What is Translation? Reading “The Giving Tree” and think about what is translating a story.

Hello everyone. I’m a high school English teacher, and sometimes I have an opportunity to have a class for people who are not high school students. It is like a open school kind of thing. Since I live in a small town, some town’s people who wants to study something at a night class in my high school sometimes come and take a class this season. In this time, I hold a class of “the art of translation”. Of course I’m not a professional translator though, there are some people who really love to hear something they don’t even know.

So, what is translation then? I read a book written by a pro-translator and she said “becoming some other people or thing” is a translation. A translator needs to be a J.K. Rowling, and should see the world of the magic. Have a relationship with a person in the world of 200 years ago. Anyway, we need an imagination. Translating is providing an interpretation. Original material is just one, but there are so many interpretations. Original will not be faded, but translation will do fade. Suggesting that I interpreted this story like this is a translation, and to do a better translation, we ought to read materials deeper. Translator is firstly a reader anyway.

Anyway, the most of them are second hand information of a professional translators. Then, I set an assignment for them to translate, a kind of picture book, “The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein. The story is very simple though, it has been loved by so many people around the world. The translator of a Japanese version, Haruki Murakami leave a message on the last page, and he says that everyone should read this book again and again, for this is a kind of mirror in a nature that reflect yourself.

The story is really simple. There are a boy and a tree and they loved each other. However, as the boy grew older, he began to say that he wants money or wants to build a house. Every time he says such things, the tree give him apples to make money, and trunks to build a house. And lastly, the tree became a stump. Then, the boy who became really old came to visit the stump. The tree disappointed with the fact that she can’t give anything, but the man says “I don’t need anything” or like that. Then, he sit down on the stump. The tree felt happy to be sit, and the man felt happy because he could rest on it. This is a brief summary.

To be honest, I felt really sad reading the story. Many people would read a mother in the tree, and I feel so sad to wonder how much things I have taken away from her. However, if I became a father, maybe such kind of interpretation could change.

It is allowed to have a various interpretation. There is no only one answer. This is why I like literature. Sometimes this kind pf person is thought to be a very lazy guy though, please enjoy some literature in this season.

Thank you for reading!

How To Be A Real Writer (Novelist) In Japan?

Unlike to the other states, it is winning prizes with authority that you need to to be a real writer in Japan. Of course you can be an essay writer if you are famous in some territories or genres. However, it seems necessary for you to win an important literature prize in Japan if you really want to be a fictional writer.

There are several important literature prizes. The most famous ones are “Akutagawa Prize” and “Naoki Prize”. Former prize is thought to be the most important literature prize for pure literature, and the latter is for entertainment literature in Japan. These are the most important prizes so that you could be immediately become famous when you win the prize.

As for the Akutagawa Prize, you can receive a special watch and 1,000,000 yen as an option. Once you win the prize, everyone would call you as Akutagawa Prize winning author or like that. I’m fond of reading the prize laureate fictions, but I have no idea how can you get the prize. The winners are people from very young to very old. When you really get the literature and describe with a solid fictional world, maybe you would receive the prize.

It’s one of my foolish dream though. I hope someday I can win it.

Thank you very much for reading the article. I would prefer your comments or some other topic requests for me to write. Please write a comment or give me an email through contact page.

A Perfect Timing for Reading Books in My Busy Daily Life

There are so many books to read in my house

Reading books. When you hear this phrase, what would be your reaction? Actually, my reaction was differ from when I was a teenager. I thought reading books or new paper and watching NHK (Japanese kind of BBC) are worst boring thing in my life at that time, and I simply couldn’t believe why adults are enough to be bare with such super boring look things. For instance, each letters in both books and newspapers are shockingly small for me at that time, and any TV program of NHK looked so serious that I unconsciously thought the personalities were AI robots (AI could do better, actually. Then I thought).

Time passes, and people can really change. One of the great meaning of education is sometimes described as this “changing”. Now I really owe my professors who have taught me because thanks to them, I changed so much, and now I can’t imagine the life without reading books (but watching NHK still…) . In my opinion, the first ten books you try to read will the hardest experience in your book life. The way to finish your book seems climbing Mt. Fuji or Everest. But somehow, you bare with reading, reading and reading. At last, when you finish reading 10th or 9th books, you would realize, “I had totally misunderstood about what reading books is!”.

A philosopher once said, “Ultimately, reading books means reading yourself”. And I totally agree with it. By improving your reading skill, your skill to live with clear thoughts or meaning would improve too. You can get words that can describe or explain your confused imagery of your mind. Everyone must be translator in terms of translating your own heart into your mother language. So, yeah, reading books is great. And this is thought to be one of the best my life changing event so far.

Since I was a university student (my major was English Literature), I read a lot from the time (actually not that much though…). However, after becoming a high school teacher, I couldn’t easily find the time to read, and had been frustrated about that. But now I became 29 and I could get the pace of work, the frequency of rearranging my room has much decreased for now. And I could finally find the best timing for reading books in my daily life.

First is after a supper. You feel full stomach and feel dull to wash the dishes, than I put them in the kitchen sink, and put some water in the dish. Then, you can start reading books with satisfaction. Sometimes it lasts for 30 minutes to read, or 2 hours to read.

Second is while talking bath. Soaking half of the body in warm water, and reading with drowsy feelings. My ideal time is for 20 to 30 minutes because you would feel really dizzy at that time.

Third is just before sleeping. With a warm light of your bedside lamp, you can read any books and that would definitely makes you fall asleep within 15 min.

However, sometimes you find yourself so tired in a weekdays and maybe you would have many schedules to do for weekdays. So, for such people like me, the true best timing for reading is Saturday and Sunday. Cancel any schedules and let’s read for all day. You could read 3 books if you really love to read in a day. For somebody, only Saturday and Sunday seems a bit sad and not enough. But, man, the desire for reading would rather decreased if you are free everyday, I think for myself.

Anyway, thank you for reading as usual, and have a great reading life.

Book Review: Counterattack of the Thirty by Sohn Won-pyung

Just finished reading of “Counterattack of Thirty (Original title: 서른의 반격, 2017)” by Sohn Won-pyung. Walking in a bookstore and this cover illustration captured my eyes suddenly. What an impressive design. The title was actually much more intriguing. I skimmed through the book at once and I found out that the “thirty” means age of 30. In the novel, Ji-hye the protagonist of the novel is around 30, and living unsatisfied ordinary days as an irregular employees. She tries to get a regular job at a decent, stable company in her favorite job territory, but the reality was a bit hard. Then, she somehow worked in the company, but one day there comes a mysterious irregular coworker, Gyu-ok, and he propose an interesting suggestion to her; counterattack against their unfair society. Although these revenge are really tiny prank thing, but they can gradually make a small crack in their unfair daily environment.

The story line would sound familiar to you, but the story is not that simple. The atmosphere of the book seems much like cloudy, and actually, you would finish reading with the same atmosphere of cloudy. However, thanks to the story, we can think the cloudy atmosphere as more positive one when you close your book.

This books tells you the beauty of counterattacks. Due to a development of SNS or ultimate capitalism society, we can easily feel depressed or unpleasant when you look at your tiny smartphone window. You are forced to compare almost everyday, and everyone seems to be angry with a tiny bullshit stuff. People must be extremely busy or boored. We are becoming or more scary for doing a different thing and get criticized.

However, one of the lessons the book told me, it is counterattack that your life really begins. Even though, it is a very small revenge or counterattack, very small objection, that would make a very small but important change in this world. There is a line I love .

Just say “it’s wrong” when you see something goes wrong. At least it can lead the better world.
Counterattack of Thirty (Self Translation)

Now I’m feeling I can totally agree with the idea. Without our objection, everyone tries to make you somebody else. Therefore, why don’t we resist, oppose against unreasonable reality. We are all deserve to oppose something when we are around 30. I’m becoming 29 in this year, and it is my real pleasure that I could read this book at this age.

Thank you very much for reading the article. I would prefer your comments or some other topic requests for me to write. Please write a comment or give me an email through contact page.

My Great Conflict: Should I read books in Japanese or English?

Today, I’d like to talk about my great great conflict as an English leaner as a second language. If there are some readers who can understand my feeling below and could leave some comment, that would be really helpful. Anyway, my issue here is “Which books should I read more, Japanese books or English books?”

As my profile picture looks, I Am a Japanese (often misunderstood as Korean 60% and Chinese40% in an international airport). My dream when I was 9 was to be a pilot of airplane because pilots seemed so cool because they spoke really fluent English and was a kind of a symbol of the coolest people who use English. However, as my eyesights getting weaker (not by studying hard, but watching illegal uploaded anime videos on YouTube of dawn in a dark room), I became a person who don’t have any specific dream jobs.

High school teacher took a poll of what kind of university and job do I dream when I was 16. Holy crap. How many 16 years old can write your dream job or future plan seriously? That was one of the most ridiculous poll I had ever taken at the time. So, I just wrote “Tokyo University (Harvard in the US)”. I meant it. I was serious in a way. But, my score and grader was not that good, actually far from it. And exactly it was the high school day that I started and have been struggling and continuing asking myself “Who am I?” and “Who do I want to be?”

Anyhow, I was somehow good at subjects of Politics and Economy and English at that time, I chose universities and departments of such territories. Then, it turned out that the best option that I got was English Department of Meiji Gakuin University in Tokyo. Then, I became a university student of English department. My major became an American literature, and movies. The lectures and seminars on American literature was really fun, and I somehow became a grad student of Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo. The novels of Kurt Vonnegut became one of my top priority to research.

During that time, I became so depressed because the life routine was like a prisoner’s one; reading through a day in a windowless laboratory. Then, I finished a master degree and now I’m teaching English at a high school. The problem when I was a student was I got too much input, but now, my problem became that I have too much output. So, crying for the moon, eh?

