As I first began to write these editor’s notes I admit that I occasionally wondered whether many people would read them as they sought out the heart of this publication: the literary calendar. When the deadline came and I did not have the time for that one last revision that I intended – and there always seems to be one more - I sometimes hoped my reservations were correct, but they were not. Responses from the November’s Editor’s Notes, the most so far, have shown me that you never know how many people might be reading these Notes. So, one of my New Year’s resolutions is to start writing these notes in time to get that last revision finished before deadline. My schedule being what it is, however, the other resolution I have made is not to take broken resolutions too seriously.

The other thing I learned from responses to the November notes is that you can be pleasantly surprised by the topics that resonate with our readers. As I said at the end of those November Editor’s Notes, I was “throwing a stone to attract jade,” offering my rough thoughts on translation in hopes of attracting more polished opinions from others. I was richly rewarded. There have been responses from the parents of Washington University students, foreign students, professional literature translators, a commercial translator, and professional interpreters and translators. Because I did not expect many readers to feel the excitement I have for issues surrounding translation, I was unprepared for the enthusiastic responses from our readers and did not intend to write another Editor’s Notes about translation. That intention changed yesterday (January 5, 2004) when I received a package from Mr. Charles Guenther. The package included several of his books and a touching note: “A few ‘samples’ in appreciation of your thoughtful, perceptive notes on translation in the November newsletter.”

Mr. Guenther and I haven’t meet, but by reading his “few samples” I have learned something about him. He is a poet, critic, essayist, and translator. He is the author of Phrase/Paraphrase, poems (The Prairie Press) and the translator of seven small books of French, Spanish, and Italian poetry. He is a native of St. Louis who served 15 years as Midwest regional vice-president of the Poetry Society of America. I do not know what his native language is, but after reading his translations from three languages into English, I admire him.

Mr. Guenther’s package followed a lunch meeting Professor Gerald Early and I had with Philip Boehm and Marcia Wilderman that also stemmed from November’s Editor’s Notes and the upcoming series of public presentations on translation being offered by the Humanities Center this semester. Mr. Boehm is a professional translator of German and Polish literature who has published over 13 books, including Hanemann by Stefan Chwin, Fathertongue by Albert Ostermaier, and Willenbrock by Christoph Hein. During and after our meeting, he offered good ideas for long-term exploration of translation, such as workshops and a symposium with various translators, publishers, editors, and agents.

Ms. Wilderman is Program Manager for Language Links at The International Institute of Metro St. Louis. She told us about a kind of translation that is both literary and technical, but also more immediate and practical, particularly to her and the staff at Language Links. The International Institute has provided language services, adjustment services, and cross-cultural programming to citizens of St. Louis for more than 80 years. It is the central clearinghouse for refugee services, providing also information and referrals to aid the local foreign-born population. Increased demand for professional interpreters and translators reflects the trend toward globalization.

Still another perspective came from email conversations with Ms. Linda S. Barton, an Information Developer/Localization Coordinator of Edward Jones Investments. Ms. Barton brought to my attention the technical expertise and cultural knowledge involved in commercial translation. Edward Jones designs all their computer systems for their Home Office operations. Translation comes into play for any of these systems that the branch uses to contact the public. The translation must take into account the language of the computer system itself (instructions on the screens, error messages, printed reports), and must reflect differences in spelling and usage between U.S., Canadian, and U.K. English (color / colour, last name / surname). The interesting thing is that, as with literature, they do not simply conduct word-for-word translation, but reflect the subtleties of the in-country culture and local language as well as the particulars of their business.

There is yet another area of translation that has been brought to my attention that will, in fact, be the first focus of the Center’s upcoming series on translation: translation of the bible. Deborah Krause, Eden Theological Seminary's Associate Professor of the New Testament will give a lecture on biblical translation at Washington University on March 16th, 2004. The bible may be the most translated book in the world, and the translation with the most contentious issues surrounding it. If we think how hard it is to translate modern languages into English, then how much more difficult it is to translate 3,000-year-old Aramaic and 2,000-year-old Greek, each with words that no longer have modern-day counter parts, into language that makes sense to people today. Yet, just as the gains and losses involved in translating important works highlighted by globalization and multiculturalism, it is essential to translate the past in meaningful ways to enhance understanding of our social histories and to guide our future actions.

