Andrew Dawrant is not a spy. At 40, he is widely considered the top
Chinese-English language interpreter working in China today, a
position he has held for nearly a decade, and therefore probably
the most important interpreter in the world. It has been a most
unlikely journey for the Alberta native, a personal rise in tandem
with China meteoric ascent to become the world second-largest < br /> economy, at a time when it has never been so important that the
ideas of the Middle Kingdom are properly communicated to the West
and that China correctly comprehends the responses of the
English -speaking world. Mr. Dawrant stands at the crux of that
dialogue.
High-level conference interpreting, as it is known, is one of the
most stressful jobs in the world, like an aircraft controller . A
good interpreter doesn simply regurgitate words in a different
tongue; he constructs a linguistic narrative to re-express ideas,
all in a matter of seconds. When Mr. Dawrant is interpreting for
the American president on a Chinese visit, he must be up to speed
on major issues and tensions in the two nations relations, not to
mention any number of treaties, economic agreements, trade disputes
or legal cases as well as important people and places that could be
mentioned.
And the interpreter must be just as cognizant of what is not being
discussed. “The tone between the lines is just as important,” Mr.
Dawrant explains. “How will you know what is unspoken and what was
expected to be said that was not said unless you went in fully
informed and knowing the expectancies that preexisted around the
meeting? “
And just as if he were a spy, a top interpreter must never share
the intimate details of his encounters with world leaders,
dignitaries and celebrities. If Mr. Dawrant were to reveal what
Barack Obama was focusing on or concerned about before meeting with
his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao in Beijing in 2009, he would
never work again.
Consider his assignment in February of 2002, when then-US
President George W. Bush spoke at Tsingua University on the
outskirts of Beijing, being broadcast to hundreds of millions of
Chinese citizens on the state network CCTV. It marked only the
second time that a US president had given a live speech on
Chinese television. The last time, when Bill Clinton did it in
1998, interpreting issues (caused by Mr. Clinton habit of veering
from his prepared remarks), it provoked a news anchor to suggest
that “if US-China relations are going to improve, it will have to
start with having better interpreters.”
As Mr. Bush began reading from the teleprompter in his
characteristic halting drawl, Mr. Dawrant set to work, listening to
the president talk in English, while at the same time relaying his
message in Chinese in a smooth baritone.
“That was definitely the most nerve-wracking thing I have ever
done.” he says. “You have to project total calm and peace through
the microphone but inside you are in an incredibly nervous and
anxious state. “
Had he failed, he concedes, his career would have been” pretty much
over. “But he was note-perfect . The next day, however, there were
no congratulatory e-mails or phone calls from a grateful White
House.
That the lot of an interpreter: “If you do a brilliant job in
something like that, the fact is, people won really
notice. “
But Mr. Dawrant clients hasten to disagree. Michael Ducker, COO < br /> of FedEx Express, has been doing business in China since 1992 and
calls on Mr. Dawrant each time he goes. “He is in a class by
himself as far as I concerned, “Mr. Ducker says.
Former British Columbia premier Gordon Campbell worked with Dawrant
on the majority of his visits to China and calls him” the best in
the business. ”
“He makes sure that if you are trying to say something humorous,
people will find the humour in it. He will take something that has
a North America slant … and make it work in the Chinese context, “
Mr. Campbell says.
On a rainy spring morning in Pudong in 2010, for example, Mr.
Campbell, with a large delegation in tow, was trying to convince a
group of municipal officials to increase the purchase of BC
lumber for construction. As Mr. Campbell spoke, the Chinese
officials in matching dark suits and coal -black dyed hair sat
stone-faced, looking unimpressed. Yet when Mr. Dawrant started
talking in forceful, direct Mandarin, gesticulating for emphasis,
their eyes instantly widened and they began smiling and nodding
their heads in recognition.
It the kind of scene Mr. Dawrant has orchestrated hundreds of
times.
