Henry Smith (continued from Part 2)
Ken Nemoto, Finalist E12
I think Ken came closest to reflecting the author’s thinking in many places, which indicates he has strong skills for source text analysis. He also demonstrated an ability to look at the text from the reader's perspective. However, he lost a few points on my marking scheme due to terminology choices. In places, I felt the expression was slightly unnatural, and that contributed to a lack of consistency in the author’s voice. My advice to Ken would be to do some general reading in the subject area of the translation. I often do this when I am struggling to get the right phrases, and I have experienced several eureka moments as a result. With this text, for example, a translator could check out the work of Katherine Boo (also a prize-winning female non-fiction writer who tackles social topics) to get a feel for how Kawai-san’s possible Anglophone alter ago might convincingly sound.
Sasu-kyu: Does the backhand compliment reflect anti-discrimination or regional discrimination?
I think Ken has made a good move in offering a definition of Sasu-kyu here, but I just don’t think ‘backhand compliment’ works. Maybe the Saga guy’s tweet about the stamina bento was a backhand compliment, but the hashtag did not really have anything complimentary about it. I think Ken might have done better to get closer to the 揶揄 in the title (perhaps ‘Does this sarcastic Japanese hashtag reflect ….?). Also, please see my general comment putting more information on the title and coming up with something more elegant that ‘anti-discrimination’.
I hear that the phrase sa-shi-su-se-so (a set of five successive sounds from the Japanese alphabet hiragana) indicates techniques to flatter and attract men <S1>. It is an acronym for sasuga (Amazing! I knew you’d make it!), … <S2>. The phrase, highlighted with a title “Boys crave compliments!” in a book published in 2018 that targeted primary school girls, once came under fire on the internet <S3>. Women argued that the phrase reflected the mindset of a male-centered society and criticized that it would promote gender stereotyping, but I felt that men would also find it very unpleasant <S4>. If any article made a feature of “Master ka-ki-ku-ke-ko to attract girls!” (another set of successive sounds) saying that all you have to do to please women is say things like kawaii (cute) or kirei (beautiful)”, it would make women feel insulted <S5>.
Ken did exactly what I think a translator should, by telling the reader that sa-shi-su-se-so is Japanese (I might put ‘hiragana’ and ‘alphabet’ the other way around though). The starting ‘I hear’ works quite nicely, but ‘We hear’ might have been even better, and stress that this is not a piece of news that the author happens to have just come across. However, please see my remarks about avoiding too much transliteration in the general comments. Maybe the phrase ‘another set of successive sounds’ could have been worked up into something that avoided spelling out of ka-ki-ku-ke-ko? On smaller points, I wonder if Ken meant ‘at once’ in S3 (although I am not sure that is needed)? UK readers will immediately take ‘primary school girls’ as referring to girls between the ages of five and 11, but I am not sure readers in other English-speaking countries would. From the on-line pictures I could find, I wouldn’t be confident about the age group that this book was aimed at, so maybe just ‘girls’ would be better (and potentially closer to the original).
In line with my general comments on S3 and S4, I felt that something like ‘find it very objectionable’ might have been better than “find it unpleasant” to more closely match the women’s hypothetical reaction of “feel insulted” in S4.
I remembered this topic when I saw sasu-kyu, a word which sarcastically refers to the male-chauvinistic culture observed in the Kyushu district, buzzing on social media<S8>. It is short for “sasuga Kyushu” (Amazing, that’s Kyushu!)” <S7>. Sasuga in this usage implies sarcasm and scorn <S8>.
I think Ken’s ‘in this usage’ was an excellent translation. I also think he was on the right lines in stating more information about Kyushu, but maybe Kyushu is too big to be a ‘district’. Maybe something like ‘south-western region in Japan’ would have helped readers more and would be more accurate. I must admit the phrase ‘buzzing on social media’ was new to me. I see that it is in current use, but it does seem to be a conversational phrase, or something used by the more net-savvy generations, so I think it may not fit Kawai-san’s commentary.
