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"found in translation"
This is how I sit and think. At a colorful threshold. When I have a team of professional photographers documenting my moves. How fun would it be if this were an every day thing!? Photo by Kyle Hepp (www.kylehepp.com)
A confession: I love and resent this website.
I love that it has given me a way to keep in touch with faraway friends and family. I love that it has connected me with like-minded people all over the world. I love that it has given me the opportunity to review books before they go on sale.
But I resent how it fuels a steady stream of doubt.
At least five times in the past few months, I’ve showed up at a meeting with a Chilean I’ve met through mutual acquaintance. Almost always, this is a man with an engineering background. We speak Spanish.
Not far into our conversation, he’ll politely say, “So, I looked at your website. It’s interesting, but I don’t get it. What are you and why do you write that thing?”
What are you – qué eres – is a way to ask if I am a journalist, a lawyer, a publicist, an engineer, or something like that. A title. Defined by a university degree, which often takes five or six years to complete.
My history does not fit those categories. I usually say I am a translator or an entrepreneur.
I should revise this blog to say that. Make it specific, concrete, perhaps in Spanish.
But the doubt doesn’t just come from potential collaborators; it comes from inside my head.
Changing sidebars / pages / design forces me to think: what, how, why. To do. To write.
Am I writing to update friends and family on the coolest places I’ve been lately? To share my research on mineral rights regulation in Chile? To reflect on how my perspective has changed? To illustrate why you should hire me?
Face to face, I’d never bring up those topics in the same place, in the same way, especially since I live in more than one language.
Asking those questions makes me not want to write.
At least not here.
I write a lot. Scribbles crowding unlined notebooks.
But those scribbles don’t seem fit for this Google-friendly, quasi-official version of who I am and what I do.
I want to work face-to-face with professionals here in Chile who value how my experiences living in three very different cultures can help them explain why their work matters. This is translation: a form of translation that goes beyond words and digs into what is left unsaid.
I also want to show young North Americans that it is possible to build your career overseas. Not easy, but I can help you find your way.
I should write for those audiences – or even better: just one – not for people who have been following me all along. (I love you Mom!) But I’m not sure how.
I must be brave: to stand for my vision and stick with it long enough to see what works. I must listen carefully, filtering through contradictory advice, especially from the people closest to me. I must stay humble enough to change course.
I am lucky. I’ve won a contest that might help: a Voice Profile by Abby Kerr. She describes her role as Copywriter and Voice Ally, and she has profiled the distinctive voices of dozens of online entrepreneurs. I invite you to read more about it on her blog.
Hopefully this will help me choose words that better answer that troubling question – qué eres? – especially in translation.
Today’s New York Times features a Room for Debate section about the need to learn multiple languages. Six panelists, including author Stacie Berdan, agree that it is crucial to learn more than one language to operate in the new, globalized world.
They all refute an assertion by Lawrence Summers, former president of Harvard University and former secretary of the Treasury (and a man with a history of making blanket statements), who wrote What You (Really) Need to Know.
The world is much more open, and events abroad affect the lives of Americans more than ever before. This makes it essential that the educational experience breed cosmopolitanism — that students have international experiences, and classes in the social sciences draw on examples from around the world. It seems logical, too, that more in the way of language study be expected of students. I am not so sure.
English’s emergence as the global language, along with the rapid progress in machine translation and the fragmentation of languages spoken around the world, make it less clear that the substantial investment necessary to speak a foreign tongue is universally worthwhile. While there is no gainsaying the insights that come from mastering a language, it will over time become less essential in doing business in Asia, treating patients in Africa or helping resolve conflicts in the Middle East. [emphasis mine, read more here]
This strikes me as arrogant and short-sighted. Even if more non-Americans are learning English and Google Translate is getting better, that does not negate the value of learning other languages.
Being able to speak more than one language has had an immeasurable impact on my own life.
I learned Spanish before the age of five, thanks to my wonderful Nana Petra. While my parents were working, she totally spoiled me with home-cooked Mexican meals, lacy white dresses, and games of Lotería. She drilled me on pronunciation (A, E, I, O, U) and taught me nursery rhymes.
This early exposure to Spanish paved the neural pathways in my brain to let me think in more than one language.
I continued to study Spanish all through school and all through college, including a year here in Chile.
When I graduated with a degree in Latin American Studies, I moved to China to teach English at a university near Shanghai. I’d never studied Chinese and never been obsessed with Asian culture, but I was able to quickly pick up the basics of child-like Chinese through conversations with vegetable vendors, security guards, and migrant workers on the train.
