About 3 years ago I was acting as a translator for an Aikido club meeting with a big cheese that came to visit from Japan. Verbal translation isn’t really my thing. Up until that point I’ve translated mostly written material but can safely say I did my best at the club meeting. And as the song goes, my best wasn’t good enough. Oh I didn’t mispronounce a tone which changed a simple “Hello” to “Your daughter gives lousy head” (that’s Chinese actually), but due to a mistake I made in getting through the tone of voice of the master, making him sound too gentle (while what he was saying was delivered with a touch of frustration), there was a small falling out between him and the club members. A small correction on my part quickly fixed that and caused no permanent damage, but you would be surprised just how one seemingly small translation mistake can make lots of people completely lose their shit.

- Fueling the conflict in the Middle East

I am not drunk enough to even imply that what caused the Israel-Palestine-Iran conflict was some innocent mistranslation. Those 3 have a history which decades of therapy and passionate hatefucks couldn’t fix (in this particular analogy Palestine is female though she was known to put on a strap-on). Still, there have been examples of really bewildering translation fuck ups which do nothing but help keep the conflict aflame in the Middle East.

Take for example the word “Jihad”. In what context have you heard it? Islam is on a jihad against the West? Bin Laden has announced a jihad? Jihad French Fries Cola Combo, just 4.99$?  Most of the westerners think it means “Holy War” which in today’s day and age is just a few notches below “AIDS infection” and “Nuclear Holocaust” on the Pants Shitting Terror Scale. But that is not what “jihad” means. It means nothing more than “a spiritual struggle”. In Poland from where I escaped in a blaze of glory and explosions, we have a very similar saying of “Carrying one’s cross”. Both reflect inner spiritual struggles in a quest to better oneself. Now, can “jihad” mean a struggle against infidels? In the right context, sure. Can the word “pillows” mean “breasts”? In the right context, sure. But in the Western media “jihad” is always treated as “Holy War”, creating this wonderful stereotype that all Muslims are raging religious fanatics. In fact, a lot of them are also kebab chefs.

And how about my favorite Middle Eastern fuck up? The suppose speech by national hobo fashion advocate, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who in his spare time moonlights as the president of Iran? In 2006 it has been reported that Ahmadinejad called for wiping Israel off the face of the map. And with Iran actually having a nuclear program, most of the world collectively lost their shit so hard, they had to pronounce it legally dead. Other reports went as far as to say that Hobo-man called for plunging Israel into a sea of acid fire or something. What did he actually say? “The regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time”. Although to be fair, “vanish from the page of time” and “kill all the Jews” probably sound very similar in Iranian, like only a 1 vowel off.

It’s too bad we can’t pin any on those on individual organizations/people. Well, except this one. In 2008 Reuters has forwarded „an Israeli report” about the „Holocaust in the Gaza strip”. Monkey Jesus on a banana tree… if Israel itself is using the word “Holocaust” then God knows what exactly is going on in that strip club (btw, what does “Gaza” mean anyway? Really weird name for a boob joint if you ask me). Hell, this is like Cannibal Corpse calling someone else “disgusting”. You just know THESE guys are not screwing around. And yeah, they weren’t screwing around. What Israel reported was that the situation in the Gaza Strip was a “shoah”. A disaster. I am not suggesting that the Holocaust wasn’t a disaster, but you might think that Reuters kinda overblown the whole incident. Kinda. Just a teensy-weensy bit.

Assholes.

- The whole “Mystic Egypt” mentality

Quick, name a famous Egyptian pharaoh! Time’s up. Did you say “King Tut”? Congratulations, you posses limited historical knowledge. Feel good about yourself; in my experience, a lot of people tend to say “Imhotep”. Don’t worry; they’ve been taken care of.
Yes, pharaoh Tutankhaumum, known colloquially as „King Tut” because getting friendly with a man who was worshipped as a God has always been a good idea, is one of the most famous Egyptians in history. Since the discovery in his tomb in 1923, his preserved remains and shiny treasures have toured the world enchanting millions of people in every corner of the planet. Not because the unwashed masses have any interest in ancient artifacts. It’s because of the curse, man!

“For he who shall disrupt the rest of the pharaoh, shall be met with death!” or really any variation of the quote. It seems that the supposed story of the excavation team who opened Tut’s tomb cannot be legally told without mentioning Lord Carnarvon’s death. Carnarvon has been the sponsor of the dig, either thanks to a genuine interest in archeology or a very specific necrophilia fetish. When he and Howard Carter entered the room, they had to pass through 4 magical “protection” stones which apparently warned of a curse on anyone who dared enter the tomb. A little later, Carnarvon died of a mosquito bite which became infected… while all the lights in Cairo went out (!!!)… and as his dog… WAY BACK IN ENGLAND… started to howl. Jesus… I mean Rah!

First of all, there was never any curse on the stones. The 4 magical ornaments did contain passages from the Book of the Dead (later mistranslated as a curse), but they were nothing more than blessings on the pharaoh as he chilled in the afterlife. But hey, let us not get facts get in the way of a good story. The coincidence of Carnarvon’s death was enough for the papers to pick up the curse angle and run with it, with time creating a worldwide belief that Ancient Egypt was apparently populated entirely by Wizards. Really, how hard is it to believe that someone would die from an infection in the middle of fucking nowhere, where electricity went out all the time (even today)? Also, I am pretty sure dogs just like to howl on their own. You don’t need curses for that, just throw them out of the house in the middle of the night. And hell, why Carnarvon? There were 26 people present at the opening of the tomb, some of them doing the actual opening with their very hands. Where are their mysterious deaths? Oh right, there never was a curse…

Don’t get me wrong, some Egyptian tombs did have cruses on them: mostly private ones. The most interesting example is the Donkey Curse, which begs the god Seth to send a donkey to rape anyone who dares to disturb their tomb. Now THAT is a scene that should have been in those The Mummy movies.

- The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

I was in Hiroshima a couple of months back. Beautiful city, and their specialty are those giant thick vegetable-meat pancakes with noodles. I recommend visiting if you get the chance. One thing though, some of the people there are so god dammed gloom. Geez, lighten up people, did someone die or something?

How unlucky do you have to be, to be one of the two sole targets of nuclear weaponry in the history of the universe? I think we can safely assume Hiroshima used to be some prototype of Silent Hill back in the day to earn the atomic wedgy from Karma. The entire dropping of nuclear weapons on Japan is a very controversial and delicate topic. Some argue that it was a necessary move to scare and shock Japan into total surrender, something the proud nation would never ever do, to save the lives of American soldiers. Others say it was a display of force to scare the red panties off of Soviet Russia. While a third group thinks this was all the Jews’ fault. Somehow.

There however is a 4th story to it; a theory that the dropping of the atomic bombs had been the result of a domino reaction which started with a small mistranslation. In July 1945, the Potsdam meeting of the Allied Forces decided that Japan has to unconditionally surrender because what they were doing was “totally gay” [citation needed]. After penning the ultimate letter of the said proposal, sprinkling some perfume on it and sealing the envelope with a kiss, the Allied Forces sent their demands to Japan. To which Kantarou Suzuki, prime minister of Japan, allegedly answered “Mokusatsu” – “Ignore”. Oh so that is how Japan wants to play eh? OK, fuck them, Truman said, and boom went the A-bombs.

I wonder how things would have turned out if someone explained to the US that mokusatsu doesn’t only mean to ignore. Yes, “ignore” is one of the possible translations, but here is the thing: translations is not an exact science, you always have to account for context. The PM of Japan during WWII was nothing more than a puppet in the hands of the militarists. It is very possible, that is his reply, which was simply published in the newspaper and never directed at the Allied Forces, was nothing more than a declaration of “No Comment”, so that the militarists don’t assassinate him for daring to consider a logical surrender. One might say that he kinda had it coming for using such an ambiguous word… but did it really warrant a nuke in da face? I guess the answer really depends on how much of an asshole you are.

Tagged with: Egypt • Iran • Japan

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