The blog Subject Object Verb has an interview with Chi-Young Kim, the translator of Shin Kyung-sook‘s “Please Look After Mom,” which won over the NYT and is doing quite well in the United States.
Now, “Please Look After Mom” might have gotten thumbs up from the NYT, but NPR’s Maureen Corrigan was a bit less generous, panning the book (“It wasn’t until the end of the novel, when Shin rolled out the Mother of all maternal suffering images — Michaelangelo’s Pieta — that I understood I was stranded in a Korean soap opera decked out as serious literary fiction”) in, ahem, colorful fashion:
If there’s a literary genre in Korean that translates into “manipulative sob sister melodrama,” Please Look After Mom is surely its reigning queen. I’m mystified as to why this guilt-laden morality tale has become such a sensation in Korea and why a literary house like Knopf would embrace it. (Although, as women are the biggest audience for literary fiction, Please Look After Mom must be anticipated to be a book club hit in this country.) But, why wallow in cross-cultural self-pity, ladies?
Having just read Patti Smith’s award-winning memoir, Just Kids, for the second time, I’d urge you to pick her empowering female adventure tale about getting lost in the city instead. Smith will get your book club on its feet and pumping its collective fists in the air, rather than knocking back the wine and reaching for the cheap consolations of kimchee-scented Kleenex fiction.
If you look at the comments to that review — or blog posts such as this and this — you’ll see it provoked an, ahem, not-entirely-positive response from readers. As I’ve said before, a decade+ in Korea really recalibrates your PC outrage meter, so I didn’t find the review particularly offensive. Still, it’s interesting to watch the reaction.
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In her interview, Chi-young Kim completely understates how difficult it is to translate Korean into English. Having worked as a copy editor in Korea for numerous English-language communications firms and Korean-based English-language media outlets, translating Korean into English is actually NOT a collaborative process at all, as she alleges, but rather the domain of native English-speaking copy editors who have the skill of a good editor with some knowledge of Korean in order to fill in the Korean cultural blanks and smooth over Korean linguistic and grammatical quirks to make the topsy turvy world of Korean-to-Konglish translations comprehensible to an English-speaking public.
That said, in Korea, Korean-to-Konglish translators are a dime a dozen (even a Korean high school student can pull off some variety of Korean translations), however, the quality of translations tend to be in the absolutely worthless to average range (almost no Koreans are completely bi-cultural to pull off an error-free English translation on their own — they absolutely need an English-speaking copy editor to fix it up and rewrite it for them).
Also, I completely believe her when she says she was unable to translate certain Korean words, expressions or passages that were heavy with specialized vocabulary, for example jargon related to Starcraft players, Hwatu, etc. Without the context of having actually been a part of that subculture thereby having experienced first hand all of the nuances and expressions related to the game, the terminology, its rules, etc., you’re basically a fish out of water — unable to grasp the full meaning or even its essential meaning in Korean to translate in another language, let alone English.
This is the perpetual dilemma of “high-context” languages like Korean — unless you are privy to the subject matter at hand, whether it be Starcraft, Hwatu, quantum mechanics, Buddhism, military science, economics, sociology, medical terminology, finance, carpentry, etc. — either through direct experience or formal education (For the most part, unless you have a prodigious memory, you cannot teach yourself specialized vocabulary in every specialized field in Hangeul due to the existence of hundreds and hundreds of homonyms, i.e., words that sound and are spelled the same in Korean, but have totally different and unrelated meanings that differ according to context, usage and its underlying Chinese character). Without this knowledge, it’s impossible to determine its correct meaning and usage in Korean, let alone translate it properly. (A perfect example is how she kept on mis-translating “처음처럼” literally and out of context to read “like the very first time” — all the while completely oblivious to the fact that it’s actually a brand of Soju that became popular around 2006-07. (She’s never been to Korea and out of the soju-drinking demographic and target market.)
This is why Korean-to-Konglish translators will never render perfect Korean-to-English translations. Native English copy editors, however, with just a basic understanding of Korean, can render extremely high quality copy in English on almost any topic under the sun, without actually being privy to or formally trained in the subject at hand. This has a lot to due with the fact that English as a “low-context” language, makes it easy for any functionally literate person to leverage their knowledge of foreign roots, cognates, derivatives, etc., to make analytical sense of what they’re reading with a high degree of accuracy (with the exception of highly technical terms and fields of endeavor like medicine, law, science, etc.) Nevertheless, a functionally literate person in English can typically command an extremely high degree of technical comprehension in English with very little effort or memorization involved. Consequently, an English-language copy editor can literally fill in the blanks of knowledge or experience that the Korean translator cannot provide to an amazingly high degree of authenticity and accuracy.
