Chinese stories

Props to ESWN for this great translation of a Phoenix article on the dismal state of literary translation in China. Basically, the article describes a cycle of low pay and poor quality translation that rewards quantity over quality. Kenneth Tan at Shanghaiist continues the discussion here with his personal accounts of working with translating companies in China. While he is right to some extent that many of the bargain basement tranlsation ‘companies’ are little more than poorly run offices that crank out low quality translations, I think that for business-oriented translating companies, the picture is much more complex.

I have had contact with a few different translating companies in Beijing, and each was different. One of them who I worked with invited me to their ‘office’ for an interview. From the office it was immediately evident what kind of place it was. The name on the door was different from their official name, the only staff in the office consisted of a manager and his assistant, and there was a line of eager college students waiting in the hallway to interview for jobs. I had done a translation test for them 6 months prior, but they had changed staff, and didn’t know where it was anymore. Needless to say, I wasn’t optimistic, but in the end I did a medium size job for them, and they actually paid decently and on-time.

A big telecom I worked for had one company who pretty much did all the outsourced translating for them. On reviewing their work, it was evident they did not have native speakers doing final revisions, but their specialization meant that they could nail all the obscure technical terminology. This seemed to have been good enough for management, and after all, almost all of the people reading the translations were Chinese, so who would be able to tell, anyway?

The translating company that I most enjoyed working with was very professional, with international offices throughout the world, and standard procedures for dealing with the translating process. They always used native speakers to at least do the editing, if not translating, and from their clientele it was obvious that companies in Beijing were willing to pay the extra yuan for the quality work they produced.

Accounting firms and probably legal firms as well also recognize the need for quality translation, and this, combined with the confidential nature of the work, means that they have whole translation departments with teams of translators and editors, who are treated like professionals.

So, it’s not all dirt-cheap labor by college students desperate for some sort of work experience, and a lot of companies already know the difference to some extent.

Even though the amount of poor quality work being cranked out is depressing, I find Kenneth Tan’s attitude condescending in saying that the Chinese translators would need ten years to figure out international culture and come up with a decent translation.  With decent pay, or enough interest they will do just fine. Just look at the group of translators who create the Chinese subtitles for American TV shows that are shared via BitTorrent. They make great translations, and are able to catch obscure references to 80s culture and do it all for free. (See Howard French’s article in the IHT.) These subtitled shows are hugely popular on the internet, and we have these translators to thank for introducing the complexities of foreign culture to China.

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In early 2004 I went to Laos during the winter break of the school I was teaching English at in Beijing. Our school just happened to have a dozen or so students from Laos earning a BS in electric engineering there. They were all from the same place, Phongsaly, in the northeast of Laos near the border with the Yunnan town of Mengla. Many of them were of Chinese descent, as they lived so near to China, and they celebrated Chinese New Year. They also celebrated Laotian holidays, such as the water splashing festival, which from their description is a day where everyone goes around with buckets of water trying to get eachother wet.

They had come to the university through sponsorship from an electric power company in Laos (maybe government run?), on the deal that the company would pay for their schooling for 4 and a half years, and when they went home they had to work for that company for 15 years. They were an interesting bunch, because some of them came from very poor backgrounds, where others were quite wealthy, and even had government connections, but they were all good friends.

Many of them came to China having known little Chinese, or just being able to speak a little Chinese. They had 6 months once in China to get their Chinese up to speed, and get a certain score on the HSK Chinese proficiency test. I think the reason they were able to learn it so fast was that they didn’t know any English, so they were forced to learn Chinese to get by. They also had the pressure of having to prepare for the test.

I had planned to go with one of them, Souk, to visit the capital, Vientiane, where his girlfriend was studying to become a doctor in the (only?) university in Laos, and to Luang Prabang to try to find the place where he was born. The trip almost didn’t happen, as I came down with a very bad case of food poisoning right before. I hardly ate anything for days, and was very weak. I decided to go, however, as we had been planning the trip for a long time. So I went to the store and stocked up for the two-day train ride from Beijing to Kunming.

