Stranger in a strange land

As I wrote in last week’s post, my wife and I went to China for a week, specifically to Shanghai, Yiwu and Hangzhou. The trip was the exhilarating and exciting to all senses but left a foreign impression of China.

China is a multifaceted country. As tourists, each day we encountered worlds that we had never seen, each different from each other. In Shanghai, we sat in the cool, peaceful passages of the Yu Garden and were swept along with the mass of people and vehicles, two and four wheeled, to view the lighted buildings in the Bund, the Shanghai river district. We browsed the old-fashioned shops in the Pudong district in Shanghai, unchanged for hundreds of years, and poked our noses in only one building among the massive wholesale complex of the Futian International Trade City in Yiwu, the largest wholesale source of consumer products in the world. Our ears were assaulted by the sounds of the vegetable hawkers at a supermarket (see video below) and soothed by the silence of the tea fields above Long Jing village above Hangzhou. We enjoyed the tastes and smells of an elegant Chinese tea ceremony and encountered rather different ones as we strolled through the food booths at the Yiwunight market.  All this we did with the temperature ranging from 30 – 38 degrees and humidity no less than 90% and quite often even higher. As can be seen from this partial list, no day or even half day was the same in any sense.

China is a completely different country in another way also. When traveling in North America, Europe or even South America, tourists can somehow manage on their own. The locals know enough English or tourists can easily learn the local language to communicate basic ideas while the meanings of both street and store signs can be guestimated. Most cultural rules and norms in the West are similar enough to understand the rules of behavior and even blend in with the locals to one degree or another. The populations and governments accept and even facilitate tourism.

China is another story. The vast majority of Chinese do not know a single word of English, not to mention any other foreign language. Except for stores selling international brands, signs are generally in Chinese, inaccessible for most foreigners, including highway signs. Even "universal" tasks can be difficult. Ordering a meal or telling a taxi driver to go to your hotel is a challenge.  We ordered the same set of drinks from Starbucks three times and received three different pairs of beverages. Finding the "next" button in an overheated, asphyxiating ATM closed cubical is an experience that I will never forget. This inaccessibility goes beyond language. The Chinese have their own rich culture and do not need anybody else’s. The Chinese have their own way of doing many things, generally quite logical even if the logic is not immediately evident to a Western tourist. Even catching a train at the Shanghai Hongqiao train station, would be daunting for the unescorted or unitiated. 

This distance makes it necessary to have an intermediary, a guide of some type. We were lucky to be accompanied either by our daughter or our excellent guide, Aron Long. They opened up the window of China and allowed us to glimpse a tiny bit of China and its culture. The lonely planet hiker would find this country very intimidating and rather inaccessible.

 To make it clear, we had a wonderful, even amazing trip.  I do not regret a single moment and hope to return, albeit not in July. At the same time, I do even fantasize of living there because I could never be a part of Chinese society in any way even if I spoke and wrote Chinese. As Heinlein would way, I would always be a stranger in a strange land.

Travel jitters

I travel abroad every year, mainly to visit family and, more recently, to attend translation conferences.  A meaningful, often the most pleasurable, part of any trip, for better or worse, is the planning, expectations and gut feeling before departure. These often begin months before and slowly develop until suddenly, for me at least, thinking about the trip creates a certain emotional feeling.

This actual feeling can vary. Given that the reasons for my travel do not give me limited options on where I can go, I have experienced emotions ranging from dread to joy.  Prior to attending a conference in Bialystok, Poland, the birthplace of my grandmother, I felt very tense at the mere thought of going to Poland, probably because its legacy for the Jews.  In practice, the conference was excellent but Poland was indeed a complex experience for me emotionally as I saw bits of Poland of yesterday, today and tomorrow. I do not regret that trip at all but it was challenging in that sense.

I fly to LA twice a year.  My feelings about my city of birth have generally been highly negative but have now reached neutrality, a sort of progress.  I didn’t like the place when I was growing up nor do I do today.  However, I can somehow ignore it for two weeks during my parental visits. As Tom Lehrer said in the song National Brotherhood Week, be grateful that it does not last all year.

Last year, my wife and I attended a conference in Valencia, Spain. Aside from the worry on how I would cope with the Spanish, I expected the venue to be a fun place. I am fond of European cities, at least for short visits, and looked forward to the friendly atmosphere.  I was not disappointed.  Spain is indeed a warm country to visit in both meanings of the word. By the way, I coped with the Spanish with no problem thanks to my Italian.

France is my mother’s homeland and dear to my heart.  I lived there on and off for short period and have family there. Unfortunately, the last time I visited was some 9 years ago for my daughter’s bat mitzvah. The mere thought of visiting it sends me into extasy, then and now. My excitement for France may be more nostalgic than reality based but we are planning a long, trip to it once circumstances allow.

