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» On creative control and inside jokes: ‘We
do have some power to change odd cultural
things. Sometimes it’s hard to stop 23-year-old
nerds from including references to what we like.
One guy is really into Game of Thrones, so if I’m
editing I’ll find something like “Winter is coming,
we must hurry.”’
Tom
Mangione
Tom Mangione is a poet, musician and allaround creative type. He’s also the co-founder of
two poetry groups in Shanghai: ‘United Verses’
hosts events where poets come together and share
their own work in both Chinese and English, while
‘Born Poets’ holds slightly more specific bilingual
readings of famous poets on their birthdays.
Catch Tom in action next month when Born Poets
celebrates French poet Rimbaud on October 24.
On the challenges of translation: ‘The main
challenges are remaining true to the text of the
poem and giving each language its due. The
difficulty is often what you’re willing to sacrifice.
How hard do you try to keep the original cadence?
The tone? The overall meaning? It’s impossible to
get every aspect, so you have to make choices.
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In Chinese some phrases are extremely colorful
and defy translation. Sometimes they’re like giant
ponds where you can just walk right up to them
and drink; other times they are deep wells where
you go through a lot of trouble just to get a sip:
finding rope, building a bucket.’
On style versus substance: ‘Style and substance
are always fighting it out. Personally, I tend
to err on the side of substance. I believe that a
translator’s first and more important job is to
convey the meaning in the original language.’
On who is involved in the community: ‘The
foreign cast of characters has varied quite a
lot, as it tends to do in Shanghai. The Chinese
contingent is much more fixed. United Verses
takes a community approach to translation. We
do have a selection process but we’re supportive
of whatever we get. It’s never been our goal to be
a professional organization; it’s more of a platform
for two very different languages to meet.’
Leia Luo is a native Shanghainese stand-up
comedian, co-host of video podcast The Cultural
Exchange, and self-proclaimed movie and comedy
nerd. She’s super funny and is deep into all things
comedy, performing regularly at the Kung Fu
Comedy Club with a perfect lock on deadpan
humor, and masterfully translating subtitles for TV
dramas, comedy shows, late night talk shows, and
series that include the likes of Breaking Bad and
Craig Ferguson.
On how she got started: ‘I got started because
I was a big fan of Craig Ferguson in college. His
jokes are easy to understand and I wanted other
people to know about him. But talk shows and
comedies are harder because it’s all talking and
referencing pop culture, which is sometimes too
subtle for Chinese people. Sometimes the obvious
jokes are more appreciated here.’
On translating Breaking Bad subtitles: ‘There
are a lot of online translation groups, but for
Breaking Bad they don’t always make good
translations and sometimes have serious mistakes.
There were four of us fans who thought we could
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