I became adept in dealing with high degrees of ambiguity and roundabout guesses on part of the translator mostly b/c I was able to fill in the blanks with English. Of course, some projects took longer than others — for example, talking about medical technology was much more difficult than talking about arts and entertainment — however, without a good copy editor, many Korean translators would be unable to produce salable copy let alone have a job.
Having said that, how many times did I have to “collaborate” with translators? Apart from newspaper work, where the translator/guilty party was sitting literally across the news desk from me, usually never. (In fact, having the translator hanging around breathing down your neck, invariably trying to interfere with the editing process was usually more trouble than it’s worth.)
Korean-to-Konglish translators definitely have a place in the hierarchy of Korean-to-English translation work. However, their place — and rightfully so — is at the bottom. In order for a good translation to be pulled off, translators must be subordinate to the copy editor, as the copy editor is the one who is responsible for turning incomprehensible and unusable Konglish gobbledygook translations into comprehensible native-English prose.
Why is anyone surprised at PBS’s ongoing racist drivel? Heck, they even fired Juan Williams for talking to white folks without permission!
8675309,
My defense of Chi-Young Kim is partly as I know her. It is also because I am also an editor of translations, both literary and quotidian, and to denigrate the role of a talented translator is mad. It is also because you have some facts wrong.
Your animus towards her (apparently? I apologize if I’m wrong) for not using an editor? Dead wrong. She used multiple editors, and chose them for some of the specific subjects you mention. That conversation is on the very website you cite here.
She is completely aware of the the role of the editor and uses multiple ones.
But even worse is your claim she’s never been to Korea. I met her here last year. That’s a little point… The bigger point is that she was BORN in Korea and spent some of her youth here.
And, not only does Young collaborate with her editors, but her ability in Korean allows her to collaborate with the authors (to this point she has only worked with living authors).
I’m sorry she hit some button.. or number.. for you.
But the fact is that if you look at the most successful translations from Korean to English? She is responsible for the last three, and maybe the last five: Lee Dong-ha’s “A Toy City”; Park Wan-suh’s “Who Ate up All the Shinga”; Kim Young-ha’s “I Have the Right to Destroy Myself”, Kim Young-ha’s “Your Republic is Calling You” and, Shin Kyung-sook’s “Please Look After Mom.”
I’m sure your CV is more impressive.
Well… the tone of the review would not have been all that surprising if it was from, say Fox News. However, it’s from NPR, so that immediately got my attention. Supposedly, in the U.S. NPR is known as a bastion of liberal intellectualism, at least that’s how they sometimes portray themselves. The tone of the review wasn’t very intellectual, but represents a type of stereotyping I’m surprised can from a self proclaimed liberal, let alone a feminist as Maureen Corrigan says that she is. I guess even “liberal intellectuals” can resort to using racial stereotypes too.
With that I end with this:
http://www.feministe.us/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/feminist.jpg
There is nothing racist in that excerpt … what are you guys talking about? WHAT stereotype? Sensitive, sensitive… as for NPR, they are usually bashed because they’re stiff or a bit too highbrow. But racist? Good Gawd , they bend over backwards to a nauseating degree to be PC.
Setnaffa, you’re totally full of shit about Juan Williams. He was fired for allegedly anti muslim remarks. Which was a huge example of just what I’m talking about. Be-JAYzus, read a bit before you blather on, will you?
PF,
What if Corrigan had said “Chitlins-scented Kleenex fiction” or even “Matzah ball-scented”?
Matzah ball-scented? Ha! Now THAT’s funny!
DLB
DLB,
The majority of Asian Americans I’ve spoken to regarding Corrigan’s review didn’t think it was funny. Not in the least bit. If it’s not racist, it’s at the very least, culturally insensitive.
WK,
No worries. I didn’t say it wasn’t. I’ll let your tribe call that one. But if she HAD said “Matzah ball-scented,” then that WOULD have been funny.
