Another one lost in translation

Honestly I was going to take a nap since I’m dead tired, but there’s suddenly so much to write about and most of all, I feel like doing it in English again. Is this maybe influence of the piece on blogging that Mr Newman uploaded at the beginning of the semester and that I'm holding in my hands at the moment? The end sentence says: REMEMBER, your blog is reflection of you and your attitude!

Now, we all are only human beings and failure is typical of our nature. So is doubt. That’s why we all have moments of weakness when we don’t know which way to go. And then we write a bit too little… ;) Let's say this is my way of excusing inconsistency.

I’ve been pretty busy recently, but I don’t want to go into detail about my life at fast pace. However, there’s one assignment, I’ve recently got, that is worth mentioning, and namely my first official translation I’m supposed to be paid for. On the one hand, it’s pretty bad time to do something like this just before final exams, especially considering that it’s a tough nut to crack. On the other hand, I find it a perfect opportunity to check firstly – if I’m into translation at all, secondly – how good my reading comprehension is, thirdly – what my current level of written German is (the translation is from Polish into German) and finally – how well I can interpret what the author is trying to say without losing the gist of his message.

Having finished the first ten pages I can already say that you should definitely give some thought to the idea of translation. It’s clear to me that lots of people study languages because they enjoy learning new vocabulary and interacting with people other nationalities. That’s the part that makes most fun. Translation, however, is much more complicated. It needs to be dealt with in a much more general context which makes it take longer. At any rate it’s not simply putting single words in an other language, but researching the meaning behind them (since you sometimes don’t know some more sophisticated vocabulary from your mother language as I’ve experienced the last few days), trying to paraphrase in order to make the text more understandable, etc. That’s why you shouldn’t be surprised/terrified/devastated when you realize that translating is a very time-consuming, confusing and sometimes irritating activity. I’m very curious if you've had any experiences with translating more demanding texts?

By the way, the language itself is such a fast developing field! I haven’t been living in Poland for over 2,5 years now and when I get to talk to my eighteen-year-old brother it turns out that I sometimes don’t understand his “school slang”. Furthermore, I had no idea how a USB stick was called in Polish since it wasn't popular or even well known at the time I was at high school. Now, that’s ridiculous, don’t you think so?;)

That's all for now about my struggle with finding the right words.

A mummy attacks!

I sometimes wonder where screenwriters get their ideas from… „Bubba Ho-tep“ is one of such bizarre screenplays. Let’s imagine an elderly resident of a nursing home who thinks he’s Elvis Presley. He claims that he switched roles with his imitator many years ago and that’s how he landed at this place in East Texas. Together with his “best friend”, a black J.F. Kennedy, he faces a mission of rescuing the nursing home from an evil Egyptian mummy which prowls the corridors of the house in search of the residents’ souls. It’s worth mentioning that this mummy sucks souls from their bodies through their… arseholes. If you add to this that one of the residents thinks he’s actually a cowboy from the Wild West who sleeps with his toy guns and the mummy itself is a ridiculous tacky shape from E class films you can more or less get a picture what kind of a parody this film is. I couldn’t help laughing all the time, because the whole idea of this piece was utterly ridiculous. Although I’m usually not into such kinds of films, I really enjoyed this one. You just have to treat it like a kind of simple entertainment which doesn’t lack imagination and has a more sophisticated plot than typical American mainstream comedies.

Among some highlights of this film I’d mention first of all the heavy Southern accent of Mr Presley which honestly made me switch on subtitles. This made me think of us, possible future interpreters, having to be extremely flexible and prepared for hundreds of different accents (which isn’t an easy task). Furthermore, I loved the atmosphere of the dark, half-dead nursing home where people were “disposed of” and now only wait for their death, living only from meal to meal. In one scene Elvis’s roommate dies and his daughter comes after a few days to take away his belongings. Elvis asks why she hadn’t visited his father within three years of his stay in the nursing home. She answers that she had been busy. That’s in lots of cases the essence of sending elderly relatives to such institutions. Last but not least I’d like to point out a very good performance of Bruce Campbell who played “Elvis”. He managed to convince me as a tired bored guy who seeks for something that would revive his life at last.
To sum up, if you need a big laugh, just grab for „Bubba Ho-tep“.

