Teithiodd Francesca Rhydderch, awdur The Rice Paper Diaries, a'r cyfieithydd Yan Ying, i Ffair Lyfrau Rhyngwladol ac Wythnos Lenyddol Shanghai fis Awst i lansio'r gyfrol mewn cyfieithiad Tseineg. Cyhoeddir y gyfrol gan Shanghai Translation Publishing House, y wasg sy'n cyhoeddi'r nifer mwyaf o gyfrolau llenyddiaeth byd yn Tseina.

Mewn cyfres o ysgrifau, a gyhoeddir ar ein gwefan yr wythnos hon, mae Francesca Rhydderch a Yan Ying yn rhannu eu hargraffiadau:

China Day by Day

"Late at night, after we’d both taken a few hours to collect our children from school, feed them and put them to bed, a burst of emails would follow: Was there really a hotel called the Hong Kong Hotel in 1941, she wanted to know? Where exactly? We needed to consult as street map, she said. The following day we would move on to the next chapter."

Francesca Rhydderch

It was important to me to get this straight from the start, I thought, as I collected my suitcase from the rolling carousel, as language was the reason I was here at all. Yan Ying, a UK-based Chinese translator, had fallen for the Welsh language and culture while teaching at Bangor University, and last year she accepted a commission from Shanghai Translation Publishing House to translate my novel The Rice Paper Diaries, which was now to be launched at Shanghai’s International Book Fair and Literature Week. In 2014 I’d been on a whistle-stop tour of several cities across eastern China: Beijing, Ningbo, Suzhou and Shanghai, promoting the English version of The Rice Paper Diaries, meeting mainly European and American audiences. This visit, to promote the Chinese translation, was to be quite different.

Everything I learned about Chinese culture as we were driven around Shanghai by taxi drivers whose mental maps of their city were by shaped their satnavs was mediated through Yan’s quiet presence. She brought to the task of accompanying me the same commitment she’d brought to the job of translating my novel. Over a period of weeks, we’d had long conversations about very specific images and details in The Rice Paper Diaries: what was the colour of the ripened spider lily plants that grow around paddy fields in some areas of China? she asked one day. Late at night, after we’d both taken a few hours to collect our children from school, feed them and put them to bed, a burst of emails would follow: Was there really a hotel called the Hong Kong Hotel in 1941, she wanted to know? Where exactly? We needed to consult as street map, she said. The following day we would move on to the next chapter.

In Shanghai, I worked hard at promoting the Chinese translation of the book, but as my interpreter Yan worked even harder. While we sat in the shady lounge bar of our hotel fielding visits from journalists, Yan’s ability to translate simultaneously enabled us to have meaningful interviews rather than superficial chats, and we quickly became used to the rhythm of these conversations. Our editor, Jade Li, ordered soda water and coffee for us, before sitting unobtrusively in the corner of the room picking up emails on her phone, taking no notice of the man in a suit lying on a chaise longue blowing cigar smoke up at the ceiling. If Yan smiled especially politely at one of the interviewers, I soon realised they were asking the same question we’d been asked a few times that day already; quite often, if this was the case, Yan would be happy to answer for me. When the interviews were over, she helped prepare me for a public lecture at Shanghai Public Library: when over two hundred students turned up and engaged in one of the most stimulating Q&A sessions I’ve ever taken part in, Yan beamed. At the end of the event she said to me, Today, I am proud of China.

_____________________________________________________________

Detholwyd The Rice Paper Diaries gan Francesca Rhydderch i Silff Lyfrau 2013 – 2014 Y Gyfnewidfa, detholiad blynyddol o lyfrau a argymhellir gan Gyfnewidfa Lên Cymru ar gyfer cyfieithu dramor.

Cyhoeddodd Shanghai Translation Publishing House eu bwriad i brynu’r hawliau cyfieithu The Rice Paper Diaries yn dilyn symposiwm ar gyfnewid llenyddol a chyhoeddi rhwng Cymru a Tseina gynhaliwyd ym mis Mai 2014. Trefnwyd y symposiwm gan Brifysgol Bangor mewn partneriaeth â Chyfnewidfa Lên Cymru, a hynny i nodi rhifyn arbennig ar Gymru o’r cylchgrawn Tseineaidd dylanwadol, Foreign Literature and Art.

Cefnogwyd taith Francesca Rhydderch a Yan Ying i Tseina gan Gelfyddydau Rhyngwladol Cymru a Phrifysgol Abertawe. Darparwyd croeso hael gan Shanghai Translation Publishing House.