I am now flying to China to visit my wife’s daughter. Unfortunately, circumstances limit the trip to a week. So, I and my wife will get a taste of China, which I believe it will be a treat.  We have been told to be ready for a truly foreign experience in terms of way of life, manners, food, etc., unlike any place we have ever been. Psychologically, this trip will be the first time where I will be, as Heinlein wrote, a stranger in a strange land. This sentiment creates some anxiety but also quite a lot of excitement. I go with no concrete expectations apart from seeing the different.

I know that when I get on the train to go the airport, the reality of my upcoming trip will hit me, as always. These jitters are an essential part of the travel experience that I hope never to lose. They say that the opposite of love is not hate but indifference. I cannot imagine not loving to visit new places.

Machine translation and Orwell

For many translators, machine translation is a combination of nuclear war and global warming. There is a sense that it will wipe them out from the map but they hope that it won’t happen in this generation. This week, I skimmed through two articles discussing MT. My thoughts were led not the future of the profession but to the future of English.

The first article, written by Florian Faes and cited by Slator in its weekly newsletter, discusses the linguistic differences between texts translated by MT as compared to human translation after editing. Among the writer’s conclusions, albeit on a limited literary sample, was MT texts tend to have a higher resemblance to their originals in terms of structure even when this structure differs in the target language as well be “simpler and more normalized”.

In another article, also cited by Slator, Jochen Hummel, the creator of the Trados computer assisted translation (CAT) tool, declared that his tool would no longer be used in the future but instead all human translation would be based on MT. In other words, the opus of previously written text will standardize our language. As I see it, what was will be in a much stronger form than today and subject to manipulation by corporate and governmental organization.

These two observations led me to recall Orwell’s 1984. For those who have forgotten or simply never read the book, he described a world where the government controlled everybody (Big Brother). Interestingly, one of its main tools was its control of language. English vocabulary had been reduced to the bare minimum. For example, a negative was expressed by adding “un” to the positive, e.g., unhungry. All texts were online (yes, this book was written 1949) and amended as political winds changed so that the public never had any proof of any change in policy or thinking. Looking at North Korea in 2019, Orwell would be appalled but not shocked.

Given that English is the dominant language of communication worldwide for the foreseeable future and assuming that machine language, however “artificial” it sounds initially, becomes the statistical and controlling norm, it is not hard to imagine a world in which people’s thoughts are expressed in intentionally simplified language and form. It would be undoing Dickens and Shakespeare, to name a few.

It is clear that MT has its place and will not disappear. It also clear that MT will have a huge influence on translation project management. Looking at the development of chat language, which is also simplified in many ways, it can be argued that this language is no less rich and individual. However, I still fear the gradual “poorification” of English not as a result of government action but instead due to industrial pressures.  I hope Orwell was wrong in this prediction and that 1984 will never come.

Dance accounting – Karmiel Dance Festival 2019

The Karmiel Dance Festival has come and gone. I was able to attend two performances, one being a potpourri of international troupes, whose actual names we were never mentioned. They came from Mexico, Brazil, Serbia, Turkey, Russian and China (as well a local group of Yemenite dancers). Each performed two dances. Like all good smorgasbords, while all came were good, I did not enjoy each one equally. The interesting aspect, in retrospect, is the reasons for my preferences.

The groups from Mexico and Brazil both performed long couple suites. The costumes were colorful and flowing while the music had a nice dancing pace. However, the dancers from Mexico were energetic and enthusiastic. Their faces expressed the joy they felt in dancing.  Couple dancing is fundamentally erotic foreplay.  In their case, I could imagine them celebrating the dance in private. By contrast, the Brazilian group seemed distant from the audience and each other, with a few exceptions.  In my mind, good dancing goes beyond technical skill and must involve getting into the spirit of the music.

Two Balkan (in the dance meaning of the word) dance groups appeared. As I have been dancing such dances for over 40 years, I can say that the Serbian and Turkish troupes were both very authentic in both costumes and style. Regarding the latter, the steps are small, precise and often quite quick, which is deceiving simple to execute. Yet, I had a strong preference for the Serbian group as their dancing felt as if it was genuinely being done in a small village by people who know each other and enjoy each other’s company. By contrast, the Turkish dance, whether because I am not fond of the sounds of traditional Turkish instruments or the steps are so understated, seemed flat and out of context to me. Traditional folk dancing is a social act, like going on a walk with friends, and should express that context.