Polish - British --> multicultural

I’ve been trying to upload an interview with an American Melanie Tong that I and Astrid made. It took some time first to arrange a meeting with her, then to record the interview and edit the mp3 file, and finally to cut it in smaller chunks in order to make it work in the Internet. However, we haven’t had much success in uploading it so far and I honestly don’t know how it’ll going to end up. Anyway, I suddenly recalled that Melanie was talking about children in Austria sometimes staring at her because of her Asian = different appearance. Yes, it still happens although the country must have got used to Asian and African refugees that have been coming for some 30 years now (that’s my random estimate). Still, what I want to write about is an article on my fellow countrymen (I can’t help writing about Poalnd) being confused by multicultural Britain.
First of all, I have to explain that lots of Polish people moved to Great Britain or Ireland immediately after we joined the EU. That’s because they saw better work opportunities in those wealthier countries. It’s hard to give up-to-date figures on how many Poles are currently working in Great Britain, but according to a highly-respected Polish publication Polityka there were supposed to be already 1 million Poles in 2006 residing there. You can see how well represented we are (we let 1/38 of our population immigrate though ;).
But let’s get to the point. The problem is that my nation isn’t used to multiculturalism. In the best case you can come across some black students or Chinese cooks in the biggest cities like Warsaw. In fact there are, I believe, lots of Poles who haven’t seen a person with a different skin colour even once, since they spent their whole life in a small village in the north-east. That’s why I don’t blame them for experiencing a shock in multicultural Britain, but…
Polish children in British schools turn away from children of other races or workers-to-be apply already in Poland for jobs in areas where there are fewer black people. Some argue that this behaviour isn’t a matter of racism, but intolerance towards the new. Others claim that it’s a matter of time when they’ll get accustomed to new conditions. Knowing my nation I’m pretty confident that they can get on with everybody after some time (you wouldn’t find more flexible characters than ours ;).
Yet, what I personally find the most disappointing is the attitude of children. I assume that they usually don’t pay attention to race and if they do, their parents are responsible for it. The most relevant thing to do would be therefore to change adults’ philosophy of life. The article mentions that some religious societies pass this task to priests who are supposed to prepare future expats to behave properly in new surroundings (religion has a decisive influence on a big part of the society).
Leaving the problem on one side I consider immigration in this context a terrific opportunity to develop your character and become more flexible and tolerant toward other cultures and lifestyles. That’s why I hope that this “Britain experience” will have a positive impact on tolerance in my homeland when the people that are currently staying in England will come back one day and teach others the lessons they learned themselves.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/immigration/story/0,,2057571,00.html

An apple, hot cocoa and Beirut - my idea of a pleasant evening

It's definitely going to be a small essay on music and how it influenced my life. Participating in today's bliki-class I came to the conclusion that we write far too little about music that accompanies us in our lives. And I bet you all let inspire yourselves by sounds now and then...

When I was at high school, music used to be the most important part of my life, my escape from reality. Listening to my favourite bands on the way to school, at school, on my way back home and in the evenings was a strong habit. The best part was imagining how the artists would perform live. It was obvious you wouldn't be able to fly to Berlin during the week to watch Björk on scene, but the sheer vision was satisfying enough. Anyway, I unfortunately grew up, left my parents' protective wings, which didn't allow me earlier to follow my romantic music fantasies (summer festivals and gypsy travels through Europe), and started to live my own life. That suddenly meant that I became responsible for my actions and could even go to Vienna on foot to a concert if I wanted. As a matter of fact, I did make use of this unlimited freedom, in acceptable limits of course;) That's when I went to Radiohead concert in Dublin, one of my biggest and most painful disappointments. Having made a kind of spiritual mentors of those five Oxford guys I suffered severely from their far too forced and alienated performance in overcrowded Marley Park. Being almost trampled on and squashed by the violent crowd (don't mess up with the enthusiastic Irish!) I couldn't enjoy "the most anticipated event in my life". It maybe wasn’t a bad concert after all, but the venue just wasn’t suitable. Anyway, that's when music suddenly started loosing its place in my everyday life. Studying, working part-time, pursuing my hobbies and devoting enough time to my boyfriend and best friends was pretty time consuming and didn't leave much space for me to take my time and seriously deal with music. I reduced myself to sporadic concerts of bands who somebody somewhere recommended and started listening to the radio passively like a good night story.

Yet, an awakening came one day unexpectedly. That's what I originally wanted to write about, namely a band called Beirut. Just imagine a typical "alternative star life story": a high school dropout going to Europe, doing crummy jobs, but letting himself be inspired by exotic (meaning European) art (in this case music). That's exactly what Zac Condon from New Mexico did. This resulted in an outstanding creation of Balkan-like, played with over ten different instruments, music. These sounds are something refreshing, something completely untypical for the American new wave. It's like watching Kosturica's films and anticipating surprising turning points, with one small difference - the soothing voice of the vocalist in the background. The funniest detail of this whole music project is that Z. Condon apparently recorded almost the whole album in his... bedroom. Not a bad outcome for such modest conditions.

So here I am experiencing music again at its full extent, biting into a delicious apple, drinking my good night cocoa and melting listening to gypsy music made in America. If you like experimenting, I definitely recommend Beirut. One more suggestion or even a request – write something about music…

"Still separate after all these years" - the race matter in American schools

I've just read an interesting article on racial segregation in contemporary Americal schools. You can find it here: http://economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9079930 . And below I wrote a summary.

1954 the Supreme Court ruled in Brown vs. Board of Education case segregation in American public schools unlawful. However, although years have passed since the practice of racial segregation was outlawed, black and white children still learn in different worlds.

The authorities have been trying to keep the racially integrated school district system ever since Brown vs. Board of Education ruling, considering it a part of the affirmative action. In fact, black students have to make up a certain percentage of the student mix in every school. Nevertheless, some white parents complain about this quota system and accuse school boards of unfair treatment towards their children. Depriving white children of school places for the sake of the racial mix is their major reproach. One question arises: is it sensible to fight for this racially integrated school system even if this means sacrificing the quality of education? We slowly get to the core of the matter…

The main problem dividing blacks and whites is their income and their home. The former tend to earn less and live in city centres. By contrast, the latter can afford to move into suburbs and send their children to suburban private schools the poor blacks have no access to. This is how racial segregation is being fuelled nowadays – by financial means. By quitting the public school system affluent families contribute to the decline of inner-city schools attended mainly by poor non-whites.

School boards are drawing a conclusion from the simple connection between low income (which in most cases concerns the blacks) and students’ poor performance at school. That’s why they want to concentrate on this issue and take measures against it. For instance, instead of mixing them by race, the Wake County school district in North Carolina began to integrate students from different economic backgrounds. It offers free or price-reduced lunches for the struggling students. Besides, it’s been trying to put more of them in one school so that they don’t feel alienated. The results of this policy are striking: well-off white families are enrolling their children in those public schools. The integrated school models are working well.

Although the main educational goal in contemporary America is to support slow learners from low-income families, the politicians ignore this unpopular issue. Instead, they are trying to win support of the middle class. This is the class with more influence and financial means after all and that’s what it is all about in politics. In the end the poor are neglected as always and the gap between the blacks and whites is growing.

Russian Blog

My favourite American expat in Russia (actually the only interesting one the blog of whom I tracked down) tends to write a lot about current affairs:Putin expressing his indignation over American plans of missile defences in Poland and Czech Republic, Putin threatening NATO to suspend Russia’s compliance with a treaty on conventional arms in Europe, the government brutally putting down the opposition march in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. And finally the Russian-Estonian dispute over a monument to Red Army soldiers. An American somehow doesn't fit in this almost authocratic country. That’s why I utterly admire Aaron Hale-Dorrell who works in Russia as an English teacher.Let's face it - comparing Russia and the USA is like drawing an analogy between night and day. I honestly don’t see much these countries have in common. The former haunted by the past burden of communism and the latter boasting about its ideas of democracy, freedom and equality. Funnily enough, a coincidence made me study both Russian and English;)