Stuck in the middle
Our podcast editor ELLIE CAWTHORNE discusses the dangerous task of translating between the British empire and Qing China at a fragile moment in international relations
nder any circumstances, being an U interpreter is no easy task. But for those translating at the first formal diplomatic contact between China and the west, the stakes were higher than usual.
Henrietta Harrison joined me on the podcast this month to speak about her book, The Perils of Interpreting, which looks at the translators working on Sino-British negotiations in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
As Harrison explains, the titular “perils of interpreting” at this precarious moment of cross-cultural communication were many. “Chinese is a very different language to English, so it can sound totally alien if you translate it too directly,” she says. “The art of translation is not so much about getting things right, as making choices.” Take, for example, the Chinese word “yi” – which could be translated either as “foreigner” or “barbarian”. The nuance of this single word could have a profound impact on whether the two nations became allies, or enemies. Add to this the fact that one of the only bilingual people in the room was a 12-year-old boy, and you’ve got a fragile situation on your hands.
Another flashpoint in this dance of diplomatic etiquette was the kowtow.
Would British ambassadors bow to the emperor, touching their heads to the floor?
Or should they save face by refusing the ritual, and risk offending their Chinese hosts? Or, as sources Harrison uncovered suggest, might they have engaged in some sneaky realpolitik by doing the kowtow then later pretending they hadn’t?
Acting as the go-between in these delicate scenarios put interpreters in a dangerous position. “Translators are often seen as traitors, because to know a language well enough to interpret, you have to be deeply immersed in a culture and have foreign friends,” says Harrison. “One of the reasons the Chinese court was so fantastically ill-informed about the British was because of a fear of people who moved between cultures.”
It’s been argued that China was entirely isolated in this period, its refusal to engage with the west culminating in the Opium Wars. But, says Harrison, looking at the experiences of interpreters reveals “there was much more contact than you might imagine, a whole world of interconnections that has been downplayed”.