The buzzing was sparked by a post to X made in April 2024 by a man who lived in Saga Prefecture. Referring to the bento his wife had made for him, he wrote, “I just texted my wife I was tired, hungry and wanted a bento and then she brought me this nice and crazy stamina bento. A great role model for wives!” It went viral drawing criticism with the hashtag #Sasu-kyu <S9>.
I think Ken again showed a good understanding of how this monster sentence was supposed to work, even though I am a bit sceptical about some of the word choices. Re-using a term from S6 helps to integrate this sentence into the flow, and ‘sparked’ captured the きっかけ in the original better than many of the other choices.
On March 9, Nishinippon Shimbun, the largest regional newspaper in Kyushu, wrote on the front page of its morning edition about how more people are chatting about Sasu-kyu mocking the district on social media. The article suggested that all such buzzing on the Net smacked of regional discrimination, which made the topic more controversial across a wider range of people.
I think Ken did well to add the detail about the 西日本新聞 being the largest newspaper in Kyushu (and maybe he could have added a few more Kyushu-specific identifications in other places in his translation). Please see my general comments on this section. Ken was also one of only two finalists who chose to split this into two sentences, which I think was a good move. Please see my general comments about strengthening the impact of this paragraph. I believe that statements like ‘smacked of regional discrimination’ and ‘…more controversial across a wider range of people’ may not land with readers as strongly as they should.
Over the next few sentences, Ken generally follows the narrative well, but I have reservations on some small points, such as starting a sentence with ‘and’ in one place. Slightly more damaging to this translation overall is a rather convoluted version of S17 (the 女子枠 sentence). It would have been much better to stick with something simple like ‘quotas.’
An attempt to eliminate one kind of discrimination can breed other kinds of discrimination which are not only against women but also against a particular region, the poor, or others.
Sentence S18 threw up problems for some, but I think Ken captured the idea of displaced discrimination correctly, and I think this is a pretty good explanation of the point the author was making, although having ‘others’ as the final word might strike a (slightly) lame note.
The question this time was that, aside from serious arguments on gender discrimination, posts and articles flooded which only promoted regional discrimination for fun just to draw more attention. There was a sort of agitative attention economy at work, as seen in an online manga …. online news that sought stories of sasu-kyu experiences to churn out articles
Ken’s ‘agitative attention economy’ was an excellent choice, and ‘churn out’ was a lovely way to capture what the online news show did. As fairly minor comments, I think ‘flooded’ was used slightly unnaturally here, and maybe we could make a better sentence using something like ‘amusement’ than ‘fun’. I won’t reproduce the next paragraph here. I think Ken has handled it reasonably well, but please see my general comments on S22-S24. As a small addition to that, I think the phrase ‘resident Koreans’ needs more attention; all Koreans (and everyone else) are residents of somewhere.
Appalling is the fact that those involved in the arguments are not aware that they are discriminating or being discriminated <S25>. In the article of Nishinippon Shimbun, a woman who had never lived outside of Kyushu was quoted as saying, “I’ve hardly felt I live in a male-chauvinistic society.” It may be true, or it may be that she had nothing to compare with.
The opening with ‘appalling is … ’ is quite literary in style, and maybe a bit overblown for this type of article. I also find it difficult to imagine that the sort of person who starts a sentence like this would use phrases like ‘buzzing on social media’, so this is a possible inconsistency in the author’s voice. Overall, though, I think Ken handles the rest of this paragraph without major problems.
Why don’t we take all these sasu-kyu arguments as an opportunity to think about unconscious discrimination as well as the mechanism of how eliminating a certain discrimination generates another?
Ken was the only one of our finalists to spot that the conclusion was given a paragraph to itself, and that helped him to write one that delivered on the promise of the title (see my general comments). I think an editor might still want a few changes such as tweaking the word order or treating discrimination as an uncountable noun. However, treating the conclusion as a ‘Why don’t we …?’ question was a smart move. I think Kawai-san would approve of posing a final question in this manner.
