Home
Webmail
Sakura
Flickr
About meArchives for March, 2009
Ray Downs, 1932–2009
Update: The Downs family now has a website up. Go to RayDowns.com for information on the memorial service and so on.
Ray Downs was headmaster at ASIJ during my years there, and the one who signed my parents’ contracts to work at the school. He was the sort of administrator who had done his long years of teaching, making him deeply aware of the needs of students and faculty and willing to consider them before the needs of the private school as a business venture.
Mr. Downs (as well as his wife Lavinia, the school’s head librarian) had an encyclopedic memory of the students who had made their way through the Naka Meguro and Chofu campuses over the decades. More than a decade ago I mentioned that I had gotten a job at Japan Echo, and they instantly asked whether Suzanne Trumbull (an early 1960s ASIJ grad) was still there. Some info on this couple and the role they played at the school is on the ASIJ website.
Reposting a letter from one of his children, since it’s easier to point people to the info here than to forward it to everyone:
To my dear ASIJ friends,
It is with both sadness and relief that I pass on the news that our father, Ray F. Downs, died peacefully on March 27th, Friday. Since his brain tumor diagnosis in May 1997, Dad led a remarkable life, largely due to the untiring efforts and determination of our mother, Vicky. Following their move to Seattle in 1999, Dad’s strength and cognitive abilities improved sufficiently for him to live a fairly full life including taking adult education classes (which he loved – particularly music), walking, birding and even traveling to Japan, China, Mexico and Belize. By all accounts, it is almost miraculous that he was able to do so much and for so long following such a serious brain injury. While he never recovered fully to the point of being the “old” energetic, intelligent Dad we love and miss so dearly, his thoughtful, loving personality was clearly in evidence throughout the remainder of his life. He is and will be greatly missed.
I deeply regret that his four grand daughters (Sophie age 11, CC age 8, Rachel age 6 and Becca age 1) will have never known the Dad who epitomized so many wonderful virtues including humor, intelligence, compassion, and commitment, but as I said to Dad so many times in his final days, we will do all we can to ensure that they grow up knowing what a remarkable man he was. Hopefully, he can go on to inspire them as he inspired his own children and so many others.
We are planning a service in Seattle in late April. Details will be forthcoming and I will gladly pass them on to any who are interested and might be able to attend. Participation by all who knew and loved Dad would be most welcome.
This brings much love to you from all of us,
Constie
Rest in peace, Mr. Downs.
Blog on Asian security, win a prize
This message just got sent out on the NBR Japan Forum. Given my dedication to blogging it isn’t something I’ll be shooting for, but it may be of interest to other people out there in the more serious corners of Asia-based web writing.
The MacArthur Foundation has extended their deadline for their new Asia Security Initiative Blogger Awards competition until April 12, 2009. Since there are quite a few Forum members who are interested in security issues (and blogging), we are passing along their announcement and information. – Japan Forum staff.
Asia Security Initiative Blogger Awards
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Deadline: April 12, 2009The Foundation is now seeking applications for its Asia Security Initiative Blogger Awards (the “Awards”) described below. The Foundation seeks, through the use of blogs, to advance the field of International Peace and Security by enhancing the knowledge and understanding of Asian security issues.
A successful applicant will be expected to post three to five blogs per week. At least two blog postings per month shall be 200-400 words in length and focus on a topic of relevance to the Asia Security Initiative. The remaining posts may be shorter in length (10-100 words) and could highlight an interesting article or conference, briefly comment on world events relevant to Asian security, or raise questions for other bloggers.
Up to five (5) individuals may be awarded $10,000 each. The Foundation reserves the right not to make any Awards if no applicants meet the applicable criteria or for any other reason as determined by the Foundation.
The Award Guidelines are available online. Good luck if you apply!
Cuban pitchers lose to translator
A flubbed translation with real-world impact! “Translation Error Costs Cuba the Use of Two Pitchers” is the New York Times article telling the tale. The official rules of the World Baseball Classic are in English only, but that isn’t stopping teams from looking at versions of them in other languages, too. This came back to cost Cuba:
A courtesy abstract of rules that Classic organizers gave the Cuban delegation before the first round in Mexico City, which translated the guidelines regarding individual pitch limits from English into Spanish, got a crucial one of them wrong. Rather than indicating that no reliever could pitch the day after throwing 30 or more pitches (“trienta o mas”), the sheet said more than 30 pitches (“mas que trienta”).
Following those words, Cuban Manager Higinio Velez removed two relievers — Yulieski Gonzalez and Yunieski Maya — after exactly 30 pitches during Cuba’s 6-0 loss to Japan on Sunday. He clearly wanted to keep them available for Monday night’s game against Mexico. But he learned less than three hours before Monday’s game — which Cuba won, 7-4 — that they in fact were ineligible to pitch, despite his being given incorrect information.
The Cubans were of course disappointed, but were splendid sports about it, admitting that the English rules, being official, should have been followed.
This incident caught my eye because the Japanese form 〜以上 can cause similar confusion. Dictionaries clearly define this as meaning “more than” (“mas que” in the Cubans’ case), not “or more” (“o mas”), but even by native speakers of the language this gets interpreted both ways, in my experience. (A web search for phrases like 20歳以上 or 65歳以上 will get you plenty of hits for pages that are talking about regulations or welfare systems that kick in at ages 20 and 65, not 21 and 66, for instance. The term is similarly flexible when applied to speeds, scores on tests, and plenty of other numerical figures.)
The Cuban pitchers lost to Japan, too, early this afternoon. The whole WBC tournament bracket makes my head hurt, but as far as I can tell Japan is going into its fourth game with Korea tomorrow, and whether it wins or loses, it might get a fifth match with its rivals from across the Sea of Japan. Might as well just make it a series.
