As the school year drew to a close, the ITS family gathered together one last time for a Holy Mass of Thanksgiving on May 5th to mark the final 10th Anniversary celebration. The Mass was celebrated in Davis Chapel on Reynolda Campus under the patronage of St. Joseph Freinademetz, an intercultural specialist in China in the 20th century. This was truly a full circle occasion as our 10th Anniversary festivities started last September with the feast of St. Jerome, the patron saint of translators from the 5th century. The Mass was multicultural; thanks to some talented students, we had lively guitar and percussion accompanying singing in Chinese, Spanish, and English. There were readings and responses in the three languages as well, and Father Marcel Amadi gave a fitting homily on the meaning of eucaristia, the tower of Babel, and the Pentecost.

The celebration continued after the Mass with a catered luncheon and desserts from around the world. Students, faculty, and alumni ate their fill, laughing and chatting, reflecting on a momentous year. Dr. Furmanek’s poppy seed cake was definitely a favorite! Each of us also picked one of St. Joseph Freinademetz’ sayings , transcreated by Jiayu Gao, one of our current students, from a bowl and read aloud his words of inspiration for the upcoming year. Finally, Dr. Burgos shared the gift of music, playing us traditional vallenato and cumbia songs on his accordion, accompanied on guitar by another current ITS student, José Salinas Valdivia. It was impossible to stay seated, and we all rose, dancing and clapping joyfully to the beat.

Videos from the Mass are available on our YouTube channel.

Brief lunch interviews with faculty and students can also be found on our channel. If you do not have time to watch the entire liturgy, you can see parts of it – the bilingual English/Spanish Psalm and Alleluia, the beautiful homily of Father Marcel Amadi, Intercessions for all of us in the Universal Prayer, the Offertory Song in Chinese, or the final remarks by Dr. Furmanek.

Final remarks by Dr. Furmanek

It has truly been an honor being a part of this special cohort and partaking in the many anniversary festivities. Here’s to the next ten years of ITS!

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For our final I-Tea-S event, we decided to celebrate in style at the DeTamble auditorium, giving the occasion a more formal air than our previous outdoor celebrations. Dr. Furmanek opened the event with a humorous “behind-the-scenes” look at how each present faculty member originally became part of the ITS family, Dr. Burgos discussed some interesting translation difficulties (namely world knowledge vs. encyclopedic knowledge, and how to maintain the relevance of that information to the new audience), and Dr. Chen outlined the logistical process of coordinating a team located on two continents and multiple time zones.

Finally, we opened up the floor to a roundtable discussion with the audience members about their favorite teas, how and when they became interested in tea, and how tea has affected their lives. We heard from several former only-coffee drinkers who had been converted, from a mom to whom tea gives enough energy to raise her family, and from life-long tea drinkers. We then closed the event with a delightful reception featuring a Sri Lankan black tea, an assortment of mini desserts, and some delicious tea eggs that one colleague brought to share. It was a great way to celebrate the accomplishments of the I-Tea-S team. Stay tuned for the final publication, which should be coming out this summer!

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On Sunday, April 10th, the Gamelan Percussion Ensemble and the Chinese Ensemble gave a brilliant concert at Brendle Recital Hall in the Scales Fine Arts Center. In this concert, both ensembles, directed by Dr. Elizabeth Clendinning and ITS faculty member Dr. Xijinyan Chen, respectively, played pieces of traditional folk music which allowed the audience to experience the unique and exotic beauty of the cultures in which they were created. The last song of the concert, called Songbie, was played by the Chinese Ensemble. Current ITS students Madison Campbell and Chenyu Shen briefly introduced the original English piece by John P. Ordway, the Chinese version adapted by Shutong Li, and the Spanish version transcreated by our ITS colleague José Salinas Validivia. They then sang each version of the lyrics along with the music played by various Chinese traditional instruments. Each version of the lyrics has a different message, namely nostalgia in the English version, bittersweetness in the Chinese version, and homesickness in the Spanish version.

This cooperation between the Chinese Ensemble and ITS program not only brought the audience a wonderful experience of Chinese music, but also demonstrated the artistry of translation work. Undoubtedly, it was an unforgettable concert for everyone.

On March 25 and 26, 2022, Wake Forest University had the honor of hosting the 9th Asian-Pacific Forum on Translation and Intercultural Studies (APFTIS). The forum was held virtually, with over 300 participants joining in from across the globe. This year’s conference centered on Translating, Interpreting, and Language Industry in a New Era of Globalization, and was organized with the support of Guangxi University and Tsinghua University as well.

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We are happy to announce that the I-Tea-S translation team has translated two thirds of The Little Tea Book! To celebrate this milestone, we held the second event in the I-Tea-S event series. We were hit with a hard spring rain and had to move under one of the tents, but that couldn’t deter us from enjoying our tea! In fact, the rain made the tea feel like an even cozier treat. 

This time around, we devoted most of the event to discussions about how the translators from each team made certain translation decisions. A notable example of these discussions is that the Chinese team discovered several historical inaccuracies in the original text, which they had corrected in the translated text. A lively discussion ensued about how the translator is to manage their responsibility to the original author and their responsibility to create a useful and true end product. Another example deals with a poetic or literary portion of the original text, in which the original author argues that tea is a comfort and something to be enjoyed whereas coffee is more like a medicine and thus is not enjoyable. You can imagine how our native Spanish speakers must have felt about such a characterization of coffee! However, any bitter feelings they may have had were short-lived as we all sipped on Sencha green tea and nibbled delicious mochi while enjoying a matcha tea brewing demonstration. 

Be on the lookout for the email invitation to our third exciting I-Tea-S event, to be held in April! We’d love to celebrate with you, come rain or shine.

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On the evening of February 16th, the ITS family came together alongside Wake Forest’s tea club, the World Tea Association, to celebrate the completion of the first third of this project. The event took place in the cheerful firelight from the fire pits in Manchester Plaza, and featured a traditional gongfu tea ceremony. After the tea ceremony, we all enjoyed delicious Pu’er tea and munched on croissants as each translation team shared anecdotes about the translation process thus far. It was a delightful opportunity both to learn about tea and to share our project with other members of the campus community. 

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On Saturday, October 16th, the ITS family set out for a day-long adventure in the Appalachians. We crossed over into Virginia to hike part of the Appalachian trail at the Grayson Highlands State Park. We braved cold rain and gusty winds on the trail, but it was all worth it when the clouds cleared and we got a panoramic view of the Blue Ridge Mountains in all their autumnal glory. Although the hike was more challenging than we’d expected, taking the hard road together was a wonderful experience that made us feel even more like a team. After working up quite the appetite, we regrouped in Elkin, NC, for a well-deserved Southern-style meal at the Southern on Main restaurant. Afterwards, we headed over to the historic Reeves Theatre to enjoy a live bluegrass concert from the band Terry Baucom’s Dukes of Drive. We couldn’t have picked a better end to such a lovely day.

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After an exciting first few weeks of the semester, ITS faculty and students came together on September 30th to celebrate the feast of St. Jerome (also International Translation Day). We had dinner at the Penny Path Café and Crêperie in Reynolda Village, enjoying each other’s company and the warm fall breeze. It was the first time that we had all been able to meet, making it a foundational moment for us to begin to feel like a real family. This meal was not only to honor the father of translation, but was also the start of a year-long celebration for the 10th anniversary of the Interpreting and Translation Studies program. With full bellies and full hearts, we look forward to sharing what our ITS family is up to throughout the rest of the year!

St Jerome

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