Quotes: Highlighting "local color" or "Chinglish"?
By Bruce Humes, published March 2, 2010, 6:42p.m.
From a report on tainted peas in China published by the New York Times (March 2):
"The outrage over the Hainan cowpeas, the latest in a series of Chinese food safety scandals in recent years, erupted on Feb. 21, when the agriculture bureau of Wuhan, the capital of Hubei, announced that it had destroyed 3.5 tons of toxic cowpeas from Hainan. An urgent nationwide warning was issued by the central government’s Ministry of Agriculture, and within days, cowpeas tainted with the banned pesticide were discovered in the three other provinces.
Officials here in Sanya have criticized the Wuhan officials for breaking an “unspoken rule” that officials in different cities and provinces report problems to each other rather than telling the public, China Daily reported.
The release of the information by Wuhan officials “did not save face for Sanya, nor did it save face for the Ministry of Agriculture,” Zhou Qingchong, an official in the Sanya agriculture bureau, told China National Radio, an official news organization, according to the China Daily report.
Mr. Zhou said Wuhan officials could have told Sanya officials about the cowpeas privately, and Sanya would have sent out investigators.
'Wuhan is really not enough of a friend,' he said."
Chinese speakers will recognize this last sentence as a translation of a popular phrase (tho' not always about Wuhan): 武汉真是不够朋友!
Assuming I am right about the original Chinese, two questions: Does this quote read like "normal" English to you? How would you translate it?
Bruce Humes
Chinese Books, English Reviews
Comments
The quote reads vaguely Chinglish to me, but not in any way that stands out (especially as I, personally, prefer less 'harmonizing' in ZH>EN translation when meaning is clear). I suppose it almost seems like an English colloquialism from a dialect not one's own. For the sake of discussion though, might we simply go with: "Wuhan is a poor friend, indeed!" given that "poor" in this instance would imply "inadequate" or "insufficient", like 不够?
Jess A., March 2, 8:41p.m.
"Really not enough of a friend" does sound like Chinglish to me, but then again newspaper translations generally do tend toward the overly literal.
I think this is an OK translation in context -- alternatives would probably range from "not giving face" to "cock-blocking."
"Wuhan is not friendly enough." might work, but that's still a little wierd. I'll go with #1, but nix the "indeed". "Wuhan is a poor friend" by itself sounds like acceptable English while conveying the general meaning of the quote and not really adding anything unnecessary.
GAC, March 5, 9:24a.m.
I'd go with #1 as well. 'Poor' sounds more suitable.
Aaron Posehn, March 5, 1:08p.m.
it also reads a little weird to me, I would opt for "not much of a friend" in this context.
chris, March 5, 5:23p.m.
"Wuhan is wack, they ain't got our back."
Eric wins it.
Avoiding a literal translation and opting for something along the lines of "Wuhan is not acting like a good partner" would preserve the meaning and sound more natural.
Tommy Saxondale, March 5, 11:47p.m.
Going to second Brendan in this one -- Eric is definitely the winner.
Lina, March 6, 4:27a.m.
Because 不够朋友 is intentionally ungrammatical, "ain't" seems a valid choice. There's no way I'm ever going to top Eric's street-poetry translation, but I was originally thinking along the lines of "Wuhan ain't no friend of mine." I also suspect that "[blankety-blank] is wack, they ain't got our back" is going to become a popular phrase among translators in Beijing. So many things are whack, and so few people have one's back...
"Wuhan is not acting like a good partner" sounds a bit like correcting broken Chinese.
够朋友 in the sense of Friend of China.
Martin
http://www.slate.com/id/2247470/
@ #12 Martin
That article is interesting, but I feel like it doesn't apply the same way to translations. Usually, you would want the translation to sound as idiomatic as the original.
GAC, March 11, 8:28p.m.