Chaotic disorder had not yet split the sky, and all was vast and vague.
So begins Andrew Kozak’s English translation of the classical Chinese novel Journey to the West, or Xi You Ji. Kozak, a Chinese major in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Department of Asian and Slavic Languages and Literatures, began translating the 100-chapter epic in spring 2012 as a final project for a translation seminar. He’s only one chapter in, but the text is so dense that deciphering a single sentence is an achievement. Composed on a parchment scroll in the sixteenth century, the book tells the story of the Buddhist monk Xuanzang’s pilgrimage to India against the elaborate, often cryptic, background of Chinese mythology and folk religion. “When I started doing the translation,” Andy says, “my Chinese teachers’ first reaction was, ‘You’re nuts! We don’t even fully understand it, and we can read it!’”
His goal is to make the story accessible to a general, English-speaking audience, as existing English translations of the work are nearly impossible to read. “The average Joe on the street isn’t going to pick them up and understand them,” he says. “I want to bring the book down closer to a newspaper level, where you could pick it up off the shelf, read it, and know exactly what’s going on, even if you don’t quite get why a monkey is inside of a rock that’s supposed to be its egg.” The hardest part, Andy says, is the grammar, because “there’s no one-to-one correlation between English and Chinese words” (trust him—his Chinese-to-English dictionary is a wreck). He frequently consults his Chinese teachers; his advisor, UI professor Helen Shen; and his Chinese roommates for feedback on his translation. “It’s sort of a group effort,” he laughs.
Oddly enough, the Marshalltown, Iowa, native came to Chinese through a love of Japanese popular culture: “I’ve always loved anime and manga. Growing up, I liked Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Cardcaptor Sakura.” When Andy’s father, the principal of East Marshall High School (and founder of the renowned Virtual Reality Education Pathfinders program), added Mandarin Chinese to the school’s curriculum to better prepare students for the twenty-first-century job market, Andy enrolled in one of the classes “just to see what I thought.” He soon fell in love with Chinese language, history, and culture: “I even started listening to Chinese music and playing SanGuoSha” (a popular Chinese card game).
Andy displays his copy of Journey to the West; photo by Mark Fullenkamp
A senior at the time, Andy was planning to become an x-ray technician and had no plans to further his formal study of Chinese; however, a year into the radiologic technology program at Indian Hills Community College, he realized that the field wasn’t a good fit for him and transferred to the University of Iowa, where he quickly declared an Asian Languages and Literatures major with a concentration in Chinese and enrolled in both the International Business Certificate and Entrepreneurial Certificate programs. “My dad taught me to focus on the short term but keep in mind what I’m going to do later on,” he says. “With a Chinese major and the business and entrepreneurial certificates, I could contract myself out to English-speaking companies who want to put things out in Chinese, or vice versa. Maybe I’ll even start my own translation business!”
Not only has the UI enabled Andy to pursue his interest in Chinese, but it has also given him the opportunity to study the language and culture first-hand via the Iowa in Tianjin program. During the summer of 2011, Andy made his second journey to the East, where he studied the colorful history of Beijing’s ancient alleys, or hutongs. He has also participated in the UI’s Greater China Business Association, serving as the group’s Networking VP and website administrator, as well as in his department’s Language Partner Program, which partners Chinese majors (24 at last count) with native Chinese-speaking students for language practice.
With 2,062 Chinese students now studying at the UI (53% of the university’s international student population), Andy says it’s a treat for a small-town Chinese major to walk down the street in Iowa City or ride the bus. He’s made lots of Chinese friends and says he enjoys helping to bridge the cultural gaps between his Chinese and his American friends, explaining everything from education system differences to bathroom etiquette. He even shares an apartment with two students from China, thanks to his building’s interest-based roommate matching system. “When they first moved into the apartment,” Andy recalls, smiling, “I spoke to them in Chinese, and they said to each other, ‘Wait a minute, did he just say hello to us in Chinese?’ They were totally shocked.”
But Andy’s used to that. He also likes to surprise Chinese customers at the tea shop where he works by greeting them in their native language: “They often come in looking for loose-leaf teas,” he explains. “When I hear them speaking Chinese, as long as it’s Mandarin, I’ll go up and talk with them in Chinese. It’s good practice for me”—and, one would guess, good business for the tea shop.
As for Journey to the West, it’s on hold for now, but Andy looks forward to tackling chapter two, in which Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, learns the delicate art of the Tao.