DLB
Charles (#3), Yu Young-nan and Stephen Epstein translated Who Ate up All the Shinga. Did Yu Young-nan’s daughter, Kim Chi-young, assist her mother with that? I proofread the penultimate copy of the novel and offered my editorial comments, but I heard nothing about Kim Chi-young being involved.
I’ve not read the translation of Please Look After Mom, but that hasn’t stopped me from blogging about it in
Kim Chi-young: Words on Translation, though I’m mainly interested in Kim Chi-young’s views on translating Korean, for I ‘collaborate’ with my wife on Korean-to-English translations.
By the way, in a possible defense of Maureen Corrigan, I suspect that her reference to “kimchee-scented Kleenex fiction” was intended as a clever pun on Kim Chi-young’s name . . . not that Koreans would find that either amusing or a defense.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
“Why is anyone surprised at PBS’s ongoing racist drivel? Heck, they even fired Juan Williams for talking to white folks without permission!”
–setnaffa
1) How is PBS racist?
2) When did PBS ever fire Juan Williams?
The word ‘racism” was originally coined as a term for notions that certain races were biologically superior to others. In the past thirty years, people watered down the meaning of the word by tossing it out anytime someone makes a remark with a ethnic reference that is perceived as negative.
WangKon936 wrote (#6):
Then it would not have been alliteration. Besides, do blacks strive to associate themselves with chitlins as Koreans strive to associate themselves with kimchee? A better analogy would be to use something like “sushi-scented sensationalism” to refer to a Japanese stylization.
I think “Kimchee-scented Kleenex fiction” is pretty clever and a great name for specific genre of fiction. I do not see anything racist about it.
“Supposedly, in the U.S. NPR is known as a bastion of liberal intellectualism, at least that’s how they sometimes portray themselves. The tone of the review wasn’t very intellectual, but represents a type of stereotyping I’m surprised can from a self proclaimed liberal, let alone a feminist as Maureen Corrigan says that she is.”
–WangKon936
I didn’t find the comment racist. And strictly, it’s probably not racist as even other Asians have often denigrated Koreans by invoking kimchee in an unfriendly way. This is a Korea-specific attack and a type of attack which has a sting Koreans will grow immune to the less self-conscious they become in the world. The likes of krauts, potatoes, beans, or sushi seem pretty weak as an insult nowadays.
And I think it is because she is a feminist that she felt disgusted with the book. She even suggests a more “woman-empowering” book over this one and suggests that Knopf only picked it up not for its literary value but because she thinks the publisher thinks that it is the sort of book women do want. And she might be right about that.
As for liberal cultural insensitivity, liberals come in all types, as do conservatives. Her insensitivity sounds more like the type you might encounter when you hang around snobs for a while. And snobs are most certainly found among all kinds.
The thing about good fiction is that they will outlast their crtics. And if the book is merely a maudlin manipulator the critic thinks it is then its literary fate will be worse than being derided.
NPR’s Maureen Corrigan’s also denounced the novel’s “anti-city, anti-modernist, anti-feminist messages.” That’s enough of an endorsement for me.
Awesome comments, Lollabrats. Just spot on, right-on-the-money, though I prefer elitist to snob. But whatever.
DLB
P.S. By the way, I have a co-worker who absolutuley can’t resist taunting me with the phrase “my non-shellfish eating friend.” It’s all good.
Good to hear you’re not a shellfish, DLB, but what’s this “eating friend” business?
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
“Good to hear you’re not a shellfish, DLB, but what’s this “eating friend” business?”
–Jeffery Hodges
You are a strange one, professor.
Didn’t your own scholarship show that we English speakers cannot easily know eating friend?
jefferyhodges
LOL.. I meant Kyung Ran Jo’s Tongue. I’m not sure how I got to Shinga!
Bruce will pummel me with kimchee-scented something or other if he spots this.^^
Thanks..
The purportedly favorable NYT review also makes the book seem maudlin, with all the gimmicks and bathos you’d find in a typical Korean TV drama. Has anybody here read the book?
The phrase “kimchi-scented Kleenex fiction” is very useful to readers of the review. It lets us/them know that the work — which might seem ridiculous to us, yet was very popular in Korea — does not transcend cultures is not easily accessible to persons not rooted in Korean culture.
Another example that comes to mind is the Russian film “Night Watch.” Wildly popular in Russia, but by all accounts utterly inaccessible for persons not rooted in that culture. To call it a “vodka-scented” movie would assist the reader of a review of it.
