the importance of translaters

 My previous post on Ito is incomplete: Because it does not include information on his family background (class, relatives, or how he got interested in learning English, or if he was educated and where) or if he married and had kids.

but he didn't just translate: He was the intermediary for Ms Bird to learn about Japan.

I have written elsewhere about a minor character in history: Ranald MacDonald, the Chinook/Canadian whaler who decided to visit Japan when this was illegal, and ended up teaching their translators about English and American customs. (They learned English via the Dutch businessmen who were legally there, but not correctly).

Wikipedia:

Ranald MacDonald (February 3, 1824 – August 24, 1894) was the first native English-speaker to teach the English language in Japan, including educating Einosuke Moriyama, one of the chief interpreters to handle the negotiations between Commodore Perry and the Tokugawa Shogunate.

His interest began as a child, when Japanese sailors were stranded in Washington state. (due to storms). 

more here. and here.

Biography can be borrowed from internet archive. 

again, he was not just a translator but a teacher of language and customs. And I wonder: since he was a child of a Chinook mother and an Anglo father, and lived in both worlds, did this enable him to recognize customs and ways of thinking varied, so was a better teacher than an official outsider?

One of his pupils translated for the government: Moriyama Einosuke.

As Chief Dutch Interpreter, he was later one of the chief men involved in the negotiations with Commodore Perry in regard to the opening of Japan to the outside world. Samuel Wells Williams, a member of Perry's second visit noted in 1854: A new and superior interpreter came with Saborosuke, named Moriyama Yenosuke ... He speaks English well enough to render any other interpreter unnecessary, and this will assist our intercourse greatly. He ... asked if Ronald McDonald (sic) was well, or if we knew him. ... giving us all a good impression of his education and breeding. (Williams, p.120, March 3rd 1854)[2][3][4]

Those who never traveled outside their comfort zone (the karens of the American tweetosphere come to mind) don't quite realize that not only are cultures different, but that people think differently, and words may not mean the same thing even when the translation is correct.

So in the case of Ito, MacDonald, and Moriyama, their contributions are as mediators who explain the cultural nuances along with the actual work as translators.

Isabella Bird: church lady and explorer

 mainly notes and links to a subject I am studying.

I am now on an Isabella Bird kick: listening to the wonderful Librivox recordings of her travels, which I actually read in part in the past. Mainly concentrating on Japan and Korea, but with side trips to the Rockies and Hawaii...I have also read part of her travels through Iran/Iraq/Kurdistan, which are much less entertaining.

Right now I am concentrating on her travels off the main roads in Japan, and mainly because she traveled there alone with a local boy to translate. 

I say boy becauase in her book she says he was in his late teens (see below; probably 20 years) something that some of the authors seem not to realize: if she saw him as a man, would she have dared to travel hundreds of miles alone with him? 

Here is a frame from the latest version of the Manga:

This Manga puts him into better context than many of the modern post marxist analyses. 

Indeed, in the manga, Ito is a major character.

this is one photo of him on line (presumed to be the same Ito)

Categories:Alphabetical Order:I[Prev｜Next] Occupation, Status Others Birthplace(modern name) Kanagawa Date of Birth and Death Jan. 31, 1858 - Jan. 6, 1913 Description Having learned English from foreigners in Yokohama, he became an interpreter. From June until September in 1878, he accompanied Isabella L. Bird, a British professional travel writer, on her trip from Tokyo to Hokkaido. In her travelogue "Unbeaten Tracks in Japan", she referred to him as Ito. Subsequently, he participated in the establishment of the Kaiyusha, the first Japanese guide organization and played an active role including interpreting work for state guests.

a few of the academic papers I ran across seem to be filled with post modernist jargon

LINK:

Drawing on theoretical discussions in feminist anthropology and affect theory, it reveals the complexity of the politics between the traveller and hosts as well as Bird’s fluid identity and exceptional openness towards the alterity of Japanese culture.

okay. If you say so. 

But this is the one that got me mad: it took the travel of Ms Bird and put it into modern Marxist BLM type anti colonialism.

what is missing is the cultural aspects of the two characters: 

Bird is criticized for using her travels as a way to push missionary activity. But this overlooks that she was a church lady: and in the UK did a lot of stuff that church ladies do with the local poor. (If she complains about the Japanese or Koreans being dirty and or drinking too much, it should be noted she says the same thing about the Scots and the London slum poor she worked with).

indeed, in her travels she observes and visits temples and fiestas, and when she says that the people would benefit from missionaries, she rarely mentions the word Jesus or gives one the impression she wants to save the heathen from Hellfire and damnation: (except maybe those who massacred the Christians in Kurdistan).

