美 Mei - Zhong 中 關 Guan - Xi 系

On June 4th, the NYT printed an editorial by Ma Jian （马建）relating the government response to the Sichuan earthquake to the Tiananmen Square Incident. Ma’s works have been banned in China although I attended a lecture he was able to give in Shanghai in 2006. In Red Dust, Ma’s poetic autobiography of his wanderings across China, his general lack of fear of authority and willingness to describe things as he sees them come through quite clearly and explain the government’s disapproval of his work. Ma also has a new book, Beijing Coma, which apparently touches on Tiananmen and other sensitive political topics. The aforementioned editorial from last week was a poignant and intelligent read although I was most interested in issues concerning the translation. The NYT provided a link to the original in Chinese while also crediting Flora Drew, Ma’s long time collaborator, as the translator. What most interested me was the initial paragraph which Ms. Drew translated as:

FOR three days last month, China’s national flag flew at half-staff in Tiananmen Square to honor the victims of the devastating earthquake in Sichuan. It was the first time in memory that China has publicly commemorated the deaths of ordinary civilians.

However, a quick perusal of the Chinese reveals that the translation should read something like:

Just last month, the Chinese government broke with its tradition of only lowering the flag for high-level Communist officials, and flew the Tiananmen Square flag at half-mast out of respect for the victims of the Sichuan earthquake. Since taking control of China, this is the first time the Communist party has publicly mourned the deaths of common people.

While some may argue that the two passages are quite similar, I contend that in both literal meaning and connotation, they are quite different. Words like ‘control’ and ‘Communist’ are most definitely present in the Chinese but conspicuously absent in the English. Why Ms. Drew, who was translated entire books and is obviously capable and experienced, would tinker so heavily with the meaning is a bit strange to say the least. It appears that somewhere along the way there may have been some pressure to tone down the rhetoric of the article, perhaps given the gravity of the earthquake and in relation to the recent animosity between China and the West. Anyhow, the rest of the article is translated much more accurately, and the overall message remains sharply critical of Chinese policy.

See for yourself at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/04/opinion/04ma.html?scp=1&sq

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