Trends in Japan is featuring foreign residents of Japan. This month we carry an essay written by Geraldine Harcourt, a longtime translator of contemporary Japanese literature. Harcourt tells of transcending the cultural barriers often associated with Japan. WALLS? WHAT WALLS? A Translator Breaks Down Barriers January 9, 2002 I do not think of the Japanese fiction I have translated as being about something called "the Japanese psyche," or even as being about Japan at all. But all too often that is the way it is received. For example, according to a New York Times review in 1991, translated fiction reveals "a far more complex picture of the Japanese psyche than the many how-to books explaining the obvious--that Japan builds better mousetraps because of education, research, company spirit, and long hours. Fiction helps to break down the walls of strangeness." The reviewer concludes that Woman Running in the Mountains by Yuko Tsushima "does open the doors of Japan's home life a little more widely." In contrast, the Los Angeles Times reviewer of the same novel mentions the author's nationality only in passing. "This book is about calming the demons that pursue women who seek their own way," she says, and concludes that it is "a novel with the grace of a woman and the moral force of humanity." Of these two approaches, unfortunately, the "only-in-Japan" one is the more common. Sometimes a reviewer sounds pleasantly surprised to find "universally entertaining stories," as the Observer called Chinatsu Nakayama's Behind the Waterfall. Their reviewer writes, "Although one notices that characters leave their shoes in the hall, there isn't anything clobberingly Japanese about these stories." Admittedly, there is not much I find clobberingly Japanese myself after living here for more than twenty years. In fact, when I go home to New Zealand, I feel odd at first walking into a carpeted living room with my shoes on, and in countries where elevator doors close at a leisurely pace I catch myself looking for a "Close Doors" button after a few seconds' wait. These things have become part of my own mental landscape. As a translator, of course, I have to be alert to differences between the writer's and readers' cultures on a word-by-word level in order to avoid misunderstandings. But I always hope that, in the end, things foreign to the English reader will not muffle what the writer has to say. Miracles have been known to happen. A British secondary school textbook, Short Story Workshop, includes a story by Yuko Tsushima describing a mother's reactions when she discovers that her daughter has suddenly left home. The British students are given discussion topics like "How do you think your parents would react if you left home?" and are asked to write about incidents in the story from the girl's point of view. In three pages of questions, Short Story Workshop mentions Japan just once, to ask, "To what extent do you agree that, although set in Japan, the story is universal?" I agree completely--that was why I translated it--but I was amazed that the Workshop writers chose not to focus on those famous "walls." Recently I was lucky enough to be asked to translate Gotai Fumanzoku (No One's Perfect) by Hirotada Ototake (site is Japanese only), a young man born without arms or legs. The book is his autobiography, written while he was a student at Waseda University, and it became a huge bestseller in Japan. The author thought that what he had to say might be "no big deal" in the United States, where disabled access is so much better and wheelchair users more visible than in Japan. Given the tendency for even fiction set in Japan to be read in a sociological, only-in-Japan kind of way, that was a real concern for me, too. But I felt that the zest for life that comes across in Oto's telling of his story would be remarkable anywhere in the world. The fact that it is a very funny book was what made the project irresistible. Carrying that over into English was a challenge, but in defying one stereotype--all disabled people lead unhappy lives--Oto also puts a dent in the dour image of the Japanese.   Your Name What did you think of this article? It was interesting. It was boring. Send this article to a friend The book does have aspects that are distancing to English readers. The opening pages tell how Ototake's mother was not allowed to see him for three weeks after his birth; for the English edition, it was necessary for him to add some background about the authority of doctors in Japan, where informed consent was a little-known concept in 1976. In his teens, Oto's life was centered almost entirely on school (or rather after-school clubs), and readers unfamiliar with Japan can not know how typical that is. And there are passages in the bureaucratic style that local community groups use where their English-speaking counterparts prefer informality. In all the books I translate, there are cross-cultural barriers like these. But I am inspired by Oto's way of treating barriers as if they don't exist. As a translator, it makes me want to say, "Walls of strangeness? What walls of strangeness?" Geraldine Harcourt Born in 1952 in Auckland, New Zealand. Graduated from the University of Auckland. First came to Japan in 1973. Translator of eight books, mainly contemporary fiction; recipient of the 1990 Wheatland Translation Prize. Currently lives in Kamakura. Copyright (c) 2001 Japan Information Network. Edited by Japan Echo Inc. based on domestic Japanese news sources. 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