Nhan Dao
From: Diane Fox
Date: Thu, Jul 12, 2012 at 9:57 AM
To: vsg@u.washington.edu
Sparked by two conversations, I'm looking for help thinking about the nuances of 'nhan dao' and how they might be translated into English.
The initial conversation was between two (need I say Vietnamese) Red Cross workers in Nam Dinh, who, over lunch, were musing on the mission of the Red Cross -- not 'tu thien', they agreed, but 'nhan dao'.
Back in Hanoi, when I discussed the conversation with an editor who had spent a lifetime translating between English and Vietnamese, he told me that translating 'nhan dao' as humanity still had too much of a feeling of charity about it. In Vietnamese it has another sense, he said -- simply what you do as a human being, because you are a human being, to be a full human being.
I would welcome further reflections.
Diane
Anthropology and History
College of the Holy Cross
1 College Street
Worcester, Ma 10610
----------
From: Joseph Hannah
Date: Thu, Jul 12, 2012 at 10:12 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Diane and all,
I always thought of "nhan dao" as "humanitarian" (not "humanity"). In fact, in the early 1990s when working for international NGOs -- at a time when the Vietnamese term for NGO ("to chuc phi chinh phu") often elicited suspicion and/or confusion -- many of us foreigners often referred to INGOs as "to chuc nhan dao." Parallel to Diane's thinking, however, this term does seem to connote the idea of "charity" which is not how INGOs working in development typically see themselves.
On the other hand, I think that "humanitarian" is close to Diane's editor friend's explanation of "nhan dao" -- one engages in humanitarianism because it enhances one's humanity...
Joe Hannah
Department of Geography
University of Washington
----------
From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Thu, Jul 12, 2012 at 10:14 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Diane:
I'm going to take a stab at this, realizing that terms such as "humane" and "humanity" carry a broad range of meanings.
Nhan dao ( "the human way") could be translated as humane or, in some cases, charitable (without the economic dimension implied by charitable in English). It would not quite capture the meaning of " nhan dao," however. Your translator friend is quite correct aboutits meaning in Vietnamese, but of course that begs the question " what is a human being?"
"Tu thien" is more about specific activities, usually involving donations. Famine relief or a charitable contribution, for instance, would be a "tu thien" activity, a manifestation of one's "long nhan dao." Someone who could turn away another person in need or treat someone else (or even an animal) cruelly would be said to be "vo nhan dao."
Hue Tam Ho Tai
----------
From: Wynn Gadkar-Wilcox
Date: Thu, Jul 12, 2012 at 10:55 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
A few thoughts:
The Taberd dictionary defines "nhan" as "pietas, charitas, humanitas, virtutum omnium nexus," which is pretty consistent with what has been said so far.
Confucius was famously vague about defining "nhan" in the analects. One of his many attempts is in the passage with the famous "negative golden rule", in which he responds to Zhonggong's question about the meaning of "nhan": "When you go out the door, behave as though you were going to meet an important guest. When you employ the common people, do so as though you were conducting an important sacrifice. What you do not want others to do to you, do not do to others. In the domain, let there be no grievances against you; in the family, let there be no grievances against you." (Burton Watson translation, Analects of Confucius, p. 80).
I like to tell my students, with really no scholarly basis but just as a way of remembering, that the character "nhan" is made up with the radical for "person" plus the number two--in a speculative way, then, we might say that to be human is to understand that what makes a person is their consideration of another person.
Hope these speculations help.
Wynn
Wynn Gadkar-Wilcox
Associate Professor and Co-Chair
Department of History and Non-Western Cultures
Western Connecticut State University
181 White Street
Danbury, CT 06810
----------
From: Wynn Gadkar-Wilcox
Date: Thu, Jul 12, 2012 at 10:57 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Correction, Diane--I just realized "rendao" is probably written with the simple two-stroke person "nhan" character--but the meaning is exactly as described below. Apologies.
Wynn Gadkar-Wilcox
Associate Professor and Co-Chair
Department of History and Non-Western Cultures
Western Connecticut State University
181 White Street
Danbury, CT 06810
------------------------
From: Diane Fox
Date: Sat, Jul 14, 2012 at 6:59 PM
To: vsg@u.washington.edu
Oh! This is so much fun. Thank you each, Bradley, Kyle, Joe, Molly, Hue-Tam and Wynn.
Molly has tossed up another translation question, with her text of the Red Cross (youth?) song -- Molly, I can't say how grateful I am... I was sung this song (I'm pretty sure it was this one) at a point I didn't have time to write it down, and spent some time chastising myself for that loss -- but here it is!!! Wonderful!
The translation question: how would you translate it's title, "Suc Manh cua Nhan Dao" The Strength (Force?) of Humanitarianism, or even The Humanitarian Force really seems to me to lose a lot in translation. Though my original use of humanity was an unintentional oversight, here I might just bring it into play to try to get at the intent: The Strength of Humanity. Or....??
Bradley -- would 'shared humanity' be possible instead of 'co-humaneness'? (Or we could invoke Thich Nhat Hanh's 'interbeing', I suppose, but that seems to lead off in another direction???) And Bradley and Wynn -- you both have the idea of nhan as the two stroke person with a plural... but then Wynn, you reconsider. Is there a third opinion? (and Wynn -- I am tantalized by virtutum omnium nexus -- the center, heart of all virtue??? or....?)
Hue-Tam and Joe -- long nhan dao , NGO's... I love it that one of the first goals of the Vietnamese Red Cross is to create a long nhan dao in the community. Is that part of any other NGO's mission statement that anyone is aware of? And Hue-Tam, I would love to have you plunge a little bit more into what, indeed, it does mean to be human.
I think you've pretty well convinced me that it's English that should be bent a little here -- that one word or the other isn't capacious enough for the term -- that in some cases I'll just want to use some variation on "the human way."
many, many thanks to you each!
Diane
[related, but aside: I recently attended a conference called the Jesuit University Humanitarian Action Conference, at which students and faculty from Mexico said what was being talked about as humanitarian was not what they meant by humanitarian. Fun to think about.]
Anthropology and History
College of the Holy Cross
1 College Street
Worcester, Ma 10610
----------
From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Sat, Jul 14, 2012 at 7:48 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Diane,
I think that Wynn's quote pretty much sums up the meaning of "nhan dao"; basically, it boils down to "do unto others as you would like others do unto you." The Confucians also claimed that those who did not behave thus did not deserve the name of human beings. But I think that this behavior encompassed more than what we would call " humane" or "charitable." It also meant behaving appropriately.
As for humanitarianism, there is a proactive dimension to the concept that is not necessarily there in "nhan dao." Of ourse, with the introduction of INGOs, "nhan dao" has also come to mean humanitarian.
As for the Chinese characters, "nhan dao" does use the two strokes character for nhan. The other character, with the nhan radical and two horizontal strokes, is usually rendered as benevolence.
Hope this helps.
Hue Tam