There are so many things in life that people say a person should “take with a grain of salt;” I can’t help but wonder if translation is something I should add to my list along with the fashion ideas my sister provides me with and the stories my grandma has told me about being struck by lightning…twice. From the readings for this week, it seems as though translation of anything should always be approached with a little bit of skepticism. How can anyone be sure of how true any translation is unless that person is a native speaker? In order to know if something is truly accurate in its translation, wouldn’t  a person need to be fluent in more than one language? Fluent in not just the language, but the values, traditions, and ideas of the culture? It seems as though the accuracy of any translation is in the eyes of the native speakers.

Having read Hsieh’s piece last, I found myself wondering how much of the translation was true to the meaning and how much of it was altered so that a Westerner, like myself, would have no problems understanding it. When I wasn’t distracting myself with this thought, I really enjoyed it. I liked how Hsieh points out that cutting back in writing is one of the most difficult things to do, how like a stream if a piece is “full,” it will do more harm than good. To me, this is something that is still very applicable today. In my own tutoring experience, I often see students cringe when I suggest removing something or ask them how they might be able to “cut back” on a piece. While I enjoyed the comparison made to removing an extra finger or a tumor, I think that removing sentences from writing isn’t quite the same. If someone has a tumor, chances are that person wants it gone. How often do people willingly remove things from their writing? So many people have a personal attachment to various parts of their writing that to ask them to remove anything is like asking them to remove a piece of themselves; it’s easier said than done.

Another component of Hsieh’s piece that I really enjoyed was the way the relationship between different parts of writing was emphasized. When he wrote about how words, sentences, and paragraphs are all crucial parts of a paper, it made me think about sports; all of the players work together to win a game. It isn’t just the person who scores the winning point that ends the competition; it’s all of the players working together that makes it happen. Very rarely do I look at writing as a compilation of various parts. To me, it’s more of a whole than anything else. I also saw a connection to rhetoric, especially the way Socrates went about it. Oftentimes, he would build up to a point or argument, making each sentence or idea a crucial part of the outcome. The focus wasn’t always on the result, but the way he got to that point. In this sense, rhetoric isn’t about the destination, but the journey.