The last day or two have been spent doing mostly the same as the previous days: forcing a Chinese text into my head. I have had help from my translator Sophie who has also been adjusting the text so that it works from an action point of view, and from my language partner Charlotte.
I did have time to make the English translation which will be read by a friend He Fan in Beijing during the performance. It is a Chinglish translation and I rather like the way it robs any semblance of subtlety from the original text which I speak. It offers such advice as:
Air France do not fly!
On the subject of them I have heard back from their customer service department and they have rejected my claim though curiously did not mention the fact that they had earlier accepted it. I don’t know what that means. Anyway I’m now going on the offensive starting with the performance tomorrow and stepping it up with a TV interview the following day. I know for a fact that it will cost them a lot more money to hold their current line than it would to just refund me so it will be interesting to see if they take a pragmatic line and refund me or whether they will stick to their script. In either case I now win as this is good material to work with and if they do pay me back then I both get my money and a way of rounding off that part of the performance. If they don’t I can enjoy the David and Goliath situation as that plays into the performance rather well too.
I’m now in Xiamen airport ready to fly to Beijing. I have plenty of extra clothing as I see it is still around 0 degrees at night. I have become spoilt and will be returning to familiar climes.