Over the next few years, I took many private lessons and small-group classes. Thank you Layla and Xiaofei for helping me elevate my Chinese skills from toddler level to that of a nine-year-old who likes to talk about wind turbine engineers and garbage incinerators. Learning Chinese gave me access to get beyond China’s single story, beyond the world of tour guides and textbooks, to take part in everyday life.
Now back in Chile, I use Chinese less. In the last month I’ve used it twice: at a restaurant and with a new Start-Up Chile entrepreneur from China. But linguistic crossover shapes the way I see the world.
Last week I led an entrepreneurship seminar at Casa de la Mujer, a community center in a poorer neighborhood of Santiago. The last day, fabulous Start-Up Chile video intern Javiera came with me to film the class and interview me and the ladies about our experiences. (The video will be ready soon!)
I talked about the course in English and it was SO HARD! You might be thinking, but Leslie, you’re AMERICAN. English is your first language. How can it be hard?
Since I taught and thought about the class in Spanish, explaining it in English felt distant, foreign, and even patronizing. I stumbled over words; I felt like English made the distinctions between myself and the ladies too dramatic. In Spanish it felt more communal, more egalitarian, more personal. My testimonial, of how leading discussions with these woman has inspired me as an entrepreneur, flowed with enthusiasm in Spanish, but in English it felt forced, hesitant. Good thing Javiera took lots of footage: there should be at least a few clips in which my English is fluent and confident.
Linguistic crossover has had such a profound impact on my worldview. It has given me a broader understanding of words and grammar, but more importantly the tools to navigate the world with flexibility and empathy.
I truly can’t imagine life in only one tongue. I wish every preschooler could have a multilingual headstart!
To celebrate the Year of the Dragon, I am trying something new: posting about trade with China in both English and Spanish. The English version of this article is here.
via Wikipedia
Esta semana es el año nuevo chino. Feliz año del dragón!
Nos ofrece la oportunidad de destacar un ejemplo exitoso del comercio chino-chileno: la exportación de las cerezas chilenas para este feriado importante.
Roja, dulce y empacada en cajas de regalo. Las guindas chilenas son consideradas como algo especial en el año nuevo chino. El eje principal de las exportaciones desde Chile a China ocurre durante este feriado.
De acuerdo a los reportes de Portal Fruticola:
El próximo 23 de enero se celebrará el Año Nuevo Chino (ANC) fecha durante la cual no se puede descuidar ningún detalle, siendo uno de los más significativos la fruta y en especial, las cerezas.
“Las cerezas se han logrado posicionar como un elemento característico del ANC y especialmente en las grandes ciudades donde las cerezas son consideradas como un producto de lujo: es un producto importado, por lo que da una aire de exclusividad a quien lo compra y consume; es caro y escaso porque se puede encontrar sólo en esta época. Por último, el color rojo de esta fruta influye ya que todos los adornos van en rojo y dorado. Estos factores producen que se genere una alta demanda y la gente esté dispuesta a pagar muy buenos precios, que es lo importante para los exportadores”, explica Arturo Aranda, country manager de “The Foodlinks” en Shanghai.
Este año nuevo chino será dos semanas antes que el año pasado, lo que es un desafío para los exportadores, lo que significa que el periodo de cultivo también tendrá que ser antes. Tres flotas especiales fueron enviadas a finales de diciembre y llegaron a China aproximadamente entre el 16 y 18 de enero.
De acuerdo a Bernard Wu, el supervisor commercial de la importadora Zhxing Runfeng Food en Guangzhou, “las cerezas chilenas son bien evaluadas por los consumidores chinos principalmente por su calidad, delicioso sabor y buena presentación”.
The FoodLinks, una empresa que conecta a los proveedores chilenos con compradores chinos, plantea que sólo un 3% de los alimentos chilenos exportados son enviados a China y solamente un 0.7% de la comida importada a China viene desde Chile. Esto significa que hay un enorme potencial de crecimiento que sólo requiere un cuidadoso alineamiento entre lo que los consumidores chinos quieren y lo que los agricultores chilenos pueden ofrecerles.
Feliz Año del Dragón!!
This week is Chinese New Year. Happy Year of the Dragon!
In honor of this holiday, I would like to spotlight a successful example of Chile-China trade: Chilean cherries for Chinese New Year.
Red, sweet, and packed in gift boxes, Chilean cherries are a special treat. The holiday is centerpiece of Chile’s exports of high-end fruit to China.
image via Wikipedia
As reports Portal Fruticola:
January 23 is Chinese New Year, a date when no detail can be ignored, since it is one of the most significant dates for fruit, and especially, cherries.
Arturo Aranda, country manager of The FoodLinks in Shanghai says, “Cherries have successfully been positioned as a characteristic element of Chinese New Year and especially in the big cities where cherries are seen as a luxury product: it is an imported product, which gives an air of exclusivity to those that buy and consume them; it is expensive and scarce because it can only be found in this season. Finally, the fruit’s red color matches all the red and gold decorations. These factors lead to high demand and the people are prepared pay very good prices, which is important for the exporters.”
This year Chinese New Year is two weeks earlier than last year, which presents a challenge to the exporters, because it means that the critical date falls earlier in the growing season. Three special charter boats left Chile in late December, to arrive in China between the 16 and 18 of January.
According to Bernard Wu, commercial supervisor of the importer Zhxing Runfeng Food in Guangzhou, “Chilean cherries are welcomed by Chinese consumers principally for their quality, good flavor, and good presentation.”
The FoodLinks, a company that connects suppliers in Chile with buyers in China, states that only 3% of Chilean food exports are delivered to China and just 0.7% of food imported to China comes from Chile. This means there is big potential for growth. It just requires careful alignment between what Chinese customers value, and what the fruit can bring to the table.
Here’s to health, happiness, and prosperity in the year of the dragon!!
China Post issued this stamp for the year of the dragon. Some found it "too ferocious." Read more here on NPR: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/01/04/144671003/chinese-year-of-the-dragon-postage-stamp-deemed-too-ferocious
Hilary Corna
I just read One White Face, a memoir by Hilary Corna, a young American woman who moved to Singapore right out of college and spent three years traveling the the Asia-Pacific region training Toyota dealerships in Kaizen. I enjoyed it, especially her descriptions of Toyota’s business culture and the reverse culture shock she felt when she went home to America.
Hilary’s experience as a young American woman working in Asia was so different from mine, because she was a leader within a company everyone has heard of, whereas I job-hopped between several industries, consulting assignments, multinationals and startups. The book inspired me brainstorm the arc of the story I could tell if I were to write my own memoir about working abroad.
Here are some of my favorite parts of Hilary’s story.
She had always loved Asia and had studied abroad in Japan. She writes:
Friends and family kept advising me, “Accept any job out of college, no matter what. You can‘t be picky,” but that thought process always stupefied me. On the cusp of graduation—that is when a young adult should be picky. You‘re uncommitted, unencumbered, and have little to lose. It‘s one of the best times to pursue your passions. (5)
So she sold her ‘95 Sahara Jeep Wrangler and moved to Singapore, where a friend let her crash until she found a job.
Following a chance encounter with a cute kid in a hotel pool, she found a great job with Toyota, training dealerships throughout the Asia-Pacific region to implement Kaizen. She explains her job like this:
Kaizen involves consistently working together to identify problems and develop solutions to them. My new job would be collaborating with each distributor to work in one dealership at a time to conduct a new kaizen activity. These projects would typically last one year. First, the team spends several months studying the dealership operations, and then we identify problem areas, prioritize one, and select a theme. After improving the problem through standardizing the process and achieving good results, we share the best practices with other dealerships and establish a standard for the country operation. (29)
Kaizen had almost nothing to do with the tool or solution, but how you nurtured people to create an environment cohesive to change—an environment that empowered them to develop the answer on their own. (95)
Throughout the book, I could tell that kaizen shaped the way Hilary approached her life as an expat, continuously adjusting to a changing, challenging environment. I could particularly identify with her descriptions of coming home to America.
When I saw someone for the first time, the conversation usually went like this:
―Hi, Hilary! How is Singapore?
―It‘s wonderful.
―Do you like it?
―Yes, I love it— but before I could finish, they‘d cut me off.
―So, when are you coming home?
This question depicted the common thread of the conversation. It seemed everyone just wanted to know when it was going to end. I realized much later that they asked the question not out of disinterest, but because they struggled to relate to me, just as I did to them. (77)
Yes, so true! My trips home have been filled with exactly the same conversation!
Eventually Hilary decided to leave Toyota and return to the United States. She writes, “I was beginning to miss the Western world. I still loved Asia, and my heart would always have a place there, but I felt a gap that I couldn’t explain” (200). I can definitely identify with this sentiment. I wrote about it in my letter, “Dear China: It’s Not You, It’s Me. Let’s Be Friends Forever.”
These days Hilary has been driving a 2012 Prius Plug-In across America, speaking about One White Face on high school and college campuses, bookstores, and special events.
I hope Hilary’s story inspires a new generation to move across the world to launch an exciting, empowering international career!
Added December 13, 2011: Hilary is offering a special discount code for readers of Beyond Chile’s Single Story. Go to https://www.createspace.com/
3648642/ and enter the discount code “P554X5B4″Thanks Hilary!
I'm Leslie and I connect entrepreneurs in Chile, China, California, and beyond — especially through translation, training, and trade. More about me.
