POEM TRANSLATION TANKA 50 & GOSSIPS 12 :ON TRANSLATION
SECURITY HOOYA
（ 安全非哑）
bury by yahoo
埋藏由雅虎
nail box to secure account
釘盒以确保帳户
rash rush to rescue
鲁急的解救
endless security codes
無盡的安全编碼
unheard voices underground
聼不到地下嗓音
GOSSIP/GODSIB ABOUT TRANSLATIONS 12
Bilingual translation is never an easy thing. It could be subtractive or additive. How does one translate HOOYA? Clearly it is Yahoo written in the reverse order. The usual Chinese translation for Yahoo is 雅虎 meaning a graceful tiger; it is sonic literal translation, more meaningful than the English.
It could be a tiger (fierce animal), but not graceful in my case. Even turning the words around means more or less the same in Chinese. This is not the narrator’s intention. The translation must not be word by word, but in the context of the haiku. What the HOO (crap) is Yahoo protecting, YA? No offence to Yahoo, but a momentary personal feeling towards electronic devices, a burden to many senior citizen shared. One goes in circuitry with the steps, in Yahoo RESET and there is never any person you can talk to about unsolved problems. 非哑, The first word means negativity or void, or no; the second word means mute.
wonkywizard 