Overcoming Cerebral Palsy to Be a Professional Translator
Diagnosed with severe cerebral palsy at six months old and believed by doctors not to be able to take care of herself, against all odds, Hu Jing has developed a successful career and lives a full life.
AT nine o’clock every evening in Urumqi, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, while the remaining rays of daylight are still lingering along the western horizon, Hu Jing and her mother walk around the community hand in hand. They follow the same route they have taken again and gain. When they meet familiar neighbors, they stop and happily greet each other, just like any ordinary family in China.
This is actually a daily outdoor exercise routine that Hu Jing has been following since she started walking independently at the age of 12 years old. In addition to this, her father gives her a one-hour-long therapeutic body massage both in the morning and at night to stimulate her nerves and muscles. These daily routines have helped her feel relaxed and keep good health.
Hu Jing, born in November 1984 in Urumqi, contracted a serious illness when she was just three months old and was then diagnosed with severe cerebral palsy when she was just six months old. The doctor claimed she would not be able to take care of herself when she grew up, nor be able to recognize her parents or even laugh. However, at the age of five, Hu learned Pinyin (a system for romanizing the sounds of the Chinese characters) through a tape player, stood on her feet at the age of 10, walked independently at the age of 12, taught herself English at the age of 16, and learned to be a translator at the age of 19. Unable to control her hands, she used her chin and toes to type, and so far the books and documents she has translated have amounted to millions of words, with six of her translation works being already published. She has been acclaimed as “one of the best translators in Xinjiang.”
In 2005, 21-year-old Hu started her career as a professional translator and began to earn an income. In 2008, she registered a studio called “Yiyuan Cultural Service Center,” starting her own business. In 2011, she won the Excellence award of the Chinese-english translation group at the 23rd Han Suyin Award for Young Translators Contest, which is dubbed as the “Oscar in China’s translation field.” In 2014, she was honored as “the star of hardworking and self-motivated entrepreneurs” in Xinjiang. In 2016, she obtained a diploma in translation from the Chartered Institute of Linguists and won the Best Candidate award in China. In 2019, she created the Wechat account “PEA Chinese and English bilingual history and cultural talks,” aiming to facilitate cross-cultural communication.
Parents’ Love: The Launching Pad for Hu’s Take-off in Life
Cerebral palsy is a disease with motor disorders. Among the children with cerebral palsy, 25 percent enjoy normal cognitive ability, 50 percent have some level of cognitive impairment, and 25 percent are cognitively impaired. If the disorder can be found and treated early on and then receive long-term rehabilitation training, most of the children suffering from the illness can recover to some extent.
Hu’s parents began teaching and treating her at an early age, exhibiting extraordinary love and patience throughout the process. Hu Jing did not begin speaking until she was three years old, but her father never gave up trying to help her learn to speak. He did everything in his power, buying tapes for her to listen to, showing her pictorial books, and telling her stories whenever he had
Hu Jing created the Wechat account “PEA Chinese and English bilingual history and cultural talks,” aiming to facilitate cross-cultural communication.
time. The hard work ultimately paid off when one day the three-year-old finally said “Hello, baby.” Hu’s mother kept a close eye on each aspect of her daily life, and taught her to walk on her own step by step. “I think I’m very lucky to be able to grow up in this family,” Hu said, “My parents understand me. They don’t think I’m a disabled child, instead, they really believe in me.”
Hu’s parents laid a good foundation that enabled her to take off in her life. They showed her their perseverance in the face of misfortune, their searching for solutions to problems, and their supporting of each other as a family. All this has gradually influenced Hu Jing in her growing up and pursuit of her life.
Turning Points: A Phone Call and a Letter
In 1994, Hu’s father borrowed money from his colleagues to purchase a computer from Beijing. His original intention was to help his daughter read and study through the computer since she had difficulties in using her hands. In 2001, Hu’s family became the first ADSL user among more than 30,000 residents in the local community. When Hu’s computer got connected to the Internet, she got connected to the world.
Limited by her physical disability and experiencing some social snobberies during her 16 years of life, Hu had became timid, self-abased, and reclusive. So when she accidentally discovered the benefits of the virtual world where she could conceal her identity, the shackles of physical disability that had bound her gradually began to loosen, and she even got up the courage to chat with strangers online. On the Bulletin Board System (BBS) of Hong N Education she communicated with other people freely in English, thus making a large number of friends from both at home and abroad. One of them, David, from Canada, often talked to her and encouraged her.
A few months later, while her mother was out of the house doing shopping, Hu mustered up the courage to call David who was then working for a company in Beijing, the first phone in her life. Minutes of talking on the phone, to her, seemed like centuries long. When Hu finally hung up the phone, she found that her clothes were soaked with sweat from severe nervousness and excitement. But the phone call changed Hu’s outlook on life and did much to boost her confidence and optimism.
