LA

The summer in LA is hot. T is wearing only boxer briefs at home. Having spent the past four summers in San Francisco, where summer is described as the coldest winter by Mark Twin, I forgot how hot the summer could be! Although sometimes it gets unbearably hot, we still love the weather down here: It is simply sunny everyday. This itself is a priceless gift to me.

LA often reminds of Beijing. Its size, popular, road complexity, horrible traffic at rush hours, integration of people from everywhere, and even its smog all remind of Beijing.

Tourists or new comers to these two cities may need a few days to find their way around. In Beijing, if someone tells you to get off Bus A at Xizhimen stop and transfer to Bus B’s Xizhimen stop, be prepared that it may take 30 minutes to finish the transfer, because you’ll first need 5 minutes to figure out which direction is north, and then you may need another 5 minutes to ask around where exactly the Bus B’s stop is because your vision is completely blocked by the abutments of the overpass freeways, and then you need 15 minutes to climb a overhead bridge, and finally you spend 5 minutes to wait for the bus. If you get lost, which is very easy, you may just end up just calling a taxi. Here in LA, you’ll easily figure out your bus transfer because there are not so many tall buildings except the downtown area, and the streets are narrower than the streets in Beijing. You can see what is on the other side of the street. But you may get lost in the highway web. Sometimes you even need to exit the highway from the left lane. GPS is a must.

The driving in LA itself may also take sometime to get used to. Drivers’ manners may not be that nice. Your way is often cut by other cars. Cars in front of you may change to your lane really quick without giving any signals. If you are 0.3 second late to start driving when the green light switches on, you would get honked. It is not a patient city.

But once you have gone through all these tough challenges, LA is an interesting place. There are many great beaches awaiting you. Japan town, China town, Thai town, Korea town, Armenia town... - all kinds of towns offer various food. There are also a lot of opportunities because of its huge population with diverse backgrounds. I would have never imagined that I would do a voiceover and teach a Chinese cooking class. But they both happened. If you like exploring and being ambitious, this could be your place.

无题

最近两月作息大乱，盖因一周三次的晚班。美国最大的医疗电话口译公司邀我入伙。我大喜，难得的机会！既可赚零花钱，又和学的知识彼此想长。“Well, for our new interpreters, we need them to do a two-month graveyard shift, minimum commitment is three hours a day, three days a week.  After that, you can move to daytime shifts.  Are you on board?”“Yes, sir”，我回答，欺负新人，到哪都一样。想要让简历沾大公司的光，就要牺牲。于是，每周一、三、六晚上11点半到2点半，我就守候在电话旁，期待被人点到的机会。每次铃响，拿起听筒说，“this is Chris, your Mandarin interpreter, how may I help you?”

电话量并不多，一般一小时一两个，每个五到十分钟。晚上去医院的人并不多，一般是急诊（像车祸、突然肚子痛之类）和生产。我发现医护人员的工作之一就是打探他人隐私。偷窥欲或八卦欲很多人都有，只是平时出于教养将它们压制，不去问人“你几岁了”，“你结婚了吗”，或“你最近一次和人发生性关系是什么时候”这样的问题。可在妇科检查时，这些都是必问的问题。有时一些太太听到是一位男口译员就不好意思，我就要向她们解释，我们的口译完全保密，您也看不到我本人，我们不会流露任何个人意见，您不必不好意思，来，我再重复一下医护人员的问题，您最近一次来月经是什么时候... ... 

实际上这是一份很有成就感的工作。很多人一句英语也不说。比如有的第一次住院的老人，晚上病房里太吵睡不着，就因为不懂英文，他就忍着几个小时不敢叫护士来。直到受不了了，才会叫护士，护士把我们连到线上，两分钟就把问题解决了，他就可以好好休息几个小时，在医院里的休息对病情恢复还是很关键的。还有就是婴儿生产。首先是让我对母亲们充满敬意，单从电话里就能感觉到她们在宫缩时的疼痛程度。还有就是参与生产过程，“请您先深吸一口气，然后憋住这口气几秒钟，使劲推”，场面很是揪心。可是我参与的几次口译，医护人员都在关键时候把我掐掉，“好，谢谢，再见”，我能想像接下来他们一定是七手八脚地把婴儿拽出，可我还从未听到新生儿第一声哭声，真让人气馁。

上晚班直接结果是我休息不到。我白天很少可以睡着，因为总是潜意识里认为白天睡觉是浪费光阴。而恶性循环，我一休息不到，一天都象在梦游，所以周二、周四和周日，我就整个人状态都很差。情绪也不好，比以前容易发脾气。幸亏这两个月还有一周就要结束了。数着日子期待。

口译还是有些进步。可以做一些简单的同传，例如生活会话、名人故事性的演讲、杨澜访谈录这样的节目等。NPR这样的新闻还是不行，只能勉强跟读，因为未知信息量太大。现在体会到为什么很多同传的人做久了不愿做交替传译，因为前者只要进入状态，顺句推动，跟着走就好，准确度也要求不高，只要把话说圆了就行，用的是短期记忆，而后者要长期记忆，还有记笔记的能力，准确度要达95％左右，所以现在我的同传反而比交传好。最重要的一点是脸皮后了，不会太紧张，每次都是和自己说，好口译也就是传百分之七八十吧，心一定，就进入了状态。对自己中文的自信也强了起来，慢慢觉得这是自己的一份才赋。离杨澜这样的人的中文还差的很远，他们的话听起来怎么就那么顺，那么象聊天，我的话听起来就很硬，象是刻意雕琢，应该是语言风格也近如人性格吧。唉，梦想要一个个实现，路要一步步走，馒头要一个个...

补一张Boba的照片。

Better

I have been busy in the past a few weeks. As a reward, things seem to get better, career wise.

I am so happy that my school added another class this semester! So now I have three classes a week. Total school hours rose from 6 hours/week to 9! Well, this is still not enough for me at all, but better than nothing. The new class is called medical interpretation. It is a very practical and useful class. I learned a lot of medical terms, such as glaucoma, otorhinolaryngology, arteriosclerosis, etc. These are all “big words”. If you don’t know, you just don’t know. On the other hand, I learned how to interpret some small words whose meanings are so simple but which could often give me a hard time to find their appropriate Chinese or English counterparts. For example, I got stuck with “refill” one day. I was thinking of “续配”, but it only sounded okay, not great. Then later my teacher said “加配”, it sounded so right! Another example is “living will”. Basically, it means “遗嘱” or “生前嘱托”. But I don’t think any patient would like to hear that. So my teacher said we may use “意愿书” instead. Again, you just know the latter is a much better interpretation.

Two people called me to ask me to do translation and interpretation for them. I asked how they found me, they said “internet”! They are not the translation or interpretation agencies that I had sent my resume to. One of them was a elder lady, originally from Taiwan, asking to translate an antique birth certificate, the other a middle-aged woman asking me to do an immigration interview for her. It must be Yelp! Now if you search “Chinese interpreter Los Angeles” on google, my add on Yelp may show up on your first or second page. It is an interesting feeling! I also set up google’s AdWords function, but I received an email this morning starting with “we are sorry to tell you that no one clicked on your ads yet”. It looks like that I need to do something there.

I also got a call from a biotechnology software company a few days ago. They said that I did a good job in their translation test and they want me to localize their software into simplified Chinese. I’m very excited. My first big project!

Lastly, I got an admission letter from the Master Program in Conference Interpreting at the prestigious Monterey Institute of International Studies a couple of days ago. This is THE school for interpretation training in the world! It is like the Caltech in the science and engineering academia, or the Rockefeller University in the biological world. It has produced many interpreters for the UN. I took their extensive admission test and submitted my application in mid March. I’m still thinking of going or not because of their high tuition. This situation reminded me of the time when I had an offer from a Harvard University lab to do my Master’s thesis but I didn’t have enough fund. Once again, dream or reality? We’ll see.

革命

有幾件東西給我生活帶來巨大革命。

第一件是互聯網，可讓我獲取海量信息。我大學二年級時（2000年）有一門選修課叫無機化工熱力學，主要是用熱力學定律計算化學反應的能量問題。結課作業是老師給出的十幾個化學反應式，問哪些理論上可以發生。理論上可以發生的反應也就是反應方程式右邊的生成物的焓值要低於方程式左邊反應物的焓值。我們自然要去圖書館找那些物質的焓值。我搬了十几本數據字典一個一個地查，總算在兩天內把每一種物質的焓值找到，交上作業。現在，估計沒人會這麼做，輕巧几下鍵盤，互聯網就會告訴你答案。一次聽一個谷歌教師的講座，他說他讓學生做元素週期表前十位元素的電子排列結構。第二天學生們把整個元素週期表里每一種元素的電子結構、各種屬性、自然存在形式及樣品照片帶了回來，並說，“我只用了五分鐘！”互聯網的便捷和革命性可見一斑。

第二件是筆記本電腦。我在2006年1月份有了第一台筆記本電腦，那時我研究生二年級。之前有過兩台半台式組裝機，說兩台半是因為最先的半台是大二時和兩個室友合買的。大三時我用奬學金買了第一台屬於自己的組裝機；第二台是研究生第一年在德國買的。我的第一台筆記本電腦就是蘋果電腦，ibook 4，12”屏幕。當時一是對Windows頻繁發生的中毒忍無可忍，不想再買一個PC；二是仰慕蘋果已久，於是咬了咬牙，花了900歐，買了蘋果。我至今还清楚得記得我拿到機器時的興奮！電腦從中國發貨，由DHL承運，到我手裡是一月份一個冬天的晚上：在德國一棟學生宿舍樓頂層最西南角的一個屋子里，檯燈的燈光不是很亮，我小心翼翼地打開包裝，啟動電腦，看到了漂亮的植物桌面背景......買了這台電腦是我在德國最開心的事情之一，有幾次一同學開玩笑地叫我“蘋果Jiang”。好，回到正題，說筆記本電腦改變我的生活是因為其便拹性（廢話）。我用的最多的是記事本、日記、辦公軟件。微軟的產品開始用的很少，因為我用Latex做字處理器，用蘋果自帶的Keytone做幻燈，後來因為要和同事交流、兼容才開始用微軟產品。上學時有了它，去圖書館查電子文獻我就不用再排隊了，實驗報告也不用等到回家才可以寫。旅行中，可以及時記下當時的心情。這些許多人都有同感。

最後一件，也是促成我寫這篇博客的原因，是一個叫Anki的免費軟件。我前兩天剛剛發現。這是一個免費的記憶卡片軟件。記憶卡片在德國和美國很流行，我常見人用。在中國用的人不多，大概因為每個中國人都記憶超棒，不用這樣小兒科的東西吧，也可能因為不知道這種方法，或知道了又很懶去做卡片。2004年我德國的德語老師在課堂上介紹過，他說他用這個方法學會了漢語，我聽了之後也沒在意。直到去年秋天在北京學德語，我才體會到了卡片在語言學習中的妙處。德語的名詞分陰、陽、中三性，對應的動詞、形容詞等的結尾都要相應變化。不知道詞性，絕學不好德語。而北京的課程很緊，每天都有大量新詞，拿著單詞本一個一個記對我來說效率很低。於是我開始嘗試記憶卡片。走了很多商場，只有一家賣。卡片的效果非常好，為我節省了很多時間，記得也很牢。從此對記憶卡片非常有好感。前段時間背法律名詞，我如法炮製，效果也不錯。記憶卡片的缺點有二：一是製作時間比較長，雖說一旦做好將事半功倍，但一開始的體力工作是讓很多人望而卻步的原因；二是卡片占地方，比如我的法律單詞500多個，高高的一叠，外出時帶著沈甸甸的。而Anki作為一個電子軟件，基本解決了這兩個問題。第一，製作時，比如單詞卡片，不用手寫，復制粘貼即可。第二，把你的卡片傳上網，外出時只要帶上你可以上網的設備，比如我的iphone就可以了，坐車時可以登陸Anki網站學習你的單詞。這個軟件的好處遠不只這些。比如，你可以下載別人共享的卡片庫。我現在在準備加州法庭翻譯筆試，其中的英語部份基本上是SAT和GRE單詞，所以我直接下載了這兩個卡片庫，有意思的是GRE紅寶書和王玉梅TOEFL已有人做好了，我直接下載復習就行了，連卡片製作步驟都省了。又比如它支持圖片、聲音、視頻，你可把這些資料做成記憶卡片正面的內容，背面是答案，學醫的朋友應該會喜歡這款軟件。當前這個軟件只有一個缺點，就是它的mobile app比較貴，25刀，我在猶豫要不要買。有了這個app，你的手機沒有上網服務也沒關係，可以在Anki app中復習你的單詞。

傷心地發現，以前記得很熟的GRE單詞都忘了。幸好發現了這個軟件，這次背單詞應該會省很多時間。我很佩服開發這個程序的人。

Boba

Boba is T’s favorite non-acholic drink. He would pay $4 for a good Taro caramel boba - let’s talk about expensive taste here! Boba is also our dog’s name. We got him about three weeks ago when he was ten weeks’ old.

I am not a pet person. It is too much responsibility. And you yourself are leashed. You cannot just go wherever and whenever. Who’s gonna take care your pet? Besides, I absolutely don’t like the idea of artificial breeding. I consider making hybrid pets for profit as one of the most inhumane things in this world.

But pets, especially dogs and cats, are very popular in the United States. One statistics says, people in this country owes 77.5 million dogs and 93.6 million cats. It is like about one in four people has a dog and one in three has a cat.

T wanted a dog from Day One we moved down here. I really opposed the idea. For one thing, I don’t want any pet, as stated before. For another, we were not settled yet. Having a dog is to add another uncontrollable factor in life. Too much to handle. So I said, “find a job first, and then we’ll talk about it.” But one Saturday, when I finished school and got in the car, T was holding a puppy dog! I was about to yell. Then I saw T’s “please don’t be mad” eyes and Boba’s quiet and obedient face. Promptly T swore, “I’ll take full responsibility of him!” My heart got soft and accepted Boba as our new family member.