The Chinese and Russian troupes were more theatrical and performed more choreographed and sophisticated dances. They were both quite skillful whether in terms of the ability to jump, float around the stage or control their hand movements. Still, I enjoyed the Chinese more than the Russian. The reason may be that it was more novel to me, never having really seen Chinese dance before, but I also enjoyed the image being represented, life in the spring, I think. Between the costumes and the movement, it took me away in some manner. The Russian dances involved the standard songs and steps made famous by the Red Army Orchestra.  The steps involve primarily physical skill but seem, maybe unfairly, a cliché. In my eyes, performance dancing must somehow open our eyes to something new.

None of the performances were poor.  Yet, I preferred those that expressed a spirit, context or idea. As they say in Hebrew, על טעם וריח אין להתווכח  [Al ta’am vereah ain lehitvakei’ah], which means you can’t argue with taste and smell, or French, chacun à son gout; in short, in dancing, there is no accounting for taste, even if I try to understand my own.

Let it flow, or not

                                                      Photo by Ezra Comeau-Jeffrey on Unsplash

Languages develop rich vocabularies when they are needed.  The United Kingdom is defined by water, either in standing bodies around and in it or coming from the skies above it or rising from the earth below it. As a consequence of this state of wetness as well a propensity for going to distant foreign lands, the English language has an incredible number of words describing bodies of water, flowing or standing.

One criterium distinguishing the terms is size. Going upwards, a rivulet is small indeed, rare to see and almost ignorable as is rill or streamlet.  A brook being a tad bigger and more conspicuous. Getting wider, a stream or creek or in some places in the northern UK a burn will definitely get your shoes wet unless you jump over it and probably has some small fish. At some point, the water volume increases and becomes a river, a powerful current that requires swimming to cross. By the way, the legendary (for Christians) “mighty Jordan River” is more like a stream than a river but everything is a bit exaggerated in the Middle East.

For standing bodies of water, nature creates puddles, which are tempory and longer term water holes, which are okay for finding drinking water but not much more than that. With better conditions, it can be a pond, a nice place to go on a hot summer’s day. When the ideal land and water combine, a lake is formed, filled with fish and boats. Regarding holy overselling, the Sea of Galilee, otherwise known as the Kinneret, is actually a lake. Once you can no longer see the other side, it becomes a sea, deep and dangerous. Finally, the largest bodies of water are oceans, impressive by all criteria.

Alas, this basic vocabulary only just scratches the services as bodies of water are defined by their environment and their function in it. Rivers can be tributaries or distributaries, depending on whether they feed into or from the main river. They can be rapids, with clean and white water, or deltas, slow and muddy. They can flow once when it rains, as a wadi, or have a constant flow of organic material, as a bayou, a word used in the U.S. South. Human beings can create trenches or runnels to allow water to flow in a field.

Likewise, a water hole with man-made improved access for drinking water is a well or, on a larger scale, a reservoir. Flat land areas that are periodically covered with water are called tidal zones or flood plains, depending on the frequency and cause of the invading water. You can find a channel between two large bodies of land. A lagoon is cut off from the adjacent body of water while an estuary is connected. The Scots would call either a loch but theirs are colder and deeper. Marshes has a lower level of water and grasses while swamps have deeper water and trees. Together they are called wetlands.

English and water or inexorably connected as any conversation in London will remind you. This intimacy requires a rich pool of words to describe its nuances. The physical environment does have a huge impact on language. To massacre that famous Dean Martin song, “let it flow, let it flow, let it flow.”

Hebrew legalities

As a professional legal translator, I often have to cite Israeli laws, specifically their name, articles or both. Just to make it clear, Google translate is of no use here in this language combination. The reason is that that certain idiosyncrasies typical of Hebrew affect some basic elements of the legal language and require some cross-cultural thinking in order to produce a proper translation

The first striking difference is the name of the law, specifically compound noun constructions. In English, if two nouns are joined together, the s for the plural is only added to the last noun, e.g., party conventions or Board of Director meetings. By contrast, Hebrew grammar allows either noun to be plural as relevant. Since a country can name its laws, including in English, in any way it wants, granted “informally”, the recognized English name of many Israeli laws sounds strange to English ears.  A few examples are the Companies Law and the Animals Manure Law. The translator is thus obliged to search, either through the Israeli Ministry of Justice or other site, and accept the recognized name, however awkward that may sound in English.

The name of the law is always followed by the year of its enactment, which presents its own issue.  In Israel, there are two calendars, the Hebrew, which is lunar based, and Gregorian, which is sun based. To make matters more interesting, the Hebrew year begins sometime in September or October on a varying basis. Accordingly, the name of the law in Hebrew notes both years, e.g. 5779 – 2019, in that order.  Having the identical ending digit is not automatic as a law passed between October and December could carry a Latin calendar year with final digit one less than the Hebrew one, admittedly a rare occurrence. The bigger problem in translation is what to do with the Hebrew year. Outside of Israel, nobody cares about the Hebrew year. Some translators insist on writing it, probably due to due diligence. I personally ignore it and only write the only one that a foreign audience will understand and need to know, the Gregorian one.