Instead she comes across like a social worker. And criticizes the hiring of naive young women to work at missionary activities, because they simply don't adjust to the life.

And of course, although she longed to be a free spirit, she had to "justify"her travels by linking it to missionary development.

Modern critics see missionary activity as evil, but they ignore that (at least in Africa) that it was the missionaries who brought modern medicine and western science to many countries, and who actually helped the poor raise their standards of living.

Similarly, although it is taboo nowadays to note colonialism had good points, one should note that it was often missionaries who exposed the exploitation by the colonial rulers.

Finally, by schools, they educated those who could lead their countries into the modern world. Again, it is now seen as bad, but what was the alternative? Life in poverty where half your kids died of disease? I see more western racism/snobbery in the National Geographic/ green types who love primitive cultures and criticize any who change their way of life than in Ms Bird who wants to help improve their lives.

One problem was that some missionaries lived a western lifestyle, but I know in Africa, early missionaries who lived at the level of locals died quickly of disease: and this is especially true for those who had families.

So this depends if you see your job as converting the heathen or teaching them the western/modern way of life so they could improve their life.

And for the poor, both Christianity and Islam had another message: Equality. One criticism by Gandhi was how the missionaries lived rich, but on the other hand, they promoted the idea of equality that was not present in many countries.

So when one reads a marxist anti colonialist narrative, one says: Ah but what about culture?

Ms Bird was not a Fabian socialist who posited theories on how to help the poor: She actually did this in a hands on fashion. Because that was why people became missionaries: to raise people out of misery.

But when it comes to Ito, the marxist analysis misses the point: What was his class status? He was supporting his mother is all we are told. So presumably he was not from a rich family. And he did not go through the missionaries to get his job: He was recommended by their servants (!). 

Nor was he a push over: He had left his previous job illegally for being mistreated (something that is mentioned in the book, when his previous employer tried to force him away from working with Ms Bird).

the writer even takes her first impression of him out of context: quoting "he looked stupid" and leaving out the next observation: That this was an act to hide his intelligence.

In the modern world, the close servant/ master relationship is unknown: For example, in LOTR the movie, Sam is morphed from a servant (the original inspiration was a batman who cared for officers during WWI: Tolkien's family was too poor to have servants) to a drinking buddy.

Maybe instead of a Marxist analysis someone should compare their relationship to Jeeves and Wooster, with Ito essentially running the trip for Ms Bird. Which make the marxist analysis of her "power" in the essay absurd: Especially in a society where women are not respected.

Attempting to explain the relationship of Ito and Isabella, Kröller (1990) suggests that Bird increasingly loses her detachment as the account progresses, citing the second and final digression upon Ito as a key moment in this process (Bird 2000: 179). Certainly, there is far more of his dialogue directly reported, and his ironic critiques of English travellers in Japan are allowed to pass without either judgement or supplement. The parting at Hakodate, post-Yezo, suggests a similar story of cultural-crossing and friendships made: 'I have parted with Ito finally to-day, with great regret … I miss him already' (341). Yet in the index, Kröller concludes, there is a withdrawal from the full implications of this relationship, as Ito is reduced to an almost de-individuated specimen

this is interpreted through Marxist colonialist rigidity, whereas I see it though the eyes of a woman: a romantic tie: actual romance? Mother/son relationship? 

Ms Bird's romances are hinted at in several other of her books: one with a guy in Hawaii, and the one with the Colorado desperado come to mind (in contrast, the wetsern missionary interpreter she used in Korea is almost invisible: I'm not even sure when he left her .... and the British officer she traveled with in Iraq/Iran was seen as an asshole by her).

One problem of course is that we only see one side of the story: (and in the manga they do quote a British lady who was very critical of her) and Ms B worries a lot that people will see her as a modern lady or as a feminist who wanted to be a man (which is why she stresses she wears feminine skirt to ride astride instead of side saddle).

another point: that she eats local food. And treats minor ailments in some of her stops.

here is another link.

my take? She was a snob in the very British way. Lots of her letters are full of notes of insects (duh) and lack of hygiene. And no one seems to see that she is writing "letters" to her sister: or maybe the letters are just a frame for her book (in the way my blog was written for my brother).

I am still trying to find exactly why she decided to go to Japan, after her adventures in the Rockies.

and I am not sure that I actually like her. 

But the people she meets tend to like her, especially the men. So it might be that she longs for romance: so are these observations real, or just projection of her desires on the men around her. 

Romance was something not possible in her life as a semi invalid, which was a common role for people with health problems in Victorian England. And she eventually marries he sister's physician, a younger man, but ends up taking care of him when his health broke down.