“I e always been fascinated with the idea of ??being able to speak
with thers, or he other, to somehow transcend that barrier
that divides us, “he says.” There is a very powerful idea, that
people who speak English and other languages ??well are not
necessarily the people who will have the best ideas. Somebody has
to be there, who is very good at expressing ideas, to explain the < br /> best ideas do not speak English or
on behalf of those people who do not speak other languages. “
*************
Throughout history, humans have relied on bilingual liaisons to
communicate with other cultures. Translators often joke that theirs
is the world “second-oldest profession.” Yet modern interpreting < br /> is a relatively recent phenomenon.
The turning point came in 1919 with the diplomatic meetings
regarding the Treaty of Versailles and the founding of the League
of Nations, facilitated by the first modern interpreters – a group
of aristocrats, intellectuals and eccentrics such as the Kaminker
brothers, Andre and George, as well as Jean Herbert, a Frenchman
who later became the first Chief Interpreter of the United
Nations.
What they practised was consecutive interpreting – allowing the
speaker to deliver their full address and, after he or she
finishes , delivering it in another language. It requires not only
language skills and a working knowledge of the topic, but a
formidable memory: Andre Kaminker reportedly could take an
hour-and-a- half speech delivered in Spanish and then immediately
reproduce every significant phrase, dramatic pause, tone and
gesture in French, all without taking notes.
Simultaneous interpreting, however, rose to prominence in 1945 with
the founding of the United Nations and the Nuremberg trials
prosecuting Nazi war criminals. This comparatively time-saving
approach, widely in use today (including in Canada parliament), < br /> became possible because of technology: A simultaneous interpreter
listens to the speech in one language in headphones and, usually
with just a one-or two-second delay, relays it in another language
into a microphone, which conveys it to the delegates own
headphones. In essence, it requires the brain to perform two tasks
at once, speaking and listening in two different
languages.
Simultaneous interpreting between English and Chinese is
particularly trying, says Zhou Yuqiang, the chief Interpreter at
the United Nations office in Vienna: “Chinese is a monosyllabic
language. It is a lot faster and shorter than English. With a fast
speaker you can easily be left behind. You cannot keep up with
their language. Of course, the grammatical structure makes
Chinese-to-English extremely difficult. You e got to invert the
whole thing before you know what you are saying. This causes a very
bad feeling unless you really are on top of it. “< br />
Mr. Dawrant mastery of interpreting Chinese into English makes
him a “phenomenon,” Mr. Zhou says. While there are many highly
skilled interpreters from China, nearly all struggle with some
elements of English, whether it be accent or certain minor
grammatical issues. “He has very few or none of these. At the same
time, he is accurate. This is very rare , “says Mr. Zhou.
Mr. Dawrant is the only native English speaker ever to be accepted
as a Chinese language interpreter at the United Nations. Indeed,
when he interpreted Mr. Bush speech it is unlikely any Chinese
people watching and listening on television would have detected
that it was a
laowai voice they were hearing.
***
Born 40 years ago in Calgary to an unwed teenage mother, Mr.
Dawrant was adopted within weeks by an immigrant couple, a doctor
from Britain and his Spanish-speaking wife from Argentina, who
moved the boy to Edmonton.
While many in the West were paying attention to Japanese culture
due to its post- war economic rise, Mr. Dawrant was curiously drawn
to all things Chinese from an early age. He was, he says,
“obsessed” with Bruce Lee, the Chinese-American martial-arts star. < br /> At 8, Mr. Dawrant began learning Chinese characters, and as an
adolescent, he saved money from his paper route to subscribe to a
Chinese-language cable-TV channel.
The first Chinese dialect he learned was Cantonese, with its nine
distinct tones as opposed to Mandarin four. It was the language
spoken by most of the Chinese people he met growing up in Edmonton < br /> in the 1970s and 1980s, mainly immigrants from Hong Kong. Mr
Dawrant immersed himself in the community, befriending the elderly
and exchanging English lessons for help with his
Cantonese.
At 15 he travelled to Hong Kong. A few weeks visit turned into
three months of crashing on couches and in spare rooms with
families who ranged from carvers of ivory tourist souvenirs to CEOs
of corporations. He completed a degree in East Asian Studies at the
University of Alberta. Although he had no idea he wanted to be an
interpreter at the time, the multi-disciplinary program was an
ideal training ground. In addition to Chinese language and history,
he studied sciences, music and sociology, among other
subjects.
(Today, in casual conversation, Dawrant intelligence shines as
the subject drifts from history to global affairs to literature to
music. Not surprisingly, considering his ear for languages, he is
an accomplished musician. He plays piano and sings strongly in both
English and Chinese.)
Outside of academia, he spent much of his university years at a
dim-sum restaurant. He first had to push the cart of a “dim-sum
girl” around the sprawling restaurant hawking
siu mai and
har gao dumplings. He soon graduated to busboy and
eventually to a full-fledged waiter. He became a minor celebrity in
Edmonton Chinese community for his ability to converse in
Cantonese with customers.
“My entire social life in university was based around the dim-sum
restaurant, “he says.
Nearing the end of his studies, Mr. Dawrant had two encounters that
would forever change his life. His birth mother contacted him after
tracking him down with the help of a private investigator; he was
inducted into a whole new family that eventually merged with his
adopted kin – today, he says , his mother and adoptive mother are
“best friends.”
Around the same time, Mr. Dawrant met the man who would help
determine his career. Jean Duval was Canada top Chinese-language
interpreter in the 1980s and 1990s. A large man with a handlebar
mustache and a booming voice, he was born in France but was
employed by the government of Canada. Some say this intellectual
and gregarious character did as much to strengthen Canada ties
with China as any diplomat – when he visited the country with Jean
Chrétien, he would receive just as warm a personal welcome from
Chinese president Jiang Zemin as the prime minister did.
Mr. Dawrant met Mr. Duval on a plane headed to China in 1989. The
interpreter was reading a book in a language Mr. Dawrant couldn
recognize (it was Uighur – Mr. Duval was compiling a dictionary).
They spoke Mandarin to each other and Mr. Dawrant then switched to
Cantonese. Mr. Duval couldn converse as well in that language so
he retaliated with Shanghainese. They called it a draw, and Mr.
Duval talked about his career as an interpreter.
“It was absolutely fascinating to me. It was something I had never
really thought about before. I been learning Chinese very
seriously, but with no end game,” Mr. Dawrant says.
The next stop was a brutal interpreting school in Taiwan where,
like a US Marine, Dawrant was physically and mentally dismantled
to be built back up as an interpreter .
“It was class, practice and then more class and more practice. We
never went anywhere. It was like special forces training for two
years,” he says. “They completely reconfigured the way your brain
works – the way you deal with language and memory. Constructing a
discourse model. Getting inside the speakers head and becoming very
flexible with all your languages . It is kind of like torture,
basically. “
The newly rewired Mr. Dawrant took a job with the Canadian
government in 1996. Though based in Toronto, the position involved
constant travel to China, interpreting for ministers, diplomats and
civil servants. He travelled not only to the major cities but to
Chinese rural villages and communities that had never seen a
laowai before.
“I was lucky to be there during a golden period for the
Canada-China relationship. Prime Minister Chrétien … did the eam
Canada trips and I was on all of them, doing simultaneous
interpreting for the prime minister. Canada was very big in China.
We had a lot of ace, ” he says, using a term that doesn
translate well – simply put it means “respect,” but the concept is
much more complicated than that.
** ******
For an interpreter, each language has its own challenges, but few
are more difficult than Chinese. It is a language rife with
homonyms, homographs , homophones and words whose meaning changes
dramatically depending on the use of tone. There are also hundreds
of words and phrases that simply don translate into English. This
is where the interpreter truly earns his keep by finding an
appropriate substitute, a complex decision that must be made in a
matter of seconds.
Worse are the many classical Chinese literary allusions and idioms
favoured by many Chinese politicians and executives. Classical
Chinese is a different language entirely from modern speech in
China, and if the interpreter has never heard and been explained
the gist of a classical phrase before, he unlikely to have any
idea of ??its meaning. The Chinese interpreter greatest nightmare,
Mr. Dawrant says, is hearing a client say, “This reminds me of a
poem … “
And yet, incredibly, major mistakes by professional interpreters
are exceedingly rare. But when they do occur, the consequences can
be extraordinary.
