Against The Stream ~ TRANSLATION
BECAUSE MY TALKS are
often translated, I want to say something about translation
for those whom it may concern.
The job of a translator is often a thankless
task, as the attention is on the person he is translating
for; he himself is supposed to be faceless at that
time, yet without him, nothing much can be said to
people who do not understand the speaker’s language.
His job is very important, and must be seen as such.
After speaking in public for many years,
I have grown wary of translation as I have seen how
inaccurate and misleading it can be. Over translation
into Thai, Vietnamese or Indonesian, for example,
I have some control, as I speak enough of those languages
to be able to check when something I say is translated
from English, and tell whether it is accurate or not.
This is not because I speak those languages fluently—
I don’t— but because there are various
ways to verify translation, such as, if it is much
longer, or much shorter, than what has been said;
if there is some hesitation on the part of the translator,
as if he is unsure; if certain key words are used
that should not be used, or not used that should be
used; by looking at the faces of people in the audience;
and so on.
Strange as it may sound, I speak more of
a foreign language than I understand by hearing. It
is usually the other way around: that people understand
more by hearing than they are able to speak. So, how
is this? It is because I have never learned another
language formally, but only picked up words here and
there, stringing them together in my own way. Consequently,
the Vietnamese, Thai, Malay, etc., that I speak are
my versions— pidgin versions— of those
languages, and not the authentic ones. I mean, I can
get my basic meaning across, if people are willing
to listen to me and meet me half-way, so to speak,
but when people speak proper Vietnamese or Thai to
me, I don’t understand much at all.
This sometimes causes me embarrassment,
because when people hear me speak a few words of their
language, some think I speak it fluently, and try
to converse with me in it; I’m then stuck, and
must explain that I speak only very little of their
language. And even in the middle of translation, if
I correct the translator, it doesn’t mean—
as some listeners think it does— that I understand
every word; it merely means that I know the context,
and what should and should not be said. Checking translations
of things I have written, I’ve detected mistakes
and asked the translator: "What does this mean?
It doesn’t seem right", and it often turned
out that the words or terms used were not correct.
One develops a feeling for it.
Although many people do not know it, there
is a great difference between translation and interpretation.
Translation means to convert— or change—
one language into another, as clearly as possible,
with as little change in meaning as possible. Interpretation,
however, leaves much room for inserting one’s
own ideas about what has been said. One is objective,
and the other subjective. When people come to me and
introduce themselves by saying: "I will be your
interpreter tonight", I tell them: "I do
not want and will not have an interpreter; I want
a translator— someone who will give my ideas,
and not his own ideas about what I say".
There are good reasons for being so particular;
it is not a matter of playing with words. I talk mainly
about non-material things, abstract things, ideas,
concepts, and so on; things that change our lives
by acting on and through our minds; things equally
important as the material side of life, and maybe
moreso. It is relatively easy to translate words about
material things, for we can point to them, touch them,
show them, and say: "What do we call this in
your language?" For non-physical things like
ideas, however, it is not at all easy to translate,
for how can we be sure that the translator has the
same idea as the speaker about the concept being discussed?
If he doesn’t, or if he doesn’t understand
at all, how will he translate and convey that idea
in his language? I have known many ‘translators’
try to muddle through and say just whatever came into
their minds instead of asking for clarification; it
was as if they were afraid to admit that they didn’t
understand, which meant pride, of course, a thing
that has no place in translation; as said earlier,
a translator has— or should have— no face
of his own at the time of translating. How difficult
it is to understand and keep this in mind. How noble
is this task if properly undertaken and carried out.
No doubt many people would say I am a difficult
person to translate for; indeed, I admit this to be
so. And why? Because I take seriously the subject-matter
being translated. If the translation— as often
happens— is not accurate, people may be misled,
and I feel it’s better to say nothing at all
than to mislead people, as the harm done— the
impression created— may take a long time to
undo.
Many years ago, I was requested to give
a talk in the oldest temple in Malacca. I went a few
minutes before the scheduled time, and met the man
who would translate for me. I’d never met him
before then, but his English seemed adequate, so I
thought: "Okay, let’s go". During
the talk, I said something like this: "It’s
not necessary to think about Enlightenment (Nirvana);
just do the work that’s needed". After
the talk, when I had returned to my abode, someone
told me that the translator had badly mistranslated
what I had said about Nirvana, and had said: "Don’t
work for Nirvana". This was diametrically opposite
to what I had said and meant, and it made me very
cautious about translation ever since.
I have had Malaysia’s best-known translators
translate for me over the years, and though I do not
doubt their competence, even with my limited understanding
of Mandarin, I knew that they didn’t catch certain
of my ideas. Perhaps it was because my ideas are somewhat
different than the ideas they were used to translating,
and they were therefore not prepared for them. One
example is the distinction I draw— or perceive—
between Dharma and Buddha-Dharma. Dharma is what the
Buddha discovered beneath the Bodhi-tree, not something
He invented or formulated. What He formulated, and
what we have in the scriptures, is Buddha-Dharma.
It is extremely important to discern the difference.
In their translation, my translators did not make
this distinction, and when I spoke about Dharma, as
distinct from Buddha-Dharma, they translated it as
the latter. Because they were older than me, however,
I let it go, and did not correct them, as I would
have done if they were younger; to have corrected
them in public would have caused loss of ‘face’.
At the end of 1995, I met someone who became
my best-yet translator, someone who understands my
ideas quite well, and who seldom hesitates in his
translation. He is always willing to translate for
me when he can, and expects nothing in return. Nor
does he seem to mind when I neglect to thank him at
the end of a talk. (This is why I say it is a thankless
task, because I have seldom heard anyone else thank
the translator; he appears to be taken for granted,
which is very sad, considering the important work
he does). Grateful for all the help he has given me
(as far as many people are concerned, I would be dumb
without him), several times I have said to him: "Where
have you been all my life? If only I had met you twenty
years and more ago!" Thanks a lot, C.W.! You
are not faceless for me!
Some people who translated for me over the
years were very casual about their task; one was even
chewing gum while doing it! Another indicated me with
his thumb and said: "That’s what he said!"
when someone questioned his choice of words. This
is more disrespectful towards the Dharma than to the
speaker personally, and as I have written elsewhere
in this book, if respect for Dharma is not there,
better not to arrange Dharma-talks; better stay home
and watch TV.
The ‘colleague’ who I mentioned
elsewhere in this book once offered to translate for
me during a joint-talk we gave somewhere, but I noticed
that his ‘translation’ of what I had said
soon turned into his own words; he hijacked my turn
and made it an extension of his own, when the audience
was under the impression that he was translating my
words. I would not have minded if he had not offered
to translate for me, but this was quite unethical
of him. It is hard to resist doing this, however,
especially if we do not agree with what is being said,
which he didn’t, I know— our ideas are
so different. This is why a good translator is like
a precious gem: hard to come across.
|