David’s sister Mary and brother-inlaw Ben, who were also warm-hearted people, frequented the Hong N’s BBS. Mary took the initiative to tell Hu her email address and encouraged her to communicate with her. She gradually became a mentor to Hu, sharing with her life experiences through e-mail, and guiding this Chinese girl how to embrace life bravely.
One day in 2004, Hu told Mary about her depression and confusion regarding her future, as she was unclear about the value of her life and what she was going to do in the future. Shortly after that, Mary mailed two English brochures to Hu, asking her to translate them into Chinese and saying that she would give her remuneration, while her intention was to encourage Hu to be brave in finding her life direction. Hu carefully translated them and turned them into a book. Her work not only won the high praise of an English teacher, but was also donated to a library by Ben. This event had a huge impact on Hu, helping her realize that she was also valuable to society.
The phone call with David and exchange of emails with Mary became a turning point in Hu Jing’s life, helping her to become self-confident, and teach herself to be a qualified translator. They inspired her to be a more proactive person and work harder to fight against her physical disability.
Translating Six Works
Since Hu began to engage herself in translation, she has translated five English books into Chinese, including Lassie Come-home, Get Up, Your Bus is Here: Living My Life with Cerebral Palsy, The Bridge at the Edge of the World, Art in the Life of Mathematicians, and Having Faith: An Ecologist’s Journey to Motherhood. In addition, she also translated a Chinese social science book, a research on minority cultures, into English. All six translated books have been published. Both the quality and quantity in her translation show that Hu has grown into an excellent professional translator.
The loss of mobility in her upper limbs has been the main trouble in Hu’s work, making it difficult for her to type words smoothly and quickly. She used to shut herself in her room, and typed the letters with her chin. As a result she suffered from serious neck pain, and in October 2015 had to undergo neck surgery.
Before the surgery, Hu spent most of her time reading manuscripts and translating. She worked more than 10 hours a day on average and could translate more than 3,000 words at most every day. In addition, she had to proofread and modify her own translations. It’s not easy even for a healthy person to keep up with such a heavy workload, let alone a person in her condition. But she did not allow her circumstances, difficult as they were, to impede her reaching her goals.
On July 5, 2016, Hu underwent posterior surgery for spinal canal expansion and vertebral fixation, in which two titanium rods and 14 titanium screws were implanted in her body. After the operation, her cervical vertebra mobility was severely limited, and it was very difficult for her to turn over the paper books by hand. She could only read ebooks and online material instead.
The Role of Culture in Translation
It has been nearly 20 years since Hu began to learn English, and during all these years she has made a large number of foreign friends. Her feel for the English language seems better than that for the Chinese language. She is quite confident in her English proficiency. “Whether it’s children’s literature, international politics or natural science, what I see are not words, but pictures. And I want to describe these pictures in another language,” she said. “Translation for me is a journey of my soul; it goes beyond simply the conversion of a language to another, to also embody my feelings.”
When asked if she had any regrets in translation over the years, Hu smiled and said, “Too many!” She thinks she suffers from lack of adequate vocabulary of her primary language as her amount of Chinese reading is insufficient; she often pursues contextual fluency in translation, which easily leads to over expression or under-expression. She is always dissatisfied with her translations, and mulls over them in her mind for a long time. Even after the manuscript has been published and she has got the remuneration for her work, she would not stop thinking until she finds a more appropriate expression. Hu never thinks of translation as hard work.
On the contrary, once she gets into her work, she forgets about everything else around her. Hu acknowledges that understanding and expression are the two pillars of translation. A good command of English is conducive to understanding the content in the original language, while a good mastery of Chinese helps to express it in the translation. Neither should be neglected. Although she has systematically learned modern Chinese by correspondence, she has realized that her reading in her native language is insufficient, which has resulted in her limited knowledge about the imagery of Chinese language and limited understanding of Chinese culture. These, she thinks, have decreased the appropriateness and readability of her translations.
Wolfgang Kubin, an acclaimed German Sinologist, translator and poet, once pointed out that the biggest problem facing Chinese translators is not their lack of knowledge about a foreign language, but “their mother tongue,” that is, the Chinese translators’ level of Chinese is not good enough. In addition to her busy work, Hu is also learning how to translate Chinese classical poems. She believes that understanding Chinese culture will be more conducive to translation.
Hu hopes to let the public know that doing translation for a physically disabled person like her is neither a “tragic fate,” nor an “inspirational life,” but a natural choice of her life. She does not like the “celebrities” who rivet wide attention with their physical defects, but admires and worships Stephen Hawking. When people think of Hawking, the first reaction is “one of the greatest physicists in modern times,” not his “complete paralysis.”
This is also Hu’s aspiration.
“Translation for me is a journey of my soul; it goes beyond simply the conversion of a language to another, to also embody my feelings.”