The phrase “Chitlin-scented Kleenex fiction,” on the other hand, makes no sense. Great and/or popular works by Black Americans are simply great and/or popular works by Americans. There is, as far as I know, no genre of culture that one must be rooted in Black American culture in order to fully appreciate, and which is inaccessible to outsiders. So to use chitlins instead of kimchi would likely be done only out of meanness and perhaps even racism.
Gotta love wackoboy’s rationalization of the double standard. If it’s said about a culture that makes sense to us, it’s done out of meanness and racism. Say the same about a culture that is “not easily accessible” to us, it’s perfectly OK and even helpful. Doesn’t this just reinforce the criticism of Corrigan’s review as being essentially “orientalist”? I personally didn’t think that the comment was “racist” per se, I just found it to be dismissive, crass and unprofessional, especially for NPR. Do yourself a favor and listen to the audio review to get the full effect. It’s quite shocking to hear such ignorance and contempt out of NPR.
#9,
What about natto-scented Kleenex fiction? Curry-scented Kleenex fiction? Taco-flavored fiction? Would those be equally funny? Whether or not you think it was racist, I think we can all agree that such references are juvenile at best and have no place in a professional book review.
TF,
I completely differ to different tribes as to what each deems offensive. That is their choice, and their right.
Strange to say, I’d add that somehow, the use of “-scented” seems be to less offensive than, say, “-eating.”
A “watermelon-eating” whatever is patently offensive. Likewise, a “kimchi-eating” or “nacho-eating” whatever. Clearly racist.
But for some reason that I’ll let MH’s cabal of amateur linguists explain, “meomeo-scented” seems kinda harmless. But like I said, it’s your call.
BTW, I’m fine with Matsa-ball. But I have thick skin.
DLB
Ding ding ding ding! The kleenex comment wasn’t racist, just stupid. Especially so because it took the focus completely off some other relevant points she made in the review. She tried to be too clever by half, and ended up looking amateurish and petty.
As for the book, I’m sure Oprah and her fellow lovers of manipulative, melodramatic crap will lap this one up like Kimchi with Morrie.
I rather liked (surprise!) 8675309′s comments about Korean-English translation and copy-editing in general.
If there is room between all the pro and anti-PBS bashing and (in)sensitivity about kimchee-scented kleenex fiction, I hope that some people can take up that subject and carry it forward.
I can’t speak specifically to the translation of this book, but certainly I agree that most Korean-English translation does require a native speaker copy-editor to “fill in the gaps” both cultural and linguistic. In my experience I have found it more of a collaborative process, sending my first edit with questions and comments back to the translator for clarification before making a second or third final edit.
kimchee stinks. by ‘kimchee-scented’ she means the book stinks.
“If there is room between all the pro and anti-PBS bashing and (in)sensitivity about kimchee-scented kleenex fiction, I hope that some people can take up that subject and carry it forward.”
–hamel
PBS bashing is a non sequitur as famuos the television service is not related to the radio program concerned.
PBS bashing is a non sequitur as the famous television service is not related to the radio program concerned.
You can’t divorce a work of literature from its cultural context so it seems hardly surprising to me that a critical review of a foreign book would be considered by some an attack on the culture of that book. If she considers the book to be anti-feminist and anti-modernist, everyone gets up in arms about the imperialist Westerner attempting to impose his or her beliefs on another culture. And that may be so, but there’s no way for her to write critically about this book, whose central theme is at the heart of Korean-ness, without, by extension, also criticizing that essential cultural element.
Furthermore, by irrelevantly focusing solely on the critic’s supposed “Orientalism” or lack thereof, people are sidestepping the relevant discussion about the merits of the story.
Charles (#19): “I meant Kyung Ran Jo’s Tongue. I’m not sure how I got to Shinga!”
Maybe you confused it with Who Ate Up All The Chingu?
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
#31 Jeffery,
It’s official – you are funny. That last one made me nearly spray the screen with Chinese Gunpowder tea.
#32 Jeffrey
@23,
Natto-flavoured whatever – that shit’s nasty. If a girl had natto-flavoured panties on and it was a choice of having my way with her by eating the panties off, I’m afraid I’d be SOL.
I’m an unrepentant natto-loving gaijin, in my element in Tokyo right now. The only problem is the natto heartland of Ibaraki is close to the disaster zone and distribution has been interrupted. I think of natto as an Asian blue cheese.
