Chinese leaders have been visiting Australia for decades. They never speak English and always have a coterie of interpreters with them. If you think about it, China’s dealings with most countries require language translation – not just English and Chinese but all languages! After all, China is the number one trading partner of around 120 countries. Translators in China are highly regarded and vital to China’s place in the world.

The recent visit by Chinese Premier Li Qiang was a case in point and it came at a critical time in the Australia-China relationship following some years of difficulties, trade barriers and COVID. It was important to ensure a smooth visit and positive outcomes underpinned by outstanding translation.

Western English-speaking countries are getting better at dealing with foreign languages in diplomacy and business. Visits by foreign leaders require high-level interpreters able to work under pressure and tackle tough negotiations, often with little preparation or advance knowledge. Visit logistics are planned out in minute detail to ensure that nothing goes wrong and positive announcements will come. Interpreters are engaged for all parts of the program. Both sides must have their own interpreters. Some of the work is done simultaneously with 2 interpreters in a sound-proof booth; some is done one-to-one or at site visits where the interpreter sticks by the side of the leader.

Top Interpreter Action

Premier Li visited 3 cities during his 4-day trip and all interactions featured top Mandarin Interpreters on each side.

For the roundtable for business leaders in Perth CHIN’s interpreting team delivered the live translation of speeches and discussion simultaneously to the Chinese and Australian delegates. For a number of site visits the interpreting was done at the side of the leader – like the Adelaide Zoo where I stuck next to the Foreign Minister and the South Australian Premier.

Successful Visit

As has been widely reported, the visit by Premier Li and his large delegation went off without a hitch. Some trade barriers have subsequently been removed and more talks are scheduled. Having been involved in senior visits to and from China for around 30 years, it is wonderful to see the planning and detail that goes in to these visits and the early engagement of interpreters. The results speak for themselves – the pandas can stay!

Who would have thought that Aussie Rules – AFL – football, could promote friendship and trade! Well, during the 2017 visit by late Premier Li Keqiang, China’s second-most powerful man at the time, he attended an AFL game – in fact the season opening match – between the Sydney Swans and Port Adelaide, “the sporting equivalent of patting a kangaroo”, accompanied by our own Charles QIN, Mandarin football interpreter!

Charles hasn’t divulged which team Premier Li ended up backing although he was at one stage adorned with a black, white and teal scarf and he was accompanied by then Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull, who chose the Sydney Swans! Premier Li said “I insisted I get another scarf rooting for the Sydney Swans … on this occasion, wearing two scarves is making me really hot.” Premier Li said via an interpreter (was that you, ever-diplomatic Charles?).

Hardie Grant Chinese Translation Commissioned

Six years later with this history unknown to the publishers, CHIN was commissioned to produce the Chinese version of a book titled Celestial Footy, a 300 pager written (in English) by Patrick Skene.

The book tells the story of Chinese heritage Aussie Rules and early on recounts the first “Celestial football match” held on the Victorian goldfields in 1892 – the miners versus the market gardeners. The book chronicles “the participation and passion of Chinese-heritage immigrants and the obstacles and adversity these men and women have overcome to play the game they love.” (ABC Radio).

Chinese players joined with Aboriginal players to establish a team during White Australia Policy days and Mr Skene’s book divulges stories of 60 Aussie Rules players of Chinese background right from the beginning up to the present. Skene told SBS: “We are fed the stereotype that the Chinese were just here for the gold and they didn’t really involve themselves in local affairs… but through these stories, a very different picture emerged.” (SBS). His book, titled “Celestial Footy”, comes from Australians referring to Chinese as “celestials” or “children of the sun” during the goldrush era.

Another tale we loved was that the first Chinese-Australian football team born in Ballarat in the early 1900s was called the Rice Eaters. There was also a player by the name of Billy Wong who helped the small Victorian country town of Mooroopna win the local premiership in 1896; ninety years later, his great grandson, also Billy Wong, helped the same town to the premiership again!

More recently Aussie Rules has been played in Shanghai on a number of occasions and the AFL and various clubs have cultivated Chinese footy fans with special days for international students, Chinese-themed games and even Mandarin commentary; they are also developing programs to attract players from Chinese backgrounds.

With this rich background and lots more to learn, CHIN was thrilled to be commissioned to translate the book in Chinese.  There was a lot to take in and our team was excited at the prospect.

