Mo Yan on foreign languages: Knowing a foreign language makes it easier to succeed than hiring a translator

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Mo Yan: Knowing a foreign language makes it easier to succeed than hiring a translator — At the Sino-US Culture Forum, Mo Yan lamented the difficulties posed by language issues. The \"Second Sino-US Culture Forum – Intercultural Bilateral Dialogue\" academic seminar, organized jointly by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and the U.S. **Humanities Foundation, was held on the 15th and 16th at the University of California, Berkeley in San Francisco. More than 30 scholars from China and the United States engaged in exchanges and discussions; one topic of focus this year was the \"translation issue,\" which is inseparable from cultural exchange. The more fluent one is, the harder it is to translate. He adopted the pen name \"Mo Yan\" because he talked too much; yet it was only when he had to speak English that this famous Chinese writer truly became \"Mo Yan\". “Really, for someone like me who can’t speak a word of English, engaging in cultural exchange is simply impossible without a translator. ”“Yu Dan has such excellent oratory skills; not a single unnecessary word is used, and what she says can be written down as an article ready for publication. But as for those simultaneous interpreters, they don’t like Yu Dan. ” At the end of the meeting, Mo Yan changed his tone and said, “Simultaneous interpreters like people like me who talk so much nonsense.” ”Previously, Yu Dan, who came to UC Berkeley for the forum as well, delivered her speech as usual, speaking fluently and quoting various sources in an uninterrupted stream. However, if you listen to the English translation, it’s really like turning duck soup into wax gourd soup – the taste is much worse. Moreover, a lot of content cannot be translated, and there’s simply no time to translate it. Actually, translating from English to Chinese also presents some difficulties; some proper nouns and names are not easy to translate. For Chinese books, having a foreigner who is proficient in Chinese translate a Chinese novel is easier for foreigners to accept than having a Chinese person who is proficient in foreign languages do the translation. After all, the ultimate readers are foreigners. When it comes to foreigners who translate modern Chinese literature, the over-seventy-year-old American Edward Gao is referred to by Chinese and American media as the \"only midwife\" in this field. He not only provides accurate translations but also never oversteps his bounds, sticking to the essence of translation. His collaboration with Mo Yan was the most enjoyable, and he has translated the most of Mo Yan’s novels (6). Ge Haowen, translator of Mo Yan’s works: Mo Yan is a Chinese writer with a strong sense of history. >>> In an interview with reporters, Yu Dan revealed that her book \"Yu Dan’s Insights on The Analects\" has been translated into 28 languages and published in 33 editions overseas, with a total circulation of over 370,000 copies. “This is mainly thanks to the publisher choosing a good English translator, Esther. She is British, about my age; she has lived in China for five years and is highly proficient in Chinese culture, and her husband is from Guizhou. There’s also the translator of the German version; he has lived in China as well, and his wife is Chinese. ”The Li Yiyun and Huang Xi phenomenon occurs because the English version serves as the template, and many other minor languages are translated based on this template. Therefore, the success of the master template is crucial. If Chinese people could write directly in English, it would be more effective for spreading Chinese culture. In the past two years, two Chinese youths who completed their university studies in China before going to the United States have received high recognition from American society in the cultural sphere: one is Li Yiyun, a 37-year-old female writer, and the other is Huang Xi, a 40-year-old stand-up comedian. One writes novels in English, the other tells jokes in English; both of them study science, and they have no prior experience in related fields in China, nor are they well-known there. Wang Xi has performed for the U.S. Vice President, appeared on two episodes of America’s most famous talk show, “David Letterman,” and won several awards in comedy competitions this year. Americans say Wang Xi’s stand-up is full of wisdom ； Li Yiyun’s works have appeared in some of the most authoritative American book magazines such as The New Yorker and The Paris Review, and she has won numerous awards. Christopher Merrill, director of the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program (whose English writing program ranks first in the nation for writing programs), said that regardless of the method of communication, it is important to consider the audience’s receptiveness. Lynch, head of the **Humanities Foundation** in the United States and one of the organizers of this forum, believes that these young Chinese people use expressions familiar to Americans to convey Chinese culture as well, which represents a form of cultural exchange between China and the United States. “President Obama plans to send 100,000 American students to China each year in the future to study Chinese, hoping that they will master the language and contribute to all-round exchanges and cooperation between China and the United States. ”