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English to Chinese: 写下我的过错 General field: Art/Literary Detailed field: Poetry & Literature
Source text - English WAYNE COUNTY JAIL
Detroit, Michigan
September 11, 1991
The sound of sirens burst through the quiet morning air, startling me awake. I crawled from beneath the scratchy wool blanket, rose to my feet, and approached the door to my cell, where a chubby roach was navigating its way across the cold, gray bars. I hollered down the tier, trying to figure out what was going on. “Yo, Satan, what the fuck they hit the siren for?” I asked, wiping the crust from the corner of my eyes.
Gigolo, whom everyone called Satan, was one of the few cats I spoke to on a regular basis. In jail, friendliness was frowned upon, so I didn’t talk to anyone unless we had something in common beyond being locked up. Gigolo and I were from different cities, but we had grown up in similar environments and had formed a bond during the time I’d been in county jail.
“I don’t know, homie,” Gigolo yelled back from a few cells down. “You know how they do around here. They probably hate
that they ass can’t get no sleep, so they fucking with us.” A few other inmates laughed.
Gigolo’s statement expressed the sentiment of most of the cats
on lockdown. We had come to believe that the deputies would do anything they could to make our stay as unbearable as possible. They would bang their keys on the bars, turn the bright lights on in the middle of the night, and hold loud conversations during hours when we were trying to sleep. But if they had intended for this to intimidate us, it didn’t work. Most of us had come from environments where disrespect, violence, and abuse were the norm. We were used to it—and besides, you can’t change a person for the better by treating him or her like an animal. The way I see it, you get out of people what you put into them, so the officers were only making their jobs harder.
Another inmate called from farther down the tier. “They might
be coming to get y’all and take y’all to different county jails,” he yelled.
“Come get us for what?” Gigolo asked, a bit irritated.
“Man, they take that escape shit serious. Ain’t nobody tried
to pull off that shit y’all just tried,” he said, alluding to the escape attempt that had landed Gigolo and me in the hole.
Another voice hollered from the end of the tier. “Bitch ass
nigga, mind your business ’cause you speaking on shit you don’t even know about. You working with the police or something, saying some shit like that? You don’t know if them brothers tried to escape or not. You trying to get niggas indicted around this bitch?”
Everyone burst into laughter.
“Man, I was just saying,” the first inmate stammered.
“That’s the problem now, so shut the fuck up!” This led to more
laughter.
I sat on the corner of my bunk and listened to the inmates argue back and forth as the sirens continued to blare. It felt odd, listening to two strangers speak with so much authority about something I had been accused of doing. It had been a week since Gigolo, Gee, White Boy, Jabo, and I were placed in the hole and charged with attempting to escape from the sixth floor of the Wayne County Jail. With no evidence other than a confidential statement made by another inmate, we were found guilty and sentenced to fifteen days in solitary confinement.
Two days after being thrown in the hole, we were each called
out by an officer from the Internal Affairs Division. He threatened us with lengthy sentences and then promised us the world if we snitched on one another. One by one, we refused to answer any questions regarding the escape attempt, and the matter was dropped as far as Internal Affairs was concerned.
English to Chinese: 美伦学校人文学科招生广告 General field: Marketing Detailed field: Advertising / Public Relations
Source text - English Ad for parents
As China transitions from an industrial to a service based economy prosperity will depend, not on expertise with numbers and formulas but on the ability to understand other people; the ability to think creatively and critically. To this end Majestic International College is beginning a new humanities program with a deep focus on critical thinking, student choice and creativity to prepare students for a changing world and give them the tools they need for tomorrow’s economy.
Short ad
This Humanities program is the best opportunity for students to discover new horizons, and cultivate unique patterns of thought that will make them stand out of the crowd.
Ad For students
Come to a place where you will be able to design your own classes! Come and enter the Humanities department at Majestic International college. Attend special electives only available at MIC, unique and advanced classes by teachers dedicated to empowering you to explore your unique interests. Collaborate, create, challenge, enjoy, and revel in unparalleled academic freedom in the Humanities.
Ads explaining programs:
Contemplation, Composition, and Eloquence:
This is a one of a kind course offered only at MIC. If you love history, philosophy, international relations, or any of the humanities this course will give you the tools to succeed in those fields beyond all other students your age. It is a two year course that will give you the fundamental techniques of a humanities scholar. This course will teach you the research, analysis, and writing skills to succeed at the university level. You should only take this course if your English level is high, you want to pursue the humanities, and you are ready to do the hard work to eventually become a world class scholar. This course will help any student who wants to succeed in the best international universities especially those who want to pursue a degree in the humanities.
