Reflections

 

Jeremy Tiang Reading: 

Before I go into translation matters, I think the play is so keen and progressive at probing at some of the most prominent issues in society. I am deeply impressed by the amount of issues Weo Yu-Chia manages to fit into even just one scene. Take the first scene of the polar bear and the man as an example, racism, ableism, youth/elderly and the job market, and sexuality (very briefly) are all touched on. 

Now, I read the play in Chinese first, and then Jeremy’s translation. It wasn’t very easy reading the Chinese original. For one, out of 50 traditional characters, there might be 1 that is new to my eyes where I need to figure out its equivalent in simplified. The second reason is the use of very colloquial language, and the appearance of some interjections in the play actually slow me down in reading, although I suppose that it would maek the play go a lot smoother if spoken on stage. The third reason as well as the main reason is that all the description of stage set-up and background is described in a lot more details in the Chinese original. In contrast, the English version was, in my opinion, a lot more succinct while retaining the precision of the story. 

There are two categories of things that Jeremy Tiang made multiple decisions to either omit or shorten, one is, as mentioned above, stage set-up and story background description. I can elaborate on this in class. The other category is language play. 

For example, when the man asked the polar bear “but aren’t you…” “aren’t I what?” “aren’t you human?” In Chinese, it is “but aren’t you…” “aren’t I what?” “aren’t you a (one single) human?” “After my love has passed away, I indeed am one single human.” “no, I mean, aren’t you a human being?” 

I don’t have much experience translating, and I understand that language play is largely intransferable across languages, but for occasions like the one above, I wonder if there is a better way to have kept the little nuanced “one human” vs “one human” exchange in the English translation. 

Overall, I really enjoyed reading Jeremy Tiang’s translation, and I really love their clean and on-point storytelling. 

Article “The world is not enough” 

I was really drawn to this quote from the article: 

“Who are translators in the “world” of “world literature”? Are we meant to be tour guides, carefully planning each itinerary to allow the visitor to experience their journey with as little friction and fuss as possible? Outlandish as this sounds, it’s not far from the more common metaphor of the translator as ambassador, as if such vast gaps divide literary cultures that delicate negotiations are required to bridge them.”

This reminds me of the preserving SL diction vs achieving naturalness in TL balance that we are all constantly struggling to achieve when translating. As lost as I still am these days trying to figure out what my preference is on this spectrum, I realized as I was reading this quote that it is exactly this delicate negotiation that makes translation difficult and an art form in and of itself, divorced from any literature genre or languages involved in the translation process. 

Guest Speaker: 

Ester Allen was an energetic, enchanting speaker. Spanish-English translation is new to me, and I don’t think I have even read anything from Spanish original before reading for our class last week, but she brought up some translation matters that were well-illustrated with the examples she gave. Her talking about the term “waiting” not being “just waiting” but “waiting with expectation” was very interesting. It reminds me of this phrase you would say in japanese or korean or Chinese, that goes “じゃ、今度一緒に食べに行こうね!” (trans. Let’s grab food sometime!”)  that is said more out of politeness and often said without the intention of actually wanting to get food with the other person. Indeed, this is a “yakusoku (appointment)” without any real expectation. 

She delved into Di Benedetto’s life and showed profound understanding of the author, and her passion for understanding Di Benedetto and all that’s behind his creation of his literature shines through her English sentences, and she made me realize that, out of the many factors that give birth to good translations, one that is absolutely crucial is for translator’s interaction with the work not be limited to only the original work. That is, the author’s background, other translations, research into the era, the city in which the story takes place, the work of other writers who might be the model of a certain character in the story, etc. Translation involves so much more input than one text, it is the past, the present, and the future of an author, a place, an era that a translator decides to work with when they pick up a single novel or short story. 

 

Jiayi