The numbering of articles and subsection within the law is a bit tricky due to Hebrew use of letters for numbers. To explain, each letter in Hebrew has a numerical value. The first nine letters are 1-9, the next nine digits are 20-90, etc. As an example, יד [yud-daled] is 14, i.e., ten and four. When a law in Hebrew has a short series of subsections, the first nine Hebrew letters, the translator has to choose which English equivalent to apply, letters or numbers. Is ד (daled] 4 or d?   Afterwards, it become easier to choose as the Hebrew will be marked as a number or letter, as in יד or נ [nun].  Generally, the letters are translated as letters but sometimes numbers may be used if lower level subsections exist, which require the use of the letters, i.e. Article 26(a) as compared to Article 26(1)(a).

Finally, the modal of legal necessity does not exist in Hebrew. English has an historical, albeit misused, word shall and a simplified modern word must to express the legal duty of a party. Hebrew uses the future tense in most cases. When translating statures, the translator must avoid the trap of maintaining the Hebrew structure and apply the English structure, i.e., the police must (shall) submit an indictment within 48 hours of arrest, not the police will submit an indictment within 48 hours of arrest. The future tense is a false friend in this case.

Thus, the job of a translator, legal and otherwise, is to transmit the words and culture of one language to another vocabulary and culture, not always a simple task. It is possible to disagree on the manner of doing it but all translators recognize its necessity. In legal translation, where precision and understanding are vital, the details make the translator.

Camping out and in

This week, I took my annual camping vacation, one night, at a spot I discovered last year, an organized camp ground on the Dan River in northern Israel.  When not occupied by some urgent activity, like making dinner, I spent most of my time sitting in the river and contemplating my navel.  I personally had a wonderful time.

Among my thoughts were how unpleasant camping could be for the those without a preinclination to enjoy it. The arranging of the gear and purchase of food takes a lot of time.  Packing the car is a logistical challenge especially if you don’t own a SUV and insist on having use of your rear-view mirror.  The drive, around an hour, was pleasant enough.  However, on arrival, in this case, it is necessary to haul all the gear to the camping site.  Picking the right spot can be daunting because, as in all important matters, every niche has a drawback or two. After getting hot and sweaty arranging the camp ground, temperature management becomes an issue as the midday sun in Israel is hot and always seems to be heating up the place where that was relatively pleasant a half hour ago. Being by a river encourages over social flies in the day shift and mosquitos in the night shift. Lunch was easy but requires a bit of improvisation as I insist as a matter of pride in bringing only the essential kitchen items. The afternoon nap is rendered a bit challenging by those same flies and rising heat.  The post-nap coffee is black coffee, not expresso.  Of course, we did not bring our computer. So, entertainment was limited to cards and backgammon, not to mention the previously mentioned river bathing.  Dinner involves getting smoky due to the grill and sharing with the flies, at the peak of their activity.  The showers (and toilet) are rather primitive and a short walk away. The day ends when the sun goes to sleep, except for those activities a lantern or flashlight allow. Sleep is on the hard ground, albeit with a mattress, watched over by insects, some of which can sting as we discovered. At this time of the year, the sun rises at 5:30 and wakes me up even if it has not yet warmed the air. As this was for only one night, in the late morning, I had to pack up everything, haul it and load the car, drive back, dump the gear outside and go to my afternoon work. As a final send off, everything had to be cleaned and put away for the next trip.

However, life is a matter of perspective. I get excited, even nostalgic, seeing my camping gear from which I have been separated for a year. Planning the menu increases the expectation. The car loading is a chance to show my skill, granted nothing special, in logistics. The adrenalin makes the hauling child’s play even though it has been many years since childhood. I use my intuition (or my daughter’s whose intuition is better) and seize the best place, which by definition is great since it was chosen. The heat and flies are part of the experience and add pleasure to sitting in the river. As for the nap, it is, like all sleep when camping, whatever it is with no expectations. I love sweet black coffee on camping trips, especially with almonds to accompany it.  What male does not enjoy getting stinky by the fire especially when the running water of river and shower will wash it away later. Backgammon is real fun when I am not in a hurry, a rare phenomenon that mainly occurs when I go camping. I am rather tired by the end of the daylight. I have to admit that I now take a sleeping pill when camping so I can function properly the next day.  I love the early hours of the morning and sights and sounds of the running river, not to mention the birds seeking their breakfast. Much better than even the best TV show. The packing up, driving home and going to work is a bit of a bummer but there is next year. Maybe I can stay for two nights! 

Camping is not a neutral experience. For those who don’t click with the experience, it is a lot of effort for very little enjoyment. However, for its enthusiasts, the effort only enhances the enjoyment. For me, camping is always in.