Blue shirt. Black-rimmed glasses. Grey backpack. Grass-green headphones.
This is Allen Yi, a freelance translator studying in City University of Hong Kong. His translation, Biography of Messi, which is written by Guillem Balague, was published in mainland China recently.
“We meant to help the chief editor, Mr. Jiang, whose wife was suffering from cancer at that time,” Allen said, “The publishing press agreed that all the revenues of the book would belong to Mr. Jiang so that he could use the money to save his wife.”
So Allen and his colleagues used no more than one and a half months to finish the 682-page work.
“Unfortunately, for some reason the book had not been published on time,” Allen said of grief, “Mr. Jiang’s wife passed away 5 months ago.”
Allen has been being a freelancer for more than 3 years. His first freelance job was a story on gambling, at a price of 110 Yuan ($137.5) per 1000 English words. Now his highest price may be 800 Yuan ($1000) per 1000 English words.
“I have sacrificed a lot for my work,” Allen said, “When I was in university, I lived outside campus so that I could comfortably work without others’ disturb. So I had little communication and interaction with my classmates, and did not do really well on my schoolwork.”
“However, I was complemented in a way that I met many outstanding seniors and colleagues,” he added, “I saw the gap between me and these talents. They also kindly offered me valuable advice so that I was able to avoid detours.
Besides biography, Allen also translates some copywriting on luxury, fictions, and reviews. He has earned great reputations in this field with his delicate works. But he does not satisfy with himself especially in the aspect of being self-discipline.
“Self-discipline is a challenging goal for me since I have to play video games,” Allen said, “As a senior player, I always take every game serious.”
“No game, no life,” he added, “In my perspective, life is like a game. We need to take it serious.”
He also complains himself about lacking reading and reflection because of his laziness and limited time. He believes that sometimes people need to slow down in their life so that they are able to march on at a steadier pace.
Luck Zhou, Allen’s roommate, considers him as a typical and excellent freelancer.
“He diligently lives a leisurely life, and carefully does a free job,” Luck said.
Now Allen falls into a dilemma of whether pursuing a PhD degree or starting a business after graduation.
“Actually my two partners and I have almost started our business as a group doing translation,” Allen said, “But we have not materialized it yet. It’s more complicated to do it offline than online.”
“I plan to establish a culture company, having something to do with Chinese culture,” he added, “Translation is just a start, which is necessary for us to meet people and accumulate resources. After that, I’d like to recruit a group of like-minded talents and we together brainstorm unique cultural products. I want to make some contributions to our national cultural market.”
But it’s also difficult for him to give up studying further right away.
“I read too little,” he said, “I’m ignorant. If I study further, I may have more time to do some reading. People would have limited time and energy to read and meditate after they started career.”
“But I’m hesitating,” he added, “Translation is something practical, while I may deal with something theoretical during doctor study, which is also time-consuming. So I think I have to reconsider my current situations. There is possibility for me not to study further until I’m able to be self-discipline, otherwise I may not have enough time for my video games.”
It seems that Allen is really a senior player in his life game.
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