Reader Response and My Translation of Pirates and Publishers
Reader response to the guest essay "My Big Sister, Amiq," my Translation of Pirates and Publishers and news of Taipei International Book Exhibition!
Greetings in June! I sent this issue earlier because it is the opening day of the Taipei International Book Exhibition! News of the exhibition is in the last section. (The next issue will still be released on June 22.)
The first section includes reader responses, and the second section is on my new translation, the Chinese version of Pirates and Publishers by Wang Fei-hsien (版權誰有? 翻印必究?), with news of the speech to be given by the author at the Taipei International Book Exhibition!
Thank Huifen for sharing her thoughts on the guest essay “My Big Sister, Amiq.” If there are any thoughts you’d like to share, please do not hesitate to leave a comment or reply to this e-mail message.
Lastly, we will meet at 10:00 am (Taipei Time) on July 2 to discuss about Pai Hsien-Yung’s Taipei People. Welcome to join our online reading club! If you are interested, feel free to leave a comment, reply to this e-mail message or write to me at transcreation@substack.com to register.
《翻譯寫作的文字風景》是中英文雙語電子報。如果只想收到中文版，請到網站右上角的「My Account」內進行操作，也可以直接回覆這封E-mail或寫信到transcreation@substack.com，由我幫忙更改設定。再次感謝你的訂閱支持！
這篇文章的中文版在這裡。
Reader Response
I received Huifen Huang’s response to the guest essay “My Big Sister, Amiq,” which she likes very much. Huifen is my friend and colleague, and she humbly calls herself an “ordinary office worker”:
I like this issue of the e-newsletter very much, not only because Apyang Imiq’s essay is humorous and interesting (I decided to get a copy of his collection of essays to read), but also because I have recently become interested in my father’s Hakka origin and Hakka culture. Because of my father, I feel that Hakka is also one of my mother tongues, and my identity has been added another layer — how fantastic.
Huifen asked me:
I wonder if you also had thoughts about identity in the process of learning Taiwan Minnan?
I am glad that Huifen likes “My Big Sister, Amiq.” Since the start of the newsletter, I have thought about the question of mother tongues many times. Here is my brief response:
I spoke Minnan when I was a child, mainly to my grandmother, and I still speak it now, but only in a li-li-lak-lak (broken and fragmented) way. There are few opportunities to speak it, and I myself am not studying hard enough.
I think if it weren’t for the national language policy (mainly of KMT and also of the Japanese era), we should all still be able to speak these mother tongues, and I think this is something of a colonial scar.
Recently, I have plucked up the courage to chat in Minnan with a few friends who speak Minnan and are willing to practice it. I feel very happy at these rare occasions, and I hope to improve my Minnan more and more!
Thank Huifen for sharing her thoughts. Please do not hesitate to leave a comment or reply to share your thoughts or experience at any time!
My New Translation: Chinese Version of Pirates and Publishers (版權誰有? 翻印必究?)
My translation efforts of the previous six months have finally been materialized into a physical book. The translation output includes more than 200,000 words in total — this is really the thickest book I have ever translated. Although there are over 300 pages, the narrative is eloquent and readable, so rest assured and get an English and/or Chinese copy! The best part about translating academic monographs is to see the author’s solid research, which motivates me to work harder on my translation.
Pirates and Publishers: A Social History of Copyright in Modern China (版權誰有? 翻印必究?: 近代中國作者, 書商與國家的版權角力戰) is a masterpiece by Professor Wang Fei-Hsien, which unravels the history of copyright in China in a both informative and interesting way. Starting from the origin of the term “copyright,” it traces the history from Meiji Japan to China in the 1960s and beyond, spanning more than a century. The book offers a clear delineation of the complicated past of copyright. Questions such as what the origin of the term copyright is, why there are two terms for copyright in Chinese (版權, literally “right to printing blocks,” and 著作權, literally “author’s right”), and whether Chinese people really have no “sense of copyright” are just appetizers, and more exciting main courses await.
The most important contribution of this book is that it adopts the perspective of “social history,” in contrast to the past studies of copyright which tended to focus on its “legal history.” From late Qing to early Republic and the early years of CCP, the state is relatively weak in terms of law enforcement; therefore, the studies from the perspective of law might be limited, while this book is able to offer many interesting social practices of copyright.
For me, the most intreseting part was to see how the authors and translators in the late Qing and early Republican period demanded “royalties” from the publishers. I was so envious that the translators at that time could collect royalties (especially the master translator Yan Fu 嚴復, whose royalties were even higher than those of the famous Japanese writer Natsume Soseki 夏目漱石). The royalties, however, did not go to their pockets easily. The authors and translators had to find ways to calculate the royalties (small spoiler? this is shown in the clever design of the cover of the Chinese version), to avoid being fooled by the publishers, and to deal with the hateful pirates.
Though publishers found pirates to be extremely hateful, in the face of European and American publishing houses, they happily exploited the loopholes in the treaty and became pirates themselves, without the slightest sense of guilt. Booksellers in Shanghai operated in a legal gray zone to track down pirated copies. In addition to hiring informants to purchase pirated copies as evidence, they even went so far as to set up traps to kidnap suspected pirates. Later, in order to track down piracy in other provinces, they organized their own pirate search force in northern China.
Another interesting point is the CCP’s 1955 remuneration system mentioned in Chapter 7 (p. 283):
According to their estimates, if authors dedicated two-thirds of their time to writing, they would be able to deliver 70,000 to 100,000 characters of original work, or an average of 140,000 characters of translation, annually. If their works were good enough to be published by the state-run flagship publisher, People’s Literature Publishing House, then they could enjoy a comfortable income equivalent to or slightly higher than the salary of a university professor.
The production requirements were unreasonably high based on the conditions of that time, but now if translators only need to output 140,000 characters a year, they should be more than happy. I am aware that the past and the present conditions are really different and incomparable though.
The major actors in this book included not only authors/translators and the state but also booksellers, and the Commercial Press, which is one of the research subjects in the book, is the publisher of the Chinese version of the book!
This is a book for those who write, translate, publish, sell or read books, and it offers interesting insights to everyone. You are welcome to support the author and the publisher by ordering a copy (in English or Chinese), though there are no royalties for me to collect : )
2022 Taipei International Book Exhibition
Last but not least, this is the opening day of the Taipei International Book Exhibition! It has been canceled for two years due to Covid-19 concerns, and it is finally held as scheduled this year.
Time: June 2 to June 7, 10:00 - 18:00 (Extended to 22:00 on June 3 and June 4)
Venue: 1F, Hall 1, Taipei World Trade Center (TWTC) 1F,
No. 5, Sec. 5, Xinyi Rd., Taipei City (near MRT R03-Taipei 101/World Trade Center station)
Website: https://www.tibe.org.tw/en/
Ticket: NTD 100 for adults (which comes with an NTD 100 book voucher)
The author of this book, Professor Wang Fei-Hsien, will give a speech at the book exhibition on June 3. Here is the information!
Registration: https://cptws.com/VOCS9
Time: 14:00 - 15:00 on June 3
Venue: 1F, Hall 1, Taipei World Trade Center (TWTC) 1F,
No. 5, Sec. 5, Xinyi Rd., Taipei City
