Pretending to be a translator

Today we had the official welcome & opening ceremony at our school, at least for all the foreign students. For some reason the office at the school asked me to translate the whole thing from Chinese to English. I was not sure if it was because my Chinese proficiency or that they just couldn't find anybody crazy enough to do it for them. Well... I know now...:-P

They first gave me a speech outline, of which I already had like trouble to read, but well I thought I have a couple of days to translate it, so I might as well. After 3 hours, I finally got it down. I went back to the office to mention that I actually had difficulties reading the text, and that they perhaps need to find somebody from a higher class (there is one class higher then my current level) and a native English speaker. But no no, she said no need, it's not gonna be that hard, and just an approximate sort of translation would be good enough. I'm like, OK as long as you don't mind that I freely translate, then I also don't mind to do it...

Hmmm, when I got to the auditorium, there were like 150 students, and the Dean of the university was there too (slightly started to feel nervous) Then the lady from the office told us all kinds of changes in the program, so and so is also gonna talk, that person is not going to talk etc. etc. I didn't even understand what the hell she was talking about, and she was throwing names here and there that I had to remember on the spot. (ok I started sweating at this point)

Two minutes later, she came with all kinds of papers of the content that the speakers will be talking about. (Right, it took me freakin' three hours to translate like 4 paragraphs...so by now I knew I really was in big trouble)

Suffice to say here that it was a complete disaster, but what made feel a 'little' bit better was that the Korean student (that already had studied 2 years full time Chinese) sitting next to me, also couldn't get all of it. (and I only studied Chinese for 6 months full time) OK, maybe it also had to do with the fact they were talking for like 10 minutes straight, with no intervals or anything, and they just expected us being able to translate everything.

Anyway, I feel for the English speakers there, haha, they probably missed out half of the ceremony. It was so bad that at one point when the director said something about the requirements (with numbers, names and study subjects) I just kept my straight face (believe me it was difficult) and said: "The director mentioned many important requirements when you would like to school here, and if you would like to know more about it please go to the office for more information." :-)

O and I are getting ready now to go to Changchun (7 hours up north from here with the train) to visit our friend Daisy before she leaves for Spain. So more stories later...Have a great weekend!