Over the last two weeks, my Arts Studies class focussed heavily on discussing the novel Obasan by Canadian author Joy Kogawa. After two weeks on discussing the historical and literary significance that the novel has on Canada, we took a field trip as a class to visit the Joy Kogawa Fonds housed in the rare books collection on campus at UBC. The Joy Kogawa Fonds were housed at the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre. Inside the rare books library, there were many archival boxes on Joy Kogawa’s works. Everyone in my class was very excited to dig in and start examining the letters and drafts all pertaining to Joy Kogawa’s literary works.
Me and a few of my classmates stumbled upon a box containing the beginning drafts of Kogawa’s novel Obasan. We noticed that on the backs of the draft paper were Chinese characters. Curious as to what they said, we had an international student from China translate the text. The Chinese document were notes from the Canadian prime minister on a speech that he was to deliver in 1950. The speech focussed on the importance of multiculturalism, language and history. The speech recognized the importance of language to Canada; not just English and French language but also a third language. The general gist of the Chinese notes were related to some of the main themes in Kogawa’s Obasan but distant as well.
After much thought, one of my classmates proposed the idea that the Chinese characters on the back of the first draft of the novel could be scrap paper. This led to a number of questions surrounding the draft. Questions such as why Kogawa had Chinese scrap paper on hand in the 1950’s. Our group then discussed the possibility that not only were there a large number of Japanese-Canadians living in Vancouver but evidently there could have been a large population of Chinese immigrants. The issues in the Prime Minister’s speech relate to the values and beliefs that Canada strives to foster and believe in today. It was interesting to see the Prime Minister of Canada build up those beliefs in the 1950’s but also in contrast to the support for the beliefs of multiculturalism; we can see the first draft of the novel on the same piece of paper which showed us how the Canadian government at the time was also pushing against those beliefs to the Japanese-Canadians.
Although our group had lots of questions about the archival material we found in the Joy Kogawa Fonds, we also accepted that archive materials never give a straight forward answer or explanation. It is up to our interpretation as to what is important, why it’s important and what we believe it to mean. Archives give us a glimpse into an individuals thoughts but they also push us to ask more questions leaving us to hunger for more answers.
I need to admitted that those paper also attracted my attention, and I don’t think my translating work is well-job. When I was looking over my fellow classmates’ blog, I discovered something that is quite relevant. What Meghan’s blog mentioned is that distortions might be cause by translation. After translation, the original story and the characters in the story will be less authentic.
This is how I felt while I was translating those Chinese characters into English. It takes time to find the most accurate word and organize those word in to an appropriate order. It is possible that the word we used is not precisely the most accurate one. There is the reason why the distortion is happened. These distortions actually remind us the effective of reading the first handed material and conducting first handed information research. In order to obtain the most valid result, I believe first-hand research can minimize the distortion