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David Henry Hwang's entertaining new play, Chinglish , which has just opened on Broadway, is about what is lost and what gets inflated in translation. It begins with a British consultant giving the main character, American businessman Daniel Cavanaugh, some advice so he can get around the widespread problem of poor interpreting: "When doing business in China, always bring your own translator."
劇作家黃哲倫(David Henry Hwang)的喜劇新作《中式英語》(Chinglish)最近在百老匯(Broadway)上演，該劇講述的是翻譯中失去和被夸大的東西。該劇一開場，一名英國顧問給劇中主人公美國商人丹尼爾•卡瓦諾(Daniel Cavanaugh)提供了一些建議，這樣他就能避開普遍存在的蹩腳翻譯問題：“在中國經商，要永遠帶著自己的翻譯。”
Daniel has come to Guiyang, the small provincial capital of Guizhou, to sell English signage to the city for its fancy new arts centre. Ever since French architect Paul Andreu built a titanium and glass fantasy of a cultural centre above an artificial lake in Beijing ahead of the 2008 Olympics, every provincial capital in China wants one.
丹尼爾來到貴州省會貴陽，向該市新建的漂亮的藝術中心推銷英語指示牌。自從2008年北京奧運會前法國建筑師保羅?安德烈(Paul Andreu)在北京一個人工湖上建造了一座鈦金屬和玻璃混合結構的、充滿夢幻色彩的文化中心以來，中國每個省會城市都希望擁有一座類似的建筑。
On a trip to China in 2005, Hwang, whose previous works include the award-winning 1988 play M Butterfly, visited just such an arts centre in Shanghai. It featured sleek German design and the best Italian marble, but also the badly translated signage that is ubiquitous in China. The rest room for the disabled had a sign reading: "Deformed Man's Toilet."
2005年，當黃哲倫來到中國時，他就在上海參觀了一個這樣的藝術中心。黃哲倫之前的作品包括1988年上演的獲獎劇作《蝴蝶君》(M Butterfly)。這個藝術中心運用德國的時尚設計，采用來自意大利上好的大理石，但標牌的翻譯很爛，而這在中國是普遍的現象。殘疾人洗手間的標牌是這樣寫的：“畸形人廁所。”
As the comedy unfolds, however, one realises that language is among the least of the problems. The misperceptions are more fundamental. When Daniel pitches for a contract to the cultural minister of the province, the translator describes his home town, Cleveland, as close to Chicago, and the minister takes the conversation in unexpected directions. He loves Chicago, he says, especially its steakhouses. Daniel's sales pitch is thrown off course, but he replies that the steak chain Smith & Wollensky is his second home. "A steak restaurant, where he sometimes lives," explains the translator.
然而，隨著這部喜劇的展開，人們意識到，語言是最不重要的問題之一。誤解是更根本性的問題。當丹尼爾力求與該省文化局長達成一份協議時，翻譯描述了他的家鄉克利夫蘭，離芝加哥很近，于是文化局長把談話帶到了意料之外的方向。他說，他喜歡芝加哥，特別是那里的牛排餐廳。丹尼爾的銷售說辭被帶離了軌道，但他回答，連鎖牛排餐廳Smith & Wollensky是他的第二個家。翻譯解釋說：“有時他會住在這家牛排餐廳。”
Poor translation cuts both ways as Daniel discovers when the minister's assistant looks at the website for his company, Ohio Signage, and ridicules the poor Chinese on the website, which Daniel had asked a languages student to write.
蹩腳的翻譯對雙方都有影響。這位局長的助手在瀏覽丹尼爾的公司Ohio Signage的網站時，就對網站上糟糕的中文大加嘲笑，而丹尼爾是讓一個學語言的學生來寫這段文字的。
When American writer Deborah Fallows, author of Dreaming in Chinese, about the difficulties of learning Mandarin, gave a reading in Beijing last year, a young Chinese woman in the audience protested vociferously at the indignities of learning English grammar if it is your second language.
