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A couple of weeks ago, a strange language misunderstanding occurred during the Regular Press Conference of the PRC foreign ministry spokesperson, Hua Chunying, on December 19, 2017.

During the press conference, a Japanese journalist raised a question in English. He asked:  "Giant panda Xiang Xiang who has traveled to Japan made its formal debut in a Tokyo zoo today. What is your comment  on this?  What influence will this have on China-Japan relations?"

Maybe it was because of his strong Japanese accent or the noise at the time, Hua Chunying was not able to follow him, especially at the beginning of the question.  She misunderstood to whom he was referring and thought it was "Shan Shan" (杉山 — pronouncing that name à la chinoise), a Japanese official. Therefore, she answered with standard diplomatic language. Not until a Chinese journalist pointed out her misinterpretation did Hua manage to move on and make it right.

The underlying factors that caused this episode are linguistic. To imitate the Chinese pronunciation of the panda’s name “Xiang Xiang” 香香 ("Fragrant Fragrant"), Japanese adopt kana and try their best to mark its phonetic features. They end up pronouncing “Xiang Xiang” 香香 as “シャンシャン“ (written as “Shanshan” in Roman alphabetic transcription).  So far as I know, 香 is not pronounced as "shan" シャン in Japanese, neither as on'yomi 音読み / ondoku 音読 (lit., "sound reading", i.e., Sino-Japanese reading) nor as kun'yomi 訓読み / kundoku 訓読 (lit., "instructional / exegetical reading", i.e., Japanese or native reading).  It sounds very similar to the Chinese pronunciation of the characters “杉山” (written as “Shānshān” in Pinyin).

When English becomes the language of communication, the English accent added to their original pronunciations makes it even harder to tell “Shanshan” (シャンシャン 香香 — Xiāng xiāng à la japonaise) from “Shānshān 杉山” (Sugiyama à la chinoise).  I have no doubt whatsoever that the Japanese journalist tried his best to pronounce “Xiang Xiang” 香香 as Chinese, within the phonemic inventory at his disposal.  On the other hand, Chinese almost invariably pronounce Japanese surnames à la chinoise, as if they were Chinese, even if they are diplomats or Sinologists who you'd think should know the Japanese pronunciations. Therefore, following Chinese habit, this explains why Hua Chunying perceived “Shanshan” (シャンシャン)  as “Shānshān” (杉山, i.e., Sugiyama — but in her mind, he is "Shānshān"; "Sugiyama" doesn't register). Even the involvement of English language did not deter her connection of “Shanshan” with “杉山”.

During the early stages of my Sinological training, when I encountered this Chinese practice of pronouncing Japanese names as if they were Mandarin, e.g., Iriya Yoshitaka 入矢義高 read as Rùshǐ Yìgāo, Yoshikawa Kōjirō 吉川幸次郎 as Jíchuān Xìngcìláng, Mishima Yukio 三島由紀夫 as Sāndǎo Yóujìfū, Aoki Masaru 青木 正児 as Qīngmù Zhèng'ér, and Akutagawa Ryūnosuke 芥川龍之介 as Jièchuān Lóngzhījiè, to name just a few of the scores of Japanese scholars whose works I studied and whose names I made a point of learning how to pronounce properly.  You can imagine how frustrating it was to discuss their views with Chinese scholars who always pronounced their names the Chinese way, which didn't mean anything to me.  The same was true when I attended lectures in Chinese and all Japanese (and Korean) proper nouns were spoken in Chinese.  Even when I had quiet conversations with my learned wife about Chinese literature, I would soon get lost when she referred to Japanese scholars and places with their Japanese pronunciation.  After many years, I developed the uncanny ability to think of Iriya Yoshitaka, whom I revered, and Rùshǐ Yìgāo as one and the same person.

One of the hardest parts of being a Sinologist (there are many others, for which see " Sinological suffering" [3/31/17] for a sampling) is learning how to pronounce Japanese terms correctly.  Because it is such a bane, I compiled the ABC Dictionary of Sino-Japanese Readings (University of Hawaii Press, 2016) as a contribution to the field.

Lastly, here are two related videos. One records the scene at the press conference, and the other elaborates the different nuances between “シャンシャン / 香香" (Shanshan, i.e., Xiang Xiang) and “杉山” (Shanshan, i.e., Sugiyama).

https://youtu.be/bzKLAhM2TqI

So who is this Sugiyama that Hua Chunying had in mind?

The reference is probably to Sugiyama Shunsuke 杉山晋輔, Vice-minister of Foreign Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  You can consult the Japanese Wikipedia page here.

He has met with high officials in China recently as well as in other countries.  Sugiyama is considered the top career diplomat in the Foreign Ministry at present.

No one in Japan would ever call him Shan-shan.

From a Japanese friend:

Sugiyama is a relatively common family name in Japan.  (It also means  a hill or mountain where cedar trees are commercially grown.) The video says that  Ms. Hua 華  thought the question was about Sugiyama Jimujikan 杉山事務次官 ("Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Sugiyama [Shinsuke]") whom she probably met recently, and that might be the reason of her confusion (besides the reporter's pronunciation, perhaps).  "Xiang Xiang" and "Shan Shan" are so difficult to distinguish for me, too.

From a Chinese friend:

Actually Sugiyama did nothing important at this moment. Hua Chunying also found nothing special about him. Therefore she answered with very general diplomatic formalities.

On the other hand, as Nathan Hopson explains:

Sugiyama Shinsuke, former head of the foreign ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau (AOAB), a very important post, was recently appointed to be the Japanese ambassador to the US.

"Vice Foreign Minister Shinsuke Sugiyama to succeed Kenichiro Sasae as ambassador to United States", The japan times (12/23/17)12/23/17

Perhaps Ms. Hua was aware of this in advance…? In any case, he's been the top bureaucrat at the foreign ministry for a while, I think, and in his capacity as AOAB chief was involved in lots of wrangling with China, etc., if memory serves.

In her capacity as spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC, Ms. Hua almost certainly would have been well aware of who 杉山晋輔 is, but not as Sugiyama Shinsuke, rather as Shānshān Jìnfǔ or as Shānshān Shìwù Cìguān 杉山事務次官 ("Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Sugiyama [Shinsuke]").

[Thanks to Dai Yaoying, Nathan Hopson, and Frank Chance]

January 2, 2018 @ 7:55 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Language and politics, Language and the media, Pronunciation, Writing systems

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