Chinese etiquette dictates that one should downgrade one’s own abilities, which extends to those of one’s children. For example, if someone were to praise your daughter for her good looks, you’d say, “Oh no, my daughter’s very ugly.” If someone were to say your child’s very clever, you’d say, “Oh no, I have a very stupid child.” The child would not suffer any damage to the ego or self-confidence, because s/he just knew grown-ups played this superficial game to satisfy the rules of social etiquette.
Dr. Sarah Allan, now a professor in California, was an American lecturer at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) in the 80s and a Western expert on Chinese oracle bone script. She had written a book or two on the subject before getting her next book translated into Chinese as well.
As is the convention with academic writing, reference would be made to other people’s works/theories on the subject, including the writer’s own previous ones, if any, followed by the source. So, if the writer was Mary Smith, she’d refer to Robert Jones’s work as “see Robert Jones, TITLE, Chapter x, p.xx”, and to her own as “see Mary Smith, TITLE, Chapter x, p.xx”, in the same neutral tone of voice.
However, the Chinese translation had to observe the Chinese conventions, including the modest way of referring to anything related to oneself. I was typesetting the translation of Sarah Allan’s book and noticed that the neutral version in her English copy (“see Sarah Allan, TITLE, Chapter x, p.xx”) came out in the Chinese translation as: “see clumsy work, TITLE, Chapter x, p.xx”, with the “clumsy work” being immediately obvious as being the speaker’s/writer’s own. She was tickled pink about this and came to my office to have a good giggle about it.
(拙作 zhuōzuò / “clumsy work”)
(London 1989)
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