The Poet's vs the Translator's Version of Culture: Playing with Cultural Allusions and Concepts in Translation

How can cultural allusions and concepts be reimagined in a poem through a translation? When a poet relies heavily on cultural allusions or concepts to compose a poem, how would a translator move the same narrative to another linguistic context? Some concepts might not be easily translatable, like the Chinese concept of yuánfèn rooted in Buddhist philosophy or the uniquely German concept “Sehnsucht”—a compound word that relays a more complex longing than encapsulated in the English meaning of yearning. Rather than presenting concepts and cultural allusions—such as the dragon or plum blossom—as having one definitive meaning, the workshop encourages participants to engage with them more fluidly by moving beyond an understanding limited to the poem’s original context while remaining in dialogue with it.

In this two-hour non-language specific workshop, participants will be divided into groups to translate a verse from Dan Ying’s Taiji poem or Chinese idiom poem—poems loaded with cultural allusions and concepts—to experiment with sensory approaches in the interpretation of a cultural allusion or concept. We will spend the first 45 minutes exploring specific cultural allusions that participants bring to the workshop in their own languages (participants should be prepared to explain the cultural allusions they bring to the workshop in English), before working on one verse from Dan Ying’s poems for the rest of the workshop (a literal translation of the verse into English will be provided).

About the Facilitator

Christina Ng is a Singaporean writer, journalist and translator based in Berlin. Working between English and Chinese, she has interpreted for film and theatre productions, as well as written and translated essays, interviews and features on art, travel, and culture. Her Chinese to English literary translations include poetry by Singaporean poets Dan Ying, Pan Shou and Liang Wern Fook.