The floating Rice cake

The floating Rice cake

            Interpretation is the key to translation. A translator must understand the original writer’s intentions before doing translating work. Robison stated that for a proper translation and the aim to retain the beauty of the poem one must understand how sonic, semantic complex, structural, the language of the poem, actual state, individual poet’s deployed version, poet voice, style and particular idioms in the poetry for a successful translation (10). However, the translator’s understanding and knowledge only allow him to ensure a translated version of the writing that is comparable to the source, to a certain extent, this is due to the fact that there are many linguistic devices like an idiom, syntax, and other cultural concepts that cannot be adequately described in another language. For instance, “Yuanfen,” a Chinese concept that describes the complex changes in a relationship. It draws on the principle of fateful acts of the higher goods in Chinese culture, which predetermined relationships, encounters, and affinities. It also holds historical and religious values. While a native Chinese person readily understands this term, a full paragraph in English might not even be enough to express its meaning. For this reason, I claim that translation in its literal sense, showing a piece of writing in another language, is just not possible due to the heavy usage of poetic devices, which usually cannot be translated easily, if at all.

Bánh Trôi Nước

(1) Thân em vừa trắng lại vừa tròn

(2) Bảy nổi ba chìm với nước non

(3) Rắn nát mặc dầu tay kẻ nặn

(4) Mà em vẫn giữ tấm lòng son

Floating Rice Cake

My body is both white and round

Ups and downs in simmer water

Whole or broken, upon the hands of others

I still keep my heart red and true

The above version is not the original work written by Hương, her poems were basically written in the 18th century and used Chữ Nôm, writing system which is similar to Chinese. Evidently, the poem has been translated from Chữ Nôm to modern Vietnamese.

I choose the bánh trôi nước,” by hồ xuân hương a Vietnamese poem to have my translation skills, ability exercised and understand how easy or difficult it is to have translated writing. Before any translation, I had to follow the few main ideas that are the core factors to the translation work. To begin with, I researched Vietnamese history on the culture and the language. I noted that Vietnamese is a deeply idiomatic language, which confirms it to be widely challenging to translate. For example, khỉ ho cò gáy? (We’ll get back to this in a bit.), an expression that is so unique that cannot fully translate into another language. According to (Halliday, 110). The vowel soup, a style that creates an exciting sequence of sounds of poetry. According to Matthiessen et al. diphthong songs are visible when different sounds are formed by putting vowels together (111). Finally, I noted the Vietnamese tone marks which are added to the vowels and arrange in random order. Through great work and research, I managed to finish my translation.

Literally, the poem explains of a rice flour dumpling, prepared in the Vietnamese generation served in a thickened coconut syrup. The poem may seem to talk about food, but a metaphor, created by the dumpling — a metaphor for a woman and her body creating figuratively meaning of the work. The first line strongly lands on the physical and inner beauty of a Vietnamese woman, just like the shape of the floating cake. As for the next two sentences, they switch to describe the bearing and complicated life of Vietnamese women: she’s been through ups and downs, highs and lows, been through so much pain and hardship to keep the entire family peaceful and fruitful. At the end of the poem, it shows that no matter what happens or how much she’s experienced through life, her soul remains as pure and truthful. The poem describes the sexual and social powerless of women in Vietnamese culture. According to Halliday (110), the poem ends with giving and illustrating the power of women. I viewed Ho Xuan Huong message as the struggle of women in their life to spend their love with who they love. Back in the Vietnamese culture women were not given equal rights to decide who they like. The parents resolved the marriage issue; hence women being with who they love was not easy. In spite of all the struggles, their love and morals remain the same.

The first line Thân em vừa trắng lại vừa tròn implies the beauty of Vietnamese women. In the first line there the word. Lại means “also.” The word is omitted during the translation trying to give the new poem a new look, and the beauty as the word Lại when used make the poem lack either rhyme or the sentences give different meaning than the intended meaning. Generally, some of the words are lost during the translation thus the original information altered

The second line of the poem, Bảy nổi ba chìm với nước non gives a literal meaning of rising and sinking which are used as an idiom indicating the hardship. The cake floating up and down in the water give the outer meaning while the inner meaning expresses how women endure hardships in life. Nước means water while non means young when taking in other language but when the Vietnamese use “Nước non” they express a nation or a country. The statement thus gives the second line a different meaning where women endure the hardship along with the nation.

“Rắn nát mặc dầu tay kẻ nặn” describe whole or broken upon the hands of the others. The symbolic meaning of the statement shows how helpless women are in the Vietnamese culture and the little control they have over their life. “Rắn” means hard which reveals the meaning of the sentence.