Now we are going through the training process. We want to teach him only to pee and poop outside the house. The idea is to train him to hold his No. 1 and No. 2 as long as possible. Right now he can do it for up to five hours. Longer than that would lead to disasters on the floor or in his cage. But progress has been made. In the beginning, he could only hold three and half hours. T has to get up at around two or three o’clock every night to take him out. It is painful.

Besides the pain, however, our gain is having a lot of fun with Boba. He runs around, stirring much liveliness in the apartment.

Now switching gear a little bit, I welcome you to visit my personal business website. I need some outsiders’ clicks so that google might pick it up and present it to people who look for a Chinese - English interpreter. I know the number of my blog viewers is one digit, but it is better than nothing. Also, Remember to go back from time to time to check out the “translation samples” section. I’ll put on articles I translate from different fields, and hopefully they are all interesting to you.

吃饭

解决了睡觉问题，吃饭问题就接踵而至。

搬家，重新找房子，安置新家，各种花费让银行帐户亮起红灯。很多额外支出。比如，在这儿去哪里都要开车，而且动辄三四十分钟，汽油费远超出我的预算。

于是，找零工赚钱，就成了生活关键词。

十二月份做了几天律师秘书工作。没做多久，就因接受不了老板无故辱骂威胁而辞掉。第一次体会到可以被气得胃疼。可笑的是，我辞职后的两三天内，他还发长篇段信攻击我的能力和为人。我回了他一句中国古语“欲加之罪，何患无词”，不再和他纠缠。那之后的一段时间看到双语律师楼助理工作便敬而远之。

想找一些翻译和口译的工作还真难。首先，这是一份市场小、不稳定的职业。什么时候有翻译工作都不可预料。比如，我现在唯一的一个客户，一家中国人在美国开的做中国官方访问团业务的公司，去年一年给我的口译大概只有十次。其次，笔译的价格太低。昨天看到网上一个人给价3.5美分一个字。假如一页纸有400个字，你翻译两三个小时，只能赚到14块，平均每小时只有3到4块。口译也好不到哪里。像我这样没有任何证书的刚入行者，要做十次口译才可以挣到一个月房租。所以找这样的工作只能广撒网。我把自己的简历寄发给了十几家翻译公司，根本没有回应。和我的同学们聊找工难的问题，他们建议加入美国翻译者协会（American Translators Association），就有可能会有人和你联系。于是花了一百六十大洋买了一个会员资格。所以现在我的名字和一个简单资料也在其网上，相当于打广告了。我将来也可以用这个会员资格招摇撞骗。现在的关键是，好好学好翻译，练好基本功，争取一年后拿下通过率只有5%的加州法庭翻译认证考试。我没有身份，不能在法庭做，到时可以用这个证书当敲门砖，可能简历就有人理了。

现在我能找到的只有教汉语。教学龄前儿童或小学生咿呀学语。一家中介机构要求完全用汉语教汉语，对我是个很好的锻炼，我得学着用我非常不擅长的肢体语言和表情。第一节课从下周一开始，有些紧张、有些期待。

找到这个教书工作，紧绷的经济压力稍小一点，毕竟有所收入了。也是一个开头。做好这份，慢慢再找其它的。

Same

Another year? I do not feel anything exciting though. November and December were so crazy for T and me that the excitement of a new year’s coming cannot vibrate my nerve at all. It is like after you experience the roller-coaster on top of the New York New York hotel in Vegas, you would think the rides in Disneyland are so bland.

Finally, we got a new home. No roaches. No cigar or chemical smell. Hardwood floor. Fairly new kitchen appliances. Everything is just great! For the first time in my life, I feel this is my home. In my other recent renting experiences, I occupied one bedroom in two-bedroom apartments. Before I moved in, someone else had already been there, signed the lease, and set up the dwelling structure of the apartments. In those places, I was more like a guest than a equally rightful roommate. But now, I am the host. I have the freedom to do anything I want. It is a sense of independence that I never had before. It feels good.

One day, when I was helping T make some cases for our sofa pillows, the image that my parents were making sofa covers came in my mind. It was not long after my parents bought their own house in mid 1990s. They brought in some new furniture and a color TV. They put on curtains, made sofa covers, picked dining cloth... They used the same fabric for sofa covers and heating radiator covers, making the living room look quite coherent. It was their first time ever to own a home. They must have been extremely excited and hopeful, enjoying creating a home for us. Interestingly enough, after all these years, T and I were doing almost exactly the same things.

I thought I had traveled farther enough than my parents, but actually I came back to where they were.