Aussie Rules Chinese Translation Challenges

But what to call Aussie Rules? Back in the day, CHIN was involved in explaining Aussie Rules to visiting Chinese groups – we called it Aoshizuqiu, (Australian football) to distinguish it from Zuqiu (or soccer as it is commonly called in Australia). There was also ganlanqiu, which was more like ‘rugby’ or American gridiron? But once the game landed in Shanghai, it became 澳式橄榄球  (Aoshiganlanqiu)

Marcus LIU, CHIN’s Language Manager, captained the project to translate, design and layout and complete this work by the deadline for its launch and entry into the collections of passionate football fans, historians, and soon to be more Chinese converts to Aussie Rules! Our team of translators and editors became experts in footy, its history, its personalities and stories. 

Some challenges in the project that were identified:

• Translating names from the 19^th century is not easy as many of our immigrants’ names were changed on entry to Australia and they did not have Chinese characters to express them. Some followed the Chinese order of Family name – Given name, some treating each character as a name; sometimes given name became family name that was passed on for generations. The names of people or places were recorded based on the dialect the person spoke, which could be a variation of Cantonese, Mandarin, Hokkien or dialects from other regions and areas.
• The challenge of translating specific historic stories – a huge amount of research was required to find out the full story behind the words. One sentence about one person sometimes required us to look up the life story of them to find out the right expression.
• Translating words that originally were translated from Chinese in history back into Chinese – e.g. ‘celestial’ – the Chinese translation of ‘Celestial Footy’ the book’s title –  there can be many possibilities and it was a challenge to find the right term that reflects that period of history.
• Lots of slang – “ballsy move” comes to mind
• How to deal with derogatory terms like “hit the Chink”

Gege YUAN, translator and now football guru, coordinated an expert team of translators, typesetters, editors, researchers and proofreaders to deliver the work on time (and it was a very short turnaround) and on budget.

At the book launch at Carlton Football Club, the author praised CHIN’s work in front of a crowd of around 200, including current players, descendants of the early Chinese footballers and footy fans. Some attendees couldn’t wait to read it (the Chinese version). We hope you like it too.

There has been an exponential increase in visits to Australia by foreign delegations since the pandemic ended, including many hosted by Australian governments.

CHIN has been proud to partner with many of these government departments to assist delegations – from China and Japan mainly – with translation support.

Having been involved in this work for around 30 years, we’ve seen the best and worst of how to manage missions where English is not widely spoken by delegates. This Case Study can provide pointers to organisers of future missions about the importance of translation in their arrangements.

Interpreting for NSW Government

Investment NSW is all about growing the NSW economy focusing on innovation, investment, R&D, collaboration and exporting. Their Global Markets team is rich with Chinese speakers and experts and has plenty of experience in these inbound missions. We observe that when a host has Chinese speakers in their team, they are far more aware of the importance of translation in the planning and execution of a visit. They also know how to deploy interpreters and commission translations to get the most value for delegates as well as Australian presenters and stakeholders.

And thus it was for the recent NSW-Guangdong meeting held in Sydney with themes of Health and Life Sciences, and Merchandise Trade. Almost 200 participants heard addresses from keynote speakers, the Governor of NSW, Chairman of the Guangdong People’s Congress, and experts in the subject areas. Opportunities to visit institutions and pitch innovative projects to the Chinese visitors were provided and a cocktail party to celebrate the successful resumption of ties, post-Covid, rounded out a great three-day program.

Tips for Successful Translation & Interpreting at Events

There are so many keys to a successful event such as choice of venue, presenters, catering, timing – even luck plays a hand with weather; our observations are restricted to how the translation process was managed and our points below can help inform future organisers:

• Early engagement with translation service seeking capacity and resources
• Booking interpreters early to secure the best
• Preparing all programs and materials such as slide decks early to allow time to translate
• Ensuring the English and Chinese designs are equivalent
• Planning out the best deployment of interpreters, eg: simultaneous (live) interpreting for all conference elements; arranging consecutive interpreters for specialised site visits, networking and meetings
• Sitting the interpreters and their booth in a position to ensure visibility to screens and all technical arrangements to get their voices into delegate headphones
• Encouraging all presenters to prepare materials for presentation, eg speaking notes for interpreters as early as possible
• Ensuring enough breaks for interpreters knowing the demands Simultaneous Interpreting makes on them
• Providing all materials to the interpreters in English and Chinese well in advance

The team at Investment NSW ticked all of the boxes above and the event was very successful. We are sure that there will be successful collaborations and more investment as a result.

The interpreters were delighted to receive comprehensive information well translated in advance which added to the high standard of their delivery.

Sadly though, with many other events, we see translation arrangements left to the last minute which compromises the quality and the large budget an event can consume. If the language part is not done well, budgets are often wasted.

To end on a high note, Investment NSW’s networking reception, complete with roving interpreters, enabled delegates from Australia and China to cement friendships and business opportunities.

Nothing was left to chance – even the weather cooperated.