John Burn, Finalist E18
John produced a very sound translation and showed many examples of good writing skills. My main criticism would be that a lot of these nicely written sentences seem to inject his own take on the narrative and drift a little from what the author intended. So, my main advice to him would be to do some careful comparisons between source and target texts towards near the end of his translation process. When translators do that, we often end up deleting phrases that we were originally particularly pleased with.
Sasukyu – fighting discrimination through ridicule or just as guilty of it?
John’s title was possibly my favourite one (although I still can't decide what I think of the final ‘it’!). I think it is fair game to play around with word order in the title a bit, and I can imagine this version enticing curious readers to proceed to the opening sentences. However, please see my general comments for more discussion on what might need to be added to the title.
Have you heard of the mnemonic ‘sa, shi, su, se, so,’ referring to a technique that women can use to compliment men to supposedly gain popularity?<S1> The technique recommends inserting terms that begin with the ‘s’ set of sounds of the Japanese syllabary such as sasuga (That’s just like you!), …. , into conversation at appropriate points for maximum effect <S2>. These words come from a 2018 article aimed at young girls claiming, ‘Guys love being complimented!’ which set the internet on fire <S3>. Women criticized this as just another example of outdated views born of a male-oriented society …, but personally, I don’t think men are particularly impressed by this technique either <S4>. If there were a similar article suggesting men should congratulate women using words based on the ka, ki, ku, ke, ko syllables, …., women would no doubt find that incredibly demeaning too. <S5>
The rhetorical question in S1 is a great way to start this narrative. Kawai-san's work often starts with to-the-point sentences, so this direct approach catches something that is very consistent with the author’s style. I was also impressed with the way John used the ‘sounds of the Japanese syllabary’ in S2. I think he could have built on that to reduce some of the transliteration.
On a more minor point, I am sure John is right that the phrases covered by this chat-up technique should be used at ‘appropriate points for maximum effect’ (in the mind of whoever devised it). However, the author did not seem to state this, and I am not sure this extra information adds anything essential to the translation. I have been commenting on the pairing of male and female reactions in S4 and S5. John has ‘(not) particularly impressed’ and ‘incredibly demeaning’. I think the male reaction might need to be strengthened a bit.
Seeing the term sasukyu (an abbreviation of ‘sasuga Kyushu’) which ridicules the male chauvinism associated with the Kyushu region being spread all over social media reminded me of that previous firestorm <S6-S7>. On this occasion, rather than being complimentary, sasuga is being used to sarcastically highlight a negative expectation or stereotype of Kyushu, by exclaiming ‘classic Kyushu!’ <S8>
It is a good move to insert S7 in brackets within S6. John’s sentence here is relying (in part) on the transliterated ‘sasuga’ itself to make the phonetic link (but would readers be confused by the alternative translations of ‘that’s just like you’ and ‘classic Kyushu’?). However, I also noticed that the ‘firestorm’ here links back to ‘set the internet on fire’ in S3. So, I should give John credit for making a nice link (the only thing is I am not sure if the original feature did set the internet on fire; I personally can’t remember anything about it from 2018!). I am glad to see John identify Kyushu as a region, but he might have gone the whole hog and identified it as a Japanese region.
John’s translations of the monster sentence in S9, and the foreshadowing sections in S11 and S12–S14 are basically sound, but please see my general comments as well as some of my earlier comments to Chiyo (E29) and Chloe (E39) on these sections.
Discrimination is a complex problem, and it is counter-productive to create a new kind of discrimination in trying to solve an existing one <S15-S16>. For example, I’m not sure that a transition period of enforced female quotas is necessary to solve the gender gap if that then actively discriminates against men <S17>. Efforts to eliminate discrimination need not be limited just to the issue of sex but can also extend to other factors such as region and wealth <S18>.