Jian Leng, Assistant Director
The Center for the Humanities

After the defeat of the Japanese in World War II, the Koreans, thinking independence was within reach, indeed, virtually promised to them (as they saw it), had their hopes dashed when the allies split their country at the 38th parallel, a completely arbitrary line across the middle of the country that served as a political expedient, making little economic, topographical, or cultural sense. The Soviet Union occupied the territory above the parallel, the United States below. North Korea eventually became a communist state, and South Korea capitalist and democratic (the latter descriptor sometimes honored more in the breach). The United States and China fought a war on the Korean peninsula between 1950 and 1953, both countries injecting themselves into what began as a civil war between the North and South—each side wanting to unite the country under its own ideology—when the North invaded the South. The war, which accounted for the deaths of probably between one-to-two million Koreans, 37,000 Americans, and an untold number of Chinese (their losses far exceeding American casualties), settled nothing. The upshot of the war was the country returned to what it was before the war began. The country remains divided to this day—a very impoverished communist North and an economically vibrant, democratic South—the last political legacy of the Cold War.

Helie Lee, a Korean American writer, born in Korea before moving with her family to Canada and, finally, to Los Angeles, puts a human face on the story of Korea. Feeling disengaged from her Korean roots (“I’ve always hated being Oriental/Asian. I hide my face and camouflage my eyes, but not my mother or grandmother.”), Lee, as a young woman bitten by the bug of the wanderlust, traveled to Korea and to Korean enclaves in China, where a number of Koreans lived to escape the Japanese occupation. There, she came face-to-face with her roots, the historical and cultural reality that shaped her mother and grandmother, and lost her sense of deracination. She returned to the United States “and began to ask all those long-ignored questions I never bothered with while I was busy exploiting my privileges as an American teenager. Hungrily, I dig deep into my grandmother’s and my mother’s memories.” The result is the memoir entitled Still Life with Rice, a book about Lee’s grandmother, a remarkable woman. The book is richly informative of Korean folkways and cultural practices: we learn how her mother was reared in the early-20th-century Korean middle class. Hongyong Baek was the fifth child and oldest surviving daughter. She was brought up to be a wife, learning to keep house and care for a man. She was never very good at these tasks as a child, but presumably became better when she married. Her marriage was arranged, as was the custom. She herself bore several children. Hongyong was able to turn virtually anything at hand into a paying enterprise and so became a prosperous businesswoman, eventually becoming one of the leading opium dealers in China, when she and her husband emigrated there, as well as the owner of a successful restaurant. When she and her family returned to Korea from China after the defeat of the Japanese in World War II, they lived in North Korea and endured having their wealth confiscated by the communist government. When the Korean War broke out, the family split up, with Hongyong’s husband and son trying to escape serving in the North Korean army. The family had been persecuted in North Korea not only because Hongyong and her husband had money, but also because they were Christians. Hongyong’s husband escaped to the South but her son did not, winding up in the North Korean army and a permanent resident of North Korea. Hongyong’s journey as a war refugee from North Korea to Pusan, the southernmost port city of Korea, was a harrowing experience that she and her children barely survived.

Helie Lee’s second book, In the Absence of the Sun, chronicles her efforts to reunite her grandmother, Hongyong, with her son, who lives in North Korea, one of the most isolated societies in the world, difficult to enter, even more difficult to leave. For some years after the war, neither mother nor son knew that the other was still alive. But finally they were able to get in touch with each other and eventually they were reunited, a story that is both heroic and touching. All of this, in the end, helps Lee come to a measure of self-understanding of herself as a Korean, learning, in some way, what it cost her grandmother to be one and why her grandmother takes such pride in her Korean heritage: “Looking at myself through the prism of [my mother’s and grandmother’s] lives, I’ve finally come to peace with who I am. The emptiness and chaos I once felt is now filled with the past I rejected and the future I will passionately embrace.”

Helie Lee will kick off The Center for the Humanities SmartSet Series this spring. She will do a reading on Monday, February 23 at 8 p.m. at the Anheuser-Busch Law School on the campus of Washington University. She will engage a question-and-answer session with the audience on Tuesday, February 24 at 4 p.m. at the McMillan Café in Old McMillan Hall, also on the campus of Washington University. Come out to hear the great writers read!

Gerald Early, Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters in Arts & Sciences, and Director of The Center for the Humanities, Washington University in St. Louis.