The Correct Translation
Posting another one of those translation essays I wrote for some people on the JET Program:
“Can you look over this translation to make sure it’s correct?” This is the sort of request you might hear from time to time. What does correctness mean in this case, though? There are many ways to measure how good a translation is—its accuracy, its effectiveness, and even its beauty might be yardsticks to use. But the yardstick you choose depends on context. And context, as we have seen, means more than just words on the page.
Let’s start with this short statement from the website of the Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum:
江戸東京たてもの園は、1993年（平成5年）3月28日に開園した野外博物館です。都立小金井公園の中に位置し、敷地面積は約７ヘクタール、園内には江戸時代から昭和初期までの、27棟の復元建造物が建ち並んでいます。当園では、現地保存が不可能な文化的価値の高い歴史的建造物を移築し、復元・保存・展示するとともに、貴重な文化遺産として次代に継承することを目指しています。
This is fairly straightforward information. We’ll begin by putting together a similarly straightforward English version along these lines:
The Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum is an outdoor museum that opened on March 28, 1993 (Heisei 5). Located in Tokyo Metropolitan Koganei Park, the museum is about 7 hectares in size; on its grounds are 27 restored buildings dating from the Edo period to the early Showa era. Historical structures with high cultural value that cannot be preserved on their original sites are moved to the museum, where they are restored, preserved, and displayed, with the goal of handing them on to the next generation as a precious cultural heritage.
This translation adheres closely to the original Japanese in the order in which it presents the information. Does this make it the correct translation? . . . Maybe.
What is the purpose of this translation?
If your boss asked you to translate this site because he wanted a quick look at what it says, your job is done at this point. You’ve provided all the relevant information, and your translation is a correct fit for the task at hand.
If, however, your job is to create an English version of the site to inform potential visitors who don’t read Japanese, you need to work on this text some more. You aren’t just laying out information; you’re advertising the museum, and that means making your translation more attractive. Present the place as exciting, educational, and worth a trip to Koganei.
The Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum, located in Koganei Park, features 27 restored buildings dating from the Edo period to the early Showa era. These culturally valuable structures were moved to the museum when they could no longer be preserved on their original sites. Here they are carefully restored, displayed, and preserved as a precious cultural heritage to be passed on to future generations.
It’s shorter now, and we’ve lost some information. But that wasn’t likely to motivate people to come see the preserved structures—readers won’t care so much when the place was established, and “Heisei 5” is particularly unhelpful; the full name of the park is similarly unneeded here. It’s no longer an exact match for the Japanese, but for our advertising purposes this might be a correct translation.
What do the readers need?
Above we took out the Heisei year designation. Japanese readers may appreciate that information, but foreign readers aren’t apt to count years according to imperial reigns. We need to consider what our readers will want from the text, and provide them with a translation that serves their needs.
Perhaps the English website will help direct visitors to this place. In that case we’ll need some geographic pointers. Perhaps the visitors would benefit from additional historical background—not everyone knows when the “Edo period” was, for instance. Here we go again:
The Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum opened in March 1993 in Koganei Park, north of Musashi Koganei station in western Tokyo. The expansive outdoor museum contains 27 restored buildings dating from the eighteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries. Historical structures from around the Tokyo area that cannot be preserved on their original sites are restored, preserved, and displayed on the museum grounds, with the goal of handing these precious cultural properties on to the next generation.
Note also that not all readers will be familiar with the hectare as a unit of area, and the exact size of this place isn’t vital information in any case. This isn’t a history essay, so we don’t need to give the precise years for the Showa era. A quick look around the website lets us know that the buildings date from the middle of the Edo period to the early postwar era; we use that information here.
What does the client want?
In addition to thinking about the sort of text you’re writing and the needs of your readers, you have to consider what the client wants to see in your translation. Japanese bureaucrats often prefer to see a particular flavor of English writing—a “governmentese” that isn’t necessarily natural, but is a very straight translation with which they are comfortable. (The first draft above might be a good fit for them.)
Maybe this client wants to put together a pamphlet for kids. You’ll be asked to write for younger readers in this case:
The Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum was founded in 1993. This large museum in Tokyo’s Koganei Park contains 27 historical buildings. Some of these are very old, dating all the way back to the middle of the Edo period—that was hundreds of years ago! When these important buildings from around Tokyo were about to be torn down, people worked to save them, bringing them all the way to this museum. Here these cultural structures are preserved so people can continue enjoying them today, and into the future.
The sentences are shorter. The vocabulary is simpler. And the text is more energetic, to hold the children’s attention. (We might also note that some of the buildings here inspired Miyazaki Hayao’s art in Spirited Away.) If the client comes to you with a request for a certain kind of language, it’s your job to produce that. Stay flexible!
In its most basic form, translation requires you to include all the information in the original, adding nothing and taking nothing away. But translators are called on to do jobs closer to copywriting much of the time. The examples above show some very different approaches to the same paragraph in Japanese, but depending on the kind of writer you are, the needs of your readers, and the demands of your client, they might all be correct.
Rearing up in my airspace
Yes, the Russians are attacking. Ever since the day I upgraded this blog to WordPress 2.7.1 I’ve been getting dozens of subscriptions a week from bizarre nonhumans (or so I suspect) that I’ve been zapping away. These include:
- Subscribers with names that don’t come close to matching the addresses and are close to nonsensical: “OblitbionoLal,” whose mail address is “apeseassy” @something, often Gmail.
- Subscribers with .ru mail addresses. Wolveriiiiines!
- Subscribers whose mail addresses come from domains like “noprescriptiondrugstore.com.”
If you’re a legitimate commenter who matches one of the profiles above, you might want to shoot me a note when you sign up here so I don’t toss you in the spam-comment-bot pile with the others.
Flickr photos
www.flickr.com 
More of Durf's photos