite simple. But to render
their mood and reflect more accurately the level of words they express at their various ages, I found myself revising more than two-thirds of
the translation. After hours of work, I spent another two-and-a-half hours with Martha, going through each sentence again to make sure the
English I used are appropriate and colloquial. I was keenly aware of the necessary “re-creation” process that a translator must use in order to
make the converted text in another language ring true and right.
Incidentally, I am taking a four-year Asian Classics classes at the University of Chicago. This year, our focus is on China. We have been
reading translations of some best known Chinese classics in English: the Grand History by Si Ma Qian, Analects by Confucius, and Tao De
Jing by Lao Zi, to name a few. I have to admit that for me, reading the English translation in today’s language is much easier than reading the
original in classic Chinese! Only occasionally, I check the Chinese original.
Recently, however, we started reading Shi Jing ( ), translated as the Book of Songs, or the Classic of Poetry or the Odes. None of
the title translation transcends the “essence” of the word Jing. Since Shi Jing is a collection of classic folk songs and poems, I decide to read
the Chinese and English side by side, sometimes checking more than one translation for the same poem. I am shocked by the drastic
differences in each version.
For instance, in Airs of Chen ( ), there is a poem titled 泽陂. Its first stanza in Chinese is as follows:
James Legge translated it as:
Ze Po:
By the shores of that marsh,
There are rushes and lotus plants.
There is the beautiful lady;
I am tortured for her, but what avails it?
Waking or sleeping, I do nothing;
From my eyes and nose the water streams.
Arthur Waley’s translation:
Swamp’s Shore:
By that swamp’s shore, grow reeds and lotus.
There is a man so fair — Oh, how can I cure my wound?
Day and night I can do nothing;
As a flood my tears flow.
It is acceptable that translators select different words to convey the meaning in the original and try to have a poetic ring in English. But to
take the gender of “ ” as a woman in one, and a man in the other, that is difficult to accept. The word “beauty” in Chinese usually refers
to women. I wonder if it is because later in the poem, the description of the “beauty” includes words like “majestic,” and “big” that Waley
decided it must be a man.
This is just one example. Numerous different interpretations in the translation of the poems sometimes make it hard to trace the elements
and meaning embedded in the original. I take comfort in the thought that part of the beauty of poetry reading is the liberty of interpretation by a
reader. But when it comes to translation, the responsibility and liberty a translator takes would not only stand for one person, but would impact
all the readers, especially those who cannot read the original in a foreign tongue.
There are many different theories and approaches to translation. As a translator, I prefer staying true to the original versus free
interpretation.
Jian Ping is the author of “Mulberry Child: A Memoir of China.” For more information, please visit www.mulberrychild.com, www.
moraquest.com and www.smearedtype.com.
such a difficult time finding the right words in Chinese to convey his meaning, which was hard for me to grasp to start with.
Years later in the U.S. when I watched the film “Lost in Translation,” I laughed with comprehension when the commercial director shouted
explosively at the actor performed by Bill Murray for several minutes and the translator gave a one sentence, non-emotional translation.
Not to mention so many layers of built-in nuances, rhythms of pronunciation unique to the original language, and puns are lost in translation.
It’s been years since I did serious literary translation work. Recently, Martha of Living Earth Television, asked me to help supervise the
translation of a Chinese documentary film she has imported from China. I watched the film title “Kindergarten,” a very well made film on a
boarding kindergarten school for children aged two to seven in today’s China. The words used by the children are quite simple. But to render
their mood and reflect more accurately the level of words they express at their various ages, I found myself revising more than two-thirds of
the translation. After hours of work, I spent another two-and-a-half hours with Martha, going through each sentence again to make sure the
English I used are appropriate and colloquial. I was keenly aware of the necessary “re-creation” process that a translator must use in order to
make the converted text in another language ring true and right.
Incidentally, I am taking a four-year Asian Classics classes at the University of Chicago. This year, our focus is on China. We have been
reading translations of some best known Chinese classics in English: the Grand History by Si Ma Qian, Analects by Confucius, and Tao De
Jing by Lao Zi, to name a few. I have to admit that for me, reading the English translation in today’s language is much easier than reading the
original in classic Chinese! Only occasionally, I check the Chinese original.
Recently, however, we started reading Shi Jing ( ), translated as the Book of Songs, or the Classic of Poetry or the Odes. None of
the title translation transcends the “essence” of the word Jing. Since Shi Jing is a collection of classic folk songs and poems, I decide to read
the Chinese and English side by side, sometimes checking more than one translation for the same poem. I am shocked by the drastic
differences in each version.
For instance, in Airs of Chen ( ), there is a poem titled 泽陂. Its first stanza in Chinese is as follows:
James Legge translated it as:
Ze Po:
By the shores of that marsh,
There are rushes and lotus plants.
There is the beautiful lady;
I am tortured for her, but what avails it?
Waking or sleeping, I do nothing;
From my eyes and nose the water streams.
Arthur Waley’s translation:
Swamp’s Shore:
By that swamp’s shore, grow reeds and lotus.
There is a man so fair — Oh, how can I cure my wound?
Day and night I can do nothing;
As a flood my tears flow.
It is acceptable that translators select different words to convey the meaning in the original and try to have a poetic ring in English. But to
take the gender of “ ” as a woman in one, and a man in the other, that is difficult to accept. The word “beauty” in Chinese usually refers
to women. I wonder if it is because later in the poem, the description of the “beauty” includes words like “majestic,” and “big” that Waley
decided it must be a man.
This is just one example. Numerous different interpretations in the translation of the poems sometimes make it hard to trace the elements
and meaning embedded in the original. I take comfort in the thought that part of the beauty of poetry reading is the liberty of interpretation by a
reader. But when it comes to translation, the responsibility and liberty a translator takes would not only stand for one person, but would impact
all the readers, especially those who cannot read the original in a foreign tongue.
There are many different theories and approaches to translation. As a translator, I prefer staying true to the original versus free
interpretation.
Jian Ping is the author of “Mulberry Child: A Memoir of China.” For more information, please visit www.mulberrychild.com, www.
moraquest.com and www.smearedtype.com.
| Jian Ping |
