Big Crab/Crab Big: The Tricky Art of Translating Chinese Poetry
Hello everybody! Dropping temperatures are the perfect excuse to curl up with a hot beverage and some great poetry, right? I'd like to introduce you to a set of three poems (“Moving House”, “Displacement” and “Assimilation”) by Singaporean poet Tang Jui Piow (陈维彪) in English translation by Samantha Toh. They are brilliantly concise, but there’s plenty to comment on.
Let’s start by “Moving House.” Conciseness is a distinctive trait of Chinese in comparison with Western languages. I think English isn’t too long-winded of a language either, all things considered (any fellow native Spanish speakers here?). However, Chinese still wins when it comes to economy of words. Toh’s translation preserves this:
细麻绳
捆绑
螃蟹
大
Fine hemp
Binds
The giant
Crab
In fact, the full meaning of 麻绳 (máshéng) would be “a rope made of hemp, flax, jute, etc.” However, the verb 捆绑 (kǔnbǎng) is already implying a rope of some kind is involved. Therefore, Toh shortens the first line into Fine hemp, keeping the briefness of the original.
Something else caught my attention–the word order of the last two lines. In regular written Chinese, you definitely wouldn’t say 螃蟹 (pángxièdà, “big crab”) in this particular sentence—here you would have to word it as 大螃蟹. However, this is poetry after all! Rigid grammar norms can give way a little bit to euphony and lyricism. In English, though, it would sound odd to translate it literally as Fine hemp / binds / the crab / giant, and this is why the translator opted for changing the line order in the English version.
And then my review of the poem “Displacement” starts from its very title—the Chinese verb 流离(liúlí). Its meaning is basically “to live or to wander as a refugee”. Too long for the title of a poem, right? Instead, we could try to condense such an experience into a single word. This is exactly what Toh has done here—the experience of one such vagrant is indeed one of “displacement”.
窗外
挖土机与大地
进行谈判。
房内
窗扉紧掩。
Outside
The excavators and the wide earth
Negotiate.
Inside
The window is squeezed shut.
In the English version Toh has chosen to get rid of 窗 (chuāng, “window”) and 房 (fáng, “house, building, room, bedroom, chamber”). Believe me, we translators are widely taught to abhor the sin of omission, yet there are some joyous exceptions to this commandment. Is the poem mentioning any window, building, room in particular? No, it isn’t. The focus here is on the events taking place outdoors and indoors. Outside and inside. It’s not only that conciseness is being preserved—there is a certain cadence and rhythm to these poems that relies on this briefness, and a wordy translation would lose that.
On another note, I like how she chose to stay literal with the translation of 大地 (dàdì) as “wide earth”. It’s all about that literary flavour.
As for the last line . . .
昨天擦拭
干净
今天又
落定
Yesterday, wiped
Clean
Again, today
It settles.
Notice how “settles” is expressed with the compound verb 落定 (luòdìng). If you try to look for it in your usual dictionary, it will be divided into two characters—the verbs 落 (to fall, to drop, to decline, to sink, to fall onto, among other similar meanings) and 定 (to decide, to fix). Thus, the translator has to creatively combine them into the notion of yesterday falling, dropping, declining, and staying like that—settling.
The Chinese title of the poem “Assimilation” is 同化 (tónghuà), its meaning indeed expressing that notion in more than one sense—cultural, phonetic and even digestive, the latter not being that surprising if you consider that the character 化 also features in the Chinese word for “chemistry” (化学, huàxué). In fact, 化 implies the idea of “change, turn, transformation”, and in 同化 it is also something that melts into sameness. As most evident in this poem, the assimilation can also refer to humans dissolving into homogeneity.
大雨过后
湿透的大人们
困在
四方的电梯里
After the storm
Drenched adults
Trapped
In a square elevator
Most students of Chinese master early on the use of 困 (kùn) to complain about how “tired” we are, or how “difficult” something is. If we linger on the latter meaning and are willing to rephrase it, we are “getting stuck” in that difficult thing. “Trapped”in it. Well, newsflash—a secondary meaning of 困 would be “surround”, “encircle”, “pin down”.
That’s all, people. Tang Jui Piow’s poems are featured in the second issue of Spittoon Literary Magazine, along with many other gorgeous texts. If you already have it, why not revisit it? If you don’t . . . what are you waiting for? Go find a copy at the Beijing Bookworm, or you can order Issues 3 and 4 online. See you next month!
— Ana Padilla Fornieles
搬家
细麻绳
捆绑
螃蟹
大
小柄眼，看不到
蓝水桶的顶端
硬壳
散发
大海的呼吸
Moving House
Fine hemp
Binds
The giant
Crab
Small eyes on stems, it cannot see
The blue bucket’s rim
Hard shell
Releases
The breath of the sea
流离
窗外
挖土机与大地
进行谈判。
房内
窗扉紧掩。
昨天擦拭
干净
今天又
落定
Displacement
Outside
The excavators and the wide earth
Negotiate.
Inside
The window is squeezed shut.
Yesterday, wiped
Clean
Again, today
It settles.
同化
大雨过后
湿透的大人们
困在
四方的电梯里
一样的水
一样的脸
Assimilation
After the storm
Drenched adults
Trapped
In a square elevator
With the same water
Wearing the same face
READ: 5 New China-Centric Books That Make for Great Christmas Gifts
This article is provided by our content partners Spittoon Collective. You can read more content just like this from Beijing's creative literary minds via their website here. You can also find the original article here.
Photo: Unsplash