As mentioned elsewhere, I think this paragraph works better if discrimination is described as having multiple forms. When it comes to the quotas sentence, it may be incorrect to say that Kawai-san is ‘not sure’, but I suppose the way John has written the sentence here at least makes for a nice logical flow to progress her argument. I fear that ‘efforts … can also extend’ is slightly missing the point. I showed this sentence to an acquaintance of mine who happens to be a Japanese literature professor(!). He told me that this would be a hard sentence even for native speakers to understand if read in isolation, but when read as part of the passage the meaning is absolutely clear. The thrust is something like ‘Efforts to eliminate discrimination sometimes only displace it, not just along the axis of gender, but also onto separate axes of ….’.This is a nice example of how we can use surrounding sentences to tackle the translation of one problematic sentence.
Whilst not wanting to belittle the serious issue of sexual discrimination, the proliferation of posts and articles that promote regional discrimination, even if done amusingly, is the problem I would like to highlight <S19>. An online manga stating, ‘many women from Kagoshima suffer short stature due to chronic malnutrition,’ attributed to them having to routinely consume poorer meals than their male counterparts and an explosion of online news articles collecting personal experiences of sasukyu caused a kind of inflammatory attention economy to flourish <S20>.
I feel that John’s translation has strayed from the original a little in S19; specifically, ‘not wanting to belittle’ and ‘even if done amusingly’ seem to me to miss the point a little. I don’t think these are fatal mistakes, but it is worth doing a careful comparison with the original sentence to check that the full correct meaning is being transferred. Also, I think John may have the cause and effect the wrong way round in S20, but my underlining of ‘caused’ here serves another purpose. It shows that readers had to wade through a 40-word subject before they could get to the verb. I think that might be some sort of a record, but it is not one that would impress a sub-editor.
Is this starting to feel familiar? In the 2000’s, a build-up of amusing news items of dubious authenticity regarding South Korea led to a boom in anti-Korean hatred and a growth in serious discrimination towards South Koreans living in Japan. Of course, there may be legitimate concerns about individual cases, but that is no excuse to blow things out of proportion and promote wholescale regional discrimination.
The trouble with the opening question her is that many readers will answer ‘No’. Rhetorical questions can be great (see John’s first sentence) but the audience for this translation will be different from Kawai-san’s original audience, and cannot be expected to know about anti-Korean sentiment in Japan fifteen to twenty years ago. Although John is right that things like the マンガ 嫌韓流 (to which Kawai-san is probably referring) targeted South Korea, I think the subsequent discrimination was focused on the Korean community in general, which in many cases included descendants of people who came to Japan before South Korea existed. To state ‘South Koreans living in Japan’ might better fit diplomats, business secondees, and exchange students than the Zainichi community.
Discrimination is terrible, but so too is being subject to it without even realising <S25>. In the Nishinippon Shimbun article, a lady who has never lived outside of Kyushu was quoted as saying ‘I’ve never experienced any male chauvinism.’ This could be completely true, but it could also be because she has no other point of reference to compare her experience to. There are probably also cases where people act in a discriminatory manner but are completely unaware of the fact themselves. … . This is not a problem that will be easily solved just by singling out the Kyushu region for ridicule <S31>.
John's opening sentence with this paragraph is very nicely written, but I fear it strays from the author's point (the obliviousness of victims and perpetrators). This is slightly surprising because it’s clear that John has understood the rest of this paragraph (looking at the victims and perpetrators of discrimination in turn) very well. On the other side of the coin, I really liked his version of S31; in particular, the reminder that Kyushu is a region is a great way to give the ending a bit of cohesion.
Perhaps we should take the opportunity created by the sasukyu controversy to consider how anti-discrimination measures can lead to further discrimination and how we unconsciously discriminate in everyday life.
I think John’s conclusion would reach much better without ‘Perhaps ...’ at the front. Stylistically, I think his conclusion is a candidate for subdivision into two sentences. However, the touch I really liked was the double use of ‘how’ to set up a parallel structure for the two parts of the conclusion. That is a sign of a good writer.
