Office lady Helen Liu, 32, is so interested in traditional Chinese medicine she bought a bilingual reference book. But while she understands every English word in the book, when they are lined up in a phrase, she is totally lost.
While "WHO International Standard Terminologies on Traditional Medicine in the Western Pacific Region" was released in 2007 with the best of intentions, still some standard terminologies including "six bowels" for liu fu (generic term for pericardium, gallbladder, stomach, small intestine, large intestine and bladder) and "triple energizers" for san jiao (an organ responsible for transporting fluid, nutrition and qi or energy) are confusing for foreigners and sound ridiculous to many Chinese.
For 47-year-old Li Zhaoguo, who has devoted more than 20 years to TCM translation, such examples are just a common problem.
"You cannot say they are totally wrong, only that they are not so accurate as to deliver a message accurately," says Li, a professor in the English Department of Shanghai Normal University who is also vice president of the TCM Translation Committee.
The history of TCM translation is actually a history of cultural communication, according to Li who believes that as we learn more about the target culture, we find better translations.
TCM translation can be traced back to the 17th century when European missionaries arrived in the Orient. But incorrect translation over the years has made the already abstract TCM even more difficult to understand for foreigners.
"In translation, research shows that we can find corresponding terms for most words of one language in another language. But there are always some groups of words that you cannot find as they are unique to a local culture," says Li. "TCM is one of those in Chinese language."
For example, the most commonly used term in TCM is qi, which is translated as "energy" in most cases. But Li says that while energy belongs to qi, the word does not convey a complete picture of qi.
"TCM believes that qi can help warm, promote, nourish and defend. The term 'energy' can suggest promote and defend, yet never warm or nourish," he says.
It is also the case with shen, widely accepted as "spirit." But shen actually suggests spirit, mind and vitality in different situations.
Li recognized how difficult it was to translate TCM to foreigners as early as in the 1980s when he was assigned to be an interpreter for a medical exchange program as an star graduate at the Xi'an International Studies University.
"It was a complete nightmare when I was preparing for the program," Li recalls. "I did not know the words and no dictionary could help me."