Short Electives
These are exciting half semester long courses in the humanities that will allow you to explore your interests and your passions. In the first semester we will have a class on the history, psychology, and evolutionary biology of evil were we will look at the darkest parts of the human heart. A course on epistemology the study of how we don't know anything at all. A course on crypto currencies the new forms of money that are shaking the world. And if you can find a willing teacher and enough classmates you can request a course on almost any subject you want. For the first time you really have the freedom to pick the classes that you want.
English to Chinese: 马拉加监狱 General field: Art/Literary Detailed field: Poetry & Literature
Source text - English There’s a scene in the prison film The Shawshank Redemption where Morgan Freeman tells Tim Robbins, a man sent to prison for murders he didn’t commit, that everybody in jail says they’re innocent. “Hey,” he calls to another convict, “what’re you in here for?”, and the guy smiles and says “Nuttin’. My lawyer fucked me, man.” But then there’s a scene in In the Name of the Father, when Daniel Day-Lewis, playing Gerry Conlon, a miscreant patsy wrongly convicted for the Guildford bombings in the 70s along with three others, says, after years in prison knowing he’s innocent, “It’s better to be guilty in prison. You get more respect.”
I had to agree with Gerry Conlon. You can shout all you like about how innocent you are, but at the end of the day you’re shut up in a cage with some fucking dangerous animals who aren’t innocent, they don’t whine to you about how innocent they are, and they don’t give a shit about whether or not you’re innocent, either. They prefer you not to be innocent. In Málaga prison, inmates were proud of what they had done, the money they had stolen, the people they had killed.
As I was wandering about the corridors on my first afternoon, a young bloke came up to me, shook my hand, and said in French: “I hear you gave two police officers a kicking. Well done, mon vieux.” I thought it was strange that he addressed me in French, but word travels fast when a French and Spanish teacher ends up in the joint. Actually, the two police officers had given ME a kicking, but I learned quickly to turn that one around. “Yes,” I said to this guy, “I kicked their lights out, and then they kicked mine out.” He nodded energetically, and said “Hey, if you want any reading stuff, I have French magazines and books, you know …”
At that point, a siren sounded. “Sorry,” he said, “I have to go.” “So what are YOU in here for?” I asked him, still in French. “Murder,” he grinned. “I killed my girlfriend.”
“But, do I have to go anywhere now too?” I asked him, still not prison-wise after only a few hours. “Non,” he grinned again. “Nous. Que nous. Ceux qui ont fait des bêtises ...”
I watched as he retreated to a cell in the middle of the concourse, to what looked like a kind of prison within the prison. He was one of the last to go back to his cell, and a surly officer locked him in there. There were half a dozen cells opposite another row of half a dozen cells. I stood there looking at the cell beside his. There was a gypsy type, a huge swarthy cunt, staring a nasty stare at me, gripping the bars of his closed cage with white knuckles. I had distracted him a little, because maybe the gypsy would have reacted sooner, but it all happened so fast … another prisoner strolled by his cell, and this guy struck as I watched. No rapid movements, no fuss. He simply walked up to the cell, and swiped at him. The gypsy managed to jackknife his body backwards just enough to escape the tip of the knife the bloke outside had tried to stab him with. What amazed me most was the way the other bloke calmly continued his stroll after a failed murder attempt. I was told later this unit was for the most dangerous bastards in the whole prison. And one of them was offering me reading material …
Translation - Chinese 在监狱电影《肖申克的救赎》的一幕中，摩根·弗里曼对蒂姆·罗宾斯——一个为他没犯下的谋杀罪而被送进监狱的人——说，每个在牢里的人都说他们是清白的。“喂，”他向另一个囚犯喊道，“你因什么事进来的？”那人笑了笑，说：“什么事都没有。我他妈的被我律师整了，哥儿们。”然而在《因父之名》中有一幕，扮演与其他三人于70年代在基尔福爆炸案中被错误定罪的违法替罪羔羊盖瑞·康隆的丹尼尔·戴-刘易斯，自知清白在狱中多年后说：“在狱中最好是有罪，这样你会获得更多尊重。”
My translation career started after I had graduated from college in 2010. With me, you do not have to emphasise the importance of high quality, punctuality or confidentiality as I value these as much as you do and hit-and-run is not my business model.
Outside of translation, I enjoy foreign films and dramas. I am also learning French, for it is the native language of my partner and languages simply interest me.
Keywords: Chinese, Cantonese, Mandarin, general business and commerce, drama and film, culinary, general conversation and letters, subtitling, subtitles
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