However, I’m still falling love with literature, I mean the whole cultural thing especially book and movies. I love reading books of not only fiction but also essays (critical philosophical ones to anything seemed fun). Then, I found myself writing something is also really fun to me. I can write 24 hours about anything especially, especially, especially in Japanese because I am anyway Japanese… I may have 100 times or 1,000 times more deeper and wider expression in Japanese. Everyone should know that.

So, writing is my lifetime hobby now, but you know, as you expect, I want to write in English too. I want express myself in English too because I can reach to more people by expressing in Japanese, and I want to use my English skills as a tool like anybody else do, like company men working at a global company, international company men, pilots, international surgeon, or like that.

I am teaching English but I realize that this job doesn’t require teachers to use their English as a tool. You know, maybe we are good at teaching how to use the screwdriver but don’t make anything using the driver! Just teaching is not enough to me. So, I want to create and be somebody using English as a tool.

Therefore, for example, I want to write some novel in English. And for that, I really think I should read many English books. But, unfortunately, or maybe this is a great excuse though, there are so many attractive Japanese books in this world. Oh myyyy…. I am so weak and lazy that I opened some English books and then I realized I read some other Japanese book after closing it.

So, my question is this. Should I read more Japanese books to fulfill my desire and lose English ability, or read more English books to improve and deepen my English usage but lose Japanese ability. Ultimately, should I write in Japanese or English? That would be my problem. Maybe I would think too much, but you know, I want to make it clear. I’m a person if I could set a really clear goal, then I can do my best.

The reason I read books (part 2)

Now I can tell you a lot of things about the importance of reading books. It’s simply because I’ve read a certain amount of books for now. Before reading, I had no idea how to get smart. The easiest way to get smart (in a serious meaning) is just reading books written by really smart authors. It must be difficult to try to bite such an hard stuff because you had enjoyed chewing marshmallow thing so far. But then, you’ve got a word that can describe your world more vivid and concrete. You can get a new language or colors to describe your view. If you didn’t read books, no matter how you try to think of something deeply, the depth of your thoughts can be a puddle’s one. However, reading books can bring you to the real depth.

There is a quote which I already forgot who said though, I really like. It goes like “When you are reading books, you are ultimately reading yourself”. Reading ability of a passage or article can be measured by certain tests, but how about reading ability of life? Reading books can definitely brush up your skill of reading a real life situation with cool head. Of course, there would be a side effect of reading books. One would be like you would feel lonely when you are reading. Or you would think too much about the world. However, still the benefit of reading books would absolutely outweigh the minor impacts of it.

I’ve loved books for almost ten years now (from 18 to 28). I sometimes thought, if I could find myself as a bookworm when I was a child, I can be a fresh writer around my age. But, people have their own time zones, right? Comparing yourself with others can be insulting your self (maybe said by Bill Gates?). So, I never compare. I just compare myself with past myself. Anyway, I have been very interested writing something for almost ten years (weird coincidence, huh?). So, I try to write as much as I can these days. At my workplace, I write a kind of newsletter, or any documents. At home, I write Japanese diary or this English blog. I wish someday I can live with writing for somebody not only in Japanese and English.

Thank you very much for reading this article.

Thoughts on Haruki Murakami’s “Murakami Radio” for Stay Home

No matter how you say, I do believe that Haruki Murakami is the best Japanese living author. He is mysterious and he has unbelievable knowledge about literature and music (he is a great collector of vinyl record for Jazz or Classical music). That actually makes me jealous since I have far less knowledge than him, but I have certain knowledge of him. He never appears any TV shows or even radio program, and actually I (one of his huge fan) love such his stance (there are too many pretending genius author on TV). Therefore, when I first heard the news that Haruki Murakami had his own radio show, I was laughing out loud with crying.

It is said that the very first program was planned the last one, but the great interest of listeners make him come back soon, and he host his show regularly these years. And on May 22nd, he aired the unscheduled radio show from his house. Here is his official comment for the listeners on the official website of Murakami Radio.

Haruki Murakami’s study. What a cool study. Maybe Haruki Murakami↗︎

These are difficult times. We’re living with all kinds of restraints and new inconveniences. There’s nothing easy about not seeing the people you want to see, or going the places you want to go, or doing the things you want to do. It’s hard. Which is why I’ve chosen the songs you’re about to hear — this is music that, for me, has the power to soothe the soul, music that cheers me up a bit. All the songs you’re going to hear are playing on my home system, the system I always use when listening to music. If things sound a bit different today, that would be why. Welcome to my study.

What a cool comment. Actually you can read about the contents and get the information about songs played in the show in the official site.

Since I think he is a kind god, the situation he’s staying at his home makes me feel really weird. But, just the fact makes me really relieved. I actually prefer listening to his talk rather than his favorite music. His talk has a full of wit and honesty and humor. Every simple mention seemed to contain a great secret of our lives.

Thank you for reading. Have a great Murakami night.