Found in translation

"People want to play the games and play them for free," one fan says. "Some of us see her as a goddess."

The controversial platform includes access to illegal games like Resident Evil, Grand Theft Auto and Tomb Raider, but on her weibo (micro blog), Su seems torn between the rebel path and converting to an all-legal site. That would mean buying the rights to the products she translates - not to mention navigating some shoals of Chinese law.

Su isn't the only figure out there who makes translating seem edgy or hip. This week at the UIBE, there was a lecture on localization by the translator of Angry Birds, while the Beijing Bookworm's literary festival included a "translation slam" with a Tibetan poet. The challenge: "Overcome the hurdles of translating with accuracy, maintaining rhyme, rhythm and meter, and bringing across the dual meanings of metaphors and similes."

It's not the first such slam at a bookstore in China. And it won't be the last.

David Bellos, a professor of French and comparative literature at Princeton and Booker Prize-winning translator, poses a fundamental question: How do we ever really know that we've understood what anybody else says - in our own language or in another?

In his recent book, Is That a Fish in Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything, he notes that in a globalized world translators are as crucial as ever to help us understand one another. He scoffs at the idea that the ubiquitous Google Translate and its increasingly more sophisticated ilk are going to make flesh-and-blood professionals obsolete.

The bottom line: Growing demands of diplomacy, education exchanges, business development and technological innovations are making folks that have a way with other people's words in high demand.

English and French are perennial hot tickets in China, but Spanish and Portuguese interpreters - far fewer in number - can command bigger bucks, about 1,000 yuan ($162) per day. Freelance translators - all but unheard of in the iron ricebowl era - are starting to pop up, especially in industry.

China has pushed to produce translators to meet domestic needs and ensure Chinese who go abroad are certified in a way that meets international standards. When the nation created several new master's degree programs in 2007 aimed at "practical" disciplines, one was the MTI: master's of translation and interpreting. At least 158 degrees in the field have now been bestowed by universities across China.