Connecting East and West With Meaning and Melody: Singer-Translator Gene Hsu

Translator and singer-songwriter Gene Hsu is bringing Chinese poetry to life for Western audiences. photo courtesy of Gene Hsu

A Chinese-born vocalist and linguist is on a mission to bring peace through poetry and song. By bringing traditional Chinese poetry to life for Western audiences, she hopes to bridge the East-West cultural gap and bring people together, by translating the Chinese poems in a singable way. It’s a complex task that has received little attention until now.

Gene Hsu was born in China and has been doing research in the UK, with a focus on intercultural and interlingual studies. The translator and singer-songwriter is on a quest to translate the poetry of ancient China into singable English songs.

When she translates a poem, her aim is to balance meaning and melody: in other words, to accurately convey the poem’s meaning, while translating it in such a way that it can be set to a singable tune.

“I believe music is a ‘language’ universal that can bridge the gap between languages, cultures, and people with goodwill. Music and spoken languages both use sounds to make communication possible, though in different ways,” she told The Epoch Times in an interview earlier this month.

When it comes to translating non-prose material—poetry and songs—interpretation is key, she noted. And interpretation is much more than merely “simultaneous or consecutive interpreting from the source language into the target language,” she noted.

An East-West Blend of Poems and Music

One of Gene’s song translations is “Prelude to Water Melody—When did the moon first appear?” The song poem is a popular work by Su Shih, a poet from the Song Dynasty (960–1279).

Su penned the song poem on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, a festival of the full moon, to express his nostalgia after a seven-year separation from his brother.

In ancient China, the full moon was a metaphor for happiness and fulfilled goals, while a moon that wasn’t full signified loss and regret. Drawing connections between the moon’s shape and humans’ separating and reuniting, the poem is a poignant philosophical reflection on life’s happiness and sorrow.

The original poem has been set to melody in various forms. However, although there are multiple English translations of “Prelude to Water Melody,” Gene saw a need for one that was eminently singable.

Turning Chinese poetry into singable English lyrics is a challenge, Gene said. Rhythm, song-writing skills, and song structure, all go into the mix. Then there’s poeticity, an elusive quality that has been likened to oil in cooking. The result must be not only possible to sing, but easy to sing.

‘Dancing to my Shadow’

Gene explored the complex world of song and translation in a cover story for the summer 2024 edition of The Linguist.

In her article, entitled “Make It Sing?” Gene said, “Although research in song translation is increasing, it is still rare. Most existing research discusses aspects of translation and rhyme, but few take music songwriting and theory into account.”

Gene discussed how she crafted the English version of “Prelude to Water Melody,” to accompany a melody by composer Vincent Liang. When translating, she said, “ I paid attention not only to rhyme and vowel sounds, but also to musical elements, including song structure and poeticity, to improve singability.”

She noted that previous poetic translations did not aim at singability, though they preserved the meaning and main idea of the original poem.

“Singability, understandability, and listenability” should all be assessed, she wrote, and musical analysis and performing arts must be taken into account.

Her English lyrics capture “Prelude to Water Melody’s” wistful, melancholy quality:

How rare the moon, so round and clear! With a wine cup, I ask of the blue sky, In the celestial palace up so high, What day tonight goes by? Riding the air, I would fly, But fear it’s too cold up there, Crystalline mansions are so high! Dancing to my shadow, No longer the mortal tie.

Giving Voice to Human Rights Concerns

Along with using her translating skills to bridge East and West and preserve traditional Chinese culture, Gene highlights the importance of translation in the human rights arena.

One example is her study of “Do You Hear the People Sing,” one of the most recognizable songs from the 1980 musical Les Misérables. During the 2019 pro-democracy Hong Kong protests, the song became an anthem for Hong Kong’s citizens and played a crucial role in advocating for freedom and democracy.

Protesters sang a version of the song that was translated into Cantonese, the dominant language of Hong Kong.

In the Cantonese translation, “Do you hear the people sing?” becomes “Ask of anyone who has not spoken up.” “Singing the song of angry men” becomes “If I can’t defend my city, who can?” “It is the music of the people” becomes “Born to be entitled inalienable rights.”

A Mandarin language version gave the pro-democracy anthem a wider audience. Again, the translator did not translate word for word from the English and French version, but aimed to preserve the song’s call for freedom and its singability.

In the Mandarin version, “Do you hear the people sing?” becomes “Hear the people shouting.” “Singing the song of angry men” becomes “This is the voice of people’s anger.” “It is the music of the people” becomes “Who can no longer stand the status quo.”

Analyzing the two translations, Gene said she believes the singable lyrics of the song in both Mandarin and Cantonese help raise awareness of the human rights situation in Hong Kong and mainland China. The song may be a “trigger” that causes listeners to trace the history of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) human rights abuses “in China and beyond,” she said.

“People adapted or sang this protest song to express their inner voice of longing for freedom and democracy. They use music as a kind of media channel to give expression to what they are not allowed to speak up in public.”

Reviving Traditional Chinese Culture

Regarding the CCP’s human rights abuses, Gene said she feels the worst atrocity is eliminating a nation’s culture.

“To eliminate a country, you must first eliminate its history; to eliminate a nation, you must first eliminate its culture,” she said, quoting a saying by ancient Chinese scholar Kung Tzu-chen.

To draw attention to the moral, historical, and cultural significance of China’s traditional culture, Gene, despite being from mainland China herself, often advocates traditional Chinese characters, which are used in Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and some southeastern countries, rather than simplified Chinese characters, which are used in mainland China under the CCP’s policy.

She has also stressed traditional Chinese characters in her scholarly work—she holds postgraduate degrees in translation and interpretation.

To that end, she gave a presentation at Trados ELEVATE 2023, a global online gathering for translation professionals, in May 2023. The conference theme was “Give translation a chance to stand out, and it shall boost world peace” and Gene’s presentation analyzed a translation of “Les Miserables” with traditional Chinese subtitles.

Gene started learning traditional Chinese character when she was a child. She has been using traditional Chinese ever since, using simplified Chinese only for school exams.

She told The Epoch Times that she believes the CCP has used simplified Chinese as a way of eliminating traditional Chinese culture. “I felt that the Chinese language had been changed, and a lot of the vocabulary was made by the CCP, so I felt that I had to learn traditional Chinese characters.”

In addition to translating, songwriting, and presenting at research conferences around the world, Gene enjoys performing. Her singing has won praises from teachers and peers. She won “Pop Voice Excellent Gold Award” at the 6th annual Hong Kong International Music Festival in 2020.

Vocalist Gene Hsu sings "Prelude to Water Melody" at the Temple of Art and Music in London, on Sept. 24, 2023. (Photo courtesy of Gene Hsu) 

Gene feels her work of translating songs and making them singable in other languages has a deeper mission: to connect people, avoid misunderstandings, and reduce conflict. “I hope to do my bit [for] world peace,” she said.