Yilin @ The Lantern and the Night Moths is OUT NOW
@yilinwriter
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Writer. Poet. Editor and Translator, The Lantern and the Night Moths ( @invisibooks 2024). @ClarionWest '21. aspec 🏳️🌈
四川人,unceded Coast Salish lands
Joined March 2013
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Pinned Tweet
Today is the day! The Lantern and the Night Moths, my debut book of translated modern Chinese poetry and essays on translation, is out from
@invisibooks
. I'm so excited to be able to share this book with all of you. (1/? thread)
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Um, hey
@britishmuseum
, it's come to my attention that your exhibit "China's hidden century" uses my translations of Qiu Jin's poetry, but you never contacted me for permission. Please note this is a copyright infringement! How are you going to fix this??
#NameTheTranslator
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I do not and cannot accept their apology.
We were recently alerted to a copyright issue linked to our exhibition about 19th-century China.
We have apologised to the translator for this unintentional human error and offered them a fee.
Full statement:
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I condemn in the strongest terms possible the British Museum's communication with me for how condescending they have been and how lacking in good faith. They are forcing me to escalate this, and I will fight you to the bitter end. May Qiu Jin's ghost haunt you all forever.
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I'm a translator who resigned from this project. Seven Seas is not allowing me to use my pen name after some of their own staff recommended I use one, after I handed in my translation.
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Of course I want to be paid. I have said that. I'm a translator, it's my WORK.
@yilinwriter
Most people don’t know or care about your translated poems. So the museum gives you free exposure and you act like it’s some kind of grave offense? Just admit you want money.
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I have a strict Asian parent joke but the joke will never be good enough
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My translations also somehow made it into your PDF guide on the exhibit, again without credit or permission...
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I think you owe me some money for printing and exhibiting my translations,
@britishmuseum
🙃
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I hear that the British Museum is telling journalists they removed the QJ translations (& the Chinese!) "at my request." They infringed my copyright and are not allowed to use my work without permission/credit. Their first email said they'd put my name on a list of translators,
My response to British Museum's recent public statement forthcoming:
- In their 1st email to me, BM never admitted or apologized for using my work WITHOUT CONSENT. They just said "400 people in 20 countries have helped make this exhibition happen and we are grateful to you all."
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Also, it's really ironic to learn of this as I'm currently writing an essay on translating Qiu Jin's poetry for a book, and I just wrote this paragraph yesterday...
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This is an actual idiom from Chinese "宁为太平犬，莫作离乱人"
The translation is roughly
"I would rather be a dog in a time of peace than a person during a time of chaos and disaster"
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See
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More evidence... Also, a note to whoever the blogger is, you also need to ask for permission before you go around publishing my translation...
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Please retweet and boost for visibility! Thanks so much folks.
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People have been quoting me saying "may Qiu Jin's ghost haunt you all forever."
For context, there's a famous Chinese saying, "不做亏心事，不怕鬼敲门," which means "if you haven't done anything wrong, you won't be afraid of a ghost knocking on your door."
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Hey everyone, I am glad to share that I have reached a settlement with the British Museum! Thank you so, so much for your support throughout this.
Here's my update on the matter:
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Given this exhibit description that focuses on "cultural creativity," the British Museum should really acknowledge and pay for a translator's "creativity"
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See also
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Omg we did it!!!!! We reached the minimum needed to start getting legal action rolling. Thank you everyone. I hope to give an official update soon once I get a chance to talk to my lawyer. You all are amazing and we're going to hold the British Museum accountable...
Hold the British Museum accountable for copyright and moral rights infringement and the erasure of feminist poet Qiu Jin! Let's do this together - please spread the word far and wide!
#NameTheTranslator
#QiuJin
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Hmmm i wonder why so many people are alerting me to this tweet all of a sudden 🙃
... We aim to be understandable by 16 year olds. Sometimes Asian names can be confusing, so we have to be careful about using too many.
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Thank you
@jessieyeung
at CNN for giving me a chance to talk about how the resolution came as a result of community efforts. I am glad they included the detail about the help I received from
@AntonHur
,
@clarehannahmary
, Slin Jung, and ARMY
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It's past midnight here so I'm off to bed. But if anyone else sees my translations floating around in connection to the exhibit (the actual panels, the brochure, marketing materials, etc.), please do send me links/photos/videos? Thanks!
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You all have my invite to boycott the British Museum's Hidden China Exhibit for their erasure of Qiu Jin both in Chinese and English.
