MY EXPERIENCE WITH WONG CHI CHI
18 April 2001
If you read the newspaper today, he should be on the
sports column because San Francisco named yesterday as 'Wong Zhi Zhi day' - the
first Chinese NBA player. Why am I so concerned about this? Two weeks ago, he
was also on the headline of the sports section when he has just finished his
first game in NBA. And I had made the 'interview' with his Beijing coach and his
parents in Beijing right after the game! Well, not 'interview' in the strict
sense, I was only the interpreter for a U.S. journalist who interviewed them on
the phone.
How do I feel about my experience? First I was a bit nervous in the beginning,
it was the first time I did the interpretation for a journalist. I felt I had a
duty of being truthful to the interviewees and to the readers. Not an easy job.
I understood I am in the work of mass media and the base line for being a mass
media worker is being truthful, telling the truth. [ Another principle of giving
'fair comment' does not apply to my case. ] I felt I was in the process of
creating the news. The reason I had such strong feeling was... I was able to
tell 70% of the truth only :-).
How to say the stunt when the ball is hit on the board and bounced into the net
in English? I don't even know the Chinese technical word for it...
How to catch the words when the mother was talking for 3 minutes non-stop? I
asked her to stop finally :-)...
When the father gave out the NBA stars names in Chinese, how to translate them
into English? I have never heard about those stars, not mentioning reverting the
oddly translated Chinese name to the original English name...
I need to repent... because when 'necessary' I filled up some gaps for the
interviewees to make everything sound more 'logical' and 'smooth':-)... not
often, two to three times I think, when I couldn't find a proper word and at the
same time couldn't 'accept' 'dead air' on the phone...
The final lesson I got from this experience, I still have lots to learn... and
translation is really a very sophisticated job, especially when you have some
obligations in your mind...
Will I do the interpretation for another time?... well... shamefully...Yes!!
Because it is also fun!! :-)