My Chinese is pretty abysmal, but I recently read a Chinese poem called 轉頁 by Yau Ching and was struck by how much I felt was lost in its accompanying English translation. There are whole levels of subtext in the Chinese language that doesn’t carry over, such as:
The poem uses both the word “page” and “leaf”, but in Chinese the word “page” sounds exactly the same as the word “leaf”, giving “page” a double meaning that's lost in translation.
The author goes by she/her pronouns, and refers to “you” with the female “you” pronoun, giving another meaning to “dare” and be “brave”, especially since LGBT rights are not recognized in China. There’s no female second-person pronoun in the English language, so this significance is dropped.
I couldn’t help but to try and write my own translation. I changed around a few words so it flows in a different way when read aloud. I tried changing words like “page” to “leaf” in order to try and merge “page” and “leaf” closer together. While working on this, I gained a greater appreciation for the original translation. For example, the fourth stanza starts three lines in a row with the words "don't we", which I feel captures the spirit as well as preserves the anaphora in the original text. Anyways, here’s the text + my translation:
一個在等候的人跟一個在轉身的人
跟一個在戀愛中的人
本質上是一樣
我躺在床上想像妳的轉身
妳的心頁躺在鍋上斯斯響
一種墮的聲音卻被煮熟了
我指我的
我躺在床上想像
妳想像
等待我心這頁
呈金黃
香脆而不墮
如炸魚薯條
我們知道如何嗎
我們敢嗎
我們看見
敢不跟心押韻嗎
當我們忍受從那高處墜落
太高
太多心已然於葉間
於妳我腳下
一片葉輾轉
我們跌墮
於一片叫做自由的心上
A person waiting and a person turning
and a person in love
are in essence the same person
I lie in bed imagining your turning
pages of your heart in a pan, sizzling
a sinking sound cooked tender
I mean mine
I lie in bed imagining
you imagining
waiting for my heart this page
to become golden
crisp and not sinking
like fish and chips
don’t we know how
don’t we dare
don’t we see
doesn’t bravery rhyme with love?
when we weather that great fall
too high
too many hearts lying in the leaves
under our feet
a leaf tossing and turning
we fall
onto a page of the heart called freedom
To reply you need to sign in.