Comments on: Lost in translation….Miss Universe Japan

By: Taro

Taro — Tue, 29 May 2007 05:16:43 +0000

I just read this sharp comment on Japan’s win:

Japan has been doing a lot better at these pageants since they stopped letting Japanese choose the entrants based on their own standards of beauty. I heard that a French woman is in charge of it now. Japanese tend to emphasize the cute girly look over the mature sexy “woman” and were choosing entrants that they thought were “cute” (imagine Morning Musume with crooked teeth here) but who just couldn’t cut it alongside the amazons that enter these pageants.

By: Gem

Gem — Tue, 29 May 2007 03:25:45 +0000

Hi, I’m from Barbados I just picked up this message in passing since i’m very interested in this. But i want to say while i do think maybe the crown should have gone into other hands than the ones they were in for 2k6 I severely doubt that the minor differences between the translations of the interpreter and the other person who posted would have made a significant difference. In actual fact, if she had bashed the males as the originator of this message seems to be indicating by their translation that would have been worse. And 2) if the translation is correct as oppsed to that of the official interpreter then she certainly didn’t do what she was supposed to which is ANSWER THE QUESTION AS COMPLETELY AS POSSIBLE IN 30 SECONDS. Yes she does answer the question in both versions of thr translation. However, she does not answer it in any of them, with the completeness and without ambiguity and with clarity so that her words and meanings can not be mistrued in any way. Since miss universe would be a spokesperson for several products and agencies and organisation these are necessary. And the girl who can meet the majority of the criteria required for effective communication will get big marks towards her final score. And i believe that is a big part of why she did not succeed although i would say she is a very pretty girl and her national costume rocked!!! of course this year 2k7 Japan won and I would say definitely that she conveyed her thoughts well and was quite a bit better at doing so than Miss Kurara Chibana.

By: Taro

Taro — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 08:40:37 +0000

Behind the Paper Screen / Japanese beauty fit for global consumption Part II of II The Daily Yomiuri, Sept 14, 2006 .....The samurai-inspired costume that Kurara-san wore during the Miss Universe contest is a bold move to appeal to the global taste for kitschy-cute. Her costume, which Japanese observers have quickly named aka-ninja, or "red ninja," is, basically, a bright red minidress that looks like a warrior's armor, with the sides of her short "skirt" split open to show off her shapely legs. She wore this dress with a pair of bright-red platform sandals, and her hair tightly pulled back in a ponytail. And to kick up the costume's impact a notch, Kurara-san pulled out and pointed a long sword at the audience when she went onstage. It is an anime-esque mix of "Japanese" components (armor, sword) pasted onto a basically Western costume (minidress, platform sandals) and ambiguous gender-coding (color red and skin exposure connote the feminine, while armor and sword represent the masculine). They add up to a sort of hybrid look that is "Lara-Croft-Meets-Kunoichi (or female ninja) on Takeshita Street."...more...

By: SEDATED

SEDATED — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 14:29:11 +0000

I knew there was somthing about the translating method all along!

oh well there’s no 100% sureness in life so no one’s perffect it’s all good but personally I’d go for miss Japan

By: Courtney

Courtney — Sat, 12 Aug 2006 14:19:33 +0000

Yes, it is true everyone in my household was watching the show and we all thought that the translation could have been more fluent.

Anyone who appreciates beautiful women for their personality as well would have to rate Miss Japan higher.

I don’t know about you people but it always seems that the people from the American continent always seem to make the final. It’s like they and a token Asian and a token black person. I’ve also noticed they only ever choose very light skinned black people. Has anybody else noticed this?

By: Nathan

Nathan — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 00:36:08 +0000

Even if it was on the fly, just as he said including that one word “women” could have changed the whole thing. I don’t speak hardly any Japanese, mostly just simple things. However even I knew that she interpreted that wrong from the way she was saying it. Even if it was written down and she had time to look it over it would come out bad. Even Ms. Japan had to know she didn’t interpret that correctly. It appeared to me that interpreter spoke very bad english. The puerto rico interpreter was fluent in both Puerto rican and english so it wasn’t fair that Ms. Japan had a bad interpreter. I peg the whole thing on the interpreter.

By: Taro

Taro — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 00:53:31 +0000

Actually, Ms. Kurara Chibana stategic use of an interpreter (to gain more time in answering questions) backfired on her. She seems to be attending the “International Program” at Sophia Unv. of Tokyo which is run in English. Then again, I do the same thing in Japan pretending to be a “linguistic lame” when it suits me.

By: Nick

Nick — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 19:21:05 +0000

Give the interpreter a break. These guys are doing this on-the-fly (in the case of a simultanious interpreter), and even if it is consecutive interpretation, that’s still very hard. If she wants her meaning conveyed 100% in English, she can write it down for a translator to look over for a few hours and get the wording absolutely perfect. I’m not saying the interpretation was perfect, but this is how it works.