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"This exhibition is the result of a four-year research project, undertaken by over 100 scholars from 14 countries. It includes 300 objects from around the world." You worked on this for four years, but you couldn't credit, contact, and pay a translator?
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here's another line oh dear... i wonder how many lines/poems they took???
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hey
@britishmuseum
, I am demanding all my translations to be removed from the China's Hidden Century exhibit and all materials pertaining to the exhibit (including the exhibition books, all video/photo/display materials, all signage, all digital or print materials such as
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since the myth about "may we live in interesting times" being Chinese is surfacing again let me introduce you to an actual idiom that is said lol
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I invite all writer's unions, literary organizations, journals, publishers, education institutions, and any organizations who supports the copyright and moral rights of writers/translators/creatives to issue a statement individually or collectively to condemn the British Museum.
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Omg what happened here last night... if you're interested in following my work on Chinese poetry and/or translations, please subscribe to my newsletter. My QJ translations will appear in an anthology I'm editing & translating that's forthcoming next year.
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For
#AroWeek
, I want to talk about the Chinese term 知音 (pronounced zhīyīn in Mandarin), which has influenced my thinking about queerplatonic relationships.
zhī 知: to know, knowing
yīn 音: music, sound
literally, a zhīyīn is someone who "truly understands your songs"
1/?
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So they TOOK OUT the CHINESE and the ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS of Qiu Jin's poetry... almost as, if you know, they want to make sure there are NO words of hers in the exhibit at all
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Their editor-in-chief asked me if I want to be just not listed on the project at all. After all that they put people through and not even credit them? I did my work and handed it in. This is how they treat their translators.
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Thinking about Johnson Tsang's painful pot
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Hold the British Museum accountable for copyright and moral rights infringement and the erasure of feminist poet Qiu Jin! Let's do this together - please spread the word far and wide!
#NameTheTranslator
#QiuJin
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When an editor sends you copy edits of your translations and they have copy edited your translations to conform to a different version of the translation that was actually incorrect and omitted a lot of info
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Don't ever forget this.
two white women receiving 3.5 years and over 700k to research “creativity in qing china” and just taking
@yilinwriter
’s translations off the internet is so classic of white “sinologists” i want to throw up. pay her
@britishmuseum
and the researchers should apologize personally
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i'm blocking trolls in my comments that question translation as an art (ty folks for responding to them so i don't have to)
but i do want to show you these translations of QJ's poetry from early 20th c by Florence Ayscough to show how translations can go wrong when too literal
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Why is the British Museum taking so long to actually apologize to and compensate a translator? Wrong answers only.
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You have my invite to contact the British Museum, contact the funding body of the grant (see above), contact your politicians, contact donors, contact anyone the British Museum is accountable to.
They're not only refusing to credit me, but also removed both my words/Qiu Jin's.
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If anyone has a copy of or has seen a physical exhibit brochure or the exhibit catalogue book, I'm trying to see if any of my translations appear in that. Please let me know if you have seen it or can check...
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brochures, and anywhere else where translations have appeared), unless the museum makes a proper offer to compensate me and the compensation is given immediately.
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The most annoying thing about this whole thing is that I feel increasingly personally insulted by the British Museum lol. Like this is just not a good negotiation tactic for them???
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I hope to have an update tomorrow. But basically I have been asking for a reinstatement of the translations with full credit, a modest compensation, and an apology that actually explains what went wrong and how they'll do better. The British Museum has declined twice.
@yilinwriter
I came across this one. Now I see the bigger picture. Still wonder what the current status is and what your specific demands are. Is there a post / an article somewhere? Let me get you a cup of coffee or better two in the meantime. :)
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Also, what exposure is there from them having my translations on display without credit????
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If you want to help, please ask them to credit translators. I want them to use my pen name and credit me so I can move on from this. I shouldn't have be on Twitter calling them out to get them to use my pen name.
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I'm in the process of waiting to get some advice from
@Soc_of_Authors
.
In the meantime, I hear that the curators are not active on social media, so if you want to help make your opinions known...
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Thank you so much
@hyperallergic
for following up with me about how the British Museum has handled everything after I first discovered they used my translations without my permission
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My response to British Museum's recent public statement forthcoming:
- In their 1st email to me, BM never admitted or apologized for using my work WITHOUT CONSENT. They just said "400 people in 20 countries have helped make this exhibition happen and we are grateful to you all."
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You also have my invite to go stand outside the British Museum to protest. Bring a giant picture of her. Bring some signs with her poems/words in Chinese and English (you have my permission to use the English for this purpose solely, if you credit me). Let visitors know.
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I also have two sources confirming my translations are being quoted in the edited volume/catalogue.
