SPEAKING
FREELY Lost in translation at the
six-party talks By Sunny Lee
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
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BEIJING - Unlike
most other nations' envoys at the nuclear talks in
Beijing who often use their hotel lobby for short
press comments, North Korean delegates don't stay
at a hotel. They find their home at the North
Korean Embassy compound. So during the six-nation
talks, the international press crews usually
wait
near the embassy gate for North Korea's chief
negotiator. That is a reasonable bet because the
top negotiator, Kim Kye-gwan, has held spot press
briefings there before.
At such an
occasion, standing next to Kim, one could also see
a female translator, looking to be in her early
30s. To put it simply, she was a very good
interpreter. Those who underwent a grueling
graduate-school program for interpretation
understand the sensitivity involved in doing
translation for a negotiation, particularly for
one like the ongoing talks on North Korean nuclear
disarmament, where every single word from a chief
negotiator is carefully analyzed by political
analysts from Beijing to Washington, from Seoul to
Pyongyang, from Tokyo to Moscow.
Yet so
good was her linguistic grasp that she didn't add
redundant bits of words, nor did she unwarrantedly
simplify the chief negotiator's words. She was
usually standing next to Kim, but often one step
behind him. When Kim spoke, she took a note and as
soon as Kim finished speaking, she started to
speak in a flowing voice without a pause or
interruption.
But the interpreter doesn't
follow Kim or any of the other North Korean
negotiators when they encounter the international
press crew. Then who translates for the North
Koreans? Often it is the media.
There are
two ways of doing it. One is to film the encounter
and then call the agency's Seoul bureau and play
the tape on the phone. They then hear the English
translation over the line. But often doing this is
not convenient because the Seoul bureau people
might be busy with other tasks at that time. And
more important, it may take time to get it
translated.
But major international news
agencies literally live on seconds. They want to
get the story out faster than their competitors.
So they hire translators locally.
One
time, a South Korean doctoral student at Peking
University was hired to be the "mouth" of North
Korean negotiators. With his help, the next day a
news article about the North Korean talks was
published, including on the Cable News Network
(CNN) website.
The piece reported: "A
spokesman for Pyongyang denounced efforts to get
it to give up its nuclear program without
concessions by the United States and called such
demands 'brigandish'." The only problem with that
translation was that the North Korean spokesman
didn't use the term "brigandish". What the North
Korean actually said was: "This kind of demand is
like asking us to disarm first. I think this is a
naive request. Our response is: don't even dream
of it."
Comparing the two texts, one could
guess that the South Korean interpreter used the
term "brigandish" in the place where "naive"
should be. Maybe the interpreter's version also
makes for a good flow of the sentence. But an
interpreter shouldn't put a word into someone's
mouth.
Interestingly, North Korea never
raised any issue with the piece. It never
challenged the accuracy of the writing, not to
mention take any legal measures - perhaps because
it was a mild mistake, and not totally out of the
context given that North Korea's state news agency
did criticize the US using the term before.
On another occasion, there was a bit more
serious misquoting. A Western reporter, after
being debriefed by a Korean interpreter, ran a
piece that depicted North Korea as "pleading" for
the US to lift financial sanctions.
It was
plainly inaccurate. North Korea didn't beg for it,
but demanded it. There is a sea of difference
between the two. And given how proudly the
communist country thinks of itself, it was also
very unlikely that the North Korean would have
"pleaded".
The news copy spread to all
corners of the world. However, interestingly
again, the proud North Koreans didn't protest,
didn't call it a humiliating fabrication. Again,
they didn't request a correction, either. And as
of late, the country has not sued any media for
any misrepresentation.
On another
occasion, there was a press conference called by
North Korea during an earlier round of the
six-party talks. A North Korean spokesman came in
and simply dropped a few copies of a press release
on a chair and disappeared. There were more than
50 reporters in the room. Soon, they all scrambled
to reach the paper. It was a total mess. After
all, journalism is a pretty competitive
profession. Some pieces were even torn up by
multiple hands trying to grab it for themselves.
Was it, perhaps, a little "revenge" by
North Korea on the press?
The answer is
likely no. A more likely answer is that North
Korea simply doesn't care much about the press.
For one, the international press is mostly
negative about the country in its reporting. So
why bother to change opinions now?
Secondly, and more practically, North
Koreans don't have to be polite to the press
because they know they are quite newsworthy. There
are always hungry foreign journalists lining up to
know more about the secretive country, its nuclear
activities, its film buff of a leader and even the
leader's son, who recently made headlines (North Korean heir gambles with his
future, February 6).
Few
journalists on the day of the press-release fiasco
seemed very unhappy with North Korea's "rude"
manner. Rather, they all seemed resigned to their
hardened belief that this was business as usual in
dealing with North Korea.
There was a time
when the Chinese foreign minister held a briefing
for the foreign press. When the issue of North
Korea came up, the translator referred to North
Korean leader Kim Jong-il as the "supreme leader"
- a proper term in the communist country.
Actually, that was what the foreign minister
himself said.
However, the minister
hurriedly corrected the translator and changed
"supreme leader" to "great leader". The foreign
minister, who is well versed in English, knew only
too well that it might be ungainly, in front of
the Western press, to address North Korea's leader
in such a manner.
As of today, North Korea
hasn't demanded that China use the term "supreme"
to describe its leader. Also, as of today, there
hasn't been any report saying the multi-nation
negotiation has bogged down on inaccurate
translation.
Sunny Lee
(boston.sunny@gmail.com) is a
journalist based in Beijing, where he has lived
for five years. A native of South Korea, Lee is a
graduate of Harvard University and Beijing Foreign
Studies University.
(Copyright 2007
Sunny Lee.)
Speaking Freely is an
Asia Times Online feature that allows guest
writers to have their say. Please click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
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