This was the train that most of the Laos students took home during the winter and summer breaks, and they usually got a couple of crates of beers to take on the train to help pass the time. Once in Kunming they would immediately get on a long-distance sleeper bus through mountainous southern Yunnan to Mengla. From their description it was not a pleasant ride, as they had to pee in bags, and frequently got sick on the mountain turns. Souk and I were going to the capital, however, so we had to fly.

He got us a discount at a hotel associated with the Laos consulate in Kunming, and we stayed there for a few days while waiting for plane tickets and getting to know the City. I remember seeing one of the strangest traveling groups I’ve ever seen in Kunming: It was a foreign family – mom, pop, and about 8 kids. The oldest one was carrying around the youngest. They seemed to be on a budget, and I saw them all crammed into a small roadside stall eating dinner one evening. The kids seemed to know some Chinese, but the parent’s didn’t. I can’t for the life of me figure out what they were doing.

The plane to Vientiane was not bad, it was only about half full, and when we landed customs was a breeze. I had gotten my visa in Beijing – they are good for 2 weeks, and can be extended once you’re there. Souk’s girlfriend, brother-in-law, and another relative were waiting for us at the airport. We picked up our backpacks and took off on the main mode of transportation in Laos – motorbikes. I’ve never learned to drive a motorbike, so I just sat in back and held on.

The house we stayed in belonged to Souk’s girlfriend, and it was big – two storeys, and a fenced-in yard. They only problem was there was nothing in it. Just beds and tables and chairs. To pass the time they played badminton in the driveway, and tried to get a reception on their radio. Most of the houses in the neighborhood had walls surrounding them, and big, mean dogs in the yard. This was for protection, I guess. Our house had the words ‘beware of dog’ painted on the wall, but no dog. Nothing ever happened, except for one night, when someone stole some of the lumber that was piled up in the yard against the wall.

There was running water, but it was not heated. This made for chilly showers, but it wasn’t too bad, because the weather was not too cold. Laos has a dry and rainy season, and although we were there during the coldest part of the year, I never needed more than a light jacket. Supposedly in the north it gets a little cooler.

Just like in China, I had to register with the police once I was there, or perhaps it was the head of the neighborhood I was in. At first there was some confusion, and I thought I would have to stay in a hotel, but in the end they said it was ok. I also went out to change some money into the local currency, the kip. The kip has undergone some steep inflation, and 1,000 kip was something like 1 RMB. Exchanging 100 USD gets you a brick of notes that will last you a long time.

Most of the days I just sat around the house, talking with Souk’s relatives in English or Chinese, while Souk’s girlfriend went to class, and his brother-in-law Viengsay went to work. There was one local internet bar, which got its connection from a dish attached to a tower out back. I didn’t try very hard to learn anything more than a few phrases in the local language. I just remember ‘sabaidee’ is ‘hello’, and ‘bu dai’ is ‘not ok.’ The writing system is way more than I can handle. The language is a variant of Thai, so if you know that, you should be able to fake it in Laos.

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I have watched Chinese TV for more than three years, and have never seen an ad that I liked. Most are as bad as the locally produced used car lot ads back home, and the worst are the 5 second ones they run 3 times in a row. I hate that guy who says “yi er san si wei bi zhi!” (一二三四胃必治). I have no idea why a group of young ladies happily chant “我们都用妇炎洁” (we all use Fuyanjie douche), and whenever I see Zeng Zhiwei I can only think of him saying “I’ve got the runs!” (拉肚子) over and over in my head. (I also hate it when they have the volume of the ads several settings higher than the regular programs. Do the advertisers pay for the extra loud settings?)

So I was really surprised when Snickers (士力架) came out with an ad that was actually not completely mindless! I found it on tudou, and it’s one of those you have to watch a few times to catch all that is going on:

http://www.tudou.com/player/player.swf?iid=11031248

I sent it to a friend in Japan who, to my surprise, pointed out that it probably took its inspiration from a ‘Matrix ping pong’ sketch on a Japanese game show:

Even if the idea was copied, they still did a good job with it.

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Here is my wife’s account of getting a c-section in Beijing (in Chinese). She’s so brave!

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This is at the Dongdan exit of the new line 5. The camera is right at the top of the escalator going up, dead center, and at face level for anyone over 6 feet. This thing almost smacks me in the face every morning.

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