The line "Don't speak of how women can't become heroes" here is also my translation...
@yilinwriter
Unfortunately it looks as if your suspicion re the catalogue is correct. I hope you are properly acknowledged and compensated.
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Only two journalists (both writers of color) have asked me so far about how I feel about the tone of British Museum's recent statement. 🙃
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Having some Mapo tofu with veggies. This dish has a feminist origin story about how it was invented by two sister-in-laws, one widowed and one who left home, who opened their own restaurant to sell tofu at a time when women were really discouraged from working outside the home.
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I have decided to escalate this further and am working on a crowdfunding page. Please keep an eye out for more news really soon.
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If any Asian sensitivity readers get a sensitivity consulting request from a White British filmmaker who has lived with Asia and wants to make a film about "illegal Asian massage parlors" in London, please note that he approached me and I told him it was not his story to tell.
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A reminder that instead of supporting an institution that stole my translations, refuses to credit me as a translator at their exhibit, and has now removed Qiu Jin's poetry both in Chinese/English, you could pre-order my forthcoming book and show some love to Qiu Jin's work
@deborah_c
My publisher
@invisibooks
has created a pre-order page for THE LANTERN AND THE NIGHT MOTHS, an anthology of Chinese poetry I edited/translated (that includes Qiu Jin's work), accompanied by my essays on translation. Please consider pre-ordering!
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But I am not a helpful person towards rich institutions that steal things and then thank people for their "help"
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- This has been an incredibly and needlessly frustrating experience after experiencing copyright infringement. I urge the British Museum to actually engage with me in good faith to show that they are truly apologetic. Otherwise, I do not and cannot accept their apology.
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Quick update: someone who works for the museum has reached out to apologize (neither of the 2 organizers have apologized). They're offering to send me their permission form and I have asked them for a list of the places where the translations appear. Hope to have more news soon.
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I also have gone to school for a BFA and MFA in Creative Writing, and am an award-winning poet recently nominated for the National Magazine Award in Poetry in Canada. When they steal my translations, they're stealing all this knowledge and expertise from me. 😡💢
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The first two images show translations of poems that I've also translated - "Pusaman: A Message for a Female Friend" and "A Reply Verse in Matching Rhyme" (links above). You can compare them to see the amount of work I'm doing. I bring my experience as a poet to my translations
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It also tried to thank me for "helping" when I gave absolute no consent lmao
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- To say I "help" make this happen is disingenuous. My translations appeared in photos on a giant display, on signage, in a physical guide, in a digital guide, in an audio guide, and in an app that is available for international download. How did NO ONE catch there was no credit?
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I made a Classical Chinese Poetry Bingo to help people recognize the common tropes and motifs.🤣 These show up frequently in the modern poetry I translate as well. Do you recognize anything from your readings or from pop culture? Tag yourself. I'm "feeling sad on a boat" lol
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So it seems like in addition to using my translation in the PDF, the text in the quoted tweet also appeared in the on-site exhibition text
My translations also somehow made it into your PDF guide on the exhibit, again without credit or permission...
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FYI everyone
@yilinwriter
The researchers got a grant of £719,000. And
@britishmuseum
is charging £18 for an adult ticket to the exhibition. Yet they can’t even compensate you for the ‘contribution’ they took from you.
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This came unsolicited from a "Sinologist group." I normally do not share these kinds of posts, but I'm going to make an example of this guy.
Fuck off, racist.
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🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
two white women receiving 3.5 years and over 700k to research “creativity in qing china” and just taking
@yilinwriter
’s translations off the internet is so classic of white “sinologists” i want to throw up. pay her
@britishmuseum
and the researchers should apologize personally
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I had an email that was super condescending
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In case you are wondering: no apology, no compensation, no responsibility taking, absolutely meaningless words lol
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Some other names
墨香铜臭 mo xiang tong chou (literally "the ink is fragrant, the copper is stinky")
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Electronic Arts asks their potential sensitivity readers to do 700-word sensitivity read samples for free without even a guaranteed project 🙃 I said no and they said it is their standard business protocol because not all the work they receive is high quality 🙃
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@deborah_c
My publisher
@invisibooks
has created a pre-order page for THE LANTERN AND THE NIGHT MOTHS, an anthology of Chinese poetry I edited/translated (that includes Qiu Jin's work), accompanied by my essays on translation. Please consider pre-ordering!
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If you like this tweet, remember to support Sino diaspora translators 💜
Also stop exoticizing and essentializing cultures
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Please all email and contact the British Museum to tell them to stop putting words in my mouth and deliberately misrepresenting what I'm asking for. I'm going to start tweeting this everyday and make sure every single person knows until they stop.
