Another renowned interpreter pays a visit to the school

On March 23, 2007 Dr. Kevin Lin - a Chief Interpreter of the British Foreign Office, an interpreter of Tony Blair, who has worked with most of the major contemporary Chinese political officials, who teaches translation techniques in Britain and who has opened an interpreting company and a consultancy (as I assume also in England) gave a lecture at Sun Yatsen Univeristy.
The auditorium was packed - those students who came by the announced time had to stand near the entrance very close to the pulpit hearkening to the prophecies of the interpreting guru (check out the young aspiring interpreter near the door in a fancy dress and a star on the forehead). We waited only for an extra 30 minutes before the lecture started, and - despite the Chair's promise that the talk would be in English, - the man said a sentence in Shakespearean and switched over to Chinese.

But I was blessed with a beautiful simultaneous interpreter by my side, so it was not only comfortable for me but also useful for her practice.

To our delight we found out that Kevin Lin comes from around Putian in Fujian - where he'd finished grammar school and from where he set out on his journey to interpreting and - consequently, - fame among those in the know. The anecdotes from his life and practical examples were actually more or less understandable to me in spite of my lame Chinese.

Kevin advertised his book Field Interpreting that the wild students rushed to have signed after the lecture, and even I lost my head for a moment and wanted to immediately purchase the Chinese-English folio. During the question time, (as it later turned out) my restless students sent a note to Kevin asking him to cut to the chase and finally show his skills, - to interpret 'live' something the only loawai in the room (i.e. myself) would be uttering from the stage. To the bursts of laughter I valiantly jumped forward and, deciding not to make a speech in Russian (would have been a hilarious stunt though), I asked the public whether they would like to see the interpreter of Blair (feels pretty nice to be interpreted by a person like that) do simultaneous or consecutive interpreting, -
and this very question was happily re-laid into fast Chinese, culminating in applause and cheerful hooting. Kevin did it easily and nicely, - a real pleasure to listen to a professional.






So if anyone wants to improve their Chinese-English interpreting skills, I am sure Kevin Lin would be happy to assist you in this honorable task.