Department of Translation, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

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Freshman Sharing | Seeking a Voice Abroad: A Translator's Notes from Hong Kong

When I first arrived, I felt that Hong Kong was a city constantly growing upwards. The slender buildings pierced the sky like blades, each floor packed with perhaps ten units and each unit further subdivided into multiple studios.

I often wonder: do those who come here from afar all harbor the dream of a sharp, upward ascent—a swift rise to the top?

I once spent a year in my Chinese major at National Taiwan Normal University, immersed in the Four Books and Five Classics and other canonical historical and philosophical texts. In truth, the most rigorous academic work I undertook then was analyzing the Three Heroes of the early Han Dynasty for a final exam—or perhaps tracing Sima Qian’s values through the structural variations in the Records of the Shiji. Those experiences cultivated in me a habit of scrutinizing linguistic details—a character's radical, the subtle weight of a tone—each a minute clue quietly revealing an author’s worldview and thought process.

During my time in the English Department, I encountered translation theory for the first time and began to focus on how language reflects culture. I came to realize that a translator’s choices are often an expression of a cultural stance. Later, when I entered the workforce, tasked with instantly converting foreign dispatches into Chinese, I witnessed another layer of translation: it was not merely the retelling of events, but also the adjustment of perspective and the calibration of tone. Every revision, every punctuation mark, was a re-creation of viewpoints and values.

When I resigned from my job as a news translator in Taiwan, some colleagues asked me: "Why travel all the way to Hong Kong and spend money studying a discipline that AI is about to replace?"

But I have always believed that the soul of translation lies not in speed, but in perception. Technology can boost efficiency, but it cannot supplant the translator’s ethics and aesthetic judgment—that subtle awareness of “how something should be said” and the feeling conveyed by saying it in that specific way.

In this vertically growing city, both language and people are searching for their own space. Expression is a mysterious thing. When you begin to live in a foreign land, even if you can’t understand a single word, you slowly begin to catch the boundaries of meaning from the context. Although I’ve been in Hong Kong for some time, I still don’t speak Cantonese. Beyond the “唔該，有落” (excuse me, stop here) that I might blurt out in urgency, the only full sentence I can comprehend is the one the supermarket auntie asks: “要唔要袋？” (Do you need a bag?)

Sometimes, in moments of frustration, I might mutter a few phrases in Taiwanese, resulting in blank stares from my classmates. These fleeting moments make me acutely aware of the invisible seam between language domains—a rift that translators eternally attempt to mend, yet which forever persists. It is within these very seams that I realize: a translator’s cultural background not only influences word choice but also subtly shapes the emotional rhythm experienced by the reader.

Now, at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, I am rediscovering the meaning of “living between languages.” CUHK’s translation program not only emphasizes the integration of theory and practice but also provides a true environment of multilingual coexistence—here, language is not just a subject; it is life. This semester, I am enrolled in Advanced Translation Studies, Arts Translation, Bilingual Editing Skills, and the E-C Translation Workshop. Each course deepens my understanding of linguistic subtlety and cultural depth.

Returning to campus, I was initially very anxious, afraid I wouldn’t keep up with the study pace. The curriculum in the Translation Department is rigorous, and the professors’ requirements are meticulous, yet this pressure is gradually helping me regain my academic rhythm. The substantial space for discussion in class often sparks new insights, which is truly gratifying.

My relationship with translation is perhaps like my relationship with this city: both an observer and a participant. I explore within the space between words, inhabiting the gaps between understanding and misunderstanding. In the future, I hope to continue exploring the intersection of translation and culture, learning how to convey the soul of a work across different cultures without letting it be simplified into mere superficial words.

Whether you have just walked out of university gates or have spent some time navigating the world of work, learning is always a dark path of exploration and trial-and-error. But it is precisely in these dim corners that you can truly perceive the boundaries of language and feel the weight of words.