BEIJING: A group of about 40 teachers from Shanghai International Studies University (SISU) recently were given a “challenging” job: translate the history of the Communist Party of China (CPC) into seven different languages – English, Russian, French, Spanish, Arabic, German and Japanese, to help more foreigners better know and precisely understand the CPC’s true history.
The translation will be showcased in the iconic memorial site of the First National Congress of the CPC in Shanghai, where the Party was born in 1921. Along with over 1 million visitors from home, the memorial also received over 20,000 international visitors, including foreign diplomats and students, in one year.
How can foreigners learn about China and its history? Translators play an important role. “For the international audience, learning about the real history of the CPC is a helpful way of understanding China,” Jiang Feng, chair of the University Council from SISU, told the Global Times. “The century-long journey that the CPC has taken to rejuvenate the Chinese nation has been spectacular and unprecedented in human history.”
The devil is in the details
“We were given the original materials, about 160,000 words, between January and the end of February, and we were scheduled to hand in the work in April,” Mao Xiaohong, deputy director of the University Council Office, who is responsible for the entire project’s coordination told the Global Times.
Over the past several decades, China has made spectacular economic achievements, lifting over half a billion people out of poverty and becoming the second largest economy in the world. But the West remains biased over China’s economic development.
Due to this, the teachers, including non-Party members, participating in the project all feel excited about the responsibility they have to help the outside world learn about China and the history of the Party as they are.
We have to be “extremely precise” especially on historical facts, as “we need to respect the truth and act as a woodpecker to continue to check and improve the works,” Mao explained.
“The translators have to review a lot of reference books to know the history before translating,” Mao said, noting that the translators conducted extensive fact-checking research into every little detail.
For example, in order to be sure about which “Dong Ya Lü Guan” Henk Sneevliet stayed in when he attended the First National Congress of the CPC in 1921, they checked a lot of historical records and literature. Eventually, they found out it was the Oriental Hotel, and not the East Asia Hostel.
In order to ensure the captions and descriptions in English match the exhibits and photos the memorial, Mao and her colleagues went to the memorial sites to review the contents section by section. They needed to make sure they used the most suitable translations to fit into the limited space for captions.
– The Daily Mail-Global Times News exchange item
