Process
1) We were first put into groups depending on what our major is so that we all have the same kind of trail of thought. Then each group received a poem in a different language. Our group received a Vietnamese poem called “Đối & Chiếu” by Bui Chat. It was so interesting as there was no way of understanding what was happening in the poem. However we were asked to make a mockup of what we think the poem could reprasent in a book shape, BEFORE translating it. And this is what i came up with:
It is a box with an accordion inside because i thought that there would be many hidden meanings to this poem because it is in a whole different language you you always lose facts in the process of translating. I also picked the colours red and yeallow becaus it the the colour of the vietname flag.
2) We were then asked to find a middle translation, see what we could come up with, however my group and i had so many difficulties as this poem had no proper translation online, and Google Translate didn’t make much sense of it. I then asked a couple of my Vietnamese friends and none of them were able to understand the poem as it was in old Vietnamese so a modern speaker wouldn’t be able to understand. We then went to a Vietnamese restaurant as a group hoping someone would be able to help us with the translation, and as it turns out, the owner of the restaurant was actually Chinese, as well as the rest of the waiters.
My first attempt of the middle translation:
To & Reference
[1] climb guava trees [impartial][2] Hai Hue [cheering] (two)
[3] walked down the garden lily [Hue]
[4] interrupt teenage buds [ink purple / adolescence]
[5] handmaid please [ink blue / new age ill]
[6] sticking out mim pursed [gently]
[7] they sell themselves rùi [to whom, for whom]
[8] he … [?]
[9] purple instead! [awful]
[10] [cell or] !!!!
[11] purse a plane [yacht also unto]
[12] why do not you purchase [bought]
[13] luc / time intact [nostalgia]
[14] detained children had pure [money]
[15] as the bird passed the [elusive]
[16] as the fish in the water [hard to wade]
[17] fish in the river are even starts [Furniture]
[18] Do not fish in the tank discontent teeth here [said damage]
[19] again to climb trees [cheerful again]
[20] Each bloom Hue [expect]
[21] hand and touched the branches / leaves & [pity]
However we were still asked for a second mock up so Subashini and i came up with this book:
This is another book which also symbolizes hidden meanings as the accordion stuck inside a hard cover. When we compared our mock ups with the rest of the group we came to the conclusion that we all have a structural base, as well as a couple of hidden meanings so we thought we would put all ideas together and create one book together. But first we needed a proper translation and any kind of interpretation to the poem.
3) Margaret Siskind found a Vietnamese poet named Binh Nugyen that offered to help with this poem. They met up for an hour talking about the poem and translating every line, this is what they came up with:
Binh Nugyen’s notes: Margaret Siskind’s notes:
It is about a man in his garden in spring. He is nostalgic, then has a confrontation with a woman he once knew. She is bruised (there could be a different interpretation) she is dressed well. She is a prostitute. They have an exchange of words. He says why not buy a yacht? (because she is fancy) but she retorts why didnt you buy me when i was young an pure? she says she has money now and that she is like a bird flocking from branch to branch (prostitute) like a fish in the sea. He says a fish in the sea is easy to catch, but a fish in the Ocean is impossible . So she is no longer catchable. Then there is a change in season, as he is waiting for the flowers to bloom. He is back in his garden and he has changed . He is so affected that he has to touch the branches and the leaves to feel anchored to the physical world.
After understanding this essay and receiving the notes from Margaret, i wrote my “final” translation:
Deception/Negligence
Climbs up, climbs down
Into the lily garden, thinking about youth
Plucking buds of “style”
Smiling in a controlled way
You’ve sold yourself? To whom?
Me?
Your body is bruised, frightening
What!
How much for a plane?
Even a yacht would do, splurge it
Why didn’t you buy it when I was still young and pure?
So no I have money
You’re like an unstable bird that flocks from branch to branch
Like a fish beneath the river water, finding it hard to swim
Fish in the sea are still possible to catch
But fish in the ocean, how can they be caught?
He goes back home to his tree
Sit and await the flowers bloom
He extends his hand to touch the branch.
4) The group met up again, after looking at all our mock ups together and discussing the story behind the poem, we realized that there are so many ways of interpreting this poem, as the poet left it open for the readers to decide how they want to understand the poem. So what we came up with is that we each make approximately 5 pages worth of a “something” and “anything” that can symbolize or represent what we understood from the poem, in whatever medium we want, because then we get a variety of all the different interpretations the group thought of, and a variety of different mediums and styles, then put everyones pages together and form one big book, that is similar to a scrapbook/sketchbook, because it is a book of different thoughts and ideas. These were the pages i created:
These images would be my own interpretation of the poem, through visuals, rather than words, and some of these images include my “final” translation.
I think this idea of putting our own interpretation together works really well for this poem because that is exactly what Bui Chat intended for us to do.
We then compiled all our images together, in the order the poem progressed in, these are the images of all the pages in our book:
Process of sewing:
After compiling our pages together, this was our final outcome:
