御久し振りです。It’s been quite a while, hasn’t it?! Eine Menge Zeit ist vergangen. I think I owe you all a bit of an explanation …
OK, so Caroline and I live in Tokyo, have been since April 2008, and we’re busy, surviving, making enough money to keep our heads up, having a bit of fun on a regular basis, and continuing to build for the future. But are we translating yet? In a word: no. Is that fine with us? To be honest, sure. I would love to have made it by now, and maybe others have or would have by now, but our journey is ours alone, and so far we haven’t reached that goal. It’s all good, as the West Coasters in North America often say. ;o)
Has there been any progress? Great question! Thanks to the young lady in the back there for asking! Actually, I think there has been considerable progress. This is a competitive, globalized, overpopulated world (you notice the latter much, much more when you live in Tokyo, trust me!), and just to keep working, especially through a global economic crisis, to keep getting paid, and to still be in pursuit of your dreams — that’s no small feat and deserves to be called ’success’. And I always feel that baby steps should be applauded.
In the past year or so, I have been able to get myself into some different forms of editing work here in Tokyo, and have succeeded in becoming almost entirely freelance. My main source of income is the editing/proofreading of scientific/academic manuscripts for submission to English-speaking journals. I also supplement this income with a bit of regular private English conversation training/guidance. I am very picky about the latter because I have done a fair bit of English teaching in the past and am quite tired of the industry and its failures. However, I take on highly motivated students and use my knowledge of language studying and teaching, linguistics, and a good deal of common sense to help my ’students’ build confidence in using the language, weaning them off the English school teat, so to speak, which, I feel, is an industry that offers little and preys on the real desires of people who genuinely want to acquire a language.
But, I digress. The main thing to note here is that I am free of commuting, wearing a suit to work, and am generally free to roam in most places in Japan while still being connected and working. I picked up a handy, tiny, very portable Netbook and subscribed to a service provider in Japan called eMobile, which allows me to have wireless Internet in just about every urban center and in many other smaller, more hidden places. What does that mean? It means my office is anywhere or everywhere! I often work at a cafe that I happen to moderately enjoy. I can work in parks, on benches, anywhere that the signal can reach my little computer.
Usually I’m at home, though, to be honest, that’s only because I haven’t found a nice place in Tokyo that isn’t full of cigarette smoke and loud ’salarymen’ having business meetings. Home isn’t the ideal place for me, because I feel restless and even anxious a lot of the time. I know I could be ‘out there’ somewhere else doing my work. But, alas, Tokyo isn’t a place for people who want to relax and be at peace and able to concentrate; it’s a crowded city, full of seemingly robotic businesspeople rushing here and there, tired, exhausted, overworked, sacrificing the possibility of the so-called ‘good life’ for the sake of their companies and the families that they have no time to be with. (You may discern a certain lack of enthusiasm for my current city of residence, and, to be perfectly honest, that’s because there are so many other places I would love to be and hope to be in the future. But, hey, life isn’t always just the way we want it to be, and that’s why we have to work hard, keep our chins up, and keep planning and building our futures, right?)
But, as much as I like the editing work, it’s not all I want for the future. First of all, I am working as a contractor through an agency in Tokyo, and my monthly payments go into my Japanese bank account. It is quite likely, though I haven’t bothered to find out just yet, that I can only do this work as a resident in Japan. If I want to move out of the country, it is highly probable that my business relationship with that company will come to an end. However, I have built up a reputation with them and am more and more frequently requested by particular clients, and I like to think that I will soon be an indispensable human resource for the agency. If that were the case, they might be more willing to accommodate me when it comes time to relocate (or at least globe trot).
The ultimate goal is still to be a freelance translator (well, professionally, that is; what I really, really want to focus on is writing fiction, actually, but that can’t be the main focus right now). If, in the future, I am translating and still doing editing/proofreading work, that will be just fine with me. However, I am currently missing the most essential ingredients in my recipe for happiness: translation work and contract work of any shape or form that isn’t bound to a specific geographic location.
Recently, I was contacted by someone who works for or runs a translation agency (I assume somewhere outside of Japan) and had work to offer me. Unfortunately, the language pair wasn’t right and I had to honestly decline. However, I am trying to maintain a friendly relationship with this person and hope to have the chance to do some GER>ENG translation in the not-too-distant future. I am busy with my other work, of course, but I have to find some time to squeeze in translation projects, in order to make that transition over time.
If I could make that transition over the next two years, I would be more than satisfied. It may seem outrageous to other aspiring freelance translators to read that I could wait another two years after having made very little progress over the past two or three, but I think patience is one of the most important virtues to have when trying to break out on your own, and I have had to learn that while I’ve endeavored to move forward. If I really want this, if we really want this, it will happen; but it won’t happen overnight, not for us, anyway.
You know, it’s been a long, long time since I posted here, but I have been enjoying and moderating comments all along and have really wanted to get more involved again. And I plan to now. There is so much to talk about and it feels prudent to cut this off here and continue the sharing in coming posts.
You might want to know what Caroline is up to. Perhaps you’d be interested in knowing what else we’ve been doing to stay motivated and keep our spirits up. There’s just so much to share! Please stay tuned in to Freelance Translators from Scratch.