Natto is an acquired taste among Japanese and plays nowhere near the role in Japanese cuisine as kimchee does in Korea.
I would not have used “kimchee-scented” in a book review (for the reasons IHBB and milton state above) but as Korea makes strenuous if not over-the-top efforts to promote kimchee around the globe, it should not be all that shocking or offensive that people identify it with all manner of Koreana.
#22: “It’s quite shocking to hear such ignorance and contempt out of NPR.” You’re kidding, right? That’s what they do. Anyone not part of a politically correct victim group is fair game to those elitists (their local correspondent excepted, of course).
BTW–Prof. Hodges is cracking me up here, as usual.
I didn’t find it offensive.
CactusMcHarris (#32): “That last one made me nearly spray the screen with Chinese Gunpowder tea.”
I often get blamed for that sort of thing, but humorist is next to terrorist, as they say . . .
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Ah, the irony of a critic having to constantly mind Ps and Qs coming out of the natural-born critical tongue… Welcome to the 21st-century PC world.
Jesus, life must suck when all sorts of people get up in arms like every friggin’ second, taking collective offense at every friggin’ slightest hint of purported non-PC-ness messing with their PC-addled heads.
If this is what multiculturalism looks like far down the line, count me out.
When I use to have a Japanese roommate, when he didn’t feel like cooking he would mix rice with natto AND kimchi. An utterly disgusting combination if you ask me… I guess it was an acquired taste.
Kimchi? Nah, I believe that would be bibimbap. However, bibimbap’s odor is not as strong as kimchi so it would make sense to reverence it if you want to talk about “scent”.
Jieun,
That is an easy thing to say if you are use to being part of the population that’s the majority (as Koreans are in Korea) vs. if you have ever spent a meaningful amount of time being a minority.
WK,
Touché. Then again, I’m not one to be affected that much by such talk as you might have suspected…
Have a good one.
Kimchee as a SARS preventative? Kimchee festivals? Ambassadors’ wives making kimchee on TV? I’d call that promotion, and I love the stuff. Here in Tokyo, the Korean restaurants charge 300-500 yen for kimchee.
I can see kimchee and natto in the same lo-cal meal, but not mixed together.
#34,
My hat’s off to you, sir. I tried to enjoy the whole of the Nippon experience (3 years living there) but natto fell off the menu after the first gag and then hurried spitting-out.
Slim,
I live in the States and what we get mostly is the bibimbap propaganda. When driving on the 5 freeway to L.A., we run into a huge “I want my Bibimbap” billboard.
” vs. if you have ever spent a meaningful amount of time being a minority.”
Nah, just tried sayin it, and it came out just as easy as for Jieun.
I thought the silliest and most culturally tone-deaf part of this review was the prospect of Patti Smith’s memoir as an alternative to Korean melodrama. It’s like writing a review of early John Woo cop movies and claiming they pale next to “Greenberg.”
All these book titles remind me of the famous panda and whore joke.
Panda visits New York whore, who never having been with a panda is very reluctant but with help from a Chinese-English dictionary and sight of a big fat wallet, is persuaded first to let him eat beaver and then to shoot off all over her face for 300 bucks.
Panda does the deed and goes to leave. Whore stops him in his tracks saying hey pay up mister. Panda looks confused so whore points to dictionary “Prositute – definition – person who is paid for sex”. Panda responds by pointing in similar manner “Panda -def – furry creature, that Eats, Shoots and Leaves”
Slim is correct. The kimchi-round-the-world propaganda pre-dates the bibimbap effort. It really took off (as a mad scramble) when the Japs allegedly started “promoting” kimuchi. Neither kimchi nor kimuchi really gained ground anywhere – I think the Japs suckered the Koreans into extending a lot of effort with little to gain. The bibimbab-round-the-world offensive began in the mid ’90s after Korean globalisation panels ran taste tests and the foreigner reportedly liked it. Fifteen years later… is it a “global” food? Some commenters here has said that grilled meat (erroneously called bbq) is the way to go. Those commenters would be right.
Lastly, this reminder: neither kimchi nor natto can complete with Blue Stilton. Made by the gods for the gods.
That’s a clusterfuck of a review. She should apologize immediately. Apology not forthcoming, fire her ass. If you still don’t get it, then read on. And you must be dumb, because dumb people like you can say something like the Kleenex bit around the office coffee machine and think it’s funny. Racism is evil. Period.
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