Why the US makes it even harder for Korean (or any) translations

A great article here that covers the institutional fears and minsunderstandings caused by the way US publishers approach translated (or the possibility of them) works.

The article can be nutshelled (yeah, I made that word up) in this observation:

By and large, the American publishers spend most of the week in Hall 8, the
enormous exhibit space where English-language publishers hold court.

This article is also amusing because even as it discusses all the obstacles that US publishers throw up, it generally refers to these obstacles with reference to European authors and translations. A representative quote names Europe and then refers vaquely to other literary countries which reside, next to dragons, on the edges of literary maps :

To help spur more translations, government-sponsored cultural agencies in
Europe and elsewhere subsidize — or fully cover — the cost of translating books
into English.

To be fair Korea is mentioned once on the second page.

Still, it is worth pointing out that while Korea may not routinely be producing brilliant translations, may lack marketing skills for what they do translate, and might translate works that are not of optimal interest to the West, there is also quite a great deal of insularity, bordering on xenophobia, on the other side of the equation.

From Powder to Powder by Kim Hun

From Powder to Powder by Kim Hun
Land of Exile
East Gate
Armonk, New York

Many Korean short stories are about cycles. Sometimes this is the traditional (historical) Korean cycle of separation, diaspora and return, and sometimes the cycle is a far less optimistic one. Such is the case in Kim Hun’s “From Powder to Powder” which hammers a semi-cyclical message home with bleak nihilism, leavened by flashes of alarming humor. The clever title evokes the Biblical phrase on cycles, “from dust to dust,” while also describing the equipoise of the tale – a man positioned between the death and incineration (creating the first powder) of his wife, and his career marketing beauty products (the second powder). As the story works towards it’s dusty ending, it becomes clear that while some cycles are inevitable, hope of return is vain.

In the main plot, physical and emotional exile reaches everywhere into life, even into souls. At the same time a sub-plot focused on advertising products to women brings unexpected levity. The story begins as the conventional (if that is fair) deathwatch of the wife of an advertising executive. Here Kim uses stark, brutal terms to describe how this cycle ends, “the flesh around her vulva had wasted away as well … the outer lips of her vagina blackened and stuck together like two pieces of charred meat. I couldn’t believe that out daughter had been born from that place.” Kim’s vision of “the circle of life” is decidedly not that from “The Lion King,” and by focusing on the mother’s reproductive organs and the daughter’s life, Kim strongly suggests we all be aware what awaits the daughter as well. Later, Kim has a doctor make the argument explicit: “The life-force can’t be adulterated; it can’t be transformed. And the impossibility of transformation is what defines the phenomenon of life.”

This goes beyond mere stoicism.

Kim injects humor in two set pieces, one describing the narrator’s bladder being drained and the other discussing strategies for marketing cosmetics to women. At a board meeting Director O muses, about a vaginal cleanser, that, “it worked well enough, except that it failed to remove all of the menstrual flow and had side effects, such as inflammation and a burning sensation in the vaginal wall. And there were cases in which the jelly was contaminated with urine and found its way deep inside the vagina, where it turned into a foul-smelling discharge.’ (321) Later, another director discusses the vagina, “So each one is different – well, even if they are, how can we manufacture something for each and every one? Here we are with a wide-open market and it’s hard to get in the door.” This is not only amusing for its semi-askew metaphorical content, but also evidence of the cleverness of the translation (by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton) which allows bawdy double-entendres to come shining through. It also makes me wish I could read Korean, so I could judge how close to the original thoughts, these metaphors are. In any case, they read splendidly in English and there is certainly at least one good academic paper waiting to be written about this stories/ obsession with the female vagina, but that won’t be the one I’m doing here. ;-)

As his wife dies and in the aftermath of her death, the executive focuses on his infatuation with Ch’u Únju, another employee of the company. The death scenes are harrowing, but the conclusion of the story is even more harrowing. The executive attends his wife’s cremation and the theme of cycles and alienation is mechanical and explicit as he watches:

A display:

Incineration 121: Will the bereaved please come to the observation room to receive the ashes.
Incineration 122: Cycle to end 130 PM
Incineration 123 Cycle to end 1:40 PM

(p. 337)

Finally, it ends, “we saw the red display above the door to the incinerator: end of cycle.”