Ethan Sky Cubos, Finalist E37
Ethan shows that he is very strong at ‘localization’-style translation and has a good eye for a striking phrase. However, I felt his approach was not a perfect fit for this text. For a narrative with as much Japan-specific content as our source text, the balance should probably lean more towards ‘foreignisation.’ Some of Ethan’s striking phrases work well, but I felt many of them are too dramatic. The combined effect of the localisation and the dramatisation was something that felt like a Generation-Z-orientated social media commentary. I am exaggerating a bit, but the fact that Kawai-san explained the meaning of ‘hashtag’ in her original text shows that we should be aiming at a relatively wide audience here. So, my advice to Ethan would be, by all means use a dramatic, localising approach if that is appropriate, but be prepared to modify it (possibly quite drastically), depending on the audience that will ultimately read the translation.
The Sasukyu Slander: Anti-Discrimination or Regional Prejudice?
I think Ethan was on the right lines to try and give the readers some information about Sasu-Kyu here; however, ‘slander’ is more dramatic that anything 揶揄 would really justify. Otherwise please see my general comments about the title.
There’s a charisma cheat code known as the 5 S’s consisting of 5 rhetoric words used to flatter men: skilled, smart, stunning, stylish, and surprising<S1-S2>. These words were taken from an excerpt of a women’s magazine published in 2018 on how “men love compliments!”, which took the internet by flames <S3>. Many women critized these ideas, claiming they were conceived by male-dominated communities creating a fixation on gender, but I think men would also find it incredibly distasteful <S4>. If there were a 5 C’s to sweet-talk women with words like cute or charming, I’m sure these same women would find it similarly patronizing <S5>.
This matter came into mind as I read through discourse on the sasukyu slander trending on social media <S6>. Short for “sasuga Kyushu” (“As expected of Kyushu”), the term is used sarcastically to mock sexist
behavior from men in Kyushu <S7-S8>.
I applaud Ethan for taking an imaginative approach here, I think we can describe it as a localization approach, and this localization works well on its own terms within this paragraph. It is legitimate to play around with the order and meanings of the component terms covered by the abbreviations, and I think Ethan’s solution of the 5 S’s and the 5 C’s broadly achieves the effect intended by the author in these specific sentences. However, the problem becomes apparent as soon as we look at S6. Our English readers will have no idea why sasukyu should remind anyone of the 5 S’s and the 5 C’s (and no idea that that all these abbreviations come from a foreign language). To be consistent, maybe Ethan should have used something like 1SK, but that doesn't seem a very catchy abbreviation. Although Ethan has used a creative approach in the first paragraph, the overall effect is to stop it functioning as a prologue.
I have some comments on the specific terms here. Is ‘cheat code’ a bit too much like a video gamers’ phrase? Also, I wasn't sure about ‘charisma’ here. Are the 5 S's supposed to make a man feel charismatic (which I guess works) or make the woman look charismatic (which surely does not)? Maybe a different term would have avoided the confusion. On a positive note, Ethan was the finalist to make the most use of the word ‘sexist’. As I explained from my general comments, I think that is a term that we should use quite widely in this translation. Also, Ethan has shown a willingness to play around with word and sentence order in some places, and I believe that is often the key to a natural-sounding translation.
The sasukyu controversy started in April 2024 when a man from the Saga Prefecture made a post on X about lunch that his wife made for him stating: “I told my wife I was tired, hungry, and needed something to eat, then she soon came by with this stupid simple stamina meal,” and “She’s truly the perfect wife.” The hashtag #Sasukyu soon started trending on the site, bringing about a wave of criticism <S9>. Last I checked, the original post had already reached 28 million views.
Ethan was the only finalist to boldly put ‘sasukyu controversy’ as the subject and opening term of the S9 translation. I believe that was exactly the right decision, and maybe the only way to let English readers’ see, instantly, how the post and hashtag fit into the flow of the narrative. Please see my general comments on this section and also some of the comments I made for Chloe and Chiyo, which are also relevant here. As a small point, Ethan never actually states that the post was being shared under the #Sasukyu hashtag. I am sure most readers will guess, but it is always worth assuming that some will need things spelled out for them.
