The Occidentalist

I spend much of the day today with the BKF working on issues of translation. Although he had marked yesterday and today out for translation he did nothing yesterday. He explains that 'translation is more efficient' when it is the two of us.

So we grind through the remainder of the text - pretty easy actually.. perhaps 10 pages or so in 3 hours. Primarily him reading, scrunching up his lips, and then translating aloud. I type and correct the obvious Koreanisms and suggest "real English" versions of what he is saying on the rare occasions he doesn't come up with them (e.g., He still says "10's of" something when he knows gawdamn well it's "dozens" in English). Sometimes we struggle around issues of word meaning between cultures and how to translate folks wisdom (the old, "beating around the bush" versus "licking the outside of the watermelon" thing).

We also go over the translations from "prose" to "poetry" in the poems. I tell him my LS has contributed one stanza and he is amused. She calls and leaves me a message about a couplet during our translation session, but in this case I like my version better.

It's mine.

That's why! Yeah sure.. but watch me leave a troublesome verse here before this is all over! ;-)

I read my versions of the poetry and it reveals a few misunderstandings which we clear up pretty quickly. In addition we have translated a few new poems (most of which I have got rough poetic translations on already).

Then, bastid that he is, he reveals we "only" have 10 pages of footnotes left to translate.

Degree of difficulty?

We need Hangeul, Chinese character, and English phonetic versions of each bit of text we are discussing. Then we can get about to translating the interpretive bit. It is an epic clusterfuck.

I nearly have all the breath out of the bastard's lungs, and my thumbs completely through his trachea when JAE wanders in and calmly announces that her water has broken.

She is unaturally calm. The BAG, who has been out getting her oil changed (yeah .. in the car wiseguys!) returns and she has also bought presents for all of us while she was waiting.

• BAG dispenses gifts
• JAE continues to leak
• JAE gets BAG some delicious Key Lime Cheesecake which BAG settles in on.
  
• JAE drinks milk and has an apple because "I should eat light food since I'm just going to throw it up anyway"
• BKF collects things
• Korean Nuclear Family (in town for the birth) inexplicably is not going to the hospital and invites me to stay with them for "drinks and beef" (that is probably an exact translation). I demure, just because I am that way.
  
• After the car is loaded BKF remembers a two-page business proposal (a friend's) that he would like me to look at. We leave JAE outside and go in and fire up the laptop and work on it as JAE waits outside.
  
• All suddenly realize that with BKF and JAE leaving, the visiting dad will need to be in charge of driving the family, so there is an ad hoc, "this is the car and this is how you drive it" lesson.
• BKF and JAE drive into street and then decide to check vehicle for necessities (primarily camera, and all I'm saying is it's a freaking birth and if I wanted to see that obvious and easy 'miracle' I'd be on Animal Channel) and block traffic for about 5 minutes.

To say the seen was surreal would be.. well, so real it would belong to Sir Real.

And I still have a few problematic verses (though new problems will be revealed if BKF and I have any time to get together before the Friday deadline - and we'd better) including the following that I leave for my LPS (there... Lovely Political Sister.. she is now yclept). This is one where I don't have all the words yet, so questions of beat and rhyme are premature.

Still, most of the others are not only done, but now in some kind of "ameter."

This shit better get me paid! ;-)

On the lotus curtain fragrant incense spreads Outside light rain wakes apricot blossoms Under a pavilion awning the bell before dawn wakes a dream Forsythia next to a pond a thrush calls out. A spring day, swallows fattens and I shut myself in Lethargic hands, the golden needle stopped its work Butterflies in pairs waft off from flowers And competes to follow the withering flowers in garden shades Shivery cold permeates into the green skirt Spring breeze cuts through the longing heart Who can understand the emptiness inside? Lovebirds dance in myriad of flowers. The color of spring deepens in Hwangsayang's villa Red and green shimmers on silken window screen The fragrant grass distresses (creates uneasiness)

On the lotus curtain fragrant incense spreads Light rain wakes apricot blossoms in their beds Under a pavilion awning a dream is broken by the pre-dawn bell Forsythia next to a pond, a thrush lets out a trill. A spring day, I shut myself in as swallows gorge Lethargic hands, the golden needle halts its course Butterflies in pairs waft off from blossoms And race withering flowers in shade in the garden Shivery cold permeates into the green skirt Spring breeze slices through the longing heart Who can understand when the inside is empty Lovebirds dance together in flowers aplenty. In Hwangsayang's villa the color of spring is deepening Red and green shimmers on silken window screening The fragrant grass is strange and somehow distressing.