Lost in Translation...

I arrived in China knowing communication would be difficult. I knew it. I'm an Arkansan who does NOT speak Chinese. What else could I expect but some hurdles to cross?

My first couple weeks on my project we spent finalizing my plan-of-attack (aka: work plan,) making initial contact with community members who could introduce me to the galleries, and doing some background research; all of which was simple enough. My first interviews over the following two weeks were with foreign run galleries. Minor hick-ups included: not being able to fully sift through a THICK French accent, arriving 15 minutes late to a couple interviews due to some “navigation issues” (shocking… I know,) some galleries forgot I was coming… All-in-all things went relatively smooth -probably a little too smooth.

The following week I spent time scheduling meetings with Chinese run galleries and met my translator. (This is where things became rocky.) I fully expected to have difficulties with communicating with Chinese people. However, I didn’t expect to have problems communicating with the person who was supposed to be TRANSLATING FOR ME. AH… IPSP.

The first red flag was Yang (my student translator) showing up over an hour late to our meeting. We agreed to meet at a Starbucks off of the Changshou exit. She went to the Starbucks near the Changshu exit. In spite of my numerous emails and texts, (she thought that I had been misspelling the exit where we were going to meet) I still waited over an hour. Not a problem. I mean, how can you be upset with someone who is going to help you secure half of your data for your project?! You aren’t. So, we had a nice chat and I found out that she was only going to be able to help me for 3 days. NOT TWO WEEKS! Awesome.

Seeing the bright side, I thought, no problem… we’ll cram 15 interviews into 3 days. They will be LONG days, but we’ll get it done. Long story short, many of the Chinese galleries canceled so we only had a few interviews.

Translation during the interviews was rocky, at best. (I’ll spare the details.) Then Yang got sick. The last day I was left to fend for myself. I decided that I would push ahead and go on my own and get whatever information I could.

I showed up at the first gallery and asked for Xu (I pronounced it Zoo) The ladies looked at me like I had 5 heads and said... "We don't have animals here, we are an art gallery." I sat there for a second and realized that they just said, “We don’t have animals.” I immediately started to laugh at myself and then wrote down the name. They said, “Oh, you want to talk with SHIU.” Yup, that’s who I need to talk with. (obviously, X makes a SH sound!)

Today, I went into a gallery and having learned from previous mistakes, the name was already written down. I walked in and handed the man at the front desk my business card and the name of my interviewee and said that I needed to talk with Jang Jung. A lady came down and shook my hand and asked if I wanted to see the gallery. Absolutely.

After slowly walking around in the gallery for over 20 minutes, the lady asked me if I would like to buy anything. I said, “No, thank you. The art is amazing, but I don’t think that I can afford it. Would you like to start the interview?” The look. The look of me having 5 heads was back. Having left the name of the person I needed to talk with the man at the front desk, I tried to pronounce Jang Jung. The lady said, “Oh, you want to talk with my manager.” BINGO!

I waited another 20 minutes for “Jang” to get off the phone. “Jang” came out and handed me her business card… the pieces all came together. I was in the WRONG gallery. Great work, Becca.

At times I am amazed at what can be accomplished with no words at all and walk as proud as the World Champion of Charades. Other times, I wonder if I could be any more clueless! But that’s how it is in China. Some days you win. Some days you don’t.

On the up-side of things. In the interview at MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art), an undergrad student from Yale who speaks Chinese offered to help translate for me! He'll be coming with me to the rest of my interviews this week. Chalk that one up in the "win" column.