After the death of the narrator’s wife, a series of unexpected but not unlikely events result in the narrator severing all personal connections. Ch’u Únju is let go by the company and by that time the narrator is removed from concern for her. More shockingly he takes Pori (named for the Buddhist term for “supremely enlightened), his wife’s healthy dog, in to be euthanized on the basis that he will not be able to care for it and “My wife wanted it to be reborn as a human next time around.” (p. 339) Kim stresses the venality of this: Not only was the dog his wife’s “first thought” after her tumor-induced headache attacks, but the dog is a full-blooded Jindo, the national dog of Korea.

Finally, the narrator has disposed of his wife, his ‘dearly beloved’ Ch’u Únju has gone to the United States, and the dog Pori has been sent to join his mistress. The narrator concludes with a passage that can be read as a threat, a Buddhist promise of nirvana, or simple banal evil. “That night, for the first time in a long while, I slept deeply, ever so deeply, my awareness dissipating into nothingness” (p. 339).

Korea Needs More Translators

From this morning's electronic Korea Times:

Literary Professor Kim Joo-youn said Korea badly needs a growing pool of professional translators to have local literature better known worldwide.

He made the remark in a Korea Times interview Thursday after being named the director of the Korea Literature Translation Institute (KLTI) under the Ministry of Culture.

The director said his main focus will be directed toward fostering and increasing professional translators who can make Korean literature better appreciated outside Korea.

``The problem does not lie in the quality of our literary output. Rather, it is in the way our literature is translated,’’ said Kim.

``Judging from my professional experience, the value and quality of Korean literature is on par with works produced in the West. A woeful lack of adequate translation is the main reason our literature has failed to draw the attention befitting its status.’’

The poor quality of literary translations has been well documented in various news reports and surveys. According to a 2007 KLTI study of translated versions of 41 Korean novels, more than half of them revealed significant shortcomings in translating hard facts, let alone conveying the true literary essence of the work, which is why nurturing a new generation of translators with the necessary language skills and literary sensitivity will be the top priority during his three-year tenure.

``For a relatively unknown country like Korea, the government’s involvement in promoting Korean literature overseas is necessary. My long-term goal is to cultivate an environment conducive to nurturing translators of literature equipped with not only an excellent command of foreign languages but a profound knowledge of and passion for Korean literature.’’ Kim said.

Kim remembers his frustration at a conference in Berlin in the summer of 2008. ``I proposed a presentation of Korean writers to a German colleague at the ‘Berlin House of Literature.’ However, they rejected my proposal, citing inadequate translation and difficulty in understanding Korean literature,’’ he said.

The KLTI was established in 1996 with the mission to support scholars, writers, and translators whose works revolves around the internationalization of Korean literature. With Kim as its new director, it is also expected to place more importance on promoting exchanges between Korean and overseas writers through residency programs and lectures.

Another key initiative on Kim’s agenda is to motivate overseas scholars to disseminate Korean culture. ``The number of universities abroad with a department of Korean Studies has been consistently rising, especially in China, where about 80 universities teach Korean language and literature. We will try to encourage schools to incorporate more Korea-specific programs.’’

Kim has been a professor of German literature at Sookmyung Women’s University for nearly 30 years. His publications and critical essays have gained nationwide recognition.

jhdo@koreatimes.co.kr

Railroad Tracks All Across Your Back, I Guess Japan Done Had its Fun.

Making the Trains Run on Time

Reading through Choi In-Hoon’s “End of the Road”, I noticed a repetitive symbolism that I had sometimes seen in other short stories. Trains and train tracks popped up with surprising frequency, even for stories from a country, like Korea, with an excellent train system. Additionally, the symbol is rarely integral to the plot, rather it is clearly meant to stand for something, and something a bit menacing, impersonal, perhaps even evil. I didn’t initially get the exact meaning but as I thought about it, I guessed it likely had something to do with Korea’s history as a Japanese colony.

The story itself, which I will write about later, focuses on journeys of several kinds – from one place to another, from college to job, from job to nowhere, and from life to death. The train tracks parallel the story, threatening, impassive, and steely.