當《夢游中文》(Dreaming in Chinese)一書的作者、美國作家黛博拉•法羅斯(Deborah Fallows)去年在北京宣傳她的新書時，針對書中對于作為第二語言學習英語語法的蔑視，聽眾中有一位年輕中國女子提出強烈抗議。該書講述的是學習中文普通話的困難。
Yet for all the mishaps along the way, more Chinese are learning English and more Americans and other nationalities are learning to speak Chinese. At the recent Canton Fair, where retailers and wholesalers from places as far-flung as Ethiopia and Brazil discussed consignments of office furniture and Christmas decorations, it was apparent how much easier it has become to do business in China. Almost everyone spoke enough English to get by just fine with a bit of sign language, a decent product catalogue and that handy tool for all complicated haggling in China — the calculator.
然而，盡管存在這些小意外，但越來越多的中國人在學習英語，越來越多的美國人和其它國籍的人在學說中文。在最近的廣交會上，人們明顯看出了如今在中國經商已經變得容易多了，在這次交易會上，遠至埃塞俄比亞和巴西等國的零售商和批發商討論了辦公家具和圣誕裝飾品的交貨事宜。借助一些手語、像樣的產品目錄以及用于中國所有復雜侃價的方便工具——計算器，再加上夠用的英語，幾乎所有人都能用順利交流。
But, as Chinglish brilliantly sets out, the problems of two vastly different cultures interacting but never quite integrating have less to do with language than one would think.
然而，正如《中式英語》睿智的情節那樣，兩種有著巨大差異、互動但從未相互融合的文化存在的問題，不僅僅是人們所認為的語言問題。
When Daniel is pitching to a Chinese official who asks out loud "Why should we put our faith in him?", Daniel counter-intuitively lets on that he used to work for Enron. The Chinese are transfixed. Did he know Kenneth Lay? Did he know Jeffrey Skilling? Ms Xi, Daniel’s mistress, a government official who is also present at the pitch, tries to swing the deal his way by saying, "Mr Cavanaugh knew them all! He was a chief architect of the disaster!" Never, says the awestruck official presiding over the meeting, has such a world-famous financial figure come to Guiyang.
當丹尼爾向一位中國官員推銷時，這位官員大聲問道：“我們為何要相信他？”，丹尼爾違反直覺的透露，他曾為安然(Enron)工作過。中國人呆住了。他認識肯尼斯•萊(Kenneth Lay)嗎？他認識杰弗里•斯基林(Jeffrey Skilling)嗎？丹尼爾的情婦Xi是一名政府官員，她也在場。她試圖讓這筆交易按丹尼爾的計劃進行，她說道：“卡瓦諾認識他們所有人!他是這場災難的主設計師！”主持會議的官員肅然起敬地說，從來沒有這樣一位世界聞名的金融人物來過貴陽。
Chinglish is a play, of course, but similar differences in outlook abound in real life when doing business in China. Recently, the world's largest retailer, Walmart, was ordered to close all 13 of its stores in the city of Chongqing for 15 days because ordinary pork had been mislabelled as organic. The Chongqing government railed about how often the retailer had been in trouble with the city administration; Walmart announced that its China CEO and local head of HR were resigning for "personal reasons". It outlined the "rectification actions" it had taken.
當然，《中式英語》只是一部戲，但在中國經商時，在實際生活中，類似的觀點分歧大量存在。最近，全球最大零售商沃爾瑪(Walmart)被勒令關閉在重慶所有的13家門店15天，因為他們在普通豬肉貼上了綠色豬肉的標簽。重慶市政府責怪這家零售商經常與管理部門發生不愉快。沃爾瑪宣布，其中國區CEO及人力資源主管因“個人原因”辭職。該公司并介紹了其采取的“整頓措施”。
But when they reopened, consumers mobbed the stores and said the bargains were better than ever — they didn't care what the Chongqing officials thought.
但在這些門店重新營業時，消費者蜂擁而入，他們表示，這里的商品價格比以往更便宜了，他們不關心重慶市政府官員的想法。
As Daniel says while giving a lecture in the US at the end of Chinglish: "Nowadays to be successful, you have to understand your place in their [China's] picture. Just be aware that you may not — well, I can assure you that you will not get everything you want. And that may just have to be enough."
正如在《中式英文》結尾丹尼爾在美國做演講時所說的：“如今，要想成功，你必須明白你在他們（中國）那里的位置。要知道，你或許不會——哦，我可以向你保證，你不會得到你想要的一切。或許只能這樣。”
