Tag: Chinese

intentional mistranslation in EEAAO

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Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of my favorite art experiences of all time, and the scenes between Evelyn and Waymond in the Wong Kar-wai-inspired parallel universe are my absolute favorite moments of the movie.

Watching the film for the second time yesterday, however, I was surprised to discover what I would call a critical mistranslation in my favorite scene. Here is what Waymond tells Evelyn:

English SubtitlesSpoken ChineseDirect Translation of Spoken Chinese
I wanted to say…我想告诉你……I want to tell you…
In another life,如果有来生，if there were another life,
I would have really liked…我还是会选择和你一起，I still would have chosen to be with you,
just doing laundry…保税，doing taxes,
and taxes with you.开洗衣店。opening a laundry.

This feels like a critical difference!? “I would have liked” carries very different meaning than “I would have chosen.” And for a movie with such specificity in every detail, I can’t help but feel that this mistranslation must be deeply intentional, perhaps tapping into some subtle cultural sensitivities.

I’m reminded of a conversation that I had with a friend about anime voice acting, and how one of the reasons why viewers often prefer subtitles over dubbed voices is that voice actors seem able to express an authentic emotional intensity in Japanese that feels exaggerated when translated into and expressed in English. I wonder if something similar underlies this translation—a recognition that in English, or in English-speaking cultures, something as intense as “I still would have chosen to be with you” wouldn’t be as deeply felt as “I would have really liked.”

Thank you to Bill, Jack, and Sam for inspiring this post.

asian diversity over the years

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After a few years of living in New York City and becoming involved with the barbershop community, I’ve become more accustomed to being the only Asian person in rooms of 30 or even 300 people. I thought it would be interesting to look at how Asian my communities have been over the years:

Locale % Asian
San Jose & Milpitas 1, 2 48%
Palo Alto 3 27%
Stanford 4 21%
San Francisco & Dropbox 5, 6 33%
New York City – Manhattan 7 9%
All US 8 5%
Berlin 9 3%
Paris 10 1%

thoughtfulness

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Two compliments in one

One of the highest compliments I can give to a person is to say that they are “thoughtful.” To me, a thoughtful person does two things:

  • Considers and expresses intellectual ideas with care. This manifests in a myriad of ways: articulating the nuance in a complex idea instead of glossing it over; listening and asking targeted questions to gather information instead of jumping to a conclusion, yet being unafraid to make clear judgments when needed; demanding rationality and consistency in one’s own belief system.
  • Concerns themselves with the needs of other people and takes action accordingly. This means listening for what other people like and care about and taking action with that information in mind. This too has multiple practical manifestations: helping someone with chores or errands during a busy time, carefully choosing the right words of praise for an important milestone, sending a specifically selected gift.

Unsurprisingly, “care” is an important word operating here. (Indeed, one of the organizations I led in high school had the motto “Caring — our way of life,”1 and this is still a value I hold today.)

When you use a word like “thoughtful” or “care,” do you think of this double meaning?

Two Chinese terms

I love finding Chinese terms that don’t have a succinct English translation. (Aside: My favorite word in this category is 巧 (qiǎo), which can refer both to a person’s “deft” and “skillful” hands as well as to an “opportune” moment. The word bounces when you pronounce it in Mandarin, calling to mind a graceful gymnast vaulting upward.)

Two Chinese terms of praise that don’t have succinct English translations reveal how the culture perceives thoughtfulness as being inseparable with thoughtful action:

  • 眼力见儿 (yǎn lì jiànr) literally translates to “eye power seeing.” Wiktionary says this term refers to “one’s ability to see what needs to be done,”2 but 眼力见儿 is not just about observation — it’s about proactiveness, too. Someone with 眼力见儿 proactively perceives what needs to be done in a situation without being asked, and then takes action to resolve the situation, all without being prompted. A common domestic example of 眼力见儿 is a child who notices that the dishes need washing and leaps up from their chair to start the dishes without anyone saying a word.
  • 懂事 (dǒng shì) literally translates to “understands matters.” This is a favorite phrase that Chinese parents use to praise children for behaving maturely. The implication is that a child exhibits adult-like behavior because they’ve built the understanding and empathy to know what they need to do. Note that the way you demonstrate 懂事 is not by speaking and explaining what you understand, but by taking concrete, observable actions that reveal that you have the understanding. I love that the character for “understand” includes the characters for heart (忄) and heavy (重).

Thank you to Renjie for inspiring this post.