Titles are always powerful in that (in most cases) it jumps right in our view, and stays in somewhere in our mind for the rest of the reading experience. This was my encounter with Haitian’s 問候. It is only at the very end of the text that she inserted the two-character word again, without explicit mentions throughout the body. However, she did indicate the act of “問候” from time to time by narrating sequentially her writing mentality in different stages of her childhood. Each stage is a different 問候, a very carefully unwrapped process of her growth and self-understanding. It is a greeting to herself, structured in a similar way of a sincere email. That was why I chose to use “regards” rather than a simple greeting.
The trickiest part in this translating process was that the act very much mirrored the original context—I was also trying to find the balance between living with the form and living out my own free will and expressions. A large part has to do with the structured phrases such as the many four-word terms and other repeated phrasings. Those are “pretty” and less colloquial, meaning, more common in Chinese narrative writing. There was certainly no proper way to keep that because a word in English could have more than one syllable. Some strategies I used are keeping the sentence structure the same (ex. 「要么深涩难懂，要么奢丽矫情」to “either abstrusely incomprehensible, or extravagantly dramatic”); having the translated words start with the same letter (ex. 「又可爱又可怕」to “adorable and affrighting”); 氤氳 and other inherent subtleties. To some point, I wonder if I have cared too much about keeping the same sentence/word structures, and therefore have fallen into the trap of being 奢丽矫情. This has also been the first and only poem with as well the most structurally-wordy words I am translating this semester, so I am happy to be given the task, and to have developed some personal strategies in it.
The realization of the mirroring between the original and the translation during a new creation process is extremely satisfying, yet terrifying at the same time. Translation is not only a portraiture or representation of the original, but also a process of self-reflection—in this case, what do I write for? Am I myself intimate to the language I write in, to the words I choose, and in general, to the act of creating a translation, a new interpretation with “me” in it? As Haitian questioned herself, sliced herself open in eagerly checking the intimacy level between her and her writings, I am also sawing myself open, brutally yet openly. I am glad that Haitian pointed out the feeling of 「就像找到了走散很久的母语」that indeed staged clearly her situation. It was touching and relatable to my emotion of translating this piece. So last but not least, I hope that we both can all write “better” in our truthest ways possible.