In October of 2007, a delegate from Syria was speaking at the
United Nations in New York regarding a recent air strike on a
Syrian target by Israeli war planes. There had been reports that
Israel bombed the target because it believed it was a nuclear
facility. Syria denied this and, speaking in Arabic at the UN, the
delegate described the action as an unwarranted “military
aggression.”
To interpret every speech into the UN six official languages ??-
Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), English, French, Russian and Spanish –
a system called “relay” interpreting is employed: A speech is
interpreted from one language, in this case Arabic, into another,
in this case French, and then translated from there to the next
language and the next.
The interpreting problem occurred going from French into English:
The French interpreter picked up the Syrian delegate description
“military aggression” and used the word “militaire.” The English < br /> interpreter, however, whether through a lapse of concentration or a
slip in auditory processing, heard the word
“nucléaires.”
The implication was that Syria had admitted the planes had bombed a
“nuclear facility.” Chaos ensued. Almost immediately news outlets
in the Middle East began reporting the stunning, yet wholly false,
admission. Only hours later did the UN publish a statement saying
the Syrian delegate had been “misquoted” and that the interpreter,
whom the UN refused to identify, had been “reprimanded.”
Mr. Dawrant himself admits once making a major mistake as a UN
interpreter. In Bangkok, a Chinese delegate was pledging money to
support UN activities. He said China would give 675,000 renminbi
(RMB) ” he “
$ 100,000 US dollars.”
The Chinese word
he (pronounced huh-ah) can be interpreted in two ways.
It can mean “and” or “which is equivalent to.” Doing a quick
calculation in his head, Mr. Dawrant figured that at the time,
675,000 RMB was roughly equivalent to $ 100,000 US. So Mr. Dawrant
said China was offering 675,000 RMB to the UN.
Several minutes later, China requested the floor again and Mr.
Dawrant immediately knew he had made a serious error. China was
pledging 675,000 in RMB as well as a separate $ 100,000.
“So the Chinese delegate is talking, saying, adame chair, we e
sorry but the interpreter must have gotten this wrong, quot;he
recalls, still cringing. He was forced to relay into English the
delegate pointing out his own embarrassing mistake.
Far more often, however, interpreters improve the communication
skills of their subjects. They can smooth over verbal missteps or
cultural gaffes, tone down insults even make a speaker seem more
engaging.
In Beijing, a reporter once witnessed Mr. Dawrant interpret for Ed
Stelmach, the charismatically challenged and soon-to-be-former
premier of Alberta. With the help of Mr. Dawrant voice , Mr.
Stelmach came off much more interesting in Chinese.
There are two schools of thought on how much of a presence a
professional interpreter should have. Under the UN model ,
interpreters speak dispassionately, with little emphasis or
feeling. Mr. Dawrant, on the other hand, lowers and raises his
voice in intensity and pitch as he stresses important points. He
uses hand gestures and facial expressions. He is difficult to
ignore as an element in the conversation. He says it is critical,
however, that he never outshines his client.
“I really believe that good interpreting is like acting,” he says.
“It not just our job to convey the words and the ideas. It is
really our job to get across the energy and the passion of the
speaker … but without overshadowing or overtaking the speaker. To
an extent that is appropriate, you have to convey the passion and
the excitement and the tone of the speaker. If the tone is mocking,
ironic or even insulting, I think it is our job to try and convey
that, “he says.
Some interpreters underplay a client insults during a meeting or
speech, believing that interpreting may amplify the affront. For
the most part, Mr. Dawrant disagrees.
“It is not our job to question the speakers we are working for, “he
says.” These are very smart people and they know what they are
doing. Frankly, if they screw up it is on them, not us. It not on
us, anyway. We e just saying what they said. “
Indeed, as Mr. Dawrant sees it, despite his proximity to the
action, he is likely destined to be little more than an interesting
side note when the history of China Western relations during the
early 21st century is written.
“Interpreters don have a lasting legacy, my friend. Translators
do. You translate
War and Peace and if it is the best translation ever,
people will read that for posterity.
“We leave no legacy, “he says.” Our work is ephemeral. It is words
in the air. “
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