A Greeting, a translation of Haitian Ma’s《问候》

Read Haitian Ma’s 《问候》

I was in middle school when I realised I couldn’t write in a certain creative way in Chinese. Back then in our Chinese exams we were only allowed to write jixuwen, essays where we were asked to describe people, or events. Whenever I wanted to convey my emotions though, I’d rack my brains, plotting how I would use language to express them – what rhetoric to use, what collocations, what word order. If you write like that, refining things so deliberately, everything ends up either obscure and difficult to understand, or flashy and pretentious. Either way, it washes away the original meaning. Later, in high school, we started writing argumentative essays, and so I never touched jixuwen again.  

I’ve also never been able to keep up with writing a journal. Every time I’m about to put pen to paper, I always feel as though there’s a nameless reader watching me. Sooner or later I will start to write my journal for him. It will be for him to look at. This nameless, imaginary reader tells me I am unable to write a journal. Unable to write a journal that’s for myself. 

In university, I started writing in English. At first it was academic papers, then, as I more and more of them, I started to randomly jot down my thoughts as well. As I wrote, it was as though I had found a long lost mother tongue, and we were becoming closer and closer. At a certain point, it became the language I used to ask questions, to speak to myself, to write creatively. This type of intimate relationship is both cute and frightening. Was it embracing me, or colonising me?

So, for me, my enjoyment of translation carries with it some selfish motives. Regardless of whether it’s Chinese to English or English to Chinese, I get to borrow texts and reach out to a poetic Chinese, using other people’s words to dream my dreams of writing Chinese freely.

But this dream is always escaping me. When I’m translating, I need to put myself down, put my thoughts to one side, abandon my own writing habits. I clean the nooks and crannies, and open the door to let a sound into my world. Wear her heart to live through her life, and yield to her wishes in order to voice them. Let her play with the feelings left in this empty room. Leave her to rub the steaming thoughts on the stove. Become her without a thought. And, when a translation session is over, pack up her feelings, and firmly send her away. Wait for the chair on the ceiling to slowly shift back to the desk, for the pillow in the pond to return to bed, for the chopsticks in the spider plant to tip-toe back to the cupboard, for me to open my eyes in confusion, for the pen in my hand to roll onto the floor. 

As I bend down to pick up the pen, I am still longingly thinking of Chinese, clearly writing in English, and anxiously hesitating in language’s prison.

And so, when I heard these workers poems I was at once envious and yearning. Those clever metaphors! Those refined sentences! Such short lines of characters can express such complicated feelings, and I am left in the rider’s dust. 

But as is with all things that I carry with delicacy, I’m slow and I have no hope of catching up. I squint from afar. What right do I have to speak to these unreachable things.  How am I supposed to speak to them, and who am I speaking for?

I’m still unwilling. These words where we acknowledge our privilege, raise up lots of questions, but can’t give us warm answers we need. We are all hesitating in our anxiety, and privilege is chemotherapy which temporarily controls it’s spread – but it won’t be long before there’s an relapse. These workers’ poems are catalysts for it, a majestic momentum that pushes forward a frightened, fatal illness.

Besides, are these workers’ poems the poems of workers? When they were writing them, did they leave themselves too? Where did they go, what kind of dreams did they have, who did they become? And who entered their world, pulled at their heart strings, and borrowed their long unmoistened throats, to sing requiem after requiem?

No matter how hasty, unfair and loopholed this argument is, I still want to say it: the labour in these workers poems, and my speechlessness when I am faced with Chinese, are, in a certain dimension, at a certain moment, interconnected. After that moment, they part ways, and in the end, they  give each other the cold shoulder when they meet by chance, in our discussion on “privilege”.  Fortunately, there are unspeakable temperatures in language , which can bring us back to a certain dimension, to a certain time, to pass on a greeting. 