The final line “Mà em vẫn giữ tấm lòng son.” “Tấm Lòng” means mind and heart while Son means hot or red, but when the word is used together, they mean patriotism or loyalty. In this context of the rice cake, loyalty just doesn’t fit. Apparently, dessert cake is prepared with mung beans; thus the inside of the cake is yellow. Therefore, when Tấm Lòng Son is translated to red, we express the literal meaning.

When a poem is translated from its original written language to a new language its metaphoric and inner meaning is never clear. For example, we assume a new reader who has never read the original poem by Hương and then requested to analyze the English version. It will be tough for the reader to get the symbolic meaning of the poem as the reader will try to relate to the culture brought up (Robison, 15). Evidently, in the modern world and American culture, there is no preparation for a rice cake. Mostly, the cakes are of wheat flour. The literal meaning of the new poem is about a caked prepared with rice flour. The figurative mean of the cake simmering in the water may be assumed to be like the cake is being made in the cooking oil. Whole or broken give a view that people still love having the cake on their hands either when full or when cut to pieces.  The cake still reaming to be sweet and loved by many is given by the line that I always keep my heart red and true. Red and true being view as the sweetness of the cake being true. In general, for a new reader who is not conversant with the Vietnamese culture may not see the metaphoric statement in the poem thus taking the poem to be talking about food only.

To understand more about the two poems whether there is a difference or the poems are the same we shall check on the qualitative look at the vocabulary choice and the transitivity pattern. The first line in the original poem, have a transitivity pattern of the carrier and have a relational process. The simple group consists of a noun Thân (body) which as a thing and noun em (younger) which acts as a postmodifier in traditional language and qualifier in modern style (Halliday et al. 110). Attributed is actualized by two adjectives (vừa) trắng (both white) and (lại vừa) tròn (and round) and the relational process as implicit.

As far as lexical choice is concerned, there are several items in the translated version which can be equivalent to those in the source poem the formed white from the translated work can be equal to the form trắng in the source poem and also the form tròn in the source poem can be equivalent. The form rising in the translated poetry to a certain extent can be equal to the form nổi in the source poem. According to Halliday et al., he from sinking in the translated work to a large extent can be equivalent to the form chìm in the source poem, and the reference of “My body to” The Floating Sweet Cake (115). In the translated version, to a certain extent can be considered to be comparable to the reference of Thân em to Bánh trôi nước in the source poem. There are, however, grammatical and lexical choices in the translated version which are very different from those in the source poem.

One important factor that contributes to making the translated versions differ more markedly from the source poem is that there are some symbolic and cultural values attached to “Bánh trôi nước” having its origin in the Vietnamese culture which does not seem to be laden in “The Floating sweet Cake.” According to Halliday et al. (110) in reading “Bánh trôi nước,” the reader is led into the realm of some metaphorical modes of meaning which, in this particular context, seem to be readily understood by the Vietnamese.

The English version poem is arranged in five lines together with the title which is also similar to the original poetry of five lines. According to my analysis, the original poem has 25 words five clauses. The first complex consists of the following clauses; (Thân em vừa trắng lại vừa tròn), (Bảy nổi), (ba chìm với nước non), (Rắn nát mặc dầu tay kẻ nặn), Mà em vẫn giữ tấm lòng son). The source poem has no embedded poem clause. My translation poem consists of 33 words and six clauses. The clauses are as follows; my body is both white, and rounded, ups and down in simmer water, whole or broken upon the hand of others, yet, I still keep my heart red and true you can’t destroy my true (Robison, 30). Basically, during the translation of the work, there was an increase in the number of words and clauses affecting the structure of the poem as planned by the original author. The translated poetry have a slighter difference with the central poem and has an embedded clause, six processes while the source poem has no embedded clause and five clauses. The original poem has two rational processes, two material processes, and one behavior processes. My translated work has three relational processes and three material processes.

The research provides concrete evidence that it’s impossible to translate a poem and maintain the beauty in the poem. When the source poem is translated, we can get never get the patriotism and country expression thus losing the emotion and the scene of the original poem. I have clearly understood that the poetic language one of the most challenging words to translate and most cases untranslatable. The original poem and the translated poem have enlightened me with the challenges of poet translation. The work leaves me with a dilemma wherever it is possible to capture the poem’s semantic word, meaning and the poetic feature. I have noted that not everything can be translated smoothly and maintaining the original beauty of the poetry. When translating a poem from one culture to a new language, it’s always tough to have the loyalty and patriotism of the original culture demonstrated in the new translated poetry thus I conclude translating poetic is impossible and the poem should be kept in Vietnamese to retain its beauty.