Funny Transnations

I'm sad to say that funny translations hardly have any effect on me anymore. I have been living for two months in Indonesia where shops advertise services like "we sell haircuts, watch, etc" and "Lightning Internet Faster," and restaurants offer such mouth-watering culinary selections as "Facos [tacos] with spicey saus" and "Sandwith"s. The list goes on, on, on, and on. Oh and that's not mentioning the Indonesians' use of +/- to mean "approximately." When you find "+/- 5% alcohol" on bottles of beer, according to Marcus, by the end of the night you can drink yourself sober. Mistranslations like these are rarely funny on their own anymore because not only have I seen so many of them day in and day out, but it often makes conversation more difficult and confusing. Explaining things 5 times and getting a smile and nod in response is common. Asking for chips and guacamole and suddenly finding yourself sitting in front of french fries, tortilla slices, and a bit of mashed avocado is normal. This has been my motivation for learning Indonesian and the little that I do know has paid off immensely.

As I was saying, I am largely unaffected by translation mistakes anymore but when I went to Ubud (on Bali) with my family to see a traditional play, I was handed a playbill marked as English. This is what it said word for word, plus pictures that I took throughout to go along with each act.


THE BARONG AND KRIS DANCE
The Barong Play represents an eternal fight between good and evil spirits. A Barong (a mythological animal) represent good spirit and Rangda (a mythological monster) represent evil one.

THE DANCE START WITH MUSIC OVERTONE
Followed by his friend the monkey, the tiger comes up. Three masked dancers appear, representing man making palwine in the forest whose child is killed by the tiger. The three men get angry and attack the tiger which is helped by the monkey. During the fight, the nose of one the three men is bitten off.

FIRSTACT
Two Girl dancers appears, representing the servants of the Rangda. They are looking for the servants of Dewi Kunti who are on the way to meet Patih (Prime Minister).

SECONDACT
The servants of Dewi Kunti come. One of the servants of the Rangda changes into a witch and enters both servants to make them angry.
They meet their Patih and go together to Dewi Kunti.

THIRDACT
Dewi Kunti and her son, Sahadewa [I SWEAR Sahadewa is a woman] come up. Dewi Kunti has promised the Rangda to sacrifice Sahadewa. A witch appears and enters Dewi Kunti. She becomes angry and orders the Patih to bring Sahadewa into the forest. The Patih is also entered by a witch so he does not have pity on Sahadewa. Sahadewa is then taken into a forest and tied up on tree.

FOURTHACT
Unknown by Rangda, God Siwa appears and gives Sahadewa immortality. The Rangda appears, ready to kill Sahadewa and eats him up, but Sahadewa is still alive. She than surrender and asks him to redeem her, Sahadewa agrees and kills the Rangda. The Rangda goes to Heaven.

FIFTHACT
One of servants of the Rangda called Kalika comes up before Sahadewa and asks him to redeem her too, Sahadewa refuses. Kalika gets angry and changes into a boar and fights Sahadewa. The bird can be defeated. She than changes into a bird but defeated again. At last she
changes into Rangda. Sahadewa can not kill her. In such circumstances. Sahadewa meditates and than he changes himself in a Barong. Still the Rangda seems to be too powerfull and the fight is unending. Followers of the Barong appear and help him to fight the Rangda.

Thank you very much




By the end of the final act, it turned out that the summary of the play was actually more comprehensible than the play itself. Welcome to Indonesia. I can't go without commenting however on how fantastic it was to see a legitimate gamelan ensemble in Bali. For those who don't know, I was part of the gamelan ensemble at Denison for a semester as we were piloting what turned into a credited music performance class.