Translation of Model City [17] by Donna Stonecipher

模范城市 [17}

像从卧室窗户里看到城市慢慢的被雪粉住了, 城市的分子构成被粉状的骨化      征兆迟缓改变 。

*

像看到雪慢慢地掩盖对面的工地, 那个有一天会变成酒店的工地, 雪暂时充满那个在未来会永恒有临时性的空间。 

*

像慢慢地开始认为这个雪是永久的, 那个工地是永久的, 酒店的盛大开业庆典活动是永久被推迟的,春天是被推迟的, 番红花的盛大开业庆典。

*

像感觉这雪的粉末也粉住了自己, 因为自己也是城市的一部分;诚然,与它分开一步,透过窗户在瞰临它; 但也是它的一部分, 一个被雪粉末掩盖的, 临时的一部分。

 

Translation of New Media Art Worker

New Media Art Worker

新媒体艺术

—the 99 percent artistic ones excluding the 1 percent artist

那些百分之 99 的, 不包括百分之一

Shiny Shuan-Yi Wu

—and her thoughts written after watching the documentary The Verse of Us (2017) during the outbreak of Coronavirus in early 2020

-她在 2020 年在冠状病毒爆发期间看完纪录片《The Verse of Us》纪录片后的感想

I am not a worker.

我不是工作者。

I am not a tool.

我不是工具。

But to work you got to have tools

但要工作就要有工具

And to have tools you got to work

然后要有工具就要工作

What 

什么

is the meaning of making art

是制作艺术的意义

What is the meaning of making 

制作的意义是什么

Art

艺术

Work

工作

What is that

这是啥

People

look at your tools based on your works

从作品的角度来看工具

look at your works

看你的作品

regardless of tools

不管工具

There is no you.

那里没有你

Is there

有没有

a meaning 

意义

when art means no more than

当艺术的意义不外于

I am a tool.

我是个工具。

I am a worker.

我是个工人。

And to prove meaning requires extra effort

而证明意义需要额外气力

so

那么

Extra

额外

work for proving myself to society

向社会证明自己

and to the world

也向世界

Sorry, 

不好意思,

not myself, I mean 

我的意思是,不证明自己,证明

art

艺术

As if art is to be assigned 

就像艺术是要分配的

work to be meaningful

努力让它有意义

As if art itself means

就像艺术本来的意思就是

Nothing

没什么

as a work

作为一个艺术

of art

作品

I can say that 

我可以这样说

It’s like standing at a podium

想站在讲台上

talking passion with your yearning eyes

用眷眷的眼睛讲激情

next to a beautifully made 

旁边有精美的

powerpoint showcase

ppt 

And you notice what is 

你发现什么在

in front of you—your general 

你面前 — 你普通

audience is seemingly limited

观众看起来有点有限

They are your world.

他们是你的世界。 

And the world hires you

而世界雇佣了你

Before you can even open your mouth 

甚至在你所能张开嘴巴之前

and talk through the

对着话筒讲

microphone

about the real world

现实世界的事儿

It is fortunate 

有点幸运

yet unfortunate

但也不幸

And soon you take only the former

你很快只选择前者

As you start to rethink

当你开始从新思考

what has gone

出了什么

Wrong

问题

you’re gulping down 

你在吞下

the fact that it is

这个事实:

not about how you see the world

 我怎么了解世界不重要

But how the world sees you

世界怎么了解你才重要

secretly gulping in the time of the blinking

眨眼的时间偷偷的吞,

eyes cannot leave the beautifully made

眼睛不能离开精美的东西

for those who stay

给留下的人看

I am grateful.

我很感激

For not being a traditional worker

没有当传统的工作者

nowhere near the microphone

离话筒

And the podium

讲台

And the powerpoint

Ppt

一点都不近 

I am grateful

我很感激

for being able

可以

to work

工作

for what I have given

为了别人给我的东西

by my parents

父母给我的

And the other workers

别的工作者给我的

If fortunate 

如果运气

enough, as a tool

足够,作为工具

We can dig art up until we find

我们可以挖出艺术直到找到了

the buried concept

一个埋藏的概念

deep or not

是否深刻

It is a rough jade that if refined

像粗玉如果被精制

And found.

而找到了。

Has the chance to become the 1 percent

就有机会成为百分之一 

And to be fortunate requires extra work

然后如果幸运也需要更加努力

But do people

但是人是在

look at you

看你

or look at your works

还是你的作品

And is that art

然后那是艺术吗

if not a tool

如果不是个工具

What are you

那你到底是什么

?