In the blogosphere you can’t help but notice (in fact it is impossible to miss) tension between Japanese and Korean bloggers. This tension follows from the colonial period, and is far from limited to blogs. One of the regular arguments that arises with respect to this tension is whether or not Japanese colonialism was “good” for Korea. The arguments tend to be Manichean, with the Japanese claiming that they “modernized” or “civilized” Korea. After all, the name of the Japanese greater plan to rule all of Asia was the “Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.”

Which is a hell of a polite way to say, “bow down and serve us.”

To see a rather remarkably incoherent example of this kind of argument, you can check out. http://wwwgeocities.jp/dinetomi76/cyousen.html whose “author” basically argues that since Korea made progress from 1897-1930, the Japanese were benevolent despots. His argument, so much as he makes one, seems to be that if Japan had not invaded Korea, Korea would have remained trapped in some kind of amber and not changed one iota. On the flip side, Koreans are often prone to ignoring any progress that might have been made while the Japanese colonized them because Koreans seem to fear that admitting any progress would be to give credit to the Japanese.

I am far closer to the latter position, partly because I think that colonization is generally a bad thing^TM, and because progress, well, progresses sometimes without respect to who is in charge. The Japanese probably did speed up some modernizations (the ones that worked for their colonial enterprise). I think on balance, however, the Japanese did far more harm than good and that much of the modernization would have occurred no matter who was ruling Korea and the social distortions introduced by the Japanese would never have taken root..

In any case, Google revealed that it is inarguable that the railway systems improved under Japanese rule. Not, of course, for particularly benevolent reasons. Japanese scholar Nakano Akira notes that:

Public records from that time (Early 1900s) clearly show the Japanese government’s intentions. For example, in a document that then Foreign Minister Komura Jutaro submitted to the Prime Minister Katsura Taro in 1902 for Cabinet approval includes the following:

“If Japan constructs the Gyeongui Line on our own and connect to the Gyeongbu Line, all major railways will be in the hands of our empire, in effect keeping Korea under our influence.

This focus on railways was also a part of Japan’s strategic response to the first Sino-Japanese war. Akira also notes that development of the railways included Japanese confiscation of farmland, project management largely by, and profit largely for, Japanese businesspeople, and the impression of local Koreans into forced labor gangs.

Fun stuff, and just the kind of loveliness that seems to typically attend colonization.

Still, Choi’s writing was, even in translation, strong enough that I could recognize that the train and train tracks had a totemic implication far beyond their physical reality. I suppose I note this here, on morning calm, and before I even review the story, because it is interesting to me that even in translated literature a symbol can come through so forcefully that even a semi-casual reader is forced to pay some attention, sit up and say, “hang on, this has to have some kind of meaning.”

With luck, that reader then goes to the Wikipedia (Pace, MAF) and all is revealed. ;-)

Akira’s article can be found at http://wwwjapanfocus.org/products/details/2533 and the truly dedicated train (and colonization) buff can find “Japanese Imperialism and Korean Railroads (1892-1945)” a 742 page book on the topic of Japanese imperialism and railroads at the Seoul National Press

The Translator, aka BKF in another place, is back. Well, I'm back. I feel a whole lot more comfortable writing my story this time. Reading all of my editor's blog entries was rather inspirational, enough for me to try again at posting some of my work here. I can't promise that I'll be writing everyday. I need day offs for drinking and for my family. Still, I'll make sure to post some of the fleeting thoughts, so that they would be fleeting from me, but end up some where other than the oblivion. My postings, of course, will have much to do with 1.5 generation Korean American, 2nd generation Korean American (my 17 months old son), and translation. I don't know much about other things. Thanks goes to my editor for inviting me to his blog again....

House of Idols by Cho In-Hoon

The Portable Library of Korean Literature • Short Fiction • 16 • Jimoondang Publishing • Seoul

Cho In-Hoon’s “House of Idols” begins with an unnamed narrator and the sentence, “The war was over, the capital back in Seoul.” Despite the apparent “return to normalcy” of the first line, the story describes a world in which the neo-Confucian basis of Korean society has only totemic significance – a play of semi-random and meaningless interactions set against a bleak background with which Greek stoics might easily identify. It is a story, as many of the time, which delineates the broken social and belief structures of post-war Korea. The story also suggests that personal identities are fluid and meaningless as its main characters are all unnamed and seem quite impermanent.

