David Henry Hwang’s entertaining new play, Chinglish , which has just opened on Broadway, is about what is lost and what gets inflated¹ in translation. It begins with a British consultant² giving the main character, American businessman Daniel Cavanaugh, some advice so he can get around the widespread problem of poor interpreting: “When doing business in China, always bring your own translator.”

剧作家黄哲伦(David Henry Hwang)的喜剧新作《中式英语》(Chinglish)最近在百老汇(Broadway)上演，该剧讲述的是翻译中失去和被夸大的东西。该剧一开场，一名英国顾问给剧中主人公美国商人丹尼尔•卡瓦诺(Daniel Cavanaugh)提供了一些建议，这样他就能避开普遍存在的蹩脚翻译问题：“在中国经商，要永远带着自己的翻译。”

Daniel has come to Guiyang, the small provincial³ capital of Guizhou, to sell English signage to the city for its fancy new arts centre. Ever since French architect Paul Andreu built a titanium and glass fantasy of a cultural centre above an artificial lake in Beijing ahead of the 2008 Olympics, every provincial capital in China wants one.

丹尼尔来到贵州省会贵阳，向该市新建的漂亮的艺术中心推销英语指示牌。自从2008年北京奥运会前法国建筑师保罗•安德烈(Paul Andreu)在北京一个人工湖上建造了一座钛金属和玻璃混合结构的、充满梦幻色彩的文化中心以来，中国每个省会城市都希望拥有一座类似的建筑。

On a trip to China in 2005, Hwang, whose previous works include the award-winning 1988 play M Butterfly, visited just such an arts centre in Shanghai. It featured sleek⁴ German design and the best Italian marble, but also the badly translated signage that is ubiquitous in China. The rest room for the disabled had a sign reading: “Deformed⁵ Man’s Toilet.”

2005年，当黄哲伦来到中国时，他就在上海参观了一个这样的艺术中心。黄哲伦之前的作品包括1988年上演的获奖剧作《蝴蝶君》(M Butterfly)。这个艺术中心运用德国的时尚设计，采用来自意大利上好的大理石，但标牌的翻译很烂，而这在中国是普遍的现象。残疾人洗手间的标牌是这样写的：“畸形人厕所。”

As the comedy unfolds, however, one realises that language is among the least of the problems. The misperceptions are more fundamental. When Daniel pitches for a contract to the cultural minister of the province, the translator describes his home town, Cleveland, as close to Chicago, and the minister takes the conversation in unexpected directions. He loves Chicago, he says, especially its steakhouses. Daniel’s sales pitch is thrown off course, but he replies that the steak chain Smith &Wollensky is his second home. “A steak restaurant, where he sometimes lives, ” explains the translator.

然而，随着这部喜剧的展开，人们意识到，语言是最不重要的问题之一。误解是更根本性的问题。当丹尼尔力求与该省文化局长达成一份协议时，翻译描述了他的家乡克利夫兰，离芝加哥很近，于是文化局长把谈话带到了意料之外的方向。他说，他喜欢芝加哥，特别是那里的牛排餐厅。丹尼尔的销售说辞被带离了轨道，但他回答，连锁牛排餐厅Smith &Wollensky是他的第二个家。翻译解释说：“有时他会住在这家牛排餐厅。”

Poor translation cuts both ways as Daniel discovers when the minister’s assistant looks at the website for his company, Ohio Signage, and ridicules⁶ the poor Chinese on the website, which Daniel had asked a languages student to write.

蹩脚的翻译对双方都有影响。这位局长的助手在浏览丹尼尔的公司Ohio Signage的网站时，就对网站上糟糕的中文大加嘲笑，而丹尼尔是让一个学语言的学生来写这段文字的。

When American writer Deborah Fallows, author of Dreaming in Chinese, about the difficulties of learning Mandarin⁷, gave a reading in Beijing last year, a young Chinese woman in the audience protested vociferously⁸ at the indignities⁹ of learning English grammar if it is your second language.

当《梦游中文》(Dreaming in Chinese)一书的作者、美国作家黛博拉•法罗斯(Deborah Fallows)去年在北京宣传她的新书时，针对书中对于作为第二语言学习英语语法的蔑视，听众中有一位年轻中国女子提出强烈抗议。该书讲述的是学习中文普通话的困难。

Yet for all the mishaps¹⁰ along the way, more Chinese are learning English and more Americans and other nationalities are learning to speak Chinese. At the recent Canton Fair, where retailers¹² and wholesalers from places as far-flung as Ethiopia and Brazil discussed consignments¹³ of office furniture and Christmas decorations, it was apparent how much easier it has become to do business in China. Almost everyone spoke¹⁴ enough English to get by just fine with a bit of sign language, a decent product catalogue and that handy tool for all complicated haggling¹⁵ in China – the calculator.

然而，尽管存在这些小意外，但越来越多的中国人在学习英语，越来越多的美国人和其它国籍的人在学说中文。在最近的广交会上，人们明显看出了如今在中国经商已经变得容易多了，在这次交易会上，远至埃塞俄比亚和巴西等国的零售商和批发商讨论了办公家具和圣诞装饰品的交货事宜。借助一些手语、像样的产品目录以及用于中国所有复杂侃价的方便工具——计算器，再加上够用的英语，几乎所有人都能用顺利交流。

But, as Chinglish brilliantly sets out, the problems of two vastly different cultures interacting but never quite integrating have less to do with language than one would think.

然而，正如《中式英语》睿智的情节那样，两种有着巨大差异、互动但从未相互融合的文化存在的问题，不仅仅是人们所认为的语言问题。

When Daniel is pitching to a Chinese official who asks out loud “Why should we put our faith in him?”, Daniel counter-intuitively lets on that he used to work for Enron. The Chinese are transfixed. Did he know Kenneth Lay? Did he know Jeffrey Skilling? Ms Xi, Daniel’s mistress, a government official who is also present at the pitch, tries to swing the deal his way by saying, “Mr Cavanaugh knew them all! He was a chief architect of the disaster!” Never, says the awestruck official presiding over the meeting, has such a world-famous financial figure come to Guiyang.

当丹尼尔向一位中国官员推销时，这位官员大声问道：“我们为何要相信他？”，丹尼尔违反直觉的透露，他曾为安然(Enron)工作过。中国人呆住了。他认识肯尼斯•莱(Kenneth Lay)吗？他认识杰弗里•斯基林(Jeffrey Skilling)吗？丹尼尔的情妇Xi是一名政府官员，她也在场。她试图让这笔交易按丹尼尔的计划进行，她说道：“卡瓦诺认识他们所有人!他是这场灾难的主设计师！”主持会议的官员肃然起敬地说，从来没有这样一位世界闻名的金融人物来过贵阳。

Chinglish is a play, of course, but similar differences in outlook abound¹⁶ in real life when doing business in China. Recently, the world’s largest retailer¹¹, Walmart, was ordered to close all 13 of its stores in the city of Chongqing for 15 days because ordinary pork had been mislabelled as organic. The Chongqing government railed about how often the retailer had been in trouble with the city administration; Walmart announced that its China CEO and local head of HR were resigning for “personal reasons”. It outlined the “rectification¹⁷ actions” it had taken.

当然，《中式英语》只是一部戏，但在中国经商时，在实际生活中，类似的观点分歧大量存在。最近，全球最大零售商沃尔玛(Walmart)被勒令关闭在重庆所有的13家门店15天，因为他们在普通猪肉贴上了绿色猪肉的标签。重庆市政府责怪这家零售商经常与管理部门发生不愉快。沃尔玛宣布，其中国区CEO及人力资源主管因“个人原因”辞职。该公司并介绍了其采取的“整顿措施”。

But when they reopened, consumers mobbed the stores and said the bargains were better than ever – they didn’t care what the Chongqing officials thought.

但在这些门店重新营业时，消费者蜂拥而入，他们表示，这里的商品价格比以往更便宜了，他们不关心重庆市政府官员的想法。

As Daniel says while giving a lecture in the US at the end of Chinglish: “Nowadays to be successful, you have to understand your place in their [China’s] picture. Just be aware that you may not – well, I can assure you that you will not get everything you want. And that may just have to be enough.”

正如在《中式英文》结尾丹尼尔在美国做演讲时所说的：“如今，要想成功，你必须明白你在他们（中国）那里的位置。要知道，你或许不会——哦，我可以向你保证，你不会得到你想要的一切。或许只能这样。”