Mingcheng Song

There are times when I open my mouth strange sounds fall out, caused by the jamming of English words, a composite of slurred and broken syllables. Even when I was able to speak with some clarity, I would often feel the sentence beginning to collapse on itself as it gained more weight and momentum over time. And then it either snapped abruptly, or trailed off into a murmur. To patch, I picked up this versatile phrase of "if it makes any sense". The trick is to use it as a precaution before anyone could echo back.

I've done lots of translating for free. Being able to speak the language (in my case English) is an asset, while it's also the very basis of my status as a foreign student (in relation to the US) studying aboard (in relation to China). I developed a strange antagonism towards translation as a result of finding myself in situations where people instinctually look to me to flip the switch. But there really isn't translating without replacing one with another. How do we go on with only an approximated understanding of the text? 



What does replacing the texts with blanks do? It is a frustrated  act of mutilation? Even reduced to the two dimensions of width and length, letters reveal genealogical biases through their average shape and relative spacings.