I hear that the British Museum is telling journalists they removed the QJ translations (& the Chinese!) "at my request." They infringed my copyright and are not allowed to use my work without permission/credit. Their first email said they'd put my name on a list of translators,
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Also, their staff was the ones who strongly recommended a pen name when I originally was not planning to. Then I resigned from the project and I can't use my pen name either???
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To honor Dr. Refaat Alareer (
@itranslate123
), here's my Chinese translation of his poem "If I must die." 💔 献丑了～
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I encountered a very interesting account on Chinese social media recently that has been going through historical documents and books to recreate family trees based on matrilineal lineage. (A lot of women/female descendents get completely left out of family trees...)
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Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! I am eating savory Shanghai-style mooncakes right now. While I eat let me tell you all about the rabbit in the moon and why the rabbit is a god for queer folks. Follow this thread for my quick on-the-fly summary/translation of the original folktale
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Academics who are "volunteering" to share their work with a museum are still being *paid* by their institutions. Lmao, come on.
The British Museum got a grant for the exhibit. One of the co-designers of the exhibit has explicitly said she agrees I should be paid.
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@deborah_c
"we will not be reinstating the
translations in the exhibition that have been removed following your complaint, and
therefore you will not be acknowledged in the exhibition as your work will not be
featured"
😑😑😑😑😑😑😑
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Thank you
@jessieyeung8
for talking to me about how I feel that British Museum's recent statement rings hollow and lacks accountability, as well as the importance of respecting translator labor, which is so often made invisible in publishing and academia.
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More info about their governance, trustees, different policies, etc. for anyone who wants to do some digging.
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just learned about the etymology for the Chinese character 友 (friendship / friend), which originally consisted of two hands greeting each other... awwww🥺👭
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- ONLY after all of that did they make an offer to pay me for permission to use my translations in the book & the time my translations were uncredited at the exhibit. They then REFUSED to credit me in the exhibit where my translations had already appeared
@deborah_c
"we will not be reinstating the
translations in the exhibition that have been removed following your complaint, and
therefore you will not be acknowledged in the exhibition as your work will not be
featured"
😑😑😑😑😑😑😑
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I haven't talked about lived experiences, invisible labor, and racism much here because it's exhausting to do so, more than obvious, and I have already written about it before. But yes to all of this. 👏👏👏
@yilinwriter
@britishmuseum
The issue is, of course, abt the larger question of the ethics of knowledge production & knowledge translation. The colonial imperative to just USE, without attribution and, more gallingly, without consent, the work done by 'insiders', happens so often in academia. /3
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- They then offered to send me a "permission form" in an email that kept emphasizing how other academics allowed them to use their work for free or at a low cost, rather than making an offer to pay me for the lack of permission sought.
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- Then, before I even got a chance to reply or negotiate yet, they sent me another email in just 24hrs, saying they had REMOVED all my translations from the exhibit, and they'd JUST pay me a £150.00 (exc VAT) for permission to use the translations in the book.
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and their second offered to send a permission form even as it emphasized other academics allowed them to use work for free or at a low fee. But they never gave me a chance to even respond! Removing QJ's poetry in Chinese & English and refusing to credit are acts of erasure.
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This quote, which is not mine, is also uncited:"'The young intellectuals are all chanting, "Revolution, Revolution", but I say the revolution will have to start in our homes, by achieving equal rights for women.'" I wonder who did the translation? Qiu Jin didn't write in English.
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one of the people involved in this is a white translator lmao, oh boy...
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As I have stated multiple times, their communication with me has been extremely disappointing and disrespectful. You can't be like, oh we're going to credit you, oh now we won't. Oh, we want permission, but actually we don't anymore. YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE APOLOGIZING TO ME.
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Now that I think of it, it's also really odd they never told me they were going to this announcement before it came out, and they don't mention anything about the translation in the announcement...
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Would anyone else like to request apologies from the British Musuem for anything else that they stole, while we are on this topic? Put your requests below ⬇️⬇️⬇️
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I want to take a moment to do some math here... I'm not a translator working on a handful of translations of QJ's poetry; I'm slowly working towards a book-length translation. For this work, I have close read through all 200+ of QJ's poems about five times.
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They removed all the translations and the original???
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I have published around a dozen or so. Speaking generally when it comes to my poetry translations, they take about a week to several months, perhaps an average of 20-50hrs per poem including selection, background research, annotating, translation, revisions, and seeking feedback.
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