Abstract
This chapter takes a close look at two interpreters, Xia Wenyun and Yan Jiarui, and provides more detailed and finely textured qualitative information to complement and crystallize what was presented in previous chapters, which tended to be more quantitative and focused on interpreters within certain institutions. Examining these interpreters’ life trajectory, including their early childhood experiences, social, political connections to various institutions, educational background, and motivations for becoming interpreters, it draws readers’ attention to these interpreters’ different understanding of the interpreting profession as well as their subsequently different strategies of self-preservation in the war.
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Notes
- 1.
Tong Tekong is listed in the memoir as the co-author as he was the one who interviewed General Li and drafted and translated the document.
- 2.
Although US $300,000 a significant amount of money in the late 1930s, according to Xia (2000: 3, 93), the value of all his real estate at the end of the war (1945) was only US $100,000.
- 3.
Wu Kejian was Chief Secretary of the CCP’s Shanghai Municipal Intelligence Committee in 1949 (Wang and Wen 2005).
- 4.
My interview of Yan was conducted in Chinese at his home in Guangzhou on January 8, 2009. The interview was about an hour a day over two consecutive days. The interviews were based on a total of 27 questions prepared in advance that covered such topics as Yan’s family background, his reasons for and his process of applying for the interpreter positions, the content of his training, his understanding of the military interpreter profession, and his self-perception.
- 5.
Abbreviations used in the training texts are as follows: C–Chinese Interpreting Officer; A–American officer or enlisted man.
- 6.
This letter, copied and given to me by Yan after the interview, is dated September 7, 1945.
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Guo, T. (2016). A Case Study of Two Interpreters: Xia Wenyun and Yan Jiarui. In: Surviving in Violent Conflicts. Palgrave Studies in Languages at War. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-46119-3_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-46119-3_5
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