Similarly to the other finalists, Ethan has produced a competent translation on Sentences S11 to S14 (not reproduced here), but please see my general comments about how to make the flow clearer to readers here.
Discrimination has many moving parts, and it gets even more problematic when it cannibalizes other forms of discrimination <S15-S16>. For instance, to close the gender gap in the workforce, gender quotas were proposed to bring more opportunities to women. I believe this framework may be necessary as we move away from outdated values, yet it can also discriminate against men <S17>. Such attempts at eliminating discrimination is not limited to gender; we also see similar systems targeting discrimination in different forms, such as regional and class discrimination <S18>.
Ethan has shown a readiness to reshape the sentence structure a bit here, and that makes for much more natural English (but one small side-effect is to maroon ‘for instance’ on the other side of a full stop from the actual instance). I have more reservations about some of the terminology. I think ‘cannibalizes’ is way too overdramatic, but if we are going to use it, wouldn't it be the other way around? Please see my comments to John (E18) about conveying discrimination’s displacement effect in S18 correctly.
This time, however—besides the serious discussion on gender discrimination—another problem lies with the many posts and articles promoting outrageous examples of regional prejudice for attention. There’s a web comic commenting on how “there’s an epidemic of short-statured women in Kagoshima caused by malnutrition” as a result of budget-quality meals in contrast to what’s on offer for men. Articles were also produced at mass, collecting stories of those who have experiences with sasukyu-like behavior. These all fan the flames of a competitive, attention-seeking economy.
I think this paragraph generally works quite well, and the em dashes are a nice touch. I think that ‘fan the flames’ might be something that the attention economy does, rather than undergoes, but I have another comment on this term. Both in this commentary and her other published work, Kawai-san seems not to use metaphors much. So, while it’s true that flames are being fanned here, I might have found a more practical way of describing the situation. Ethan’s choice of ‘epidemic’ would probably normally not work (you can have an epidemic of disease, but not of women). However, I quite like it here, because it helps to emphasise the absurdity of the claim that this comic made.
Sound familiar? Back in the early 2000s, dubious and outrageous rumors surrounding Korea circulated online. This led to a serious uptick in anti-Korean sentiments and discrimination plaguing Korean residents. Many have differing experiences and thoughts on the problem, yet if we generalize and broadly acclaim such discrimination against any other country, would anyone find this behavior acceptable?
Please see my general comments, and my comments to John about using a rhetorical question and to Ken about using the term “residents.”
What’s more concerning is when people lack the ability to recognize discrimination—either from or towards themselves <S25>. In the article posted by Nishinippon Shimbun, they interview women who have no experience living outside Kyushu citing that “such sexism is rare to see.” <S26> Perhaps it truly is rare, or perhaps they lack a frame of reference to know for sure <S27>. Targets of discrimination can sometimes fail to see such treatment being dealt to them <S28>.
Please see my general comments as to why I wouldn't have started this paragraph with ‘What’s more’. Leaving that aside, I felt Ethan’s opening sentence was a strong start to this paragraph. He has set himself up nicely to discuss the ‘discrimination from and towards’ points nicely, but then his ‘targets’ sentence looked to have missed the cue for the ‘from’ point. It is only a small point, but the quote in S26 came from one woman. The original article is behind a paywall but could be read during a one-month free trial. I think that would have been a worthwhile piece of research, and a good way to evaluate the utility of a regional newspaper subscription for a Japan-related translator. Please see my general comments about the paragraph flow here.
…, let's look at the sasukyu controversy as food for thought, and examine the systems used to eliminate discrimination that instead create it, as well as the prejudice that may be hidden behind our actions<S32>.
Ethan had some good ideas in this conclusion. It takes a bit of lateral thinking to come up with ‘food for thought’ and ‘prejudice hidden behind our actions.’ Based on the final ‘our,’ perhaps he could have made the first part of the conclusion more inclusive, too (maybe a pattern like ‘how we systematically create… when trying to eliminate …). Overall, this ‘let’s look …’ sentence works well as a final message to the readers.