The unnamed narrator is the acolyte of a famous writer who, in possible homage to Kafka, is named “K.” This is difficult to tell, as the work is translated. In this case the translation is by John Holstein and it is sturdy and serviceable.

The narrator regularly meets K at the Arisa Café. One day a stranger walks in and treats K with a kind of willful disrespect that is extremely difficult to imagine in South Korea. This is the first indication of sundered social ties.The narrator is properly appalled, and dislikes the interloper immediately, both because he breaks the proper social order (in a classically Korean moment, the narrator fulminates that the stranger is “more that twenty years” younger than K) and because he is a threat to the narrator’s relationship with K.

This is frame to the center of the novel, a quick friendship and a complicated and extremely convincing lie that the stranger tells. At the mid point of the story the narrator and stranger (as unnamed as the narrator) have a discussion about relationships and the stranger says directly, “I’ve been cursed, I’m under some curse to destroy anyone who comes close to me.” The narrator responds, semi-ironically, that this might lead to the “bitter fruit of disillusionment,” but he clearly believes himself immune to this poisoned fruit. The narrator has quickly persuaded himself that he and the stranger have a “special relationship.” In a moment of bonding the stranger tells the tale that putatively underlies his ‘curse.’ It is full of sound and fury, and while the stranger implicates himself in its course, it is primarily a cry for sympathy

In the stranger’s personal narrative her describes the destruction of the North; he sees US bombers in his mind. He also falls in love with a literary character, Dumas’ Nana, and finds a living incarnation of her (once again an unnamed character) in Korea. In a first indication he might not be all that he seems to be, the stranger, by his own admission, becomes George, a character from Dumas’ novel. Then, when his unannounced love is “betrayed” the stranger, in an act of omission, becomes complicit in her death. The stranger’s tale is one in which he accepts a tremendous burden of guilt.

The stranger’s story, as it happens, is merely a story and when the narrator comes to visit the stranger he discovers that the stranger lives in a psychiatric residence. Here a doctor greets the narrator with the unhappy news that the stranger’s story is a fiction.

There is a brilliant moment. The presiding doctor says of the stranger:

He’s got a variety of complexes all wrapped up together in him like a ball of yarn, and I can’t really sum up his condition in one word. Exhibitionism, megalomania, Oedipus complex, hero complex … a confusion of these roots all tangled inside of him.

To which the narrator replies: “But I don’t see anything wrong with him, other than this story of his.” In response the doctor assents: “That’s exactly what has me stymied, that no other symptoms have appeared. His is the most difficult sort to fix.” This is intentionally ridiculous – all the symptoms have been named, but there is no diagnosis forthcoming. This most likely seems a comment on the irrationality of post-war Korea.

Then, without any reaction from the narrator, the stranger turns violently against him, shouting and accusing the narrator, in a variety of colorful ways, of the crime of being bourgeois. The narrator, in turn, leaves without a word or a defense. They repudiate each other without a moment’s hesitation.

This is emblematic as no personal relationship in this story is what it seems. In purely technical terms Cho takes away the personal by creating a story without formal identity. Characters are nameless (I should note that this is characteristic all the three stories of Cho’s that I have read), described as “various types,” the “gaunt man” and “in (their) forties.” In fact, the only named ‘characters’ in “House of Idols” are physical locations.

Within the plot, the stranger’s story within a story is the clearest example of his lack of real social bond, as its central relationship is purely imaginary. The narrator’s relationship with K is also demonstrated to be weak, perhaps imaginary, as the narrator quite clearly fears the stranger, the “interloper.” The narrator seems unable, prior to meeting the stranger, to make real relationships. He is a kind of ass who believes that he can accurately assess people’s worth, which he does in his search for “compatibility,” by which he essentially means usefulness. Even K’s relationship to the stranger is finally left intentionally opaque. I don’t think most readers here need a primer on how a world lacking relationships is a non-Korean and non neo-Confucian world. It is a world without moorings.

The story begins to end with K walking into the asylum while the narrator is walking out. Needless to say, they exchange no words or recognition. One walks in, the other out of, the asylum that is the “House of Idols.”

“House of Idols” is a nameless ghost story, showing a moment of time in post-war Korea in which relationships are doomed to be, as in the last image of the tale, in “desolation expanding without end.