Newsletter No. 419

No. 419, 4.6.2013 5 新亞牛肉麵 New Asia’s Famous Beef Noodles 早年一群在新亞執教的台灣學者─金耀基教授、林聰標教授、喬健教授和逯耀東教授等─ 閒聊之間,發起在書院闢室,供應台灣式麵食,更定下以牛肉麵為主打。 坐言起行,美食評論家逯耀東教授負責傳授員工製作牛肉麵的竅門,並邀請饒宗頤教授為麵食 館命名。饒教授取意唐朝詩人王維的「行到水窮處,坐看雲起時」,定名雲起軒,1978年開業。 自2011年12月起,雲起軒裝修,捧場者望穿秋水。苦候多時,4月底麵灶重開的消息甫傳,午間 登上雲端重溫滋味者即絡繹於途。三十五年來,新亞牛肉麵,或是雲起軒牛肉麵的烹調法代代 相承,味道不變-帶膠質的牛腱肉軟濃;北方麵身有嚼勁;湯以大地魚乾及豬骨烹制,鮮味甘 醇,為代代新亞人所愛。這道牛肉麵除該獲頒「長期服務獎」,也許應被列為新亞書院的非物質 文化遺產。 In the early days of the University, a group of Taiwanese scholars teaching in New Asia College, including Prof. Ambrose Y.C. King, Prof. Lin Tzoing-biau, Prof. Chiao Chien, and Prof. Lu Yau-tung, chatted about having a room in the College that supplied Taiwanese- style noodles with beef noodles as the signature. Their idea soon materialized. Prof. Lu Yau-tung, a food critic, taught the chef to cook beef noodles with his special recipe. Prof. Jao Tsung I was invited to name the place. Taking the idea from the poem of Wang Wei, Tang Dynasty poet, Professor Jao named it ‘Yuen Chi Hsien’, literally meaning ‘where the clouds rise’. The restaurant opened in 1978, underwent renovation from December 2011 and reopened in late April 2013, continuing to serve up delicious Taiwanese-style noodles. For the past 35 years, the recipe has remained unchanged. The slices of beef shin flavoured with Chinese spices are tender, the Northern-Chinese-style noodles are al dente , and the soup is made from dried flounder and pork bones. The beef noodles, a beloved delicacy for generations of New Asia members, deserve to receive the ‘long service award’, and should perhaps be added to the list of the College’s List of Intangible Cultural Heritage. A  ccording to the Book of Genesis of the Bible, the people of Babel wanted to build a tower tall enough to reach the heavens. At the time there was only one language on earth. The Lord thought that if people could complete the tower, they would be able to do anything they liked. So he confused their language and they could not understand each other. Finally they failed to complete the tower. The word ‘babel’ was coined and it’s come to mean the sound of many voices talking at the same time. To communicate, they would need to rely on translation. Prof. Chan Sin-wai , chairman of the Department of Translation, is writing a book on translation technology tentatively named Towards a World Without Babel . He observed that there are more than 6,900 languages in the world and in the European Union alone, a total of 23 official languages are used and 2,500 translators are employed. In the United Nations, six official languages are spoken. Translation works are mainly outsourced to professional agencies or freelance translators. The workload will be enormous if interpretation works are also taken into account. Professor Chan said, ‘It is very difficult to cope with the amount of rendering work if we rely solely on manpower. But advances in computer technology have offered solutions to the problems.’ What Professor Chan was referring to is computer-aided translation (CAT). He said that many people confuse computer translation with CAT. They are two totally different concepts. ‘Computer translation is an automatic process. When you input the source text, the system will process on its own. In CAT, human-computer interaction is involved. As there is a human element, the final product is comparable to human translation. There is still much room for improvement in computer translation. Poor translations by machine were widely read and become jokes. People are under the impression that computer translation cannot produce quality work, and that extends—wrongly so—to CAT,’ he explained. Professor Chan added that research on machine translation began in the 1960s. Scientists strove to develop an automatic translation system. But in the 1980s they realized that CAT was more practical and hence shifted their focus to this area. The CAT system was first introduced in 1988 in Germany. With technological advances, CAT is now a full-fledged system. It can perform very well especially when working with languages in the same family such as Indo-European languages. It came as no surprise to learn that as the relevant research originated in Europe. In recent years, however, rapid development in this area has taken place in Japan, Korea and China. Now, over 80 sets of CAT software are in common use. Professor Chan remarked, ‘Rendering with the aid of the computer is a global trend. In Europe, 160,000 people use different kinds of systems to assist in translation. In the European Union, over 60% of documents are translated this way. You can imagine how many translators and editors would be needed to render a text of several thousand or even tens of thousands of words within a short time.’ To conclude, CAT makes use of the characteristics of a database and stores in its memory language segments which have previously been translated. When the system encounters the same or similar structures, it will show the previous translation and the translator can adapt it or fine- tune it. This is an inevitable process of human-computer interaction which helps to avoid direct and inaccurate translation. Prior to the translation process, all the needed phrases and technical terms must be input into the system. Better results would be obtained if more terms are available in the database. In this sense, CAT is more suitable for translation in specific domains such as business documents characterized by jargons and repetition in content. In fact, most documents needing translation are practical texts. For translation in non-practical domains, Professor Chan said, ‘The computer is only a supplementary tool. An excellent translator is still crucial. Computers don’t work in the translation of literature.’ Timothy Hunt , CEO of TermSeek Inc., said it well, ‘Computers will never replace translators, but translators who use computers will replace translators who don’t.’ Professor Chan claimed that owing to the specific background of Hong Kong, there is a huge demand for translators. Among the eight local universities, seven offer translation courses. CUHK is the first university in the world to provide a master programme in CAT. This year the programme celebrates its 11th anniversary. Professor Chan said, ‘Chinese-English translation has had a long history in Hong Kong and the standard is very high. The government has a rich record and if this information was combed and used to build an extensive CAT database, it would help Hong Kong become one of the world’s leading centres in Chinese and English translation.’ 甚麼是「混亂油煎的混雜的菜」? What should ‘stir-fried mixed vegetables’ be in Chinese? 2008年的北京奧運,本地媒體曾以奧運媒體村餐廳 的菜式名稱翻譯作新聞題材。記者報道指餐廳餐牌的 菜式有「混亂油煎的混雜的菜」和「被分類的麵包」, 令人摸不着頭腦,原來美國餐飲承辦商的原英文餐牌 是stir-fried mixed vegetables和assorted bread, 即「炒雜菜」和「各式麵包」。這廣傳一時的笑話,據 悉是用網上翻譯軟件直譯而沒經人手編輯所致。 During the Beijing 2008 Olympics, the local media carried a piece on the translation of dishes in the restaurants of the Olympic media village. The reporter found the names of two kinds of food, ‘stir- fried mixed vegetables’ and ‘assorted bread’, had been mechanically translated directly into Chinese. The results—‘confusing, fried mixed vegetables’ and ‘segregated bread’—were very odd. Without the help of an editor, the translation became the standing joke of the games.

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