Call him the collector.
Eric Scheihagen (徐睿楷) hails from Texas and has been living in Taiwan, where has he settled down and married, for more than 15 years. A translator and an editor, Scheihagen has a most unusual side gig — translating Chinese and Taiwanese lyrics into English for album jackets and song sheets.
What sets Scheihagen apart from other song translators is his own research and expertise in Taiwanese popular music history.
With a large collection of vinyl records of Taiwanese pop music, which he says grew out of his interest in the history of the music, Scheihagen has found a niche.
“My translation work really arose out of my interest in researching the genre and collecting the music,” he said in a recent interview.
When asked how he finds the gigs and why Taiwanese record labels want to spend the time and energy translating some album lyrics into English, Scheihagen replied: “In most cases it’s because the Taiwanese record labels want to distribute some of their albums overseas.”
“How well that works out probably varies, although some labels, for instance, seem to do a fair amount of business overseas, because a lot of their music falls into the world music or New Age categories,” he said.
Among the work he has undertaken for local labels, Scheihagen has translated lyrics for CDs by folksinger Chen Ming-chang (陳明章), including the soundtracks Ripples of Desire (花漾) and 27°C — Loaf Rock (世界第一麥方).
In addition to working with Chen, Scheihagen has done copyediting and translation jobs for albums by TC Yang (楊祖珺), the Hohak Band (好客愛吃飯) and Yen Chi-wen (顏志文), he said.
One of the albums for which Scheihagen translated songs — Story Island (故事島) from Wind Records — won several awards, including a Grammy for its packaging, he said.
Asked how much collaboration goes on between him and the artists he works for, Scheihagen said: “In cases where I do know the singers or the label people personally, I’ll contact them directly if I have questions. If not, I ask the person at the record company who initially contacted me.”
Asked if he translates the songs from Chinese or Taiwanese literally, word for word, or if he is allowed some poetic license to get the English down in a way that English-speakers overseas can understand best, he said he translates fairly literally, and does not try to make things rhyme or scan in English.
However, he can alter words and phrases slightly if an overly literal translation sounds too awkward in English, he said.
“I try to strike a balance between conveying the gist of the lyrics and making it read reasonably fluidly in English,” he added.
Scheihagen says that while he enjoys the part-time song translation work, what he really likes to do is give lectures or write articles on Taiwanese pop music history.
Several local Chinese-language media have focused their coverage of him on his personal collection of vinyl records of Taiwanese pop, and that is what he is most proud of, he said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods